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:)