I'm one lazy blogger...

So, now I'm getting just plain lazy about posting huh? Haha. Now I am here and I can tell you about the last couple weeks and post some pictures! Hooray! The last couple weeks I have been a little lonely. I still go back and forth between being amazed that I am in Germany and wishing I could come home....and that emotion switches in about three seconds! No, not really. I have my good days and my bad days though. The only problem is that when I'm not watching the kids or whatever, I basically have nothing to do. I know, I have been doing my crafts and art, but it still gets a little lonely without a friend or two with whom to talk and experience new places. Luckily enough, I have the internet! Thank goodness....what would I do without it?

I do have information about an au pair club downtown in Stuttgart so maybe I will check that out and meet some other au pairs. Then in a couple weeks, I will start helping at the local school in an English class. They have a big project coming up and they needed some native English speakers to help the different groups of kids. Anette used to work at the Interenational School of Stuttgart and had some connections where she heard about this opportunity and got me in. I think that will be really interesting and it'll give me something extra to do and I'll even make a tiny more pocket money!

Anyway, I have been keeping myself busy with planning Thanksgiving. I don't think I have written about the plans before, but please bear with me if I have. I'm hosting my own American Thanksgiving here on Saturday, November 22nd. I know, Thanksgiving is on Thursday, but it had to be a weekend so that Ralf and Anette wouldn't work and I could focus on cooking all day long! Also, that makes it so that my special friends Lena and Vincent can come and join us. I'm really excited because it will be Lena's and Vincent's first Thanksgiving...not for the Fischer family though, they had an American au pair a few years ago and she cooked Thanksgiving. Although, she didn't even make stuffing, so I don't really think it counts! Haha! Anette gave me a decorating budget that I asked for so that I could really make my Thanksgiving special. I have an entire, traditional autumn table planned and I can't wait for everyone to see it. I have hand-drawn all of the place cards and created many cool ideas to make it really festive. I will, of course, share pictures when it happens.

Halloween kind of came and went here. I offered to throw a big American Halloween party for all of their friends, but they just don't understand it all the way that we do. It made me sad, but eventually I gave up. We did, on the other hand, carve pumpkins. Anette mentioned it a couple times and I figured that she must have really liked the idea, so I carved one in the daytime, while no one was here, just a couple days before Halloween. I was mostly worried about handling Jonathan and the big knives that it would take to cut the huge pumpkins they had. When Jonathan got home from Kindergarten, he was so excited about it that I decided we would try and VERY CAREFULLY carve the other pumpkin. Who gives a 5 year old boy a knife that big?! ... Apparently me! We made it a monster and I used my American expertise to use the already cut pumpkin and make them into ears for the monster. Here are some pictures:

A Few More Autumn Pictures..

This is the hill that I walked down. I know, it's sideways....but it was the only way to capture all that I wanted to.

Crocuses in Fall?

Looking up a side street; there are some very cool old buildings up that street.

Neat stone front building:

And a classic hotel street sign:

Autumn Stroll

So, instead of taking the U-Bahn (subway) all the way into town the other day, I decided to get off at the very first stop, Weinstege, which is way up on the hill. Then I proceeded to walk down the entire hill into town (which is a very long way, btw) and take pictures of the lovely fall scenery. Man I love this season! So now I will share my stroll with you....

This is the church right at Weinstege:


Here's a view of East Stuttgart (I believe):


Here's the street I was walking on:

Here is the reason that I got off the train so early....I see this every day from the subway and had to get pictures of it eventually! It's incredibly gorgeous....this, right here, is the reason I am in Europe.

Here are the vineyard rows:

I will post a couple more pictures of my walk and all the awesome buildings and things that I saw on my way...

The Last Couple Creative Weeks

I know, it's been way too long since I have blogged! Sorry about that. Wow, I haven't told you all about anything that has happened lately...yikes!

How about an overview of the last couple weeks first:

I have done a lot of exploring of Stuttgart more than just the main street of shopping, Konigstrasse. I have found a few really cool stores that are on my must-go-to-a-few-times-a-week list! I have a favorite craft shop called "Idee", it's like a little German version of Michaels. They have just a little of everything craft wise basically. Unfortuntely, they don't have any fabric because the big department stores actually carry fabric in their home section. They also have lots of holiday stuff so far and that's really exciting to me. Another shop that I love is "Depot". (www.dasdepot.com will give you a chance to look if you'd like!) They are a chain of home decor stores and there are two of them just on Konigstrasse! A big brand new one just opened in the Hauptbahnhof on September 27th and that's the one that I like to go to. They have all sorts of cool holiday stuff as well as every day items that are really good value for not very much money. I'm going to buy some stuff from there for Thanksgiving, but I'll tell you about that in a few. Then, I love this store called "Nanu Nana." It's hard to explain because we don't really have anything like it. It's kinda like a dollar store, but with nicer stuff and it's not only a dollar. I've got it, it's like a variety store! They have lots of interesting things that other places don't have and there are also two of them on Konigstrasse. (I even got some cool ornaments for making into Christmas earrings! (= Exciting!)

So, Anette took me on a little shopping trip to Ikea a couple weeks ago and bought me some gifties for my room to make it a little more comfortable and a little more "me." Nice of her, huh? She got me a new sheet set that has huge, black flowers on it (so me!), a nice long red rug for the front hallway, and some other assorted things. We're going back tonight so that we can do a little more holiday shopping. Anette is giving me free reign on the decor for the Weihnachten (Christmas) dinner table and I made her a deal that I will gladly do that one if I can do a Thanksgiving table as well! (; I'm making Thanksgiving dinner all by myself this year....for the first time ever! (I'll try to make Mommy proud!) It wont exactly be the first Thanksgiving for the Fischer family because they had another American au paira few years ago and she made one too. But, it will be my friend Vincent's first Thanksgiving so it has to be perfect! (: I was considering going with a cool dark brown and copper theme for the table but I decided not. For their first time Thanksgiving, I should go with something a little more traditional. So now I am thinking cornucopia and leaves! It'll be pretty either way and I'll probably include the beautiful dark brown leaves that I wanted to get anyway. Anette is supporting me in purchasing all the goodies I need to make it just right. Hooray! I think I will actually get some things for it tomorrow....I'm just too excited to wait. (;

I started an art project to keep myself busy as well. (Because, when I am creatively busy, I am not shopping and am therefore saving money for all my trips in the Spring!) In the very Cori way of doing things, I picked up a broken chair on the side of the road and have decided to refinish it. Sometimes I can't believe that someone would throw away a Thonet Paris cafe chair when all it needs it a new seat and a little love....but I guess I'm glad that they did because now I get to play! Of course, I can't bring it home with me next year so I have decided that it will be Lena's Birthday and Christmas present (because she understands my psychotic love of chairs...) I'm taking this dirty white chair and making it into a Moulin Rouge themed work of art. I will post pictures when I am further along in the creating process!

So, that's pretty much what I have done lately.....if I remember some more things I will post them later. I already know that I want to share my autumn stroll that I took the other day in Stuttgart.

My Oktoberfest Souvineer

So, when were leaving Oktoberfest, I got all the souvineers I needed. I bought a dirndl t-shirt, a magnet for my collection, a heart cookie that says "Oktoberfest", and I stole a beer stein.

Wait, what was that I said? A STOLEN beer stein? Haha. Anyway, you aren't supposed to leave with them of course, but some drunk person dropped this one, like so many others, on the ground. So I just happened to pick it up.

Now, how do they make sure that nobody leaves with them....yeah, they post security and the Polizei at all the entrances. So as we were walking up the path near the woods where we came in, I saw them checking someone for a beer stein up ahead of us....so I cleverly pulled out the tshirt I had purchased, put the beer stein in the bottom of the bag with the other things on top, and then we changed directions. Unfortunately, there were Polizei at the next exit too.....but that was not going to stop me from keeping my souvineer! So we walked through the woods! Simple! Anyway, I don't feel guilty because so many of the steins get smashed by drunk people, they wont miss the one single one I took from the ground on the street. (: And here I am, in dirndl and all....very proud of my new souvineer!

THE Oktoberfest

So last weekend I went to visit Lena, Vroni, and Vincent in Prien am Chiemsee and also went to THE Oktoberfest. I started out leaving Friday morning with taking the train to Munich where I met Lena in front of Starbucks, the usual place of course. (: On the train, I finished sewing on all the lovely new trim for my dirndl. So cute! I also met a very nice guy with whom I talked for quite a while....I'm pretty sure he thought I was kinda crazy though. I am a crazy American afterall! Well, that and the fact that my stories were about my crazy last week with the kids.....but he laughed really hard and said that it sounded like a movie plot. It kinda was like one actually.

So anyway, Lena and I went back to her dad's girlfriend, Helena's, apartment where we met Lena's sister, Vroni, and got ready to go to Oktoberfest. It was really nice to just sit around with the girls and gab while we drank a little wine and got our dirndls all together. When Lena and I went to Oktoberfest we walked on a path through the woods and it was quite lovely. Very cold, but lovely nonetheless. We walked in right next to the huge statue of the queen (I'm assuming it's the queen who's wedding was celebrated with the Oktoberfest...but I may be completely wrong....it may be a Roman or Greek Goddess because it stands in front of a huge Greek or Roman building....so who knows.) The statue is incredibly huge and looks out over the Oktoberfest area. There is a huge staircase up to the statue where we had our picture taken in front of the festival.

Then when we were at the bottom of the staircase, taking pictures of the statue on the hill, a guy came over and told us that we were "taking too much picture and not enough drinking." We told him that we were planning on getting so beer but we didn't know if we would be able to get a seat in a tent somewhere. See, something I didn't know before is, if you want to drink beer, you have be seated in a beer tent, but it is really hard to come up with a seat in a tent because they are sooooo crowded. So anyway, he said "Well I happen to have a table with friends and if you want to you can follow me right now and share out table." Now, I'm not really sure if a mass of beer is worth sitting with like 10 drunk Italians in real life....but this was Oktoberfest....so it was worth it! It was pretty fun for just a little while because they keep cheers-ing eachother on almost every sip. Silly drunk people. They also bought us each a beer, so it was worth it to hang around for a little while. Eventually I said to Lena "hey, we need to go find your sister, right?" wink, wink. And we scurried out of there promising to return later and never doing so. Haha. Such is Oktoberfest!

Then we walked around the entire festival while we ate pretzels, my favorite roasted almonds, crepes with nutella, and ice cream. We shared all that stuff, I promise! Then we went on the biggest roller coaster called the Alpina Bahn and decided to go home. It was so cold there, it just wasn't worth staying any longer. Nobody even saw that we were wearing our dirndls because we never took off our coats! Also, Lena had a gimpy leg because of a very swollen knee, so it was better to get her home rather than keep walking around in the cold. But it was overall, I would say, a very successfull trip to Oktoberfest. Other people may not say so because we didn't get completely smashed.....but I enjoyed it! (:

Now for pictures: Here's the big statue I was talking about.


And this is, of course, Lena and me in front of the festival grounds behind us. The beer tent right there on the left is where we were drinking with the Italian guys. So funny.

This is apparently one of the most famous bakeries of Munich....or something like that. (:

The Lowenbrau beer tent:

And the Alpina Bahn: Which, by the way, was much bigger and faster than it looked....we found out the hard way.....and payed 5 Euros for it! (Approximately $7.50)

A Day Without Kindergarten...

So, now to talk about what's going on here with my Au Pair job and all. Today was one of those lovely days where Jonathan had no Kindergraten. Luckily enough, that only happens twice a year (when it's not a holiday, I mean) and it's for teacher meetings, etc. Actually, today and tomorrow are both free days. So, this means that I have to entertain Jonathan alone from 7:30 in the morning till the afternoon when Ann-Katrin gets home, and then take care of both of them until Anette gets home from work at 6ish. Yikes! Today was even a little bit more stressful because, instead of getting home at 1:30 like normal, Ann-Katrin got home at 4 because she had theatre after school. Ugh! (I'm still happy that Ann-Katrin got into the theatre program though!) Well, at least tomorrow will be not as long or as stressful.

Actually, to be perfectly honest, it wasn't too bad. I think we handled the day pretty well. We put together three puzzles, drew monsters, played tic-tac-toe, played a little dress-up while taking pictures (which was really more like just make funny faces at the camera), tried to burn down the house, listened to Bob the Builder in German, play more hours of cars than you could possibly imagine, ate lunch, went grocery shopping, created a huge lump on his forehead, played with his roller outside, and lots of other things....

Did you notice the two that didn't match in the list? Yeah, those would be those lovely little things that happen when you are watching a 5 year old boy who has no level of concentration what-so-ever. Haha. Anyway, so, for some reason, Jonathan decided it was a good idea to put one of his sisters stuffed animals in her lamp. Yeah, in the lamp! So, I was cleaning up from our last playing game and I smelled something not so good. Yeah, that would be the fur of the stuffed dolphin melting against the lightbulb. Yeah. Great. Anyway, so his sister's dolphin has a nice big burn hole on it's tummy now, but I caught it before there was an actual fire. So everything is good. I called Anette right after getting the situation under control and she said that it's not a big deal and those kind of situations happen, but at least nobody got hurt. She would have been more worried if Jonathan, Ann-Katrin, or I had gotten hurt and said that it is just stuff and stuff can be replaced. So, good mom said it was fine and at least nobody got hurt.

So, speaking of nobody getting hurt.....haha. Jonathan said he was hungry and I said it was okay to have a snack and I went down to get it set up on the table for him. Then, a few moments later I hear him crying like he got hurt. I ran up the stairs in order to find that he had run his head into the metal part of the door trim where the handle latches. Ugh. So some ice, a little cream, and a band-aid later, he's good as new....except with the addition of a big lump. But, once again, everything turned out alright and I think we did pretty well considering. Now I will show you a little of what we did this morning:

I was trying to convince him that dressing funny was going to be fun...it didn't really work! (;

I'm really not sure what we were doing here....


And my peronal favorite......*drum roll* Fish Face!!!

No Kindergarten Today!

So, now to talk about what's going on here with my Au Pair job and all. Today was one of those lovely days where Jonathan had no Kindergraten. Luckily enough, that only happens twice a year (when it's not a holiday, I mean) and it's for teacher meetings, etc. Actually, today and tomorrow are both free days. So, this means that I have to entertain Jonathan alone from 7:30 in the morning till the afternoon when Ann-Katrin gets home, and then take care of both of them until Anette gets home from work at 6ish. Yikes! Today was even a little bit more stressful because, instead of getting home at 1:30 like normal, Ann-Katrin got home at 4 because she had theatre after school. Ugh! (I'm still happy that Ann-Katrin got into the theatre program though!) Well, at least tomorrow will be not as long or as stressful.

Actually, to be perfectly honest, it wasn't too bad. I think we handled the day pretty well. We put together three puzzles, drew monsters, played tic-tac-toe, played a little dress-up while taking pictures (which was really more like just make funny faces at the camera), tried to burn down the house, listened to Bob the Builder in German, play more hours of cars than you could possibly imagine, ate lunch, went grocery shopping, created a huge lump on his forehead, played with his roller outside, and lots of other things.... Did you notice the two that didn't match in the list? Yeah, those would be those lovely little things that happen when you are watching a 5 year old boy who has no level of concentration what-so-ever. Haha. Anyway, so, for some reason, Jonathan decided it was a good idea to put one of his sisters stuffed animals in her lamp. Yeah, in the lamp! So, I was cleaning up from our last playing game and I smelled something not so good. Yeah, that would be the fur of the stuffed dolphin melting against the lightbulb. Yeah. Great. Anyway, so his sister's dolphin has a nice big burn hole on it's tummy now, but I caught it before there was an actual fire. So everything is good. I called Anette right after getting the situation under control and she said that it's not a big deal and those kind of situations happen, but at least nobody got hurt. She would have been more worried if Jonathan, Ann-Katrin, or I had gotten hurt and said that it is just stuff and stuff can be replaced. So, good mom said it was fine and at least nobody got hurt.

So, speaking of nobody getting hurt.....haha. Jonathan said he was hungry and I said it was okay to have a snack and I went down to get it set up on the table for him. Then, a few moments later I hear him crying like he got hurt. I ran up the stairs in order to find that he had run his head into the metal part of the door trim where the handle latches. Ugh. So some ice, a little cream, and a band-aid later, he's good as new....except with the addition of a big lump. But, once again, everything turned out alright and I think we did pretty well considering. Now I will show you a little of what we did this morning:







So, now to talk about what's going on here with my Au Pair job and all. Today was one of those lovely days where Jonathan had no Kindergraten. Luckily enough, that only happens twice a year (when it's not a holiday, I mean) and it's for teacher meetings, etc. Actually, today and tomorrow are both free days. So, this means that I have to entertain Jonathan alone from 7:30 in the morning till the afternoon when Ann-Katrin gets home, and then take care of both of them until Anette gets home from work at 6ish. Yikes! Today was even a little bit more stressful because, instead of getting home at 1:30 like normal, Ann-Katrin got home at 4 because she had theatre after school. Ugh! (I'm still happy that Ann-Katrin got into the theatre program though!) Well, at least tomorrow will be not as long or as stressful.

Actually, to be perfectly honest, it wasn't too bad. I think we handled the day pretty well. We put together three puzzles, drew monsters, played tic-tac-toe, played a little dress-up while taking pictures (which was really more like just make funny faces at the camera), tried to burn down the house, listened to Bob the Builder in German, play more hours of cars than you could possibly imagine, ate lunch, went grocery shopping, created a huge lump on his forehead, played with his roller outside, and lots of other things....

Did you notice the two that didn't match in the list? Yeah, those would be those lovely little things that happen when you are watching a 5 year old boy who has no level of concentration what-so-ever. It's a little bit like I was when I was 5.....hmmm. Haha. Anyway, so, for some reason, Jonathan decided it was a good idea to put one of his sisters stuffed animals in her lamp. Yeah, in the lamp! So, I was cleaning up from our last playing game and I smelled something not so good. Yeah, that would be the fur of the stuffed dolphin melting against the lightbulb. Yeah. Great. Anyway, so his sister's dolphin has a nice big burn hole on it's tummy now, but I caught it before there was an actual fire. So everything is good. I called Anette right after getting the situation under control and she said that it's not a big deal and those kind of situations happen, but at least nobody got hurt. She would have been more worried if Jonathan, Ann-Katrin, or I had gotten hurt and said that it is just stuff and stuff can be replaced. So, good mom said it was fine and at least nobody got hurt.

So, speaking of nobody getting hurt.....haha. Jonathan said he was hungry and I said it was okay to have a snack and I went down to get it set up on the table for him. Then, a few moments later I hear him crying like he got hurt. I ran up the stairs in order to find that he had run his head into the metal part of the door trim where the handle latches. Ugh. So some ice, a little cream, and a band-aid later, he's good as new....except with the addition of a big lump. But, once again, everything turned out alright and I think we did pretty well considering. Now I will show you a little of what we did this morning:

The Last of Volksfest!

Okay, so that was Volkfest in a nut shell. Basically this is what it is like: take the Puyallup fair, mix around so that rides, food, shopping, and games are all very mixed and confusing, make it at last twice as big, and add lots and lots alcohol. Yep, that's the recipe. (:

And More Pictures of Volksfest!

And a very cool marching band for Mom and Garrett to see. I thought it was really cool that the girls are still dressed as girls...like in dirndls and everything!

And another cool old beer car for Daddy!

And beautiful parade horses...

And more wine....

And then beer...

More Canstatter Volkfest Parade Pictures...

And on with the pictures...

Here is the Volksfest royalty:

And this one is for daddy....a cool old beer truck-thingy:

And this is a tractor....so it's not only in PA that you see tractors driving down the road!

And the first wine cart! Woo hoo! Oh, and by the way, almost all of the beer and wine carts were giving out alcohol as they drove down the parade route. Crazy, huh?

Volkfest of Canstatter Wassen

So I went to 163rd Volkfest at Canstatter Wassen in Stuttgart. It's kind of like Stuttgart version of Oktoberfest only not quite as big....although they basically fight for the top or best every year. It's just not as well known. There is a huge parade...I mean huge! And many beer tents and rides and a market and lots and lots of food! I went to the parade on Sunday morning and then wandered around the fsetival for a bit. The most famous symbol of the festival is the fruit tower that is almost 100 years old. (For more historical information about the tower and the rest of the festival, go to: http://www.cannstatter-volksfest.de/index.php?id=50&L=1 It's in English.) And here it is:

And here is the beginning of the parade:

And the Wasenhasi (the rabbit) who is the festival mascot:

And a cool stein float!

And the float commemorating the fruti tower! The float was covered in real fruit and very cool in-person, by the way!

And I will post more pictures from the parade on the next posting....they only let me put five picture on each posting.....

One More Chocolate Shop....for now!

So this one is not technically just a candy or chocolate shop, but it is the chocolate and candy shop area that is located inside the department store Karstadt. (http://www.karstadt.de/) I have seen this many places over here as it seems that every big department store has one.

So, what really amazed me was the amount of each line they had of German, Austrian, Swiss, etc. chocolate lines. This wall was only Rebers chocolates; better known as the Mozart chocolates. They make those famous little Mozart balls and I just couldn't believe how much was there, especially since we aren't even in Salzburg. I mean, in Salzburg I understand that since it was his birthplace, but Stuttgart? All the way across Germany they still have this much available? Crazy. Anyway, a whole lovely wall.

Then a whole wall of Asbach and another German brand of chocolate.

Then, of course, you have to have a double sized wall of Lindt chocolates.

And then Hachez and another German brand that I can't pronounce. Okay, so I can pronounce it, I just don't know it really well. It's called Niederegger and the subtitle says Lubeck. Interesting.

And here is their truffle case. Hooray for truffles. All little round ball ones. (Mom and Dad, special note for you guys: We need to find a line of the little round ball truffles....they are so awesome.)

(Mom and Dad, special note for you guys: We need to find a line of the little round ball truffles....they are so regal and European looking. Just a thought.)

Okay, for eveyone else. I swear we will move on to something other than candy now! (:

Candy Hallway!!

Okay, as you all should know, my family does candy. So here's a post specifically about a really cool candy hallway. Literally, it's the hallway between two different parts of Breuninger department store. It's really neat and bright...oh and they carry all sorts of interesting candies.

Here are the gummies!

And they make these awesome little cakes out of the marshmallow candies they sell and deocrate them with gummies. They all have some kind of color theme or something too. Really creative and cute. Would be an excellent choice for a birthday!