Onion Creek

Today we went over to my friend, Maria's house...well, ok, her parent's house, but whatever. They have LOADS of land, horses, goats, chickens, dogs, puppies...ok, so really it is ranch. We went mainly for the animals, but ended up taking a dip in Onion Creek that runs through the property.

We started off with the pups since they were running all around and were just happy as could be to see people. There was lots of happy peeing, licking, jumping, tackling...it was adorable. Gavin and Jaxon really liked the pups. Amelia did too...she was flailing her arms and legs in such excitement! Too cute!
Then we went over to the goat area. Gavin pretty much immediately broke out in hives...note to self, Gavin is allergic to goats so next time bring the benadryl. He went back to play with the puppies. The goats loved Jaxon's shorts and they kept coming and nibbling at the tie stings and at the bottom of the shorts. He kept telling them, "Stop eating my shorts, goats!!" It was adorable.
Amelia really liked the goats. She got to pet them and even ride one. We held her on there, no worries. It was cute, the goat she was on was really interested in her sun hat strings and kept turning around trying to nibble on them...then another came over to nibble on them too...it was funny.
After the goats, we were going to head over to see the chickens, but Gavin saw the river and made a bee line for it...well, also since the dogs were down there. :)

The boys walked along the dam there, which they both enjoyed since they were being quite adventurous.
Then Maria had the wonderful idea of just letting them jump in...she jumped in fully clothed and we got the boys down to their underwear and they had a blast swimming around with Maria.
Of course, we couldn't forget about Amelia...we got her naked and she had a blast going around with Maria...and drinking a bit of river water...yum!
All in all, today was a great day. It wore the kids out...it wore grandma out...it wore me out! Amelia was in bed at 8:30, which was quite nice I must say. We are headed over there again on Thursday to see those chickens we missed and, of course, to go swimming! :)

A picture is worth a thousand words...

It took me quite a while to come up with a title for this post...basically, there were so many! But, in the end, I went with a classic.

Charlie and I were on our usual walk (ok, so we had our walk already, but I had to run home and get the camera, so Charlie got 2 midday walks in which he didn't mind...but just pretend this is our first walk). We go basically the same route everyday, some days I change it up, some days I don't. Today, I didn't, and it totally paid off.

When we go on out midday walks, Charlie always brings along his favorite toy, his Frisbee. He can't leave home without it!This is after me telling him "AUS!" or "drop it". He does this rather well, and then backs away slowly so that you can throw it for him.


First up is crazy birrd. Someone decided they didn't want this lovely piece of taxadermy in their house anymore, so what the hell, they just nailed it to a random tree. I've always been meaning to take a picture of it, and I finally did. However, it has seen better days. It's been on this tree for about seven or eight months.

Then, JACKPOT!!!
Can you just imagine what I thought when I saw a freaking bulldozer in the middle of the Waldnaab??? Yeah, first, I hope no one is hurt. Second, "why the hell was someone driving a bulldozer on the bank of the river?"

As we got closer, I saw the driver, and I thought it was funny since just the calves of his pants were wet, and not his entire body. Then I asked him if he was alright. He said that he was and that the bulldozer did this to itself. It decided to pop out of the e-brake and go for a swim.
I seriously could not stop laughing. I had to call Markus and he just couldn't believe it either. What a walk Charlie and I had.

And, now for me, the picture that is really worth a thousand words...This was the first thing that I saw on our first walk and I just couldn't believe my eyes.

Nuremberg

Today I tagged along with Markus to Nuremberg. He had to go to some meeting type thing, and I had nothing better to do, so what the hay right? Well, I had fun.

We got there at about 8:30, but none of the stores opened until about 10, so I walked around...tried to get my bearings (kind of successful) and looked for a cute cafe where I could sit, read a bit and wait for the stores to open. Well, to my shock, most of the cafes weren't open yet. The only thing that I could find that was open was a Starbucks. Well, what the hell...I haven't been to one since the Munich airport, so why not? I sat in there drinking my Chai Tea Latte and eating a blueberry muffin until about 10. It was quite nice. Reminded me that I should probably make some blueberry muffins myself since they are so freaking good!

So, the clock struck 10...time to shop. Now, this isn't what you might think. I'm not a spending-money-shopper. Nope, I'm more of a walk-around-look-at-everything-shopper. I buy things that I think warrant a purchase. Things that really interest me.

So, I started off the day at Karstadt (big department store). There are two things that I really like about Karstadt. First, they have the most wonderful kitchen area with the best pots and pans and kitchen gadgets, and I simply start drooling, so I can't really spend too long there...too dangerous, if you know what I mean. But I did see this wonderful set of non-stick pots and pans that would just be so wonderful.....ahhh....oops...sorry. Started daydreaming...

Ok, the second thing that I love about Karstadt is that when they have a grocery store in the basement, this usually means that they have an "American" section. I was definitely hoping that they would have some canned pumpkin. No such luck. They just had the pre-mixed pumpkin pie mix stuff...no good. Then, I saw that they had Old El Paso stuff too! Score! Unfortunately, they had no green chilies! I knew it was too much to hope that they had RoTel, but if you just add some green chilies to canned tomatoes, that is basically RoTel right?

So Karstadt was a bust, but it had lots of cool stuff to look at, so that side of it was fun. On to the rest of the city.

So if you've ever been to Nuremberg, you know this is a shopping haven. However, I just felt really overwhelmed. I went in to may 4 stores out of the possible thousands. However, the stores that I went in were really cool. I made a purchase at one of them of the most amazing lotion. The thing that I really liked about it was that all of the soaps in the store are handmade, most of them are vegan, and they don't have any preservatives. So, these are some of the granola aspects that I like. Plus, this lotion is amazing! The store is called "Lush". The lotion that I got is called "Dreamy Creamy". Seriously good stuff!

So, I kept walking around, and walking around, and I guess that I just really wasn't into the whole shopping thing today. I'll blame it on the weather. It was rainy all day...and cold...and basically miserable. So, I knew Markus was going to be done at about 12:00, so around then, I went over to the parking garage and waited for him. There was a river nearby, so I thought I'd just go and see what's floating by. There was a lot of random stuff...oh, and I must say that the river was REALLY HIGH....much higher than normal, so that might, just might, explain some of the weird stuff that I saw...What I saw is as follows:
4- dead birds (poor things)
3- tennis balls
1- flip flop
1- kid's shoe
1- Ramazotti bottle
countless numbers of assorted alcohol bottles
countless logs (trees really)
1- swim noodle

Really, it is the swim noodle that gets me. How random.

So that was my day.