Playing Catch Up

I forgot - we checked out the Dinosaur Park in Kaiserslautern a few days ago. It was basically the coolest park I've ever been to, EVER. There are giant, life-sized dino statues all over the place, plus half a dozen different little parks with swings and ropes and slides and water playthings, and flowers - oh my gosh, the flowers - that made the whole parks smell amazing!



So Danny and Bill Sr. (Will's dad and brother) are finally here! After a lunch of tasty doner kebaps from our local shop, we visisted Schloss Nanstein, the gorgeous castle ruins in Landstuhl. Will had a great time messing around with his new tripod and remote control camera shutter, so we have plenty of random pictures :) Tonight we're just relaxing, but we've got a fun day planned for tomorrow!

What a Loooong Day

Okay, the last few days are mostly a blur, but I'll see if I can sort them out...

Friday night was dinner at my friend Deborah's house. Her three girls remind me of my sisters and I, if we liked each other more :) Logan, her youngest, is great friends with Joe and Ella - they're all so darn cute together!

We made snickerdoodles (they were awesome - props to Alyshia) and grilled out. The kiddos picnic'd in the yard and rubbed chicken all over their faces, from the look of things.

So after dinner, we headed over to Lana's (have you met my friend Lana?) to see how she was doing getting ready for her mom to come visit in the morning. She was a tad panicked about driving all the way to Frankfurt airport by herself in the dark, so we had a bit of an impromptu sleepover so I could drive with her.
Three hours after we finally went to bed (they have a super comfy couch) we woke up to drive the hour in the dark, through a city to the airport, got lost parking, got lost finding the terminal, finally found her mom, couldn't get back to the car... it was a very long morning.

So I gather up my kids and zoom home. I get the rum cake in the oven, shower and dress everyone for our egg hunt while it's baking, stuff Easter eggs while it's cooling, throw everything in the car and head out to our Easter BBQ at Kathleen's house :)

There was a fantastic lunch - a full grill-out, and tons of sides and desserts provided by the guests. After we all stuffed ourselves, we dyed eggs (I know what you're thinking, but it actually worked out really well!) and had a spoon race, which Joseph won!

And finally, the main event - the Egg Hunt! Easily two hundred eggs were hidden in Kathleen's yard, and when we ran out of hiding spaces, the balance was just tossed on the grass. It really did look like the Easter Bunny threw up back there. Everyone got about a bazillion eggs and had a blast - my kiddos were so tired when we left :)

We picked up groceries on the way home, and Jamie dropped our little friend Aidan off to spend the night, so that she and her husband can volunteer with Airmen Against Drunk Driving (AADD), an organization that puts soldier volunteers to work picking up intoxicated soldiers in the local area and returning them to the barracks in one piece :) Between calls, you get to hang out in the lounge, playing video games, watching tv and chillin' with the other volunteers - all in all, not a bad way to spend a Saturday night.

So here I sit, exhausted, looking forward to a relaxing day of... doing absolutely nothing at all :)

Pools & Pizza

Oh man, today was a great day!

We met Lana and Deb at the pool today for some swim time - after everything that's happened in the last week, I just needed to spend some time with my close friends. It was awesome! The kids love to swim there, because it has a slide and a little kiddie climbing thing. And I got to float in the water with Nana, Lana's baby, which was nice :) Poor thing was so sleepy, I thought she was going to fall asleep right there in the water.

Then a few friends came over for pizza and playtime, and we spent several hours chatting it up and hanging out, enjoying each others' company. Even a couple of husbands came, so Will got to meet some guys and hang out, too.

And best of all, Ella stayed dry in her big girl panties ALL DAY! She had one little accident when her friend was here tonight, and I think it was because she got so caught up playing that she forgot she wasn't wearing a diaper. She was dry all night, and even in the car today - I'm so proud of her! She was very, very upset when daddy forgot and put a pull-up on her at bedtime, but we fixed it :)

*sigh* So today was great. And we might go swimming again tomorrow, just for fun... who knows?