It's beginning to look a lot like spring...

Tuneee aka Tuna has a new boyfriend...well actually, Mr. Sniffles is pursuing Tuna and Tuna plays hard to get...even though Mr. Sniffles put on his best bow tie here to go with his tux! ;)

Hard to believe it's been two weeks already since Soldier left.

These days are filled with baseball practices and games, studying for finals, writing research papers, answering emails for holistic care, homeschooling, piano lessons mon-thurs now, book club, knit club....Oh it seems sometimes I don't have enough time to breathe.  Where oh where went my simple life! Gotta find that again!

Yesterday I took a short break from studying finals...it was an absolutely gorgeous day in Germany...my friend came to pick me up in her topless VW and we cruised around town, enjoying the sun on our faces and wind in our hair, a sushi lunch, and walking downtown.

 Aren't friends a wonderful thing???? 

They make the smallest things

seem so much more fun and beautiful

when shared together!

Take care xo

Aubrey

Traveling & baseball

Soldier left for another deployment...and my little soldiers and I are plucking along here in Germany.

Here is the link to our trip to Krakow, Poland.

Is it Spring there yet? It still feels like winter here.

The only thing that feels like spring is baseball season! We played our first games yesterday! Haleigh and Genevieve won their first game of the season!

My boys playing for Ansbach Blue Jays.

checking in…

 

Excuse me for not blogging…  We are preparing for deployment no. 2….and we just got back from Krakow, Poland!!

I will post a note soon about our trip.

 

Aubrey xo

Bonjour

 

Amis du matin de bonnes! “Good Morning Friends!”

My secret obsession in the kitchen…..cooking to french café music!  Everything smells better, taste yummier, and the morning is cheerier! Try and see if it's not true!!! :)

Here’s a video to start your morning off with…..

 

 

 

Bonne Journee!!

Aubrey xo

Another bend in the road….

 

Deployment #2 snuck up on us!  I hardly find time to do anything extra which would include keeping up with my blogs.  Don’t worry I will have many husbandless hours to pour over blogs too soon.

My days are spent making lists, checking off lists, keeping emotions and worries in check, trying to keep life as normal as possible…  What is normal?

Celebrated my daughter’s 12th birthday and my soldier’s birthday this last month.

I get asked all the time how I deal with deployment…actually was asked that tonight at a bbq .  I don’t know what to say….you just do it…you deal with it…I don’t spend my days counting down the calendar, crying myself to sleep, worrying myself sick.  It’s another adventure, a new chapter, a growing period….I was actually rediculed for planning trips while my hubby is gone!!  This person told me she would never “vacation” while her hubby is gone…she stays home and …..I might add stays depressed! 

My soldier needs to focus on his job, his mission….not worry about his wife and kids falling apart at home because he’s not there.  It gives him sanity, peace of mind, and confidence while he’s away from home….knowing his wife and kids are still living life to the fullest, taking care of home, and supporting him. My kids are going to handle deployment about as well as their mom is….they are less likely to be scared or worried…if mom is not falling apart and quitting life.  We pray for dad and write lots of letters and send packages….but we still live and love life.  We stay busy….we are welcoming summer with fun adventures around Europe, meeting new people, learning new languages, and exploring a whole new world.  Yes we will have sad moments…lonely nights…we will miss him very much….but we will not let this be our focus nor let it bring us down.  We just live life a little differently than others….we cherish every day, every hour we have with him while we do…we get a little more excited about little things, we count how many birthdays, sundays, and holidays dad WILL be here with us, we sleep and shower with our cell phones…and sometimes we do weird things like shower with His shower gel or wait six months into deployment to wash his dirty clothes he left…I told you it was weird. :)

I didn’t intend to blog about this…don’t know where I was going with this…but there I’ve said it :)

What’s going on in your corner of the world? 

 

Aubrey xo

Ireland Day 4

The last post of our lovely trip to beautiful Ireland, scroll down to read the last three posts of our journey! :)

Day with no agenda…we grabbed a map and headed for the countryside.  Our first stop was a cutsy little town called Skerries…little town right on the beach! A beach with sand!

In Skerries, it appeared that no one had an agenda…no certain place to go…and it was an ordinary Thursday where everyone was walking a baby or a dog.  We were greeted with “top o’ the morning to ya”, and “Cheers!” Which we soon learned is a typical Irish greeting/goodbye.  And all the gentlemen wore those adorable plaid, tweed hats. In Skerries, folks like to ride bikes like these with big lovely baskets of fresh produce and fish from the markets….sometimes flowers as there was an abundance of flower shops!

You can’t visit Skerries without going  to visit their beautiful ole’ windmills. This windmill was built in 1500. It operated until the early 1900’s.  12 Euro will fetch you a guide and a tour inside this windmill and another one built in the 1900’s.

I know this looks just like a postcard….but I was here!

We headed for the country…stopping to snap a quick photo of this enormous field of Daffodils.

We headed up to Drogheda.

I felt really bad for taking their photo after having the best lamb stew ever!

We ate said lamb stew here…

Heading to Newgrange…

Malahide castle…right down the road from our B&B!

Happy St Patrick’s Day!!

I hope you enjoyed your “tour” through Ireland

Ireland Day 3

Day 3 we got up super early and drove to Port Marnock to park and catch the DART(Dublin Area Rapid Transit) to Dublin.  Take the DART…it’s the cheapest and easiest way to get to and from Dublin and most of the villages surrounding it. I think our tickets were 7 euro to and from Dublin.  Taxi’s in Dublin will run you 20 Euro and buses are a little more than the train.  It only cost us 3 euro to park our car all day at the Port Marnock station.  We walked to the Dublin tourism office about 5 blocks away to board the bus, Wild Wicklow Tours.  I did a lot of research to find the perfect tour to Wicklow.  This one offered the best customer reviews via Tripadvisor.  I really wanted the Irishman, Stephen, after hearing all the wonderful comments about him.  Well guess who was our tour guide, Mr. Stephen!  He was as good as they all claimed him to be, super funny, knew his history, people, and culture and shared it all with us.  It was an eight hour tour with many stops, to include a hike.  We started with a tour around Dublin. We were shown a few places where Bono and a other celebrities lived on the south side of Dublin. We then headed to Sandy Cove.

The old stone tower you see in the back of the photo was a watch tower. There are several along the coast of Ireland.  They thought or heard Napolean planned to attack and built these towers to watch for him.

We headed to Wicklow National Park from here.

On the way to Wicklow we stopped to eat at the highest village in Ireland, Roundwood.  They had beautiful Sequoia trees everywhere.

Actually we stopped at Avoca Handweavers first…I loved that store. We bought a coffee and snack here.  Their pastries were so amazing I bought their Tea Time cookbook!

We stopped in Roundwood for lunch and shopping! I bought some celtic music and crafts here.

Passed these sheep with graffiti on the way to wicklow! They spray paint the sheep!  bwahahaha…one color is to identify the farmer it belongs to, and the other color to identify male or female!

Next stop was Guinness Lake! Because they said it’s shaped like a pint of guinness?  I think they had too many pints when they named it! Nevertheless, it is a beautiful lake.

Many films were made in this area of the Wicklow mountains to include, Excalibur, Braveheart, PS. I love you, Saving Private Ryan.  The bridges and road in the photo below were used many times in films. Not hard to imagine considering the beauty of this land.

Next stop was Glendalough…I was truly spellbound by it’s beauty and it was exactly what I envisioned Ireland to be.  Glendalough is pronounced Gleann Dá Loch, which means valley of two lakes. Which we actually hiked to during this stop!  It is the oldest monastary in Ireland. You can read about it here.

 

Entrance into the Monastary.

Photo of Glendalough’s round tower, a place of refuge for the monks, storage, and used as a landmark.

 

The oldest headstone is said to be dated at 1500 years.

Inside the remains of the cathedral.

hiking up to the upper lake of Glendalough

Dublin…

Back to Dublin at the end of the tour…& the infamous Trinity College!

And here is Trinity College lit up a night for St Patrick’s Day.

I did not take photos of the place we ate at…but we had Irish burgers and Brown Sauce…that’s what they call it…I think it’s a twist between ketchup and bbq sauce…they love it in Ireland and pretty much put it on everything. I loved it!

Cheers!