Candles

We were in the Cologne Cathedral recently and inside there were many candle set-ups, as you could imagine being a Catholic church. There's always something beautiful about candles I think...

Torrential Downpours

So, we had an interesting event the other day: It was the middle of the afternoon around the house. I was busy in the office doing some paperwork, Jen was doing some things around the house, Hannah was playing Indiana Jones on the Xbox (she loves that game!), and Cailyn was napping. When Jen decided that she needed to go to the store, I thought, "No problem!", so she leaves. within just a couple minutes, I hear Cailyn in the room right above the office starting to wake up. She sounds like something's wrong, which usually means that she's really ready to be out of her room. So, I send Hannah up to open her door, simply because that's usually all she needs and she loves it when Hannah gets her up from nap. The next thing I hear is Hannah coming down to tell me, "Daddy, Cailyn pottied in her bed," and she returns to the Xbox. (We'll hear from her later.) So I'm thinking to myself, "uh oh." Apparently my idea of letting Cailyn sleep without her trousers on was a bad idea because apparently she decided she didn't need her nappy either. And of course, there was a pool in her bed. Oh well...this stuff happens, and it's a part of her starting to potty-train, so I set out to take care of it. We have a little potty-trainer seat on the toilet, so I'm thinking she needs to get on that and make sure she's finished. Thinking she's ok doing that, I proceed to get sheets off the bed and find out what else was taken out with the mess. At this point, I hear Hannah cry out, "Oh no!" and then her feet patter into the bathroom downstairs. Since I have a load of sheets already, I decide to take them down and see what's going on with Hannah. Turns out the pee signal was still blaring in the house and Hannah had wet her pants while playing Xbox. Man...this just keeps getting better!! Well, in the mean time, I hear Cailyn starting to freak out upstairs, so I run back up there to see her now standing in the bathroom in the middle of another pool of pee just paranoid about the whole situation. To make matters worse, she now realizes that she was supposed to be on the toilet and turns to run the 5 feet to get on the toilet. The only problem was that she wasn't only standing on a tile floor, there was a plastic bag on the floor where she chose to pee. Inevitably, her first step was right on the bag. This made her foot slide right out from under her, and she fell back, landing right on her head. So, now she's laying in her own pee, freaking out and hurt. The poor girl! I picked her up, cleaned her up and put on a fresh nappy and some clean clothes while Hannah too got the same treatment, minus the nappy of course. All calmed down, sheets were ready to be washed, and life was normal again...for those 10 minutes, life was pretty crazy!! Life with kids...never a dull moment!

Thatched Cottage

Jen took this shot of a thatched cottage.

Striking a pose

I was going through some old photos looking for anything interesting I could post and came across this one of the girls. We'd stopped by Trim Castle on the way back from Dublin, and we got this shot of the girls on the castle wall. Don't quite know what Hannah was doing, but I LOVE the pose Cailyn has!

Bastogne, Belgium

On our last day in Germany, me and a couple friends took off on a road-trip - to Bastogne, Belgium. Anyone that knows me probably knows that I like WWII history, and being that close to where the Battle of the Bulge took place, I had to go. Overall, it was pretty awesome to be in a place that was so pivotal in history. We only had a little bit of time, so most of it was spent in a museum, which was awesome. They had tons of WWII equipment, documents, uniforms, and other great stuff on display. Someday I'd like to go back (especially since Jen didn't get to go with me) and see some more of what's around and check out the battlefields and all of that. It was a lot of fun though, and a great guys' road trip! Anyway, here's some pics of the day:

A tank from the battles sits in the City square - it was stuck in the mud when German anti-tank guns took it out. You can see the tank accurately marked as from the 11th Armored, 41st Battalion. On the side of the tank is still the hole from the 75mm shell that hit it and the back has a hole made by a German bazooka

In the museum, a German machine gun on display

A mock-up of an American Command Post

Again, they had tons of equipment from WWII on display. This was a shot I got of field dressings and bandages from the war

There are rooms set up to look post-battle in the museum. This was a piano that was torn apart during the German bombings as the "bulge" was made

Another destroyed room...

City Street

City street in Aachen

Halloween Fun!

Well, we survived another Halloween!!

Last year was pretty uneventful, since we were in VA and didn't have any costumey stuff with us. We were probably sick in some form or fashion, too! The 3 years prior to that, we were always at a church fall festival, so this year was our first year to go Trick or Treating!

Hannah: the angel; Cailyn: the princess

Not sure what Cailyn is doing, but she's in such stark contrast to Hannah, it cracks me up!

Sweet sisters playing

This is my attempt at a complete last-minute costume. We found out the day before Halloween that we were expected to dress up. I found this dress (and it's a real dress, not a costume! LOL) on the clearance rack (shocker!) and voila - cave girl was born! Seth went as a baseball player, and somehow managed to avoid having his picture taken!

The girls at their very first trick or treat door!

The hit of the night (other than candy) was our friends' new baby kitten...that poor cat was tortured all night by children under the age of 7!

Cailyn doing the cheese puff (aka fake cheeto) dance....I'm right there with ya', babe! I LOVE those things!

We played a bunch of traditional games. Here's Hannah on her first try bobbing for apples!

We also played Apple on a String, and a traditional Irish game I'd never heard of. You get three dishes and put water in one, a ring in another and some dirt in the third. Then one person gets blindfolded and the bowls are moved around. The blinded person then picks one bowl. Each one represents a different fate. The water represents travel abroad; the ring is marriage and the dirt is death (though, when the kids played it we said the dirt meant you will either be or marry a farmer LOL). We had a great time hanging out with our friends. It was a great night and we all had a blast...though I think next year I'll just wear my jammies and be a baby for my costume! My hair STILL hurts. :o)