Saturday night sleepovers just got a bit more crowded

Indy

They're all thrilled with each other...

But Indy confessed to me that Jack scares her a little...I can't understand why.

I Heart Paris

I blogged a while back how Vienna was giving Paris a run for my favorite city in the world. Sorry Vienna, but Paris is nombre un. I wanted to see Paris at Christmas one more time before we move and it didn't disappoint. I get positively giddy at my first glimpse of La Tour Eiffel and the Champs-Elysees. Kids schedules go out the window as I drag them to the Eiffel Tower so I can see it in the morning and afternoon light and the hourly evening light show (3x). If I could find a hotel that was located under the Eiffel Tower that's where I'd stay. They were not so thrilled when I drug them to see Monet's waterlilies and Napoleon's tomb, but I have to give them credit for hanging in there.

Playing catch up

So we've been feeling guilty that Dominic's "countries visited" list is going to be much shorter than his brothers. We decided to make the trek to Liechtenstein since none of us had been there and then dip into Switzerland and Austria to help clear our consciouses a bit and make room for more important parent guilt like the fact that I let him fall out of his Bumbo last week (he's fine).

After one night in Konstanz, Germany we were on to the beautiful city of Zurich, which we hadn't been to before and then drove to Vaduz, Liechtenstein where we met up with our good friends the Smiths and Bradleys who had abandoned us here in Germany for the pasta, wine, tiramisu of Italy. It was so good to see them and have everyone back together.

After our night in Vaduz we drove North on Germany's Romantic Road and stopped in some really beautiful little towns. As we strolled down the street with the adults oblivious to the scenery all around Luc said, "hey isn't that the building on the front of your Germany book?" Low and behold it was the EXACT building and neither Kenny nor I would have even paid attention if Luc hadn't pointed it out.

One souvenir we returned home with is Jack's black eye which we have no idea how or when he got. It happed our night in Vaduz, but no one heard him hit anything or cry. It's even worse than the pictures look and I was a bit embarrassed to bring him to school today.

Auf wiedersehen, Tschuss

Right after the new year Kenny's two year assignment in Deutschland will have turned into five. We now know where we're heading next. Here are a few obscure hints....

220v

Firewall

Number 4 is out, 13 is back in

Tiger

Everyone's a surgeon

And no fair guessing by those of you who have already been told (I know who you are).

Paella party

Who would have thought we'd have moved to Germany to be the only people on our street that don't speak Spanish? Out of five houses, two families are Spanish, one is Honduran and one is Nicaraguan. Our Spanish neighbors offered to teach me how to make Paella on Sunday and decided to make it into a street party. It was a great time and some of the best Paella I've ever tasted.

Halloween

Germany seems to be catching on to the whole Halloween thing and we happened to be in downtown Kaiserslautern where they were gearing up for a Halloween parade late Saturday afternoon. It was packed and the boys (especially our little giraffe) were pretty awestruck by all the different costumes.

Pumpkin carving

The boys both drew on their pumpkins the faces they wanted carved. Luc wanted a scary face and Jack wanted a "guitar playing face." No idea what that is, but it translated into one funny looking Jack O'lantern.

Anniversary post

I alway feel like I need to post pictures of our pumpkin patch field trip to commemorate the anniversary of when I started this blog in 2006. Looking back at that post I'm reminded about what a terrible day we had weather wise. A lot of the parents got stuck in the mud and had to be towed out by the farmer. We had much better weather this year. Here are a couple of pictures from this year's trip. As usual, the boys were polar opposites in picking out their pumpkins. Jack was lightening fast and Luc couldn't make a decision to save his life. He finally picked out as big a one as he could carry.

Cruise pictures

Here is an album with pictures of the highlights of our cruise. The boys are still exhausted and missing their Grandparents. All Luc talks about is when the next cruise will be. He even has a ship picked out he wants to go on. My favorite port was Lanzarote. The island was formed by multiple volcanoes and the landscape was both eerie and beautiful AND we got to watch our parents jostled about on camels. I asked the boys about their favorite ports/part of the trip and they said it was the beach on Gran Canaria and getting to stay up late every night. Still working on the best way to download pictures so they show up on both the blog and Facebook. I tried to make a slideshow, but I think it's more of an album you have to click on to see all the pictures.

Cruise 2009

We're back

We had an awesome time on the cruise. One of the few European countries we had left to visit was Portugal, so I booked the cruise based on that being one of the ports. We hit Spain(mainland and the Canary Islands) and Portugal (mainland and Madeira). I don't think the boys could squeeze any more fun out of the 12 days and were wrecks last night when we got home and there were only their parents around to give them attention. Dominic was a hit with the very family oriented Spanish and Portuguese. I had him taken out of my arms by strangers more times than I can count. He milked it for all it was worth by flashing the smile you see in these pictures. It will take me a day or two to go through the pictures, but here are a few of the professional cruise photos and I finally got a new family picture for the blog that has Dominic in it. Thanks to all of you for the birthday wishes...it was a great one, but Jack wasn't thrilled with sharing the month or attention with me.