Wordless Wednesday

Finally the Dino Park is Open!

Gartenschau Opening 2011

April 1st the Gartenschau in Kaiserslautern opened for the season and Colin and I couldn't have been more excited. Yesterday the sun was shining, it got up to (gasp!) 70 degrees and, dare I say it, it was HOT! It was a perfect beautiful day so we packed a picnic lunch and headed to the park to buy our season pass, because we will spend a lot of time there this season before they close the doors again on October 31st. Colin was excited about seeing all the dinosaurs and playing on the numerous playgrounds. Of course the biggest hit was the sand area, I hate sand! But, Colin loves it so he played there digging and dumping for a long time.

There is a huge play area with a GIANT tower that has probably 100 stairs to climb to reach the top and there are about 5 different slides coming off it at various heights. Colin of course went straight for the top and I thought surely he won't come down, he'll get up there and chicken out like usual...he can be a little scared when it comes to slides. Apparently that fear is history because he sailed down the slide squealing and laughing all the way and when he shot out the end I think a few German moms choked on their seltzer water. He was a little small for it probably, but he loved it and as soon as he got off it he ran up and did it again, and again, and again. He spent a good 30+ minutes climbing stairs and sliding down the huge slide.

We ate lunch and watched kids play, did a little swinging and some rock climbing and after a few hours it was time to head back home so we could go to a party at the neighbor's house. Before we left we bought some ice cream at the park, which Colin was very excited about. The eis stand in our village just opened up a weekend or two ago and we've only been over there for a visit once, so ice cream is still a big novelty so far this season.

The Gartenschau is a big garden park that also has a ton of playgrounds, dinosaur exhibits and water/creeks to play in. It would be a great park even without the flowers, but the flower displays are fantastic. The grounds are beautiful and there is also a big indoor exhibition hall that they change out the displays in seasonally. Right now it is all done up for Easter and it was really pretty with all the bulbs and springtime flowers, Easter eggs and rabbits. The Germans are really big on Easter, in fact the Easter Bunny idea originated here and decorating eggs and all is popular here. Most German homes have an Oster Baum, or Easter tree, in their home that is decorated with eggs. I loved the ones in the garden hall exhibit, so pretty! I would have liked to have snapped some more pictures, but Colin was far more interested in getting outside to the dinosaurs than he was in the Easter decorations. Oh well...

Wordless Wednesday

Hurricane Colin

Just another Sunday morning at our house. The room was clean when he started, it didn't take long for him to trash the room. He started off building at the tool bench and playing with his tools. Then he played with cars for a while and after that he decided he wanted something from the toy box. I have no idea what it was, but apparently it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay down in there. He got IN the box and threw every toy out one by one.

He was pretty good about helping pick it all up when he was done though. Especially since I told him we needed to vacuum the floors and he could do it, he loves to vacuum!

Wordless Wednesday

Thaaaaaat's Elmooooooo's Sooooooooong!

I made the mistake of putting some "Colin Music" on my mp3 player for car rides. I got a Sesame Street collection with some Elmo and Cookie Monster songs he would know and also this song called Sticks and Stones from the How to Train Your Dragon movie, one of his alltime favorites.

It is not a typical kid movie type song, so I am surprised he loves it so much...but he does. He begs for it over and over and over in the car.

Today on our car ride it was all about Elmo. I no more started the engine when he asked for it, and the second he finished belting out the last note he demanded I start it again. Today I totally regret choosing to live so far away from the damn base. I also totally regret putting kid music on my mp3 player. My car rides were so much more enjoyable when he didn't know there was anything better than "Mommy music" out there. He was singing his little heart out today and I couldn't help but laugh. I also couldn't help but record it. As cute as it sounds now, just imagine it on repeat for 30 solid minutes. Any idea just how many times you can listen to Elmo's Song during a 30 minute car ride? 17 to be exact.




Yep, he's totally picking his nose while singing in the last video...sigh.

Privacy Please!

I was getting ready to take Colin for a haircut and to run some errands and he wandered upstairs to see what I was doing. I wasn't exciting enough for him so he went into his room to play. When I was done getting ready I went to his room to get him dressed and found him like this...

He had pulled out the bins in his toy shelf and turned it into a port-o-potty. He was in there happily hiding and pooping. As you can see, he was slightly perturbed at my snapping pics of him and interrupting his business.


I was finally able to coax a smile out of him in the end...

Wordless Wednesday

Playing catch up

Scroll down to March 5 for pics of our zoo trip I just got around to posting. They are below last week's Wordless Wednesday :)

The Fun Never Stops...

I had arranged for a sitter to come and watch Colin while I went to a friend's birthday lunch. I had gone upstairs to get myself dressed and ready while Colin played downstairs with his dinosaurs and watched a movie. Or so I thought that's what he was doing. I am half dressed when I hear a crash, followed by crying and I race downstairs to see what he's done. This is what I found...

Well actually, he was underneath the cage a bit more than in this photo, but after making sure that both he and the rabbit were ok I told him to stay there and ran to grab my camera. He didn't stay exactly where he was, but you get the idea.

He was pretty shaken up, I think it scared him. Well I hope it scared him anyway, so badly that he doesn't try to get the cage down again. Then the cage fell off the chair and what little bit of mess that had managed to stay inside the cage was now on the floor with the rest of the cage contents. The rabbit was just fine through all this.