Halloween

Gideon in his shorts loving the weather. I suprised him with the camera that is why this look. He was running away from me. :)

Happy Bridger Boy!
Momma enjoying the sunshine too
Our cozy blankets
The beautiful sunset light on the fal trees in the back yard

It was so funny tonight. Joseph just got home from work and we sat down to dinner and then our neighbors called us and asked if we wanted to hand out candy so that they could take their kids trick or treating since we did ours on Wednesday and were not going "OUT" tonight. Well we got to the door and they handed the candy over and we didn't even have time to get the candy out of the packages before we had a CROWD in front of our door. I am saying 50+ people in 5 minutes. The boys each helped grab 2 candies and put them in people's bags. They had a blast. I think they enjoyed that more than actual trick or treating. I have never lived in a neighborhood before and have never experienced such a Trick or teating crowd. The boys loved it and they were able to enjoy the Halloween night with out going out. We handed out $25 worth of candy in $10 minutes. I can only imagine those that go all night how much they spend on candy. Thats a lot of candy. Good Times. I want to do a haunted housse in my garage next year. I bet it would be a hit :)

Gideons primary presentation was today. He was so cute. He didn't want to let go of me after I took him to his seat and so I told him that me adn Bridger would sit at the Organ where he could see us. After he looked comfortable I made eye contact with a sweet German lady to see if i could come sit with her. So I did and could barely see the top of Gideons head but that didn't stop him from waving. His arm was the highest and wanted to make sure Bridger and I knew he was there and that he was enjoying him self. There is this little blonde girl in his class who was getting competitive during the songs. She wanted the spot light so where the sunbeams lean against the stand she would nudge Gideon with her elbows so he would scoot over so she could have more room to smile and sing. It was hillarious. I don't think Gideon even noticed. He did very well and it was fun to see him doing his first program. Thanks to our neighbors for giving us a ride or we would have missed sacrament meeting if we took the shuttle. (the no car thing and no license for me is getting old. We still have our friends car and they are being so kind to let us use it till ours gets here. They are Awesome.:)

Today after church the sun was shining and sadly that is a rarity here so we got home after our nice neighbors gave us a ride and we put blankets out on the back patio in the sunshine and te Halloween candy for a picnic and played in the back yard and watched really big planes take off and land. It was a nice afternoon.

So my attic space is pretty cool and i think I am going to make "my space" up there. It is big enough to put 2-3 craft tables and has plug ins and lights. I think I will make it my sewing, (when I get a sewing maching) craft, scrapbooking and writing room. I am kind of excited about it. A place where I dont need to clean up all my scattered photos during a scrapping project. So that is something I have been thinking about.

Bridger's favorite color right now is PINK. He even gets his pink fork and sings a song "I love pink. It is my favorite color. Oh yes I love pink." It is hillarious. Joseph is a little concerned :) but I told him he's 2 1/2 and just enjoying pink. He has no sisters yet so they don't know that pink means girl :) Gideon even likes getting strawberry shortcake at the library and when daddy told him that it was a girly movie he got his hands in fists and a mean look on his face. Daddy better watch what he says from now on :) LOL!

So I have started a story. I have the main plot line figured out and the order of events so it will be fun to see if I can process it into a story line. It is a fantasy adventure and a little romance. My kind of book :) I am thinking it will be a series but maybe I wont be able to make it that long.

Gideon has been sounding out words and writing the letters on paper. He wrote "Gideon is Good" tonight. It is cute.
Life is good here and we are grateful for the Holiday season to be rolling in. We have so much to be grateful for. Happy November to all of you tomorrow.

Bob the builder and a walk in the woods

There are some woods on base that have jogging trails going through them and so we went on a nature hike yesterday finding some really cool finds. We found "smoking" mushrooms. You know those like dried up mushrooms that when you push on them a green like powder puffs out of them. We collected pinecones, leaves and ferns too. We found a clearing along the way that we sat and had a picnic. It is right next to the fence that has a taxi area for the planes. There was a realy big plane that took off.... a c-5 (that is what Joseph said, He was working the flight line)We just heard it. It definetly sounded big :)






Watching Bob the builder with a workers hat on. I have such cuties. I found this hat at the airmans attic and they enjoy pretending they are Gideon the builder or Bridger the builder. :)

Trunk or Treat

The church had a chilli feed and games with trunk or treating at the end of the night here on base. It was a lot of fun and to meet some more people and to have the kids run around and have some fun. a lot of families had their trunks decorated with lights and decorations. It was cool. Bridger was our little cowboy and Gideon was a cat (cat in the hat) even though we had no hat. I found Bridger's pants and the cat outfit at the airmans attic for FREE so we played around with that and created something for halloween. We still don't have our things so we got a little creative.



I have started trying to get more organised and have a place for things to do projects with the boys. We decorated folders to put things we have accomplished inside and we wrote goals that we are going to work on on a 3x5 notecard and will hopefully check up on how we are doing on a regular basis.


So that is what we have been up to lately.

My week at it's best :)

This is what I found on the table after I slipped upstairs to go pick out what I was going to wear for church. This is 3 different cereal boxes dumped out :( I was at break down point during this time and I started cleaning it up then I thought I need a picture of this so I can laugh at it later. I was doing the opposite of laughing when the picture was being taken but hey Life goes on :)

I then looked behind me and saw this on the wall with a line that looks like mountains going all the way around the room. This has actually happened a few times this week but with washable markers and comes right off. This is colored pencil and my walls are crazy and I can't get it off. So when I can eventually afford paint I'll do just that, "paint" but until then we will enjoy the beautiful art work of Bridger boy :)

This week has been an interesting one. I am starting to see a change in my kids attitudes and how they treat me and eachother and react to different things. It has been waring on me for sure where I have gone through quite a ride my self emotionally this week. I had some inspiration today at church and I am excited to change things up a little. I have decided to make one of our kitchen counter areas a work office and pre-school area. I have put "UP"all the coloring markers adn pencils and paper adn books and am creating a creative space that will be a fun area for the boys to enjoy getting dirty and learning and discovering. I can give them individual attention so I feel like I am winning in some area of my life. So today was a big step in that direction and I changed things around and I am going to make a schedule for this week so we can better prepare and make goals.

I picked up a Young womens personal progress book and decided I am going to do "MY" personal preogress and have a better motivator to help me set goals and stay on track in my life. I want to be an example to my boys of how to set goals and make changes adn learn from our mistakes.

I look forward on getting our heads on straight in our family and work together towards our goals.

My goals at this moment in time.

1) Only spend time on the computer for 1 hour a day when the boys are not awake so i can focus on them.

2) Approach the Book of Mormon like a series of stories and read it from beggining to end

3)Work out on a daily basis and make time for my self before I start the day with my boys.

4) get out of the house daily (even with out a car and even when it is cold) and enjoy going for a walk or playing at the park with my boys.

5)start my personal progress

6) Work on our families needs... FHE, Scripture study, prayers, and working together.

So those are a few for now and hopefuly I can do better this week and my boys can do better and we can smile and laugh instead of crying over spilled cereal :)

History and Info on Burg Eltz

I liked the Air Force influence with the castle. You can see them doing reconstructive surgery :) on the castle. The bottom part with ruin like round pilars there were these big round rocks and I think they would have used these in a catapult against enemy's of the castle. Like in the picture with Bridger trying to pick up one of those balls. Fun Information!


This is what my sister wrote to me....
"The ruins that you were standing in are part of the ramparts which the soldiers and night watchmen would stand at watch. They would shoot arrows out of those angled widows and hopefully not get shot back."

Burg Eltz
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Eltz Castle" redirects here. For the castle in Croatia, see Eltz Manor.
Burg Eltz

medieval castle
location: Wierschem/Germany
date of construction: before 1157
style: mixed, romanesque - baroque
builder: lords von eltz, different branches
owner: counts von und zu eltz
Burg Eltz is a medieval castle nestled in the hills above the Moselle River between Koblenz and Trier, Germany. It is still owned by a branch of the same family that lived there in the 12th century, 33 generations ago. The Rübenach and Rodendorf families' homes in the castle are open to the public, while the Kempenich branch of the family uses the other third of the castle.

The castle is surrounded on three sides by the Elzbach River, a tributary on the north side of the Moselle. It is situated on a 70m rock spur, on an important Roman trade route between the rich farm lands and their markets.

The castle is a so called Ganerbenburg (castle belonging to a community of joint heirs). This is a castle, divided into several parts, which belong to different families or different branches of a family; this usually occurs when multiple owners of one or more territories jointly build a castle to house themselves. Only a very rich medieval European lord could afford to build a castle on his land; many of them only owned one village, or even only a part of a village. This was an insufficient base to afford a castle. Such lords lived in a knight's house, which was a simple house, scarcely bigger than those of his tenants. In some parts of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, inheritance law required that the estate be divided between all successors. These successors, each of whose individual inheritance was too small to build a castle of his own, could build a castle together, where each owned one separate part for housing and all of them together shared the defensive fortification. In case of Burg Eltz the family comprised three branches and the existing castle was enhanced with three separate complexes of buildings.
The main part of the castle consists of the family portions. At up to eight stories, these eight towers reach heights of between 30 and 40 meters. They are fortified with strong exterior walls; to the yard they present a partial framework. About 100 members of the owners' families lived in the over 100 rooms of the castle.
Platteltz, a romanesque keep, is the oldest part of the castle. In 1472 the Rübenach house, built in the late Gothic style was completed. Remarkable are the Rübenach Lower Hall, a living room, and the Rübenach bedchamber with its opulently-decorated walls.
Between 1490 and 1540 the Rodendorf house was constructed, also in late Gothic style. It contains the vaulted "banner-room".
The Kempenich houses were finished about 1530. Every room of this part of the castle could be heated; in contrast, other castles might only have one or two heated rooms.

The starting events of Le Feu de Wotan, a Belgian bande dessinée in the Yoko Tsuno series, take place in Burg Eltz.

Burg Eltz

(this photo is from the internet....No crane and construction.... Pretty!)

Our first official Family Outing here in Germany. We headed to the Castle nearest us called Burg Eltz. Eltz is the family name and Burg means castle. It takes about an hour to get there and it was a fun experience. We had forgotten to get Euro's back on base and so we were probably 10 minutes away and needed to find a bank so I stopped at a gas station and asked the lady, sprechen sie englisch? She held her fingers up in a "very little" kind of way so I said Bank money?? And she drew directions on a paper and with one more lady telling us it was across the river we finally found it. Kinda funny that took us a little over an hour to do. :)

Then it was off to the castle. We parked the (friends) car and hiked down a trail for about 25 minutes till we made it to Burg Eltz. It was really cool. It cost us 18 euro to have a tour and then when we got lunch for 2 things of fries and 2 fried sausages and 2 small glasses of pop cost us 14 Euro which is over 16 dollars in American money. Now we know that we will make sure and pack lunches next time. ;) Things are quite expensive here in Germany from what I have heard and some that I have seen. I went to a second hand store and everything is "high" priced for me who is cheap. So we will see how that goes.

So inside the castle we saw paintings, Finnish Tapestries, armor, swords, guns, Jewlery, beds, chairs, engravings that date back to the renaissance in the 1500's. It was amazing to know you were looking at original hundreds of year old things. Things that I thought were pretty interesting was the Contess' room which had paintings of as young as 13 months old babys to 8 year old children in fine clothes, wigs, armor and beyond. It was like they painted an adults body and put the childs head on it so they would appear the way the parents wanted them to be then what they really were. It was kinda crazy. There was also a little tiny loft stairs off of the bedroom which was the nurses room who took care of the children because the women didn't back then.... Sad.

Anyway, It was a really neat experience to get out today together and experience a piece of history and natures Beauty. It was a very good day. Goal in future to pay less for lunch. :)