Pottestein and Poland

Pottenstein for Mather's Day was great. We had some pretty crappy weather, but we manged to get out of town before the rain started. 'Steak on a Stone' was an awesome little restaurant, but I couldn't go through with grilling my own raw meat on a stone. I take after my dad in that I need my meat burnt to a crisp ... and that slab of rock just wasn't going to do it for me. Instead I chose the Cordon Bleu and fries ... and it was delicious. Vic opted for the stone cooking ... and I did try a couple of bites!

After dinner we walked around the town ... very picturesque and quaint. We want to go back soon and try the hiking paths!

I love this picture ...

The views were amazing...

Yesterday I took a whirlwind trip to Boleslawiec, Poland. It was a very industrial looking city, and was filled with different pottery shops and factories. The bus picked us up in Grafenwoehr at midnight and we got to Boleslawiec at 6 am. The stores were already opened, so we immediately started shopping!

There were so many shops, patterns and items that it was hard to decide what to get. It's a good thing I have a little self-control - otherwise I would have done some serious damage to our bank account. I kind of had my mind set on a few things that I wanted, and I manged to stick (fairly) close to that list.

This was one of the first stores we went into ...

Rows and rows of pottery ...

More rows ...

One of the larger stores with a pottery tree out front ...

By lunch time we were all STARVING ... we stopped at this little old restaurant for some Polish cuisine. There was a story about Hitler visiting this place, and etching his name into the wall, but I was half-unconscious from hunger, so I missed the details from the tour guide. I got pirogies and a beer, and it was pretty good!  This is after about 12 hours of being on the bus ... so I'm looking a little rough ...

These are a few of my favorite things that I got in the same pattern ... I love the big bowl. I also got a couple more casserole type things, but in a different pattern. They also had their holiday stuff on sale, so I got several really cute platters and bowls in different Christmas patterns. My ultimate favorite thing I picked up was a huge, beautiful wicker basket - I wish I would have gone back for more. Everything was priced in Polish Zloty, so it was all really fairly priced in dollars.

Everything is hand-painted and made right in town ... which is pretty amazing when you see some of the detail in the patterns ...

I'm back on my couponing game, and I'm doing quite well for myself. In the last week I have made some amazing deals on diapers, and then I hit the mother-load on Thursday. My total come out to $120, and with coupons I paid a little less than $30! I think I ended up leaving with 10 bottles of shaving cream, 4 things of laundry detergent, 8 things of body wash, 4 things of shampoo/conditioner, 8 packs of razors, 4 chapsticks, etc ...

I was pretty proud of myself!

Elliott is doing great ... and adding things to his vocabulary by the day! He can say 'Buzz' ... like Buzz Lightyear and 'all done'. He can now clean-up after himself ... which is a great new trick ... he will attempt to sing the 'Clean-up' song and then say 'yaaaay!' when he's done. I love it ... now I just need him to learn to do the dishes :)

We're headed to Austria this coming weekend ... the weather looks promising on the 10-day forecast  so I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!