Ludwigsburg Pumpkin Festival 2012

It's that time of the year again!  I LOVE FALL!  You guys might remember me posting about this last year. The Finch Family ladies drove down to visit and join us at the Ludwigsburg annual pumpkin festival.  We took Vaiosina for the first time last year and she loved it.  I swore last year to go again this year.  It was so fun to share this with our good friends yesterday afternoon.  The weather was absolutely beautiful too.

 

The festival is held at the Ludwigsburg Palace, which in and of itself is a sight to behold. Last year's theme was dinosaurs.  This year's was Switzerland.  We saw a Swiss Army knife made of pumpkins, as well as the Swiss Alps, some Swiss farmers, cows and other things we really couldn't figure out.  The fairy tale children's garden was there and we went on a boat ride and visited Rapunzel's tower.

 

The best part, of course, was the food.  We had pumpkin bratwurst (which Vaiosina enjoyed much more this year), pumpkin fries, pumpkin muffins, and pumpkin soups.  I even snagged 4 bottles of pumpkin wine, which I remembered from last year.  It's so crazy to see how much Vaiosina has grown from last year. 

 

Yesterday also made us miss Malu.  Last year, we went later in October and it was so much colder.  I have fond memories of sitting on haystacks near the bonfire with him and with Vaiosina staring so intently at the flames.  I also remember Malu trying to feed Vaiosina to one of the dinosaurs.  Fun times. 

 

Anyway, here are some pictures!

 

 

The pumpkin festival goes until the end of October.  My mom will be visiting us and arrives on Tuesday. I'm going to take her to see this.  No reason to limit this year to one visit.  Plus, I need a reason to go back and get more pumpkin wine!

 

Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend!

Summer Leave {Pt 1} : Munich

Two weeks before Malu departed to mobilize for his deployment, I took some much needed leave time from work so that we could spend some quality time together.  I always return from leave saying that I need "leave from my leave," because it was just downright exhausting.  It was tons of fun though.

 

The first couple days of leave, we drove to Bavaria to visit our friends, the beloved Finch Family, who make several appearances throughout this blog.  This family is near and dear to our hearts and they just wanted to see Malu for the last time before he deploys.  We ended up going to Munich!

 

I'd been to Munich several years ago, but merely passed through in-transit to Garmisch.  What a great city!  We didn't see even a quarter of the city because we were only there for the day.  We hopped on one of those free walking tours and left when the kids got antsy (or maybe when we adults were just plain tired lugging those antsy kids around).  A lot of people freak out in big cities or big crowds.  I love it.  There's always tons to see.

 

 

 

Munich is the capital of Bavaria and is the third largest German city behind Berlin and Hamberg.  It is home to the largest Oktoberfest celebration in the world at which the Hofbrauhaus holds the second largest beer tent.  The Hofbrauhaus am Platzl, located in the city center, is the most famous beer hall worldwide.  Apparently, in 1920, Hitler organized one of his first propaganda events at the Hofbrauhaus.  The place really does serve up some good food, in addition to their beers.  We know because we stopped by there!

 

 

I honestly don't like beer.  These are Radlers.  It's basically beer with sprite or lemonade mixed in.  I can [somewhat] handle the taste.

 

 Like every other German town or city, Munich has a Rathaus, or town/city hall.  The one we saw is supposedly the new Rathaus, although I'd hardly call it new.  It was built between 1867 and 1908.  I don't even recall seeing the old Rathaus.  The building was beautiful.  It has a glockenspiel that tells two 16th century stories. 

 

 

The Munich Frauenkirche, or Cathedral of Our Dear Lady, is a symbol of the Bavarian capital and one of the most famous landmarks in Munich.  The interior of the church highlights a "no-window" effect that is connected to the legend of the Teufelstritt, or Devil's Footstep.  At the nave of the church, lies a footprint on a square tile.  One version of the legend says that the devil made a deal with the builder to finance construction on the church on the condition that it contain no windows.  However, the builder tricked the devil by positioning the columns so that the devil could not see them from where he stood in the nave.  Upon discovering he had been tricked, the devil could not enter the already-consecrated church and was relegated to stomping furiously, leaving the dark footprint that remains today.  Pretty cool, huh?  The first picture below was taken outside the church.  The last picture is of the church standing on the Devil's Footstep.

 

 I think we hit up a palace before we decided to be done with the tour.  I don't have any pictures of the palace though.  No biggie.  But you guys get the gist.

 

Munich = Pretty Cool City

 

Whoa!  It's way past my bedtime!

 

Tomorrow's Friday!  Looking forward to the weekend.  The Finch Family (less Daddy Finch) will be visiting us here in Stuttgart for the Pumpkin Festival!  Yay!

Easter 2012

This year, Sina was old enough to actually go out to do an Easter egg hunt.  She could have done it last year (although she wasn't quite walking yet), but we were late to the post-wide egg hunt and missed it all together.  Last year = mega-fail.  We were determined not to make the same mistake this year and actually made up for it!

The Easter bunny visited us twice on Easter morning!

After returning from our trip to Prague (which I'll blog about sometime this week), the adults (we spent the weekend with the Finch Family) stayed up until the wee hours of the morning stuffing zillions of plastic eggs for Sina and Madisen (their  4-year old daughter) to find first thing in the morning.  We also laid out their Easter baskets.

Imagine their surprise to find all kinds of eggs right in their rooms and all over the house when they woke up.  Sina went and grabbed the first egg she saw after I lifted her out of her crib.  As she grabbed the second and third egg, she said (still groggy from waking up) "more! more!".  When we went downstairs she loaded more eggs into one of her Easter baskets with her daddy's help.

I say one of her baskets because she actually had two--one my mom had sent her (this Hello Kitty one) and another one I'd purchased her and loaded with all of the goodies that my mom and Great-Grandma had mailed to her, as well as all the stuff I'd amassed for her.  You really can't tell here, but this basket was overloaded with candies, a stuffed bunny rabbit, Hello Kitty and Dora-shaped eggs, flashcard sets, books and stickers. 

Thanks so much to our families for everything.  I think it's safe to say that this girl is soooooo LOVED.

Madisen was nice enough to let Sina borrow a set of the butterfly wings she'd received that morning so that they could flutter about the house together.

The Finches had some friends over for an amazing brunch.  We had blueberry french toast casserole, a hash brown casserole, baked ham, deviled eggs, fruits, and other desserts.  Yum!

Sina actually managed to wear a dress that day, thanks to Mattie.  The weather forecast called for cold weather, so I didn't bother packing her a dress.  Mattie insisted that I put Sina in one of Madisen's old dresses just so she could blend in :) I really should put Sina in dresses more often because she was the cutest little thing.  I couldn't, however, get her to sit still in said dress to take pictures, but I did my best.  Here are a few pics of her, Madisen and Mackinley.

Sina and Madisen

Look at those big feet!

There's always time to read a book!

Figures that one of the cutest pics I have of her in the dress is in the kitchen.  I think she was looking for a snack :)

When she wasn't looking for a snack, she was playing with the magnets on the refrigerator.

Another favorite.  I should show this picture to people when the few of them try to tell me that Sina looks more like Malu than me.  Are they blind?  This photo screams mini-me!

Sorting some eggs.  We had to take those eggs and re-stuff them for later on.

Sina absolutely adores Mackinley (and babies in general).  It's so cute to see her get in their faces to say hi to them and then caress them so gently.  I'm so thankful that the folks at school taught her early on to handle babies with care.  This will definitely come in handy when she becomes a big sister...whenever that may be :)

Sina, Malu and Madisen, also known as the Scooby Doo Gang.  I can't remember who is what character when they play, but I think Malu is Fred.  I would have made him Scooby, but hey, it's not my game.

Sina and Daddy.

I hate that I didn't get a picture with her that day :(

After brunch, we went over to another house to do another Easter egg hunt.

There were five kids total, but enough eggs for fifteen.  Since it was cold out, the eggs were hidden indoors.  While the other kids (all were older than Sina) ran furiously around the house to pick up eggs, Sina was more preoccupied with the toys.  Malu and I simply scooped up five or six eggs for her and just let her be.

I'd say that all in all, Sina's first official Easter was a hit!

Thank you God for blessing us with so much, especially wonderful times with wonderful friends, and love and support from our families across the miles.  Thank you also for the gift of salvation through the death of your Son, Jesus Christ. 

He is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!

Rewind: Regensburg Christmas Market

I'm obviously in catch up mode, you guys.  I'm bringing you back to the holidays and to the Christmas Market in Regensburg.  We'd visited Regensburg last Fourth of July weekend and had a blast.  What a wonderful city!  We couldn't wait to go back.  Our friends, the infamous Finch Family, live about 25 minutes (by train) from Regensburg.  The train station is literally minutes away from their house, so it was so convenient to hop on the train with strollers and Sina in a Kelty backpack and instantly be in one of the most beautiful backdrops for a Christmas market. 

Ruckin' it!

Train Ride!

It wasn't as big as Stuttgart or Strasbourg, but I think that's what we loved most about it. No outrageous crowds, not too spread out. But the setting was lovely, cozy, and oh, the food was dee-licious!

Here's a disclaimer before I go any further:  The pictures aren't the greatest.  We went to this market at night and I take horrible pictures at night time.

The market is held annually in the Palace of the Saint Emmeram--a former Benedictine monastery dating back to the 11th century, turned royal palace to the House of Thurn and Taxis in 1748.  The Thurn and Taxis family is evidently one of the wealthiest families in Germany.  Why not?  This family was responsible for establishing the imperial postal system in Europe (starting in Italy), which paved the way for the creation of an international postal system at the turn of the 16th century.  I wish we'd had a chance to tour the palace during normal hours because even at night, you can see the place in all its splendor.

This was just outside the palace entryway, where there were booths mostly selling jewelry, ornaments, liquor, and other fine local wares.

When we got there, there was already a crowd gathered in the courtyard.  Notice all the people looking upward...there was a choir singing Christmas carols from a balcony overlooking the courtyard.  And the crowd was singing along...so were we, only in English.  Also notice the gorgeous, giant Christmas tree in the center of the courtyard.  Sina was in complete awe.  It was all so surreal.

As I said earlier, the food was fantastic.  There were so many things to choose from, which is absolutely ideal when you are completely famished from not having eaten hours prior to arriving in downtown Regensburg.  Of course, we had to have some brats.  But I found a booth selling this...

I need to make a note to scribble down the names for the things we eat because I want to call this goulash, but am not 100% sure.  This was a mixture of sauteed vegetables, sauerkraut, German noodles (I want to say this is dampfnudle) and some beef.  Interestingly, they served this up in waffle bowls with garlic cream sauce.  OMG...heaven!

Needless to say...we spent a good part of the night standing and walking around, snacking on whatever we could find.  Everyone always claims that I get them mid-bite in photos.  Guess they're right.

After eating, we took a walk around the grounds and scanned some booths.  We were mostly on the look-out for ornaments, but didn't really find any that we liked.  However, we did get our hands on some good schnapps liqueur.  I think we got some in raspberry.

After about two hours, we were back on the train with our exhausted little ones.  Sina just sat in her seat in a daze until she finally decided she couldn't keep her adorable little eyes open anymore.

My two darlings.

The Christmas lights around post finally came down sometime last week.  Until then, Sina would always yell "Christmas tree!" ("Tee tis tee") everytime we passed by one.  I miss the holidays and can't wait until next year.  My mom is thinking about joining us, and I am beyond thrilled about that.  Speaking of next Christmas...I've been taking advantage of all the sales on Christmas stuff for the past month or so.  Everything is slowly trickling in through snail mail and now, I've got a new Santa cookie plate and mug set and The Elf of the Shelf book and elf set for Sina, with more stuff to come!

But ugh..11 more months to go!

Hope you guys enjoyed this flashback with me.  I'm going to try to post about our MLK weekend trip to Bavaria next.

Happy Tuesday!

Edit: One of my German readers (I know!  I can't believe I have a German reader!  How exciting!) was kind enough to email me to let me know that the noodle dish that I had that night is called schupfnudel, which are thick, pan-fried noodles.  Now I know exactly what to look and ask for the next time I go out for fest food!  Thanks, Simone!

Joyeux Noel: Strasbourg Xmas Market

Joyeux Noel--that's Merry Christmas in French!  Strasbourg might just be my favorite city in Europe so far.  This past visit was the third time of been there and each time I fall more in love with the place.  While visiting us in Stuttgart two weekends ago, we took the Finch Family to Strasbourg since they'd never been and because it's an easy 2-hour trip from here (Yup, we've spent the last two weekends with these guys).    Before the Christmas Market season kicked off, my boss' wife posted a link on Facebook to an article on CNN.com about the 5 Great European Cities for Christmas Markets, of which Strasbourg is ranked fourth!  So we are officially one of 5 great Christmas markets and will hopefully get to the other four before our tours in Germany are over.  Whew!  That's going to be a lot of traveling because one is in Cologne (about a five-hour trip from here), and the others are in Austria, the Czech Republic, and Belgium.

Let me tell you...this place did not disappoint!

We got there in the late afternoon; pretty much just in time for all the lights to come on.  Many buildings were adorned with Christmas decor.  Most had themes!  Like that building on the corner behind me...

It was covered in teddy bears!  See?

Other buildings had just angels, or Santas or snowmen or whatever else.  It was amazing!  Even every street had a theme in lights...like these stars...

Or these huge lanterns...

Not sure what these lights were, but they were gorgeous.

Incredible.  Sina was enthralled by the lights too.  She kept saying "tee-tis-tee" over and over again (that's "Christmas Tree).  Cuteness.

We took the kids to the carousel with a perfect view of the cathedral.  Sina and I rode on the carousel four times.  This mommy was quite woozy afterwards, but it was all worth it just to see the smiles on Sina's face.

We shopped around at the many booths (bought some cool ornaments too!), snacked on some nutella-topped waffles and freshly roasted chestnuts (OMG, I love them!), and drank quite a few different gluhwein or vin chaud in French (because no two gluhwein are the same!).  We got our Strasbourg gluhwein mug and even had some warm, orange juice (which is mostly for the kids) that was pretty tasty!  Here are Malu and I in front of one of the food vendors.

Here are some other photos taken that day:

Left to Right:

Mattie standing in front of a booth selling ceramic dutch ovens and pans.  They were way too pricey for us!

Vats of the hot orange juice and vin chaud.

Sina and I on the carousel.

The Finch Family in a funny cut-out billboard.

Madisen and our little family having dinner at an Italian restaurant.  I had to crop out a very inappropriate picture of a naked lady behind us!  Only in France would they have naked lady pictures in a family restaurant.

And...

Madisen and I with her beautiful baby sister, Mackinley.

Everyone agreed that this Christmas market was well worth the trip.  I will personally never get tired of going to Strasbourg.  I'm already itching to go back!

Again...that's one down and four more major Christmas markets to go to!

One more to tell you guys about and I'll save that for tomorrow!

Happy Wednesday!