Happy early birthday to me!

So it's a little wierd posting about my own birthday, but I figured Zach went to all the work to make the cake that I should. My birthday is officially on Friday, but because we will be stuffed from eating all day Thursday we figured we might as well have cake early! So Zach set to work last night and after letting it cool outside he was able to frost it and decorate it. The kids helped and then they had me close my eyes to wait to see the finished masterpiece! Pretty soon I hear a little musical thing playing happy birthday. It was a candle he had bought at the commisary. They sang happy birthday to me then we enjoyed the cake! It turned out really good! Zach bought a german chocolate cake mix and the frosting to go with it. Very yummy!

Now I don't get presents this year because Zach and I are going to Paris with some friends Sunday, Monday and Tuesday next week. I figured that was enough to cover both anniversary and birthday! Well I said Christmas too, but Zach went and bought me some presents anyway! He doesn't listen very well! It was a fun night, oh and the flowers he bought me for our anniversary. It was suppposed to be 10 white roses and one blue, but they gave us 11 white roses. They are very pretty and smell so good! Usually he gets me different colored ones, each color representing something, but this year he decided to change it up a bit. And he cleaned our room! I mean cleaned it good so I consider that to be a present as well! He dusted, reorganized, vacuumed and it looks great. I guess I was complaining about not having one spot ion the house I could enjoy being clean for more than ten minutes so he decided to make our room that spot! He really does try and that's why I love him!

It's officially winter because it's cold!

Tyler asked me the other day if his birthday was in the winter and I replied yes it is. He says no mom it isn't becuase winter doesn't start until December 21. You got me there Tyler! But it is COLD and we've had snow so who cares what the calendar says I say it's winter! I really can't beleive he is almost 10 years old! Man where did the time go?

Girls night out!

It has been a long time, four years to be exact since I have been on a girls night out. I had heard so much about the Twilight series, but at the time I had three classes going and just felt if I got into the books homework would suffer. Since I finished my classes up a week or so ago I tried to get ahold the first book, Twilight, which proved to be much more difficult then expected. The library had a waiting list a mile long and everyone that had a copy had loaned it out. I heard a movie was coming out and about was invited for a girls night out to see it. Well I still hadn't read the first book so didn't want to spoil it by seeing the movie.

Wednesday I was at the BX and there it was, Twilight, on the shelf! I bought it immediately and by Thursday at noon had read the whole thing! It was a really good book just as everyone had said. So I got in last minute on the girls night out which started out at about 10 people and grew to around 30! We headed to the 10:30 showing which ended up starting about 30 minutes late. It was packed! It was so much fun though!

As with any good book, a movie is not long enough or able to capture every detail. To me that's what makes reading so much fun! A lot is left to your own imagination. The movie was still good in my opinion and I look forward to the next one. Now I am hunting down book two. The first book had a sneak peek to book two so I have read the first chapter, but that is just not enough!

It snowed!

The kids were excited when it started snowing on the way home from school yesterday. That little freak storm didn't last long, but this morning we woke to a decent blanket of snow. Cody asked for gloves and a hat and was out the door! Tyler and Ryan followed and they did their best to make snowman out of the little snow they could gather. Then Tyler put it on the baseball tee and well.....no more snowman! The kids had fun, but now the snow is melted for the most part. It is really cold which I could do without! Snow is not much fun for us after living in Alaska! Maybe someday we will live somewhere we can build a decent snowman or even feel the cost of boots and snow pants is worth it!

Auto Technik Museum

Tuesday the kids didn't have school so we decided to venture out to an airplance museum about an hour away. It actually has way more than just airplanes. There are cars, trains, motorcylces, baby carriages, player pianos, tanks, and the list goes on and on and on! There is a nice park for the kids to play at, a few restaraunts and some little rides like go carts as well. They have a Concorde and a few other airplanes outside that you can climb up into. That was really fun although it started raining so we were got pretty wet! There is a slide from the DC-3 that Zach, Tyler and Ryan went down. Cody was too scared so I had to walk back out in the rain to take him in the building. There were interactive things all over that the kids loved, Cody's favorite being the trainset. The museum has an IMAX theater too, but the lady said Cody was too young and he would have been scared since it is 3D. There is an extension to this museum that we want to go see. It has a 747 that you can go up in, more cars and other stuff. It was a fun day and I think the kids really enjoyed it.

Honoring our veterans!

Today is a day to honor those who have sacrificed and served our country. We have done bits of traveling around Europe, but some of my most memorable times and trips I look forward to are when we go to an American cemetery. They are so peaceful and beautiful. The rows of white crosses are perfect and the whole area is so well kept! At St. Avold there are several instances where brothers lay side by side, one instance where five brothers are in a row. Great care was taken to ensure these veterans were properly buried and taken care of. And they more than deserve it!

Unfortunately today I found out that one of my heros and a veteran is in the hospital and not doing very well. My grandfather, a farm boy from Kansas, served in WWII. He used to tell the funniest stories about the time he was in the army among other stories from when he was growing up like the time he and some friends decided to steal watermelons from a nearby field. They got caught! I have not seen my grandpa for over two years, but I can still hear his laugh and see his smile when something amuses him. He is the most generous person I know, always taking care of everyone else.

This new has made me forget my initial post plan. I just hope our remembrance and honor for those that have served and sacrificed is not limited to today. Remember the ones we lost, serve and help the ones that are still alive! We owe it to them!

Beethoven's House!

I almost forgot we went to Bonn after Koln and checked our where Beethoven was born. Afterall we saw Mozart's so why not Beethoven! You couldn't take pictures inside, but we toured the house, saw his pianos, violins, original scores of music. It was really interesting. After the house tour and the workers watching my boys like a hawk! we saw a digital light show type thing. It was fun, but I couldn't keep the 3D glasses on. Part of my antibiotic is no contacts so I had my glasses on and it gave me a headache to wear those and the 3D. The kids had fun and got to manipulate where the characters were. When they would get close Cody and Ryan kept trying to touch them. We stopped at a little bakery afterwards for a snack before heading home. I think the boys had fun even though they had no idea who Beethoven was.