Our life in September

September has been complete madness. I am on the PTA board and I chair school photographs , who knew it would be this much work. I have to coordinate EVERYThiNG down to volunteers, class schedules, paperwork and the photographers lunch for three days. Say what????? Yes, his lunch. Let's not forget I also have to go to the MP station this week and bring the scanned copy of his passport to gain him base access for the 3 days. I have been busy attending meetings, getting forms together and building spreadsheets. Glad to know I have a job again, just wish it paid like Money Hill. Except this job prevented me from going on my trip to London:( that was supposed to be October 1. I am still soooo upset .On a positive note I do get free lunch once a month at the board meeting, which is hosted in a hotel. How's that for a perk?
The other thing on the agenda keeping us bust was the first big fundraiser kickoff on Friday night. The school had a Cowboy Carnival. This was lots of family fun, everyone enjoyed themselves.
On Saturday we of course had soccer and more soccer:) but, we also had Blake's 8th birthday party at the bowling alley. One thing you must know , the bowling alley is the place to be here, it's really nice and great food and an Irish pub inside. Blake's party was a huge success, 20 kids and parents. It was so much fun, even parents were emailing me telling me what a great time they had. I am so happy for Blake. How could you go wrong though, delicious pizza and cake and an open bar tab for German beer:) SCORE!!!! The parents love us.
This week was a big week for me because not that being the room parent, being a chairperson for the PTA , and being a full time housewife and mother isn't enough, I joined a club meant just for me. I joined the Stuttgart Spouses Club. This is all the women in the area and they do charity events and a a monthly get together, October is Oktoberfest bunko. The best part is within this club here are smaller individualized clubs so from there I joined......lunch club, book club, and wine tasting club. Once a month each club meets at a chosen location and partakes in whatever type of club it is. This is genius, I am super excited.

Also this week we finalized our trip to Prague:))) we will be going from November 8 through the 12th. We are taking the train so we can kick back with a beverage and relax and we rented an unbelievable apartment in the heart of everything. I have wanted to go to Prague for quite some time so I can't believe it is happening.

The excitement of today is, well it's a Monday and the Saints won, and I bought lamps and rugs for all the bedrooms in the house!!! We are ready so come on visitors. Keith and Joyce are first up in about a month:)

In two weeks I have a mother son dance that I am very much looking forward to and the following week is Blair's homecoming and my anniversary:)

In the meantime, I am actually having dinner with a girlfriend from Virginia tomorrow night and I have a pottery painting party for the colonels wife on Thursday night. Very fun week, then on Sunday.......... My first Oktoberfest and we have tent tickets:))) we are going during the day because we are bringing the kids and so are our friends. Billy and I have decided hat we will also go one night to see how it's different. Apparently all the Americans and some Germans all wear Drindls. They are about 100€. Do you think it's worth it?? Debbie, you have to answer :)

Have a great week everyone

Ludwigsburg Pumpkin Festival

Date: September 14

We made it to the world's largest pumpkin festival in Ludwigsburg today. Was neat to see all the statues made of pumpkins and the gardens at the palace were beautiful. This years theme was sports so as you will see all of the pumpkin statues are different sports.....basketball, skiing, boxing, swimming and many more. I've never seen so many pumpkins in my life.

We were thinking "wow, look at all these different pumpkins", then you hit a section that has every pumpkin there and it tells you where the particular pumpkin is from. 98% of the pumpkins were from the good ole U S of A. I've never seen half of them:)

All the food was made from pumpkin:/ it all sounded great but was kind of a let down. Pumpkin fries, pumpkin burgers, pumpkin wine, pumpkin spaghetti, pumpkin quiche, pumpkin soup, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin hash browns, pumpkin popcorn, pumpkin bread and who knows what else. The taste of it all was pretty disappointing, the best things were the pumpkin wine and pumpkin soup.

Blake is asking to go back but I do not see a need. It was neat to see but once was enough.

Randomness

Week of September 9

Thanks to everyone for all of Blake's birthday wishes, he had a great day!! Billy and I had lunch with him at school then we did cupcakes in his class. He played soccer and then for his dinner he chose to have Doners. A doner is the Turkish spin on a gyro, but don't make the mistake of comparing them out loud. Anyway doners are very popular in Germany, every village has several doner places.

We decided this week that German soccer isn't going to work for us..... So......instead we will do American soccer on base, which is going very well and a supplement known as Stuttgart Select. It is a clinic that meets once a week in small groups with retired professional soccer players. Very hands on instruction. Twice a month they meet with their "team" and play in German tournaments. In the summer they play where the pros play during their week ling camp in the Mercedes stadium. This way they also have time to play their baseball in the spring. German soccer would have stopped that. While on sports I will say there is a Little League for Stuttgart and the boys are playing. Professional baseball players and coaches along with college players come to do a Stuttgart Little League, they will play on November 12 and 13.

This has been a pretty cool week in Germany with lots of rain, highs have been low 50s and lows averaging about 46. We were able to break out our NOLA versions of winter gear:) it has been nice. And for those of you who know how much Billy hates the heaters , here he likes them. Hooray!! Each room has its own radiator, so it's water and not drying at all! Awesome

I have been overwhelmingly busy with volunteer work for the PTA. I am chairing the school photography, a lot more work than I imagined. AND room mothers here are part of the PTA so I am in constant contact with the parents for all kinds of things. It is fun but it keeps me busy. In the midst of all that we are planning trips. In October Billy and I will be staying at a B&B on the German wine road for our anniversary, visiting the wineries. In December we are meeting friends in Amsterdam for a weekend and over Thanksgiving we have mom visiting . Lets not forget Keith and Joyce visiting at the end of October and Rachel on January 2. As busy as that is we are still trying to fit in a trip over Veterans Day. We are looking at Prague, Berlin, or Paris. What would you choose and why?
And we want to take a Mediteranean cruise. We found the perfect one leaving on December 15 for 11 days. It travels to Jerusalem, Athens, Greece, Barcelona, Spain and Olympia. The neatest part is 2 days before Christmas you are in Jerusalem . We thought about this ALL day today because its leaving one week after Amsterdam and we get back right before Rachel. It's just way to much so we decided to definitely do that another Christmas while we are here. But we did decide on another one that Billy has been wanting to do. This one is in April and we will goto Istanbul , Greece, Croatia and Italy. I'm sure it will be great to escape the winter come April. Apparently everyone flocks to Spain and Israel at that time of year.

Tomorrow the kids get out of school at 11 and Trey has his first sleepover since leaving the states. He is very excited . Lots of soccer this weekend and we are headed to Ludwigsburg on Saturday for the annual worlds largest pumpkin festival. Google and check it out, there is pumpkin everything even pumpkin burgers and pumpkin wine. This is great because Trey and I love pumpkin.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and Keith, there will be a quiz to see if you know what is actually in this blog:)

Tripsdrill/International Wine Fest

Date:
August 30 and September 1,2013

So....it's been awhile but school and soccer are keeping us busy. Everyone is loving their new school. Trey and Blake are both playing on American soccer teams and Blake is also on the German team. Trey will join the German league in November, there was a scheduling conflict.
We are anxiously awaiting Blake's 8th birthday on Monday, the 9th:)

As the cooler weather starts to set in we decided we needed one last amusement park trip.......so.......we went to Tripsdrill. The oldest theme park in Germany, about 35 minutes away. This was a very authentic theme park. There was even a winery in the park, the vineyards surrounded the entire area. Of course, billy and I did the wine tasting and took some home as well.
The rides were super fun, one really authentic ride was this roller coaster type ride but you actually pedal your car through the whole track, yes, even up hill. It was actually fun. The "log" ride was interesting, as you will see in the pictures below, it was in a bathtub???? With a shower head AND when it went up one of the hills, in the dark, it turned backwards, and yes.... You went down the hill backwards. So crazeeeee! Of course this was a great day that we finished off by feeding the goats in the parks petting zoo. tripsdrill

The next day we hopped the train to downtown Stuttgart to check out the International Wein Fest. There is a wine village setup in the heart of downtown with about 120 different restaurants. The restaurants are made up to look like real full blown restaurants, some even had outside patios in the center. I love how creative the Germans are when it comes to parties:). We tasted several wines from all over and ate some unique food. My boys apparently love sauerkraut and sausage with some strange noodle around it. Billy and I are headed back tonight for date night. It got pretty chilly the other night, like upper 40s. Still no complaints about the weather yet, it is absolutely gorgeous . I will keep bragging because there will be several months when I will not speak about weather at all.

Speaking of weather, I bought my first snow hat yesterday and Blair and I have begun our winter shopping. Boots, wool socks, coats, vests, scarves and this hat. We are looking forward to it fit now.

Have a great weekend everybody !!!!!!!!