Flashback Friday - Halloween.

This year for Halloween I don't think Robert and I will be dressing up. :( He has been out of town and I have been so busy at work that I haven't even had time to think about a costume. So I thought I would flashback to my favorite costume combo that we have done in the past. 2 years ago I was a border patrol agent and he was an illegal immigrant! How funny is that?! We went down to Old Town to hang out and pretty much everyone wanted their picture with the two of us! We had a blast!

This year is going to be a blast too though because it is the first where Elena will get to participate a little more. I'm not sure if we will take her trick or treating or not, we will have to see how the weather is. I have a feeling we will probably just put her costume on and let her run around the house and hand out candy. :) I am very excited for tomorrow and carving pumpkins and just hanging out with my two favorite people! Last year Miss Elena was 1 month old!! Wasn't she a darling little ghost?

Happy Halloween everyone!!

Oktoberfest!

On Saturday we finally arrived in Hermann! Let me tell you this was the perfect time of year to see this place! It was beautiful!! All of the changing leaves made everything just amazing!

1st stop, Stone Hill Winery~

We decided to do the tour of the winery which was very interesting. It has quite a history! It used to be the largest winery in the US, until prohibition and then the government came in and destroyed pretty much everything~even ripping the grapes out of the ground! It has taken a long time to get up and running again and it is still not even producing 1/2 the amount of wine that it used to per year.

Check out the rows and rows of grapes. They explained that these grapes would be picked in the next week to start the process of making wine.

Then we moved on to the "dungeon" :) where the grapes go through the entire process of becoming wine. Pretty interesting stuff. I like wine already but this tour definitely helped me to appreciate it and understand the process more.

Then on to the tasting!

This room was packed with 45 other people on the tour with us, but we seemed to be the last to leave the tasting room! ;)

For lunch Lynette and I tried a brat with sauerkraut! Neither of us had ever had it before and it wasn't too bad! (Linds decided to stick with a good ol' hot dog) We also tried the German potato salad which was served warm, and was both sweet and spicy at the same time~very strange combo that I don't think any of us really enjoyed! The chunky applesauce was yummy though.

We decided to head down to where the rest of the German festivities were being held. We came across a little shop called Ricky's Chocolate Box. Check out these chocolates~wow! My favorite was the chocolate chip cookie dough truffle~it was delicious!

This is a little beer garden that had a band playing oompah music. People were dancing away and some were even dressed up in the traditional German clothing.

We also came across many pavilions and beer gardens where every body was out relaxing, dancing, enjoying wine, playing games, etc... pretty cool!

More of the beautiful scenery~


We saw this Tin Mill Brewery and decided to go inside and check it out. Lynette took this really cute picture of Linds and I, so I decided to set the timer on my camera and put it on top of a car to get a picture with all three of us in it...

Right as the picture was about to take, these people walked up behind us and jumped in our picture! Apparently they had been trying to sneak into the background of people's pictures all day! We made one of the guys take another picture but it did not turn out very good! What a bummer because this would have been a cute one!

We tried a few of the different kinds of beers and decided that the Maibock was our favorite. And we got to keep these cute glasses too (no, I did not steal them!).

As we were heading out of the town we couldn't help but notice the cops that were on patrol. Obviously they want to make sure that no one drinks and drives but we just cracked up laughing because they were driving around on golf carts!! Hilarious!

I made Lindsay take a picture with The Book, the whole reason this trip was planned in the first place! :) But I am so glad that we went, It was such a fun weekend!

Now I can't wait to see the next place that she comes up with for us to visit!!

Johnny's.

For the 1st night of the road trip to Hermann, Mo - we stayed with Lynette in KC. It was so much fun~but of course we always have a blast when the 3 of us are together!! We hit up a little sports bar the Lynette and her friends like to go named Johnny's.

Cheers to great friends!! These tasted like chocolate milk by the way, yummy!

Lindsay and I also got the opportunity to get to know Lynette's boyfriend Dave. :) He was very nice and you can tell that they make each other very happy!

This picture is pretty funny because a.) my arm looks kinda freaky and 2.) It looks like we drank all those empty cups on the bar behind us! I swear we didn't...

...but from the looks of this picture you would think that we had!! ;) Too funny!

We miss Lynette so much and wish we got to see her more often!!

next stop, wine country...!

Flashback Friday - Road Trip!

In honor of my exciting road trip that will be starting this evening with two of my bestest friends ever (Lynette and Lindsay) - I am going to do a flashback all about the 3 of us! Lynette, Lindsay and I have know each other for a long time - they went to elementary school together and then we all went to 6th grade together. In high school we really started to get close and by our senior year we were inseparable!! Some of my fondest memories are with these two friends! We have been through a lot together and it is so amazing that we are still very close! We are traveling to Hermann, Mo to check out their Oktoberfest celebration which just happens to be in The Book which is explained on Lindsay's blog. She gets to highlight some pages from the book and we get to enjoy a weekend together! I am so excited!! Here are some of my favorite pictures of the 3 of us.

Here's to old friends and new adventures!!

Riverside.

These last two days have been just beautiful!! Now this is the kind of fall weather that I like! Forget about that 40 degree cold crap~ give me the mid 60's anytime! We just had to go to the park! I decided to take Elene to Riverside Park since we hadn't been there. There were so many people enjoying the great weather!

Elena is showing me a tiny rock in this picture. Shortly after I was fishing it out of her mouth!

I put her on this bench for a quick picture and her face is totally saying "Are you kidding me? I can't just sit here!"

That's more like it ~ she wasn't even that interested in the playground equipment, she just wanted to run around and around and around!

She did manage to find this fun thing to play on.


We took one more ride on the swings before we headed out.

She would not sit still for anything! She was way to excited to be out of the house and in some nice weather! I caught this brief pause at the top of the stairs before she took off again.

She ran so much I thought her little legs were going to fall off! It took about 5 minutes in the car and she was asleep. Hopefully there will be a few more nice days like this before it cools off for good!

New toy?

So the other day Elena was wandering around our basement and came across her old bouncer. Since then she has been obsessed with it! It is too funny to see her in it - also makes me kind of sad to remember how small she used to look in it! I honestly thought she would have no interest in it so I put it in a back bedroom~guess I was wrong! Every time we go downstairs she makes a bee-line for it! Maybe I should take a look around for some other old toys that might interest her!

Bounce with me.

Today Elena and Lunden got to try out a moonwalk for the first time!

Can we just say they were slightly thrilled?!

Elena was pretty content to sit and let everyone bounce her!

While Lunden was a bouncing machine! He would bounce around and fall over and just start cracking up~it was so funny!

My favorite picture of the day~

We realized it was probably time for a nap when Elena did this~

What a fun day! And if you can't tell by how bundled up we are~it was cold!