Birthday Travels
Our youngest child is officially a teenager. When our oldest turned thirteen we were not sure what the teen years would bring us. Thankfully, we really like being parents to teenaged girls. Back in the days when we had five girls under ten random strangers in the grocery store would wish us luck or shake their heads and say things like "Just wait until they're all teenagers" didn't know what they were talking about. Certainly, being the parents of teenaged girls hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows and there have been some moments that have literally brought us to our breaking point, but overall we much prefer parenting older kids to the toddler years. Every year for Natalie's birthday for the last three years we've taken her on a trip to celebrate her turning one year older. She's totally happy to forgo presents in favor of traveling somewhere and we think that's pretty cool. This year, like last year, she requested to go to Germany to visit ...