You Tell The Tale Tuesday!

* UPDATE*

Thanks for the AWESOME "tales". Al and I had a great laugh reading ALL of your comments! We look forward to reading what ya'll come up with next week!

Thought I'd try something a little different ... don't know if this idea was born out my laziness to write a blog today or just pure genius but this is what we're doing.

"You Tell The Tale Tuesday" ... I want to read your captions/interpretations/story behind the photo's. Make it cute, clever, silly, serious, whatever ... have fun! Leave your "tale" as a comment ...

Otterberg Festival and Al's Birthday

We had a productive, busy and fun weekend! Friday, after a very long workday for Al ... he had a 0430 show time and 2 flights, Al and I had a "date-night" at home; we watched a movie in our home theatre. :o) We kicked off our Saturday with some heavy yardwork ... cutting down tree's and clearing an area in the yard for a "play area" for Kelty. Far from done so there are no photos. At 3pm I went to a Pampered Chef party hosted by our friend Jo. After the party I went back to the house to grab Al and Kelty and we all walked down into Otterberg to enjoy the kick-off of our festival. Al was on "alert" all weekend so unfortunately was not able to enjoy any beer. At 10:30pm I headed out to meet my friend Chrissy for a movie on base! Whoa ... late night! On Sunday morning we bolted awake to the sound of a band and cannons at 6am!!!! From 6am-9am there was a band roaming through the streets in Otterrberg to wake people up for the festival! At 1:00pm Al, Kelty and I along with our neighbors Evi and Heinz walked downtown for the parade ... it was awesome and Kelty loved it. After the parade everyone walks into the forest to continue the party! Saturday evening we celebrated Al's 37th Bday with dinner and cake with some friends ... here's the documentation on our weekend!

This portion of the festival was held in the towncenter ... in the church square. They had live music, plenty of food and drink! Otterberg is over 800 years old ... the festival has been held every year for the last 200 years.

Kelty enjoying some ice cream ... it was 9pm!

Passing out beer! Throughout the parade folks were pulling beer carts and handing out cups for free ... Germany rocks! The parade participants didn't hold back either ... drinking beer on the floats and even the marching bands in between songs ... it was awesome!

Kelty holding onto some of his loot! He ended up with a HUGE amount of candy, a balloon, 2 potted plants, 2 flowers, and a piece of sausage ... yup, they were handing out sausage too! Ha!

This parade made me think alot about my Dad (not that I don't all the time anyway) ... I remember him cracking our horse-training whip when I was little. They also played "The Saints Go Marching In" which is a song my dad used to sing with us all the time (and still does). So Dad ... even though we are separated by a big ocean ... you're still here!



Happy Birthday Sweetie!

The Birthday Gang. So ... Al's cake ... it was a 2-layer cake until I forgot about the other half and left it in the oven for an hour! It was like a cake frisbee ... he ended up with 1/2 a cake!

What Do You Mean "No!"?

There are days when I feel like all I say to Kelty is "No!"

So this incident really didn't bother me (quite cute actually ... especially when he initiated the clean-up), until .... I brought out our bio bin (food scrap bin) and started throwing the chips in ... Kelty started eating out of the bio bin!!!! When I put the bio bin out of his reach he ran over the the chip pile and started stomping on them! Ahhh!

A Belated Father's Day Post

We had a low-key but enjoyable Father's Day. Kelty's gift to daddy was "sleeping in" ... stinker slept until 9:30 in the morning! Whoa! This is huge! I think the day of sightseeing and in-car nap the day prior contributed to Kelty's good night of rest! After breakfast we headed to a local park ... it was more of a rustic park with a heavily wooded path around the lake ... it was beautiful and reminded me of home in MI. After our return, Kelty napped, Al and I ate a nice lunch and then Al headed downstairs to spend the rest of the day and evening working on a paper for his Master's class. Enjoy the pics of our trip to the park ...

The walk along the lake was easily a mile and we let Kelty walk the majority of it ... every once in a while he'd plop down and rest

A Day in Luxembourg

For the 1st time this month Al had the weekend off so we decided to take a little day-trip to the country of Luxembourg on Saturday! Luxembourg is a small country that borders Germany ... to be honest ... I had always thought Luxembourg was a city in Germany! Ooops! It was a short drive of 1 1/2 hours to Luxembourg City where we spent the day roaming the Place Guillaume (area with markets, shops, cafe's), Grand Ducal Palace (the home of the grand Duke and his family), Cathedrale de Notre Dame and General Patton's gravesite at the Luxembourg American Cemetery. It was a really nice day-trip and Kelty traveled great!

I love the abundance of fresh produce!

A quick bite to eat before letting Kelty out of his stroller ... we needed the energy to keep up with him!

The Grand Ducal Palace ... the palace is open to tours for about a month in the summer while the family is on holiday ... unfortunately they were "home" so no tours during our visit.


The guard outside the palace

Cathedral de Notre Dame ... (not THE Notre Dame)

The interior was amazing ... it holds the royal family vault and a huge sarcophagus of Count of Luxembourg John I of Bohemia

The Luxembourg American Cemetery is 1 of 14 permanent WWII cemeteries erected on foriegn soil. There are 5,076 american remains buried here; most of which lost their lives during the Battle of the Bulge. Of the 5,076 headstones, 101 mark graves of "Unknowns" whose remains could not be identified.

The grave of General George Patton. It just seemed amazing to me that we were there ... able to touch the grass he is buried beneath and touch his headstone ... such a simple burial plot for a such a remarkable warrior!

The headstones of the Jewish faith are marked by the Star of David. They all had little pebbles on them; which I have to research.

Daddy and Kelty walking quietly through the cemetery.

Watch-Out Michael Phelps!

We may have a future olympic swimmer on our hands folks! :o) We are on our 3rd day of swim lessons and Kelty is doing great! Al was able to come with us to class today and take a few photos and videos of Kelty's progress. Our class is first thing in the morning which gets us off to a nice start in the morning ... I think Kelty enjoys getting out of the house right after breakfast.

Walking to the aquatic center with Daddy

Swimming on the torpedo and blowing bubbles. This little torpedo swimmer is awesome! There is a small net under Kelty's thighs that help support his body but gives him the sensation of floating freely in the water.

He's a really good kicker and comfortable in the water ... it actually makes a little nervous how comfortable he is. He is really boyant like Al (I'm a sinker).

The smile Kelty gave me in this video literally melted my heart ... it really made my day!

Throughout the class he likes to swim his way over to the floating toys and hoard them ... like he's deprived of toys!

The first day we practiced dipping them under the would smile and sign "more" after surfacing. Wish we would have captured it on video!

Date Night at The Schnapps House

So we did it! (Hey ... keep it PG people!) We did it, meaning ... we hired a babysitter and went on a date! It was actually a squadron dinner and silent auction at the Schnapps House but it counts! We found a babysitter through Youth Services on base; the sitters have gone through a class as well child CPR/First Aid. Our babysitter is a very sweet girl and Kelty literally attached himself to her immediately! We met earlier in the week with the babysitter and her parents just to get to know each other and get Kelty acquainted. Onto the pictures ....

Before dinner we had a tour of the distillery where they make their Schnapps and Liqueurs. (German Schnapps is the equivalent of our "moonshine" and their liqueurs are the equivalent of our Schnapps ... you only make that mistake once! The Schnapps is enough to burn your nose hairs!) One interesting fact: Germans can pay their taxes via cash or liqueur ... seriously! They can pay the government with liqueur!

Our liqueur tasting! My choices: Chocolate, Peach, Blueberry, Raspberry, Strawberry-Lime

I'm not much of a liqueur drinker

I contributed a Softie and Blankie from my line of ChichiKids and also sewed an adult apron from a new line I hope to start in my shop OhSewChichi. I really wanted to keep this apron for myself ... I like the long ties wrap in the front to make a cute bow!

Kelty received a box from Nana/Papa and Mimi/Papa and Nikki/Jason last week! Part of the delivery was the other 6' section of tunnel that attaches to the 6' we already had here. That's 12' of tunnel for Kelty to get lost in ... he loves it!

More play pics with his toys in another post ... I need to go shower!

Oh! We celebrated my 33rd Bday!

My awesome hubby gathered some friends at the house for dinner and cake! Al made Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo and Chrissy made the cake! Thanks everyone! It was a really busy day! We met the babysitter at 5:30 followed by dinner/dessert at 6:00 and our 1st German language lesson at 8:00! Whoa!

Jo, Chrissy and the Bday girl!

Now Showing ....

Presenting "Cinema 1" ....

Al and I have been waiting to build a home theater for about 5 years now and we've finally had the space in a house to do it! Minus a few finishing decorative touches (coming soon); we are finally done with "Cinema 1".

Seating for 6 ... Thanks IKEA!

Shag Rug ... IKEA

Curtains ... We already had these!

I sewed coordinating pillows ... Fabric from IKEA

Blankets ... IKEA

Popcorn Buckets ... Christmas Gift from Family!

Candy Cups ... IKEA

Screen and "Computer Cafe"

Bar Stools ... I re-upholstered chairs we already had

Bar Table ... IKEA

120 " Screen

Another view ...

This area was Al's idea! Go Al!

One of the best perks about the Home Cinema is that we can bring the party to us! It's hard to get out with a toddler but Al and I really enjoy the company of friends ... our solution ... the home cinema. It's also fun to have a "date night" at home! Believe it or not ... we did this entire project (including the screen and projector) for less than the price of the TV in our living room. We did budget for this project and did a lot of price comparisons ... cause you all know we are bargain shoppers! If it weren't for IKEA this would probably still be an empty room!

Hope ya'll like it! Make sure you browse around to see some of my current projects!

I'm going to link this to ...

This, That and The Other

It's been over a week ... yikes! When I run this far behind on my blog I like to re-cap with minimal text and cut straight to the pictures ... so, without further ado .....

Last weekend I went out for a "Girls Night" with a few friends! SO MUCH FUN! We went to the Schnapps House and it was amazing ... it really deserved a blog entry of its own. We arrived at 6:30 and didn't finish our 5-course meal until after 11pm!

We went to our first playgroup on Wednesday! Whoohoo! I found out about a Ramstein group called "Mom 2 Mom"; they meet every Wed. Last weeks outing was to the wild nature park.

Kelty running around the bird cages waiting for the bird show ... this little area freaked me out a little ... there were HUGE Vultures and HUGE Hawks.

Every time the Hawk would fly by, Kelty would go "ooh" and clap

Kelty turned 18 months last week! Whoa!! He is finally doing well with the diversity of foods he will eat and I think eats like a "normal" toddler now! Finally! This little photo was taken before I turned my back to the table ....

.... and when I turned my back

In 2nd place to his tap shoes, Kelty's favorite shoes are his rainboots ... he put these on by himself and started running around th house.

Kelty's favorite food group ... fruit. Here he is munching on a nectarine ... the first time he's actually liked a nectarine. His top 5: 1-Raspberries, 2-Mandarine Oranges, 3-Banana's, 4-Blueberries, 5-Peach Slices

Kelty has been "jumping" for a few weeks now ... my memory card was full so I didn't get to the part where he actually started "jumping" over his toys ... future video I guess! I swear my child does wear clothes at home ... we were just getting ready for his bath so that's why he was in his diaper.

Oh! We signed Kelty up for a swim lessons ... we got in! We meet 4-days a week for 2 weeks ... whoa! They run sessions back-to-back so we'll be able to keep going if we like the program.