Still trying

Every post is a few more points and I really would love to win this desk. If you haven't checked out the site yet, do it at

The EZ desk Giveaway vote for me if you have a minute!! :)

Ribbon Box

Cool pic huh? Just another picture of one of the products from the Original Scrapbox. Go scrapbookers!! The contest is just chugging along and hopefully I will win a desk soon....

The EZ desk Giveaway VOTE!

Our weekend in Bonn

So I haven't posted nearly enough pictures of Germany, have I! We got a visitor's pass for the city that we are living in, Bonn, last weekend and visited a lot of really neat places. The visitor's pass gets you into a lot of museums and places for free or reduced price and it was perfect. (Minus the whole Joshua-not-wanting-to-set-foot-or-stroller-inside-a-museum thing)

FRIDAY

Friday we spent most of the day in Koenigswinter, a little tourist town across the river from us. We spent an hour or so in the Aquarium there-Joshua was definitely a fan.



Then we headed up the "mountain" on this old school train to see the ruins of an old castle, Drachenfels. Here is what it looked like a long time ago...



Here is what it looks like now!




But what you REALLY paid for was the view. Gorgeous. We just sat up there for an hour or so just taking in the scenery. (It helped that Joshua had fallen asleep in his stroller...)





In the evening we tried to go to an art museum, but that lasted all of about 20 minutes with Joshua. Oh well. We tried, right?

SATURDAY

We started out the morning going to the Fleumarkt here in Bonn--otherwise known as a flea market. We were told it was huge, it only happens once a month. Honestly, we don't even know HOW big it was, because it was too big to walk through all of it! It was a garage-saler's paradise. No joke. My picture doesn't even BEGIN to capture half of the tents that were set up...it looked like it went on for miles!



Here are our meager purchases: A hacky sack for Joshua and a wooden spoon for Justin and I. The spoon is made out of olive wood and the sellers had tons of other wood products. Cutting boards, pestle and mortar, bowls...and they were so beautiful. But we decided a spoon would do for us. We actually need a new wooden spoon anyway. :)



We got some crepes with nutella on them from a little vendor and everyone could tell that Joshua enjoyed his. We of course also had to let him out to play by the water fountain. He is beginning to love water (rivers, water fountains, etc., not just a bottle of water) as much as fans!




On the way over to the central part of Bonn, Joshua was SO close to falling asleep, we decided to walk around and look at the shops in hopes that we could get him asleep before we went to any museums. Fat chance. No sleeping for him on Saturday. We decided even if we didn't get to all of the places we'd hoped, we would at least make it to the Beethoven House.

Beethoven was born in Bonn and they have his birthplace preserved and have lots of artifacts from his life-original manuscripts, one of his pianos, his viola...pretty amazing!




I was pretty much the only one who got to spend some quality time inside. Justin spent quality time outside with Joshua driving his cars. Thanks sweetheart. :)




SUNDAY

So we missed church all together on Sunday. Since Joshua had a bad nap day Saturday, we decided we would let him sleep and just go to Sacrament meeting. But we missed the bus, and the buses only come once an hour, so...we had our own church while Joshua was napping. It actually turned out to be really good. We watched Elder Bednar's Young Adult fireside that he gave on March 3rd. Seriously, it was one of the best talks I have heard in a long time, I recommend it to EVERYONE. I think I need to watch it a few more times myself...

Then we took the train to Bruhl, which is a little city/village about 15-20 miles away. There is a big "Schloss" there, which is translated to be "castle" in English, but we think the word "Schloss" is more like mansion. It's technically a castle I guess, but one built in the last couple hundred years. This huge victorian mansion was BEAUTIFUL!



We didn't go inside because it is an hour long tour. We figured the other people who paid to go in would enjoy it much more without a shrieking almost 2-year old. How can you be sure he would be shrieking, you ask? Because we would have had to leave the "wa-wa" outside...



This is a view from the woods that surround the house. There were walking trails and so many big trees. It felt like Virginia!



And then a couple of pictures of Joshua's new favorite past-time: pushing the stroller. He is actually quite good, but gets frustrated quickly if it runs into something. He learning to sign "help" instead of shrieking, so that's good. This is also another reason he doesn't like museums, because we have to put him IN the stroller. He would MUCH rather be behind it!




Now if you made it through all of THAT, I am impressed!

Competition Update

So it's looking like I am in 1st place right now, but just barely. There are quite a few people who are very close!

Go check out the website...

The EZ desk Giveaway

and vote for my picture, #259!! (the link will take you right there...)

The Original Scrapbox

So a few weeks ago I posted about this contest that I was entering, trying to win myself a "scrapbox". I tried really hard, but I started halfway through the competition, and just couldn't quite keep up with the top runners. BUT, there is another competition that just started, and I am going to work HARD (as hard as I can from Germany at least!) to see if I can win one of these:



Really, I would be so happy with any of the products from this company. I first saw an add for the "Scrapbox" on the side of a truck at a warehouse near our house in Provo. Justin saw it and said...you need one of those, I wonder how much it is! We looked it up online, and of course, being the young students we are, knew we couldnt afford it. But I lust after it every time I see one of the trucks.

I have such a hard time organizing all of my scrapbooking supplies. Since I have gotten back into scrapbooking in the last year and a half, I have been trying to figure out how I can organize it all to make it easier for me to actually DO the scrapbooking. I am determined that when we move to CA in a few months, I WILL have an organized area for my scrapbooking! And this desk would be the perfect way to start.

If you want to help me (and I know you do!!) you can go to the website:
The Original Scrapbox
Click on the link on the Left that says "our newest giveaway" and then to the "giveaway gallery" and vote for #259. You can vote everyday!

If you have a BLOG, you can get me a lot more points by making a blog post (kind of like this one). Leave me a comment if you'd like to help out. (I may be emailing some of you guys too...) THANKS!! :)

Haribo...mmmmmm

So, you know how when you leave restaurants or hotels or places, they have a bowl of mints for you to take one? Nice gesture, but there is a reason when you head down the candy aisle at the grocery store, you don't stop at the white and red peppermint disks. What if you got these instead?



Now that's what I am talking about! They have these little Haribo gummy packages EVERYWHERE here. For the taking. Usually they hand us a few when they see Joshua. "one for the road" they say. (extra for mommy is more like it)

Now if you think THAT is cool, wait til you hear THIS. So the name Haribo comes from the two families who started the company. One family's name started with an "Ha" and the other with an "Ri" (I can't remember their names) and then the "Bo" comes from "Bonn" which is the city where the company started. Bonn is ALSO the city that we are living in. In Bonn, there is a Haribo factory store where you can go and buy any type of Haribo candy you want. We visited there today. Think of a grocery store. Then think if aaaall the aisles being filled with gummy goodness. Yup, serious.




We got a few of a whole lot of different candies so we could taste test to decide what we want to bring home to the family. That is if we don't eat it all before we get back...

After our trip to the candy store, we stopped at the park and let Joshua play. Here are a few pictures of his cute self. He always wants me to take his picture now..."cheese cheese!" he says when I pull it out. But he will never say cheese FOR the camera...oh well. In time.

Koln (Cologne)

Here are some pictures from our Saturday excursion to Koln last weekend. We had a lot of fun, even though it rained.

We went to the Chocolate Museum...mmmmmm! It's a Lindt museum. They show you all about how chocolate is made and even have a little "rainforest" to walk through with mangoes, pineapples, and of course COCOA BEANS growing. The first picture is a picture of the cocoa bean. (My camera fogged up in there..talk about humid! Justin said "this is what walking off the airplane in Manaus was like...yikes!)




We took a walk by the river to get back up to the Cathedral. Joshua is in LOVE with the river. Whenever we walk by the Rhine, we'll let him out of his stroller. He runs along and every couple of minutes, runs up to the railing and yells "wa-wa!!" (water). It's very exciting. We are going to take a boat trip down the Rhine before we leave. That should be fun for him!





The Cathedral, of course, is a must-see. It's one of the largest (if not THE largest) in Germany. There was a mass going on, so we couldn't walk all along the inside, we could just stand in the back. But hearing the music and the organ playing was incredible. We will hopefully stop back in on our way to Paris next week so I can walk around (Justin visited last year). The Cathedral holds a lot of meaning because it houses the the relics of the 3 Kings. That was the whole point of building it in the first place. Wow!





Stay tuned for more pictures from beautiful Germany!

Germany

So I am sure all of you are wondering where I am. Okay, so maybe not, but it's nice to think you are! I am in GERMANY!! We are having a blast. Someone (I won't name names, but I bet you can guess who) is having a little bit of a hard time adjusting to the time change (still, after a whole week!) but all in all we are having fun. I wanted to blog every few days while we were here but I don't think I can blog about Germany without pictures. My computer is the only one I can upload our pictures to currently...and it is not being internet cooperative right now. But here are a few things we've been doing:

-walking (a LOT!)-I probably walked 20-25 miles total last week!
-talking strolls by the Rhine
-going to bakeries nearly everyday
-playing at the park
-window shopping (and some inside the store..teehee)
-riding buses and trains...and missing the ones that take us to church...oops! (at least sacrament mtg. is last, so we still made it for that)
-learning German--Justin a lot, Anna a little, and Joshua has "ja" ("yes" pronounced YAH!) and "nein" down

I will post again when you can see how beautiful it is!!!