Corning Adventures | Ice Skating, Reminiscing, and Growing Up

It's been so fun being with my family in Corning this week. It's hard to stay on top of photos and blogging when I don't want to miss a moment of the memories!

But here was a big highlight of the week - Getting to go ice skating and having the rink all to ourselves in the beginning! 

I've been skating at the Nasser Civic Center since I was a teen. I was joking that I remember the days when our flare jeans went over the skates and now all the cool kids wear skinny jeans tucked into the skates. That's the best "old lady" story I can come up with ;-)

It was a crystal clear and bitterly cold morning but we had such a blast. I was freezing and wiping up a lot of kid noses, but it was worth it to see the proud smiles on my girlies' faces!

Lily went from hand-holding, to chair-pushing, to triple axels and sit spins! It was a pretty awesome memory. 

Family Fun | Kaiserslautern May Carnival

The stars aligned last week (read: J just so happened to have the night off when we wanted to go to "family day" at the Carnival!) and we got to surprise the girls with some awesome family time after kindergarten.

There was a ferris wheel, there was cotton candy the size of Lily's upper body, and there were kiddie rides galore.

The horse rides are always a favorite!

And Jesse taught the girls what *fun* it is to spin the cart on the ferris wheel. I was torn between a panic-attack from my slight fear of heights and tossing my cookies from motion sickness ;o)

But their giggles made up for it. "FASTER DADDY!!!!!" 

And speaking of "FASTER DADDY!" Lily went on her first big-kid ride. That top picture is her smiling her head off with Jesse while they got spun faster than the speed of light. She loved it! 

Despite her grumpy look with the clown up there, she was actually even more excited to see the clown than Sammy was... but I think perhaps not as thrilled when I suggested a picture with said clown. "Mooooooom..."

After we ran out of euro After we had our fill of three hours of rides, french fries, rides, cotton candy, rides, chocolate covered grapes, rides, mini donuts, and MORE RIDES we finally called it a night and dragged them home to bed. Lily specifically informed me that a) "we could just go get more money at the store, Mom!" and b) leaving the carnival was her least favorite part!

Kids :o)

I Love My Sparkly New Baby and Sam Loves the "Toys" it Comes With

Ta-da!!!  My Love told me "good things come to those who wait" and I didn't really believe him because I hate waiting.  But he sure did deliver on his promise to find me a good, reliable vehicle!  This shiny new [to us] 2012 Ford Focus is named "LOLa"... you say it like low-la but you definitely have to write it LOLa because she's named for the goofy guy who sold it to us and the fact that he listed his car on Ramstein Yard Sales and used "lol" in a sentence.  So we LOLed at him and named the car LOLa.

Anyways I'm also calling LOLa our first "big kid car" because it's the first time in our lives we've spent more than $3,000 on a car.  GO US!  Did you know, when you spend more than $3,000 on a car, that it comes with all sorts of fancy things like power locks, power windows, cruise control, and...

...panic buttons.  Why, oh why, do they make those buttons red?  It's like they're asking for every child on the planet to pleasepressthisbutton.  Like seriously look at it?  If you had a choice, which one would you press?  Duh.

Sammy, bless her heart, made sure that everyone in the neighborhood was well aware of our  new car situation.  First thing this morning, LOLa's first full day at home, I was giving the girls a bath.  Sam was dressed first so I sent her out to wait for us in the living room.  As I'm washing Lily's hair I hear a car alarm go off.  And I think "oh, that sucks, someone's car alarm is going off before 8am on a Saturday."  And then Jesse slams out of the bedroom and down the hall and I think "oh, that's our car. crap."

So yeah.  The panic button works great.  Other than that I'm not really a car person, so I can't give you any real stats.  But I can tell you that I love bright red.  And I love that this thing is *pretty much* guaranteed not to break down on me any time in the near future (side eye to the Saturn and Mercedes) soooooo it's basically the bestest most awesomest car ever.  In my opinion.

The Four-Year-Old

I can't believe it's already been a week since Lil's birthday!  We had a blast and here are some pics of the day's fun. Steph offered to be my photographer for the day and it was so great to NOT be carrying my camera around.  

She did this neat project with Lily where she had her hold up her new number at all the locations and for all the fun we had.  Lily is so obsessed with holding up her number that she often incorrectly answers pretty much any question asked by holding up her fingers.  "Hey Lily, how are you?"  *holds up four fingers*  "Hi there, what's your name?"  *four fingers*  

Sweet girl.  So excited to be four!

As you can see, we enjoyed the crap out of our day.  There was sugar.  There were presents.  There were blue foods and blue clothes.  And sugar.  There was an indoor pool trip.  There was a play place visit.  There was more sugar.  Did I mention the sugar?  We even ended the night with a bowl of ice cream!

And the four-year-old was happy.  Very very happy :o)

Rhine River Cruise! And a Funny "When in Rome" Story

So we went on an AMAZING cruise down the Rhine River with Mom and Dad.  Jesse and I have been saying we want to do this for awhile but it was Dad who said he basically couldn't leave Germany without checking out one of these famous Rhine River cruises.  So that's what we did!  

Come to find out, it's a super easy day trip with kids, so I don't know why we never did it before.  But that's besides the point.  The point is it was a blast.  And I put a whole bunch of pictures up in a Jesse's Girl post that you can check out!

The other point is that we bumped into a funny "Germans are always on time" example.  In which the first boat we were getting on almost left without Jesse!  

So we thought we had built in plenty of extra time just in case.  And I think a half an hour extra for an hour and a half commute is pretty safe.  But not on this fateful morning... when there would be two different instances of sloooooow construction traffic and more than one confusing mix up with our GPS.

Let's just say, by the time we got to the dock, Jesse's adrenaline was through the roof and everyone in the back of the van was feeling a little car sick.  German back roads + running late = blech.  

As we're pulling up, we have about 10 minutes before the boat leaves.  Jesse basically does a drive by drop off so we can purchase the tickets and get on board while he scoots around the corner to the parking garage we had spotted on our way up.  Dad and I rush to the ticket counter and everyone else nervously watches back and forth between the boat and the corner where Jesse should be appearing any moment.

We finally get paid and rush down the dock to the boat.  I'm frantically telling the guy who's trying to rush us inside that my husband is just parking the car and will be RIGHT HERE.  And I can hear him jibbering back and forth in German with his coworkers (and possibly the captain of the ship) telling them the situation.

And they all look at me.  And I can tell.  They aren't going to wait.  The man I was talking to looks incredulously at me and says "But we have a timetable."  

His message was clear:  Get on or be left behind.  We aren't waiting for anyone.

Thankfully, at the last minute, Dad shouts "there he is!" and we all breathe a sigh of relief while simultaneously screaming at Jesse to run faster!  They wouldn't leave him when we can see him, right, RIGHT?  

I bet the guys on the boat were relieved that the crazy American lady and her family were finally going to get on the dang boat so they could push off and stick to the timetable without her throwing a freakin temper tantrum ;o)

So he made it.  And we all get on the boat, out of breath and a little flustered.  As I'm telling Jesse the story of how they almost left without us, he chimes in "I thought I told you to just get on and I'd catch the boat at the next village down the river?"  

Oops.

Then we all had a good laugh.  It had totally slipped my mind in that moment of panic that we could just board and even if the boat left without him, he could meet up with it later down the river without much problem.

So the "when in Rome" lesson of the day is:  The Germans really do stick to their beloved timetables and you better be ready when the boat is ready!  

And the second lesson is:  have a backup plan if you're running late and remember said plan that you and your husband discuss in the car as you rush up to the ticket counter!

Here's the facebook album of all the pics.  Enjoy your virtual Rhine River tour ;o)

Breaking News | We Know Our Next Base!

Okay so in all the excitement of my parents coming to visit I decided to wait to tell YOU where our next base is going to be so that I could tell them in person.  

...


...


...


...


...


But we've known for awhile now...


...


...


...


...


...

WE'RE STAYING IN GERMANY!!!!!!!  I know, crazy, right?  That's probably not what anyone was expecting haha.  Or maybe you were, I don't know.  That's definitely not what WE were expecting.  Remember all that talk about how excited I was to be back in that States and how much I was itching to get closer to family and how many things about Germany drive me crazy?

Well.  When push came to shove we just couldn't bear the thought of leaving this amazing village... this amazing house... and this amazing community.  Our Air Force family here is too good to be true.  Too good to voluntarily leave.  So what did we do?  We volunteered to stay!  

The more we talked about it and thought about it the more we realized we weren't quite ready to head back to the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.  We'll be back someday.  And once we're there, we'll probably never leave again!  So why not stay here a little while longer?  More travel and more German culture to love, more friends to grow with and love.

The other tidbit of family news is that Jesse re-enlisted for four more years in the good old AF (which is how it was possible for us to choose to stay here longer.)  So for the first time in our marriage, we are NOT moving any time soon!  How crazy is that?

We're planning on really jumping into Germany (again)... I went through that "oh well I guess I don't have time to learn German before we leave so I'll just give up" phase, but NO MORE!

We decided to send the girls to German kindergarten, which is like pre-k in the States... so really it's just organized play time, but an awesome chance for the girls to learn German (for free!) and while they're at school in the mornings this Momma's going to learn German, too.  Classes, cds, and more Rosetta Stone!

I'm pretty excited for Lily and Sam.  Their first memories will be of Germany.  By the time we leave here, they'll be 6 and 7... and probably fluent in German!  They will have culture shock when we get back to the States finally because they won't understand that there are no hard boiled "Easter Eggs" for sale at the grocery store.  Or that we can't walk everywhere.  OR that the good bakeries aren't cheap!

So that's our big news:  Germany until 2017!  Kind of crazy to think about.  And I'm probably going to be punching myself in the face in about 4 months when it's cold and dark for most of the day and I'm like "tell me why we CHOSE this?" and when I'm homesick and extended family is still a loooong plane flight away.

But all in all, I'm excited.  Very excited.  Looks like "There and Back Again" isn't going to be back again just yet!  Bring on the pretzels!

Favorite Memories with My Favorite Brother

It's seriously a good thing I only have one brother (hence the nickname Brother) because this guy is so great, he'd blow any competition out of the water.  Thankfully, he's the only brother among three sisters and I don't have to feel bad at all saying he's my favorite Brother in the whole wide world!  

We had many a grand adventure together.  I am super sad that he's gone back home now.  But all vacations come to an end.  Alas.

We ate a lot of bread, as per usual.  You can't come to Germany without frequenting the amazing bakeries, and you can't come to Otterberg without frequenting Barbarosa.  I love that place.  I'm going to try to pack it up and ship it home with me when we move back to the States.

We drank a ton of coffee.  Not just at the bakeries, but we seriously gave my french press a workout.  Frenchy II didn't seem to mind ;o)

We played with the kids a lot.  Alex even asked for an exclusive tea party with his little nieces.  In which they demonstrated to him how clumsy they are with pouring real tea from their little tea pot.  I tried to warn him, but some lessons are best learned as you laugh at a 3yo literally filling a tea cup to overflowing and then adding a few more drops apparently to make sure the saucer also has enough tea on it. 

We went to a wine fest.  This area of Germany is famous for it's Reislings and we had a blast going up to this cute little town on the Rhine River.  More on that soon, it was a great night sans kids so I have lots of pictures!

We cooked together.  That was a special night.  It wasn't quite what he had planned, as he was trying to cook for us but Globus let us down and didn't have fresh clams for the clam sauce he was going to make.  So I took a rain check on that recipe and we bought some shrimp and put our heads together for a simple white-wine-fresh-tomatoes-and-shallots type sauce.  And it was amazing.  One of my favorite nights, actually, because Jesse was able to join us.  I always love good food and good friends, but especially when it's homemade food that you made together!

We saw a lot of glorious sunsets.  This time of year is apparently "majestic sunset" time.  I'm so glad Brother is pretty low-key and thrives (as I do) with some much needed downtime each day.  So we'd both sit down in the living room, watch the sunset, and do our own thing (for me, starting that there photography business weeeee!) and then after that we'd head up to the "upper deck"...

The Upper Deck is the name Kirsten gave to the rustic table and chairs that sit on the patio next to Lilo's garten haus.  And it is the place Alex and I ended most nights... smoking a cigar and drinking a beer and enjoying the barn lights.  I think it goes without saying that we enjoyed many a good laugh and many a good conversation.  I miss our Upper Deck times the most.

Thanks for staying with us Uncle Brother!  We miss you already!!!

Wordless Wednesday: Late Afternoon Family Ruck/Hike/Photowalk