What a DAY...

for the Baker family that is...

Uncle Hyatt and Aunt Jeanne arrived in Stuttgart via train at about 11:15 this morning. They had been traveling for about 30 hours. We had totally expected them to go home and take naps, so Brad and I planned to get out of the house and let them sleep.

What did they want to do? Go to VOLKSFEST!

Here are some pics from today in random order. Let me say it's great having uncle Hyatt around. He is just as obsessed as taking pictures as I am and it's so fun to share when the day is done! :)

Here they are on hour 31 at the Stuttgart Haptbahnhof. Still going strong!

This was at the end of the evening, hour ??. We fed them dinner and they didn't last much longer with those full bellies.

This is Miles future Halloween costume. Aunt Jeanne found this wonderful get-up for us. It's a dino you can ride. Miles loves it.

Back tracking- here we are at the Fest. Miles and Brad are in a fun house. When it was over Brad said it was the weirdest thing he'd ever experienced.

We are eating lunch in a traditional fest tent. Uncle Hyatt accidently ordered a beer. How do you manage to do that in Germany? (the biggest beer drinking country in the world?) So, I exchanged my diet coke with him and took one for the team. I had about 4 sips and was done. Do you see how huge those things are?

This slide was insane!

Pretzel venders everywhere! Behind is one of the many giant tents. They put those tents up just for the 3 week fest and then tear it down.

Today was "Soldier Day" at the fest. This is where all the soldiers from around the world go into 1 tent and celebrate together. Brad's work happened to be invited to this and we walked by and peeked in and they were standing on the tables singing YMCA. Our guys had also started switching uniforms with the Germans. Hmm...

HELP me find a dress already!

Calling all fashionistas... or anyone with eyes. I am totally consumed in trying to find a dress for the Marine Corps Ball and I have no idea what I'm doing. I hate that I can't try them on but they are decently priced so I am going to order 2 of them and hope that one is the glass slipper.

These dresses take a month to ship (to a normal person) and the ball is 6 weeks away.

Any of them bedazzle you? They had some super fancy ones but I just can't bring myself to dress up like a princess. These are all pretty much fit my comfort level and style. By the way... I can change the color so it'll be either navy blue, red, champagne or gold to match Brad's blues!

Thanks so much for any help! You can vote to the right. Did I tell you how much I love you for your input? Gosh I miss shopping with the girls.

Dress A

http://www.lightinthebox.com/_p69190.html?sms_ss=email

Dress B

Dress C

Dress D

Dress E

http://www.lightinthebox.com/_p24207.html?sms_ss=email

Dress F

Dress G

http://www.lightinthebox.com/_p69191.html?sms_ss=email

Dress H

http://www.lightinthebox.com/_p67015.html?sms_ss=email

Dress I

http://www.lightinthebox.com/_p24129.html?sms_ss=email

Whoops! Found one more that pole won't let me add.

Dress J

http://www.lightinthebox.com/_p67982.html?sms_ss=email

Traumland

After a long week of Miles being sick with bronchitis and a double ear infection, we decided to do something different and fun for him this weekend. We went to Traumland (which means dreamland in English). Half the fun was driving there. We drove through huge mountains where all the leaves were in the middle of changing and passed 2 castles. One of them was Lichtenstein, a castle we took my parents to a couple years ago.

Little did we know, this place was on the top of some huge mountain and it was only 40 degrees (according to our car and numb fingers). We were not dressed properly at all. Nevertheless, it was a great time and it was nice to take a long drive and see more of Germany.

At the top of a ferris wheel. Man, I hate heights.

They had all these little houses that represented the old fashioned- German fairy tails. Can you guess what this one is?

Another miniature house... the story is inside this time.

Piano Tribute Players

I have a newfound love for piano since discovering the piano tribute players. These guys have taken almost every song out there and remade it on the piano and it makes my ears melt. They've done everything from pop, country, Christian, rock...everything. I find myself listening to them every night while I do my math homework. They even re-did Katy Perry's stupid song California gurls and made it sound great.

Here's one of my fave's: How to Save a Life.

Ludwigsburg PumpkinFest 2010

We came back to the pumpkinfest this year to see what it was all about. This year: Marine life! It was pretty cool to see all the things they came up with.

Notice the sea turtles below the trees.

Wave surfer

Shopping for pumpkins. I ended up buying an assortment for a Euro each. I threw them al into a a glass bowl and made a centerpiece for the living room.

Beautiful gardens of Ludwigsburg palace. This is where I took the pictures of the flowers yesterday. A picture just can't give this place any justice.

Same bee...different picture. He was HUGE!

Happy

I'm enjoying the last few weeks of Germany's gorgeous flowers before Fall takes over. By the way... I took about 20 shots of that bee and ended up royally ticking him off. Perhaps too close for too long? He chased after me in a crowded garden. I made a complete fool of myself screaming and pushing people over to get away from his rage. At least I got my shot. :)

Sunflowers galore...

We've been doing a lot of bike riding lately and discovered a family farm flower patch. They have a drop box and ask for donations for picking flowers. This place was so neat (minus the bees). We picked our own little bouquet today! Sunflowers are my favorite so I was in luck. :)

This is the one!

Our bouquet!