12 Days of Christmas on the Splendida

This year we spent our Christmas holiday aboard the MSC Splendida for the 12 Days of Christmas cruise. We left for Genoa, Italy in the EARLY (2:30 am to be exact) morning hours on December 16th. The drive wasn't too bad until we ran into snow in Switzerland....we were worried this would happen since we have been getting a TON of snow!! Most importantly, we made it to the port in time for our first cruise as a family and we LOVED it!!

Our room (9055) shared with Jacque and Ian....

Colton, Lauren, and Sarah stayed in this room (9045) across the hall.
A bunk bed was pulled down from the ceiling each night so there were enough beds.

One of the pool decks....

Music played everywhere on the ship....

The kids loved the jeweled steps....

Stay tuned for our first port of call!

Smoothy mess = upgraded surprise

I've been wanting an upgraded camera for a while now, but just couldn't justify purchasing one since I had a perfectly good camera. I finally have a NEED for one thanks to Jacque! I had been taking pictures not too long ago. I sat my camera down in the kitchen while I was making a smoothy (mistake #1). I had just put all of the ingredients away (mistake #2 turning back on 4 yr old) when I hear the blender turn on.....yes, Jacque turned it on without the lid. There was a mess everywhere including all over my camera. I cleaned it up as much as I could and it worked ok for a little while, well until now. It is practically impossible to turn the camera on....grrr!

My husband bought me this last night.......

The Canon 60D!

I LOVE it even though it is more camera that I even know how to use right now! I preordered a book last night that will hopefully help me get the most use out of this camera.

THANK YOU Babe......you are the best!

September is FULL of festivals in practically every Village.

They are basically mini Oktoberfests that are just a little bit closer than Munich!

I met up with a few friends and we ventured off to a local festival!
First stop was food and entertainment....

We had bratwursts and a few baguettes.
No pictures as we were busy eating!!!

We stopped here.....

All of the girls in the group got a braid.

Here is Lauren & Sarah's...

Then off to the rides!

I love these festivals!!

Soon it will be Weihnachtsmarkt season which I LOVE!!!

Pumpkins & more....

We went to a pumpkin patch today so the kids could pick out their pumpkins.

We arrived just in time to take a ride up to the family farm.....

There were all kinds of animals to pet.....

...and hold, catch, chase
Ian was so excited when another tractor drove by....
Here are the kids before I set them free in the pumpkin patch....
And they are off...
Does this pumpkin patch look a little strange??

Notice that slope??

Well, It was pretty steep!

I put a pumpkin down to take a picture of Ian
and it began to roll VERY quickly!
Yes, I took my almost 2 year old out with an out of control pumpkin.
No picture of him laying on the ground, but here he is soon after!

Ian found a hole as we were lugging the pumpkins up to the scale
and thought it was a great place to sit!
...and our final stop before heading home

Missoula Children's Theater presents.....

Beauty Lou and the Country Beast

The play features Beauty Lou and her 6 sisters, her imaginary friend, her dog Fleabite Clyde, farmhands Slim and Dusty, the neighborly Country Folk, and the Barnyard Critters. It was a western adaptation of the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast.

Sister Bobbie Jo....
Sheep Sarah....
All of the sisters....
...and Critters

The entire cast....

The Missoula Children's Theater visited Baumholder this week. The program was offered free of charge for children in 1st-12th grade. They practiced 4 hours a day for 5 days to prepare for 2 one hour shows today. They did an excellent job, especially in such a short time!

The Missoula Children's Theater began 40 years ago. They are traveling to all 50 states and 17 countries this year.....that is 65,000 children in 1,200 communities!! The girls had a wonderful time and I think got over their stage fright:)

A fun afternoon pick'n blueberries.......

We made some time for blueberry pick'n while we were still in Florida. We loaded up the kids and drove to the fields off of County Line Rd. The blueberries were delicious! No one could resist eating a few, well maybe more than a few, of the warm berries as we were picking!

We put Ian in the stroller so we could keep track of him

as we were all concentrating so hard on finding the BEST berries.

He found a way to get in on the action though.....

We should have went earlier in the day because it was HOT and HUMID by the time we arrived in the afternoon. Oh well, we still managed to pick a bucket of berries and the kids had a great time!

My husband can't resist hot boiled peanuts!

We stopped at a roadside stand to get a couple of bags.
Colton and JC placed their orders.....

We just can't get these in Germany!
They were DELICIOUS.

First Hair Cut and Pay it Forward

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Mickey's Barber shop used to be regular stop when we lived in Florida. It has been around for what seems like forever. It is not fancy, but has friendly barbers that give great haircuts! We had to stop by so Ian could get his first haircut at Mickey's.

He did quite well.......well, the lollipop may have helped!

Mickey is such a nice guy that he didn't charge us for Ian's haircut. As we were leaving, a kid came in to get his haircut for his graduation that evening. He asked if they take credit cards. They don't, so the kid was going to leave. Mike, Mickey's son and also a barber, told him he could just bring the money back later and he'd cut his hair now so it was done for graduation. The kid said he would be charged a fee ($1.50) at the ATM machine and he didn't want to pay so he was just going to leave. So, my husband gave the kid the $10 he was going to use to pay for Ian's haircut and said consider it a graduation present. The look on the kid's face was PRICELESS!

The BEST sweet corn around!

We were in Florida not too long ago and were able to stop by Frazier Farms in Brooksville, our hometown. They have the BEST sweet corn around!!

They also sell glasses of ice cold sweet tea and lemonade....

The kids had a great time picking out out the corn, but it was more fun eating it!!