Ho Ho Ho

Macen saw Santa yesterday and boy does he know what he wants for Christmas. For the last month, Macen has said he is going to ask Santa for a zippleback, gronckle, nadder, nightmare, red death and toothless. These are the dragons in How To Train Your Dragon. Well all he ended up telling Santa was he wanted dragons which is fine, I was just happy he made it onto Santa's lap. Afterwards, Santa's elf gave Macen a candy cane.

Later in the day, we are talking about Santa coming and Macen said Santa gave him a candy cane. I didn't think too much about it but that night I said something about Santa bringing him dragons for Chrismas and he said in a more sad voice, "No, Santa gave me a candy cane". So he must have thought he was going to see Santa and get his presents at the same time. But all he got was a candy cane. I explained Santa would be coming on Christmas eve to deliver presents. My suspicions were confirmed this morning when Macen brought up Santa again and that he wasn't getting dragons, he just got a candy cane. Only this time, he was about to cry. So I explained it even more that he will see Santa 1 or 2 times and he has to tell him what he wants and then Santa goes back to the North Pole, makes the toys for him and then when we get up on Christmas morning, Santa will have been to our house and left presents under the tree. He seem to accept it this time. Maybe it will be more real when we get the tree up and start our celebration this week.

I told James from now on at Christmas time, we are going to tell Macen if he isn't good Santa will only bring him a candy cane :) Oh the tough life of a 3 year old.

Happy Thanksgiving to us....

(taken from our backdoor)

We woke up to snow this morning. We have gotten flakes the last 2 days but it melted as they landed. Macen was very excited and said "It's Christmas time". Thankfully it was all melted by afternoon but I think we have more coming this weekend. We now have 3-4 more months of this. Ugghh!

Gobble, Gobble

We're getting crafty! Macen and I made turkeys from toilet paper rolls. He did the painting himself and glued everything on but couldn't figure out the feathers. Oh and Macen is getting good at using glue. Scary, I know :)  

Like Father, Like Son

I am way, way behind in posting these considering they were taken mid way through James' R&R and he has been gone for a week now. The boys are launching the rocket with a lot of feet power.

Not our Halloween costumes

James wanted us to wear these for Halloween and I declined with a "not cool" comment. And I am not sure how a post full of women whose husbands are deployed to Afghanistan would appreciate us walking around wearing these.

The Afghan men James works with sent them home with James. They are very nice. You might not be able to see but mine has a lot of sequin and bead work hand stitched onto it.

Bayreuth

Maisel Weisse Brewery Tour

This brewery is known mostly for its wheat beers. It was basically a museum but showed how the beers were brewed back in the day. Obvisiously, the process has come a long way. It was a really interesting tour.

The bar area where we enjoyed a beer that came with our tour.

Lunch

We found this wurst place for lunch. It looks like they bring it in for the winter and along with the wurst sandwiches, they sell winter beers and warm, mulled wine. After lunch, we wen to a REAL MALL! I don't think these are all that common here and if they are, they are located in bigger cities. We are in the middle of nowhere. Bayreuth is only 45 mins away though!

Eremitage

Both of these are decorated entirely with colored rocks. Unfortunately, they have closed the palace for the winter season. So we walked around the grounds and will come back in the summer when everything is in bloom.

The dragon hole. Macen is really into dragons so he thought this was pretty cool.

James thought about walking across this until he realized water was steadily pouring over it and the wet leaves made it slippery.

You can kinda see a path winding around this. I followed it up by myself since Macen was throwing his 2nd tantrum of the day :)

Daddy and Macen looking for fish. We can't wait to go back when lots of colors are blooming.

A nice afternoon

We headed to Regensburg after picking Macen up from school for some beer, chocolate and good food. I think we've mentioned before we are going to drink and eat our way through Europe.

The above photos are of James drinking a beer at a hospital brewery.  That's right a hospital brewery.  I guess it wasn't all that uncommon for hospitals or almshouses to have their own brewery and they would give the patients a "nightcap" right before bed.  Currently it is no longer a hospital but there is an associated nursing home that proceeds from the brewery go to support.  The middle picture is Macen looking at an aquarium and amusing some German Oomas (Grandmas) who were having their afternoon coffee in the brewery restaurant.

A view from the other side of the stone bridge.

James standing in line to get a wurst sandwich. Anytime we've been here, there is always a line. That says something.

This is the inside of the Dom we visited back in January. You can find it here

A very large chocolate store recommended by a neighbor. She also recommended a nice restaurant near the chocolate store. Just so happen to be a restaurant friends of ours had already recommended so we knew we had to try it. It was very good and we'll definitely be going back.

Aargh, it's time for treats!

On Halloween night, it's time to trick or treat. Macen has been emphasizing "on halloween night" for weeks now.

Give me your treats or my sword will be used for a trick!

We had a neighborhood Halloween party before taking the kids trick or treating. There was so many of us, we had A LOT of candy to hand out. The kids thought they could trick or treat from our stashes.

Pumpkin Carving

Macen enjoyed helping carve the pumpkin this year.