John + Leslie

Today we celebrated our 6th year wedding anniversary and I have to say that each year has truly been amazing! And the years are just flying right on by! I love my husband so much and I'm glad I can call him my best friend. :) I really am blessed!

We finally found a babysitter here in Frankfurt and jumped at the opportunity to ride the train downtown and have dinner together ALONE! It's been a way overdue date for sure! We ate at a restaurant called Louisiana and had Starbucks hot chocolates on the way back home after we got some walking in.

As a gift to each other, we booked a family trip to Edelweiss in Garmisch for the weekend! So much fun and will blog about that soon.

"Happy Anniversary babe! I love you and look forward to many more memories together!"

Aubrey Turns TWELVE!

{October 12, 2011}

On this 12th day of October, we woke up to wish and sing Aubrey "Happy Birthday," who is (drum-roll please.....) 12 YEARS OLD today!!!! My oh my do we now have one sweet and amazing young woman (and yes, every few seconds, we have the tween attitude mixed in between the loveliness! Just in case you were wondering)! ;) 

Has it REALLY been 12 years, already??? They really do grow up in a blink of an eye, don't they! She's one smart cookie, loves school, loves to read, plays the flute this year in school - her first year taking band, she's enjoying her 7th grade math class in the 6th grade, she loves her sister and brothers and they, in turn, look up to their big sis, she's almost as tall as her mama (shhh!! i'm still deciding to be in denial about that one!), loves her old and new friends, loves Harry Potter, loves drawing and making things, and in between all the ignoring, stomping and eye rolling, she's helpful and loving! 

We love you, Aubrey Kaye! You are so special to us and we love you soooooo much! Thank you for being you and I can't tell you enough how lucky I am to be your mother! 

Happy 12th Birthday, sweetie! xoxo

Two months ago, we moved to Germany and still two months later, finding good friends has been a struggle. We kept this a simple celebration - to honor her special day and shower her with our love! After doing some homework, we made her homemade bbq chicken pizza for her birthday dinner (I always let them pick), followed by some yummy strawberry and vanilla cake and then present time!

TWELVE!! Already? I still can't believe it!!!

Such a beautiful girl, she is!

Had to get a picture of noisy Landon - he was getting pretty impatient sitting in his chair with no cake and no presents to open :)

Can NEVER go wrong with some books!

And what are siblings for if they aren't stinkers, right?

"Hmmm....what could it be!!!"

While at a shop last month, she spotted a pretty pink scarf she really wanted. I told her, "sorry, maybe another time" and asked her to go meet up with her Dad and the other kids so I could pay for what we went there to get. When actually, I was shoeing her outside so I could sneak and pay for what would be one of her birthday presents. I felt bad telling her no. She looked SO sad! But it totally was worth the look on her face here as she opened it and discovered the scarf she so desperately wanted! Gotchya, missy!!!!! LOVE surprises! :)

Oh yes! Another "surprise!" We wrapped up her gift in what was once the box that held Andrew's tennis shoes. So she figured out right away that with the box being a bit on the smallish size, that they definitely weren't shoes for her. So we told her to keep going and open up the box to see...

her 1st Ipod Touch!!!!

Just a little excited! :)

*And this birthday marks the last birthday of hers in the books under the official teen years! YIKES!!!! 

Next year, this tween will be a TEEN!

Okay, okay, I'm going to stop thinking about that for now. :)

I'm so thankful for my Aubrey!

Love you!!!!

Ronneburg

Our family took a trip to explore a nearby town with some friends called Ronneburg. This town also happens to have a castle, which was built in the 13th century - marking 775 years ago this year. It took us all but 45 minutes to get there and this weekend they were hosting a huge medieval festival. And it was pretty funny to be parked next to our friends - just imagine 2 U.S. cars (two Virginia plates to be exact) parked side by side in a field of European cars. :)

A lot of people arrived dressed up in medieval customes. We walked around for awhile, bought some yummy pretzels (with euros of course!), saw great views from the top tower of far off Frankfurt and other towns after a somewhat frightening climb, as well as views of hot air balloons riding in the distance. We're still trying to erase from our memory the images of nude people soaking in a washbin as we were walking around the various venders outside of the castle. Things you don't normally see happening from where we're from but, hey, we're claiming it as another European experience! :) We ushered the kids past there pretty quickly to say the least!

But all in all, it was a fun afternoon! We managed to also run into a few friends from our neighborhood in the midst of our wanderings around the castle. It's always nice seeing familiar faces here in Germany. We also took this trip to venture out on one of the last beautiful days here. In just a few short days from now, long go the nice 70 degree weather and in comes the beginnings of Fall and Winter. I believe the kids had a good time, although there's usually LOTS of walking involved when we go somewhere in Europe which is not their favorite thing to do, but it's neat to go see the places we've only read about! It's so beautiful here anyways!! So walking we will continue doing! :)

{View of the town from our parking space}

{You can see the city of Frankfurt FAR off in the distance...}