Leah at the Program

Leah came to watch Ian's African Program the other day & at first, wasn't so happy. She wanted to take a picture with my camera & I told her she had to hold on a minute. So, here is grumpy Leah:


After a bit, trying to still be a bit grumpy, but I was getting ready to share the camera with her:


And now deciding she could be happy because the program was starting & she had taken a picture of my chin & shirt *sigh*.

Hope everyone is happy and enjoying their Sunday!
Catherine

Ian's African Program

I hope this works! Ian had a program at his school the other day & unfortunately all of my pictures turned out really dark. I did get a couple of videos of the songs (before my card filled up), so hopefully these load in so everyone can enjoy.

This song is called Bandua/Bread.

Beer

I wrote yesterday that we had gone to the Bottle Shop in Idar-Oberstein. I was on the prowl for some Belgian Beers, but as luck would have it - they had none.

So I turned some lemons into lemonade and have made due with the Bavarian Beer. Poor me!!

Anyways, the store had these HUGE bottles for sale that I thought would be great for bottle conditioning my own beer once I get back to the States and start brewing my own again. I bought one, and may go back for another - it really depends on what I find in Belgium. I've never tasted the Holzar Bier, so it is a bit of a gamble.

For those of you interested, I've placed a normal sized bottle of beer next to the 3 liter bottle. 12 of those bottles would fit in the bigger one. AND that is a bottle of Rochefort 8 - recently voted the best beer in the world by some magazine - and consistently in the top 5 depending on who is rating.

Have a wonderful day! We are enjoying a day of snow here. It hasn't stopped once since I've woken up to a couple of inches. Beautiful - and best of all I don't have to shovel it since we're not going out!

Cheers!

Marc

Another day in Germany

We were undecided this morning on exactly what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go today. We had two possibilities - Metz, France or Idar-Oberstein just down the road here in Germany.

The kids dressed themselves, and this is the rock-star/hippie look that Leah came up with. So cute!

We ultimately decided on Idar-Oberstein where we made our way to the Bottle Shop. I've never been there before, but it came highly rated and had a pretty decent selection of beers from Bavaria. We're preparing for our return trip to the States later this year and have begun stocking up on beer and wine. Four crates today; and we are planning a run to Pelgrims in Belgium to stock up on some amazing Belgian beers. We'll probably make our way to Brussels when we do that, but time will tell.

After our beer (and wine) run, Ian and Leah wanted to walk around the Frauenberg ruins. It is a short walk and the ruins are pretty cool. Supposedly the small tower was where Rapunzel lived, at least that is what the newer signs say.

Hopefully everyone has a nice day out there. Cheers!

Marc

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Friday evening after I got home from work, we all loaded up the car for the longish drive to a friend's house near Schweinfurt. He is a good friend from my deployment - and it was great to catch up and see him and his family again. We had actually planned this trip for early/mid December, but the freakishly large snow fall this year kept us from getting out and experiencing that Christmas market.

We arrived in Rothenburg ob der Tauber (from here on out - Rothenburg) in time for an early lunch just off the main square, which was delicious. From there, we walked around the town pretty much aimlessly, just going where our whims led us. The photo below is from a couple of blocks off the main square and is pretty much an iconic (dare we say "cliche"?) photo op from Rothenburg.

It was a chilly day, I think it felt far colder than it actually was. Towards the end of our trip a nice cup of espresso (double for me!) and tea for Catherine really helped to warm us back up.

During our wanderings, we came across the Museum of Crime and Punishment. It wasn't open and I'm not sure we'd have gone inside even if it was. It seems every big town or city has a museum involving crime and/or torture here in Germany. Anyways, in the public courtyard we took the opportunity to lock up Ian in the stocks.

Leah couldn't be left out. That's my friend Jeff holding Leah up.

Finally, after throwing away a little more than half of the photos I took (redundant or just plain bad), this is probably my favorite from the day. Ian was just chatting away about something - I'm guessing the play the kids were going to put on for us - when I decided to take his photo. So glad I did!

Have a wonderful day everybody!

Ian's Second Tooth

While eating dinner today (Flammkuchen), Ian calmly picked his second tooth out of his head and handed it to Catherine.

So here is his new smile! Enjoy everybody...

Marc