fair warning, this is a long, one... we've had an awesome weekend! so, we got my birthday package from my family and there was these pretty dresses that my girls love playing in! they are a bit big for kaylee but she enjoys them just the same..
thanks to my mummy! i finally got some of those nice Lacey frilly tank tops and t-shirts and I'm finally fashionable!!..... :) .....any who, i got a few of them, the white one is just an example...:)
see? pretty! anywho, Cory decided to take some time off and we spent a night camping..yes it was just one night, it was the girls first time camping, and we didn't wasn't to overload them.,..as it was the spot munched because we were literally surrounded by stinging nettle... Cory has my gratitude (and sympathy...) for finding that out for us.. :)..i little mud fixed it right up though don't worry..
anywho, we had 2 tents a littler one for the girls and a bigger one for the adults.. our dear friend Merritt came with us and her 2 kids, so it was the 3 girls in the small tent and us 3 adults and her baby boy rulon in the big tent... we had lots of fun!
Cory's such a good scout! setting up tents, finding a field of stinging nettles, and making lunch! it was fantastic!
nikoy enjoyed the wild flowers the most, she loved the purple clovers, and the teeny daisy looking weeds, i think we came home with more weeds then dirt...
Kaylee just enjoyed marching around and seeing whatever there was to see..she nearly got lost once, but thankfully, us "grown-ups" kept our wits about us.. :) and realized we'd left the van door open and she was playing in her car seat...."phew..."
the kids LOVED the camp fire, merritt and i worried over it...Kaylee thought it was so pretty she kept trying to touch it. same with rulon.. he just wanted to sit in it..just for a minute...but we kept a pretty good eye out, and Cory sat his vigil by the fire, so no one got hurt..although Cory's shoes did manage to get a little singed...
Kaylee LOVED sitting by her daddy at the fire. Cory let her throw her paper plates in it after our dinner of burned hot dogs, chips and pork-n-beans.. :) every campers favorite dinner.. its just not camping without hot dogs and beans... and smores.. after dinner we made smores, i just did the marshmallow thing, smores are to messy and crunchy..and I'm emotionally scarred (don't ask) but the girls and Cory enjoyed there chocolate and marshmallow filled Graham crackers..
the next morning it was a tasty mountian man breakfast (in a skillet, dad i really miss your dutch ovens!) mmmmmmmmmm dutch oven cobblers...any who.. back to the subject at hand..we had breakfast then Cory played soccer with the kids while Merritt and i cleaned up, we had to be out of there by noon, but that's OK..
we had fun playing by the spring.. cory couldn't stay out of it, and nikoy sure had fun!
i got the satisfaction of killing the fire.. it wasn't very satisfying, and i got a face full of smoke...but that's all good...:)
anywho, Friday was my birthday.. happy birthday to me! i forgot to get pictures of the cake before we cut it, yes it had all 25 candles on it....way to make me feel old friends...way to make me feel old....
since theres not much to do around here, and what i wouldn't give for a chuck-e-cheese... we decided to go bowling for my party! wee! yes the very sport that caused the joy of a dislocated elbow (repress those memories!!) i used to celebrate my birthday... (try not to think about it..) so anywho, Cory and me and Merritt had one lane and the 3 girls had another with the bumpers and all... it was lots of fun!
this is kaylee being silly just before we left..:)
kaylee bowled the highest score with 111!!! holy buckets baby girl!! woo!
i got a whopping fifty something....
nikoy got an even 80!!
and .....oddly enough i don't remember Cory's score, it was well over a hundred....:) anywho, saturdayish... we went to the zoo! and as we had to walk down to the front gate to pay and get in we passed this cute little lake that was really dirty and smelled like dead fish..any who, we passed this grate and there was these turtles and a water bird of sorts getting some sun.. well the turtle in the bottom left corner, of the picture down there, we noticed that the little turtle had a fish line and fish hook hanging out of its mouth and the line was stuck to the land so it couldn't get far.. so we picked it up..
and brought it to the vet clinic in the zoo.. and rather then do as they do at the states and help the poor thing, they got mad at us for picking it up....we explained that it was stuck, it couldn't get to the water, and we showed them the fish line and everything and they told us to go put him back.. there was this other couple, the man was military the female was his German girlfriend, and they saw us and went with us to get help for the poor thing, well the German girlfriend was appalled that they wouldn't help, so she turned to cory and let him know that turtles are not illegal to own in Germany, and he could very well take it home as a pet.. so well Cory being the turtle lover that he is, brought it home, cut out the line and the hook and he's sitting in a swimming pool on our balcony, but we'll get to that.... back to the zoo..
it was a quaint little zoo.. i forget that alot of the wild animals you can see in your own backyard in the states are exotic to Germans.... so they had lots of raccoons, and Guinea pigs and floppy eared bunnies, and things that we keep as pets..
the most exotic animals they had were the lion and a tiger...
oh and cant forget the zebra..
kaylee LOVED the zebra!the pond was nasty and grimy but the ducks and geese and swans LOVED it.. i love swans so i couldn't pass up this picture..
the girls liked the deer, this lucky guy shared a pen with 6 other females, ad he got really close to the fence. just past the deer pen there was the mini petting zoo that claimed to have goats and chickens and pigs..well all i saw were goats, but the goats were way fun!!
i want a goat. Cory tells me when he's old and senile and doesn't know its there i can have a goat.....i think I'll get one sooner though.. :D....any who, we went and saw the bird show.. they had a few eagles, a couple different Hawks and a great horned owl..
the owl had these HUGE orange eyes that were so beautiful the falconer had it fly a few times, but all the pictures i got of it flying are super fuzzy...waaah.
after the bird show we went to see the llamas! Cory made friends with the grumpy black and white one...then we went to see the camel..which decided to walk away as soon as i got the camera out... jerk.....
then it was the wild boars, these were lazy.. but super cute.. yes i like pigs of all kinds..
even this one! he was a sweety, they wouldn't let anyone pet him because well, he was grumpin at the time, but he was sweet on me.. :)
kaylee ran off and we found her just down the isle petting a baby cow! she LOVED the moo. and it was all fun watching her love on this cow until we saw mommy and daddy coming.. daddy was a bit intimidating..
untill cory got to him, then he was a big ball of fluff... he LOVED cory! cory sat and scuffled him for a good fiveish minutes and as he walked away the bull followed him scraping his side along the fence wanting more... so, what do ya do? cory scuffled him some more...look at that face...
after we got done seeing all the amimals, (no there were no elephants, or giraffes, or gorillas..*sigh*) we decided to do the few photo ops they had.,... so heres the girls on these weird, horned bird things, that looked like a mix between a bird and a cow..then we found some cute little pandas they could pose by..
so cute, they had these little figurine things but not the real things... sad huh? get yer hopes up... anywho. after seeing everything the zoo had to offer we decided it was time to go home and check on the turtle,
we discovered its called and eastern river cooter (or something silly like that..) and its a female!! the females are bigger then the males and this ones really big... so we decided to call her she isntead of he, but as far as i know she's not been named , i told cory it's his job to name her, so far she's just "turtle."
she's a growing girl her shell is starting to molt (or whatever its called when the old shell falls off and the new one shows up..) we're really excited to see how her new shell looks, the parts that we can see are quite pretty!
the girls love her, and no they havent been swimming with her, in that picture they just finnished running through the sprinklers, it was a hot day so yeah... anywho.. that was our weekend, it was memorial day weekend so we just spent monday at home doing absolutley nothing... it was great! but today (being tuesday..) he had to get back to work. unfortunatly..we enjoy having him home.. but anywho.. so thats that, so far..nothing much else to report.. the new pool over on ramstein airbase opens on thursday and we're thinking of going to the opening.. it'll only be like 6 bucks for us to swim there, we'll find out on thursday if it'll be any fun for the girls or if it's like the typical military swimming pool and has no play area for toddlers... so yeah. anywho. i gotta go. i love you all and miss you so much!! i hope all is well with everyone! LOVES!!!
