Fall Play

Today was a perfect time for some pictures taking.

Especially since the kids were in a fall cleanup mode! It was so funny.

All of the kids (under 10) in our neighborhood, decided to gather leafs into

a HUGE pile and then to jump in it!

Needless to say that it took a LONG time to get a pile high enough for the kids to jump from a picnic table into it without breaking their neck, but…

they made it and did enjoy a lot of jumping and laughing. You can see how much Rafael had fun!!

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Schwetzingen in Fall

When my cousin’s visited, we also went to the Schwetzingen Castle Garden.

Beautiful garden, which I love cruising around.

So when I saw the pretty fall light, I couldn’t resist. Here are some more pictures of our little outing, of course you must be sick of seeing this landscape, but I don’t get tired of it!!

So… Anyway… Enjoy and if you don’t like it. Just… skip this blog!

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Riding on Tricky

So Matt decided to go on a ride and for once I agreed to accompany him. First we had to fill up. It was a beautiful evening. The funny part was that his bike got overheated and we had to stop and stay for a while on the side of the road. The nice part was that we had a gorgeous view of the sunset on the Neckar River in Heidelberg.
This is one of the reason we love leaving in Europe. It is so nice to just being able to pop in and go enjoy the view of a beautiful town.

Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg. Alsace, France

On the "long" weekend of November. We decided to go on a little road trip to Alsace. I offered my friend Vanessa and her family to come along. (To bad that we didn’t have more room in the car, cause we were wanted our friend Lucile to come too), but we will do it another time with her, even if we have to take 2 cars. Maybe in spring when the trees are having more green on them! ;-)
The day before when talking we were wanted to go see the “Citadelle de Bitche” but it was closed since the weekend before, so we left it to not going to get our mug shot in front of the sign that actually say “Bitche”! I guess another trip is necessary to get that done! ;-) Then we were going to go into one of the “bunker” of the “Ligne Maginot”, but spending 3 hours in a dark tunnel that only have military museum info, didn’t sound appealing to us girls. And we couldn’t fathom what the kids will say about it either?
So instead we typed in “Chateau de Koenigsbourg” in the GPS and followed the road to it. We stopped at a nice little “thai-Vietnamese” restaurant in the city not too far from the castle. And after a good meal, we all got in the car and went up the road!
What a beautiful view. The colors of fall were all over. It was just amazing. We arrived to our destination (as the GPS lady will put it) and knew that we wouldn’t regret it!
For those of you who want more info about the castle and the why and what about it. Here are some links that you can follow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_du_Haut-K%C5%93nigsbourg
http://www.haut-koenigsbourg.fr/en
Needless to say that we had the best time with our good friends. We took tones of pictures, since Vanessa is a mini copy of me (well in brunette, Vietnamese style, and very light version of me) but on the pictures taking, we are the same!! LOL!!
So here are a few slideshow of the best of the pictures!! Hope you enjoy it.

Make a Smilebox photobook

Make a Smilebox photobook

Make a Smilebox photobook

As usual, if you have any questions you can send me a note or comment and if I know the answer… I might be able to tell you! (Or might not, I am not THAT smart, LOL)

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Hitscherhof 09

So this past Sunday we went to the Hitscherhof as we planned.
We drove the back way. No Autobahn, which was very pretty. I drove with our friend Peggy and Matt was guiding us (driving like a nut as usual) ;-)
We arrive there at about Noon, and already the parking was crazy. I remember the last time that we went to the Hitscherhof we parked not too far from the farm and they had artisan/artist selling their craft in the big barn. Well it has gotten SO big that now you have to park about 1km away and they have people selling stuff outside of the barn.
We went to find our friend Karen because we had some little items for her, and introduce her to Peggy. We tchated and Matt went in the LONG line to get some Flammkuchen. And I stayed with Karen tchating. We saw lots and lots of American, which I guess is a good thing for the people selling. I don’t even know how Karen knew which language to speak. She jumped from German to English like it was out of style! She just Amaze me!!
We went around. Matt took the kids through the Corn Maze, I stayed with Peggy and we went to see the vendors. I found some cool stuff, but since I am NOT set up at home, I only bought a little something for one of Damien’s teacher for her Xmas gift! (yeah I know I am early, but I saw it, and thought of her)
I forced the kids to pose in the Pumpkin, and after saying goodbye to Karen we left. This little trip took us over 6 hours of our day. Pretty quick, he?
Anyway… here are the pictures of our outing. Hope you enjoy them!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

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Hitscherhof Coming near you on 26-27Sept 2009

My friend Karen (good friend from France since… 1999) is an Artist!

She is a Soap-maker, a Basket-maker, she cooks, she sews. She does everything that I wish I could do!! OH and she speak German AND French AND English! How sick is that!!
Well anyhow. She is just AMAZING!!










She can’t really sell her craft in France because it cost so much to be a small business owner in France. So what she does is that she goes in some craft show when in season and sell her soaps to people like you and me who happen to want a good product totally HANDMADE and with NATURAL ingredients. So… If for any reason, you are like me and you enjoy also just cruising around markets that show other artist. You can go this coming weekend in (well I guess this is the city) Hitscherhof!! Here is the website: http://www.hitscherhof.com/english/events.html
Go check it out if you are in the area.
Oh, BTW, did you see how old those pictures are?? Well they were taken in 2000, and see, we already went there, and we are going back… That is to tell you how GREAT this is!!


What are you waiting for? I am sure you have a few hours to spend outside picking a pumpkin to carve for Halloween, no??
GO!!!

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Amana Colonie

This afternoon while seating enjoying the quit of the house (on a Saturday afternoon, believe me this is a first) Matt asked me if I would like to go to the Amana colonies just West of where we live.

I said sure as long as we don’t take the kids, I am all for it! ;-) So after getting ready, we told the kids who were playing at our neighbor’s house Fable 2 (much more important than going to a walk with Mom and Dad!) Anyway… we drove there it was a beautiful sunny fall day, around 55 or so, breezy but Gorgeous!

For those of you who aren’t familiar to the Amana colonies, it is a bunch of historical villag

e founded by the German (still German speaking people down there) as most of the historical area in the US it is mainly a tourist attraction where people can buy lots of souv

enir and other knick knack and paying big money for it, but.. it is a very cute little village, and since Fall was in season, I thought It could be cool to take some pictures too! So here are some for you toenjoy.

That little sign is for you Diane, you know why right? ;-)

Matt posed for me as we were ready to go back to the car, and I thought it was a perfect picture of him!

Kalona Field Trip

Today Morgane my daughter had a field trip to the village of Kalona south of Iowa City. It is an Amish/Mennonite community, with buggies and cool history.
So for the first time, I volunteer for a field trip... OH BOY!! Now my hat goes off to those teachers that endure all the noise that those lovely kids do, I would have a headache in NO time! To tell you the truth, went I got home, I slept for 2 hours I was so exhausted! Amazing!

Anyway, back to the visit.

We first visited a Cheese Factory, where we learn that cheese is actually white when it comes out of the factory; they only add the food coloring at the big company like Kraft. That made me wonder WHY on earth someone decided that cheese should be orange. In France our cheese are normally white or creamee color, the crust might have a different color, probably due to the spice or bacteria that they let them sit in! (Don’t ask me, I don’t have a clue). But why Orange?? Anyone has an idea?

After that little cheese stop,

we stopped at the local bakery. The kids were very very interested to get some donuts and other goodies. The bakery also makes fresh Pasta, so we went to see how they were making it. 2 questions from the kids, were regarding the fact if they could use the machine to make cookie pasta! Answer: I don’t think so! They can use in a week up to 500 dozen egg for Pasta making and Angel food cake in the Easter season!!

Then after a quick lunch, we went to the Historical Village Museum, very interesting. Some of the pics are from the Buggies repair house, or the “Grandpa’s house” or the little school etc.. you will see that the kids loved being able to ring the school bell. I was the only adult except for the guide, and I had to remind all those kids to keep their hand in their pocket and not to touch anything. I was amazed of how many times one can remind a 10/11 year old kid to not touch anything… Morgane probably now is considered unlucky to have a cop as a mother! ;-) Oh well, such is life!