On our way to the UK!

We leave tomorrow morning for our big London and Ireland trip. We're excited, but, like always, I am anxious about every little detail. It will be nice to vacation in a place where we understand the language!
We get back next Tuesday, and I should have some great pictures to share.

This weekend was pretty laid-back for us - we hung around the house, fed the ducks, and babysat E's friend Kaizlee on Sunday. They had a blast together.

It looks like I may potentially be going back to work at the daycare down the street. I am going a little stir-crazy now that I am done with school, and I would love for Elliott to be back with his friends. I have a couple details to iron out, so we shall see!

I can't wait to update this with pictures from our trip. We are doing Stonehenge on Wednesday and then on Thursday and Friday Vic's friend is showing us around the city. Saturday we head out to Dublin and we'll spend two days seeing the sights there. Keeps your fingers crossed for good weather!!

Day at the Pool ...

On Tuesday E and I headed to the pool with my friend Shannon and her daughter Kazilee. Elliott and Kazilee (or Lee-Lee, as he calls her) are so funny ... they love to play with each other, but they never talk. There's a lot of laughing, but very few words exchanged between the two of them ... so weird. They are really cute together though ...

The pool is Grafenwoehr is awesome, and this was my first time checking it out - as we usually opt for the lake. We picked a great day to go - the weather was great and we had the pool to ourselves for the first couple of hours. Elliott had an absolute blast.

I think they went down this slide over 100 times ... it never got old.

I love this pool because everything was very independent. Of course I had to watch E in the water, but there was an adjoining playground where he would have played for days if I let him. It was much more relaxing than the lake - where we have to constantly stay right by his side ...

E is doing fantastically with potty-training, but the pool still scares me. I cannot even imagine the look of horror on the Germans' faces if my kid dropped a load in their pristine pool. It's not a risk I'm willing to take, so the swim diaper will stay on for awhile longer!

They did this for about an hour ... in pure silence ...

The Germans love in-ground trampolines. A lot of parks have them. I even busted out a couple of back flips!

Elliott dropped his hat in the toilet (I'm not even sure how that happens) ... so decided to wear Kazilee's ... Vic hasn't seen this picture yet - I'm sure he'll love it :)

We're hoping for some nice weather this weekend, so we can take Vic!

Nuremburg - Father's Day

For Father's Day weekend we headed to Nuremburg for the day. I think we have been there half a dozen times, and it never disappoints. It's one of my favorite cities ... but I think I've said that about every city.

We walked around the city for a bit, and made our way up to the castle. We stopped at our favorite castle-side restaurant to grab traditional Nürnberg sausages and a couple beers. After that we walked around the castle grounds for a bit.

After the castle - we did our favorite family activity ... shopping. E needed a couple of things, and we found some great deals. 

I stopped at the Starbucks on the main shopping strip and got my favorite chocolate mocha ... there's just something about how the Germans make their coffee - it's so much better than back home.

After shopping we made our way to our favorite sushi spot and grabbed a great seat by the window. Vic had a hilarious time attempting to order a drink. He really wanted a tequila and pineapple ... like, just a shot of tequila with pineapple juice ... in a cup. The waitress had the hardest time understanding what he was talking about. She came back three times to clarify ... and then she, literally, brought him a shot of tequila with a dash of pineapple. Haha, poor Vic and his wacky drink orders.

We spotted this craziness across the street. This car was covered in rhinestones, or whatever the heck they were. He definitely wasn't German - no German is that flashy.

So, I have wrote about it several times, but Vic and I always have the worst time parking here - mostly in parking garages, which is typically where you have to park. Spots are small and corners are tight - which makes it hard to maneuver our boxy Jeep. Anyway, in this particular day the garage in Nuremburg was pretty full, so we couldn't be picky with our spot. We saw one against a wall with a car on the other side and figured it was our best bet. I turned the wheel over to Vic and helped him maneuver in ... it wasn't pretty, but, after 10 minutes, we we're straight and between the lines. We didn't leave much room for the driver of the car next to us, but that's life with a Jeep in these German-sized spots. We stood back and looked at our job, and even made a couple comments on how well we did! Well, flash-forward seven hours and we came back to this sticker on our window ... 

This translates to, 'shit parking' ... hilarious. We laughed for half the ride home. I didn't know the Germans were capable of such humor. 

Last weekend Vic and I flew solo to watch the Germany vs. Portugal soccer match. We have a new babysitter that we love, so we're putting her to work! Anyway, we settled for a local bar, and had a great time. It was mostly Americans inside, but the Germans around downtown were out in full force - especially after the win. It was pretty cool to experience. Germany plays America this week, but we're going to watch it at a friends house ... I'm not sure the bar scene would be our safest bet!

Yesterday we had a graduation celebration BBQ, and it was a lot of fun! I meant to take pictures, but I forgot. We played beer pong and cornhole, and Elliott had so much fun running around with the kids. 

My friend Vanessa made some amazing cupcakes, and I'm still snacking on them this morning!

We're going to take it easy this week in preparation for our trip to England and Ireland next Tuesday!! I think I have everything planned out and organized, but it's definitely our biggest trip to date!

D-O-N-E!

Whew ... that's it! I'm finally done with school! I turned in my last paper late Friday night ... or early Saturday morning, and I don't think I have ever been so excited. I won't have final grades back until the middle of next week, but it feels great to be done.

A big huge thank you to my Mimi and my Big Mimi for making it possible for me to go back to school - there's no way I could have done it without them. My Big Mimi was one of the coolest people to ever walk this earth, so it makes me happy that I was able to accomplish something because of her ... and not letting them both down was probably the only reason that kept me from throwing in the towel several times!

We're going to have a BBQ next weekend to celebrate - we love any excuse to throw a party :)

Yesterday I was able to get Elliott a coveted spot in daycare on a Friday - and even better - it was a FULL day opening. Vic and I took this rare opportunity to spend the day at the lake with friends. We missed E, but he had a blast at school.

We took out the paddle boats in a boys vs girls competition. The boys utilized their slide - while we had no desire to jump in the freezing water.

It was a great day, but I'm paying for it now with a pretty good sunburn!

Elliott is doing great. He's very bossy, but so creative and smart. This week he mastered counting to five ... sometimes he'll go up to seven if the mood strikes him right, but he has five down. He loves building things and anything construction related ... God forbid we walk past a construction site - we'll be stuck there for 20 minutes looking at the 'big diggers'. He loves art too, and drawing and painting ... and drawing with his mouth? I walked in the living room and found him doing the the other morning ...

He is so brave at the park ... I feel like all the other moms get to sit back and relax, and I'm constantly running around making sure he's not diving off of things and sliding down curly slides head first. He's a maniac ...

We are headed to Nuremberg for the day, and then we're going to eat at our favorite sushi place tonight. The beautiful weather is still going strong in Bavaria, so we're enjoying every minute of it!

I am not sure what I'm going to do with all of my free time, but I'm going to start by reading a book - my first one that's not a textbook in quite awhile!

Quick post!

I am in the middle of attempting to write my two final papers, but I want to update these pictures before I forget about them!

Last week Vic's battalion changed their battalion commander, so we attended the, always fancy, change of command ceremony. I'm a sucker for these things - I love all the Army traditions. Vic does not share the same fondness - as he's usually stuck standing in formation with the sun beating down on him. Either way - Elliott had a blast.

The weather has been hot, hot, hot - mid-90s, which is not normal for early June in Germany. We cooled off this weekend at the lake on both Saturday and Sunday. This is my favorite place in all of Germany ... so fun and relaxing ...

That's all I have for this week! Once I turn in these two papers - I'm done!! Right now I have perfect grades in both classes, so it looks like I'll be graduating with straight A's ........... and one stinkin' B from that idiotic research methods class - which will probably annoying me for the rest of my life, haha.

This is a 4-day weekend due to the Army's birthday, so we're looking forward to relaxing!!

Boring Post ...

As I said last week ... we're in full bank account recovery mode from our Paris extravaganza, so we are laying low for the next few weeks. Our England and Ireland trip is sneaking up fast, and I am putting the finishing touches on our itinerary. I just booked our tickets to the Stonehenge ... super excited about that little day trip. Vic's best friend lives in the city, so he's going to be our tour guide for a couple days as well. Dublin has been a little trickier to plan because we only have one full day in the city, but I'm sure we'll make the most of it. Speaking of trips ... just when I thought we were done planning - I found an amazing deal to Malaga, Spain for the week before Christmas, so I booked it! It was too good of a deal to pass up, and the hotel deals were equally great. We plan on renting a car and doing a day in Malaga, Seville, Ronda, and Morocco.

Basically, Vic and I are wrestling between doing the responsible thing by saving money, or living out our bucket list and seeing all that we possibly can. Right now the bucket list is winning. We may be kicking ourselves in seven months when we're counting our pennies in America, but we'll have some pretty cool pictures to look back on! We are officially booked in twelve countries in the next seven months - some we have visited before, but we'll go to new cities ... Italy, Austria, Spain, Netherlands, Hungary, Croatia, Greece, Czech Republic, Morocco, England and Ireland. There is one other trip to the beaches of Normandy that I would love to plan, but it's going to come down to a final budget count in November.

School is killing me, and I should really be typing a paper right now. This semester ends on June 13th, and I will officially have a Master's Degree!!! I applied for graduation, so my diploma should arrive by July. So excited.

For the past couple of years I have been the leader of the FRG (Family Readiness Group) for Vic's unit - it was not my best idea to take on this task and I have struggled with it for awhile. It's a lot of work and not a lot reward, and beyond frustrating at times. I have been trying for some time to pass it off to someone (anyone) who can probably do a much better job than me. My prayers were answered this week by a couple of spouses who are new to the area, and I am so excited to get the ball rolling and complete the changeover.

I have spent a majority of my time in Germany with my hands completely full - school, work, FRG, and a crazy toddler. It seems weird that in a couple weeks I will only have the crazy toddler left :) Although, soon my time will be filled with packing boxes and job searching, so I suppose I should enjoy it while it lasts ...

This is the only picture I took this week ... shocking, I know. E is permanently attached to Vic's hip, and it's hilarious. I wish I could have taken video as well because everything that Vic did - E had to do ... if Vic flipped a page, Elliott flipped the page. He is so funny.