Weekend stuff

Mannheim

On Saturday we drove to a town called Mannheim where there is an Ikea to go get some stuff for the house. On the way there we drove through a big area of grape vineyards and saw lots of signs for wineries. I definitely need to go back there for a little visit! We also drove over the Rhine River which was cool since it's one of the big ones you learn about in school. Most parts of the autobahn the speed limit is 130kmh, which is about 85mph. This is slow to the Germans and on the parts of the autobahn where there is no speed limit...holy crap! We were doing 175kmh (110mph) and people were passing us like we were standing still! I have got to rent a sports car here to play in before I leave!

Ikea was fun, trying to navigate through the ones in America is always challenging, so trying to find your way through one when all the signs are in German was really fun. We found a bunch of cool stuff. We got an awesome island for the kitchen, a neato toy cubby thing for Colin's room a hallway runner and a couple little fun, decorative things. We had all kinds of fun checking stuff out and playing with all the furniture. We ate lunch there too and Colin thought the Swedish Meatballs were fantastic, he gobbled up all I gave him.

On the way home with hit a stau, which is a traffic jam on the autobahn. It was rainy and yucky. When we finally got up to the accident it was two fancy sports cars, ouch! For an autobahn accident there was pretty little damage and it looked like one just clipped the other and then he spun out as a result. The rest of the ride home was pretty uneventful. When we got home Shelby put the island together for me, I love it!

On Sunday we went to pick up an aquarium we bought of a swap meet kind of website they have here at Ramstein. We had a wall that needed something and a fish tank was perfect. Plus Colin LOVES watching the fish. The lady was selling her tank, stand, fish and all for a great price so we brought that home and set it up. Colin really likes it and he always stops to stare at it for a while when he runs around the house in his walker. Sunday we also made A LOT of progress on the house and I should be finishing it up enough to take some pictures soon, yay! Shelby put some ribs on the grill that were AMAZING. I don't even like ribs...actually I hate ribs, but these were delicious! It was a fun weekend, looking forward to this weekend since it's a three day one :)

Happy Father's Day!

Father's Day

We spent the day working around the house mostly and getting things organized and put away. I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast and the night before I baked a pineapple upside down cake for Shel. I hate baking cakes, I totally suck at it. They always taste good but look like a mess and this one was no exception. It definitely didn't look too pretty, but it's the thought that counts right? Shelby got a really nice bike that he picked out and had built at the bike shop and he got to pick it up the day before Father's Day. On Sunday we went for a bike ride with Shel's new bike and the new bike trailer we got for Colin. There are great bike paths here and we can't wait to get done with the house and spend more time riding. We finished off the day with Shelby using his smoker to make a fabulous roast. It was a nice relaxing day getting stuff done around the house.

Colin is TEN months!

Colin 10 months

What a little man we have. He sings and chatters up a storm now. He crawls all over the place and runs around the house in his walker. He's got quite the personality on him these days. He eats like a pig and wants to feed himself. His favorite foods are macaroni and cheese, oranges, bananas, cheese, veggie crackers, salmon and any kind of sweet dessert we give him. He's about outgrown the 9 month size clothes and very soon we'll be into 12 months. We are still in size 3 diapers but that wont be for much longer either. He loves to swing outside and play in the pool. He's obsessed with cords and plastic bags and gets MAD when he's lucky enough to get a hold of one and I catch him with it and take it away. He also knows where the dog water bowl is and makes a beeline for it any chance he gets. He's such a little love and he's so much fun these days. The pictures were taken at a garden park in Kaiserslautern. They have several life size dinosaurs throughout the park and a bunch of playground areas for the kids. He had a blast looking around at everything and playing. When he can walk it will really be a fun place for him to run around and play in the water they have for the kids there.

Our Village & More

Our village and more

Here are a few pics we took on the walk to dinner last Friday night. The bar is a few houses down from ours on the corner of our street. They have great pizza and salad and we walk down there once a week and bring home dinner. There are always a bunch of guys sitting at the bar and we sit and have a beer while we wait for our food and attempt to understand their German while they attempt to understand our German. I am always amused at the abundance of old men oohing and aahing over a baby, they love them some Colin! The statue is near the bakery and close to our house. The bakery is where we walk to and get breakfast stuff or some kind of evil dessert for after dinner. The village is one nearby ours that we were driving through. You come up over this hill and there it is, very pretty.

Random Colin Fun

Colin Fun

The album has some pics I have had on my camera for the last week or so. We bought Colin a kiddie pool that he loves and has been having a ball in. Now we just need the weather to warm back up so he can play in it again! The lolly pop was given to him by the waitress when we went out to dinner last Friday night in our village. The food was amazing. I had some spinach and ravioli things and Shelby had a steak with some special sauce they made for it that was delicious. Shel hates cooked carrots but they made carrots so good he not only tried them, he was fighting Colin and I off them! LOL The waitress corrected everything we said, German is hard to speak!
The pics of Colin in the car seat show off his teeth, he has four up top and three on the bottom now. Colin in the tub...well I don't know what to say about that. I need to post signs on the door like they have at SeaWorld for Shamu..."you are entering the splash zone!"

Busy!

I know, I'm a serious slacker in the blog department lately! Colin was sick and I caught a cold too that turned into a nasty sinus infection and I spent all day Monday sitting at the doctors office trying to be seen. I'm feeling a little better now thankfully. I am finally getting somewhere with this unpacking stuff. I have about 90% of the boxes unpacked and most stuff put away. All that's left is the annoying stuff like hanging pictures and curtains and decorating. Just when I got most of the boxes out of here TMO showed up again this morning to drop off more boxes with all the stuff that was sent over from Korea. Oye! At least it's only a couple of boxes worth of stuff to find a place for.

Aside from unpacking not too much has been going on around here. Shelby works during the day and is trying to get his tower ratings out of the way and then he'll go back to shift work. We've been walking to the bakery in the afternoon when he gets home from work and picking out desserts...this is very, very bad. It's almost impossible to choose when everything looks so good! That bakery is evil! Not too much to report on, just busy busy busy with the unpacking and chasing Colin around.

One Sweet Potato!

Mashed sweet potatoes and cranberries for dinner = F U N!

Finally!

Our House

We found our house and got all the paperwork squared away. One June 3rd our household goods were delivered and we got to officially move in. We still have boxes everywhere and plenty of unpacking to do but most of the furniture is arranged and a few things are put away. The house is great, a little further from the base than we wanted to be but the yard and house totally make up for the few extra minutes of drive time. The dogs are happy to be home and have their huge yard. I took some pics of the house before we moved in with just the furniture inside that came with the house (and a few things we had already brought over from the hotel). I will have to take more once I get everything set up and it looks better.

More importantly, we finally got internet at the house!!!!!! YAY!

Colin went to the doctor again yesterday. He's had a cold since right after we got here and now has a raging ear infection in his left ear and the beginnings of one in the right. Poor guy. He's in to everything now and loving how much room he has to crawl all over. I have to admit I've been very bad at the picture taking since we moved out of the hotel so I don't have any of him to share right now but when he's feeling better and back to happy Colin I will snap some and post.

That's all for now, just a quick post to say we're here and settling in. Still busy with taking care of things, but alive and well :)