Three little Monkeys

Ever since we went to the Christmas Market in Cologne, Germany I have been looking forward to going inside the huge Cathedral there.  On Saturday my friend Julie (who is also husbandless) and I loaded up our kids and headed to Cologne.



When we arrived I realized that my battery in my  big camera was dead. Ughh.  Luckily I am a crazy camera lady and had my point and shoot on me as well, but it could just not do the inside of this church justice.  It was breath taking.



Carolyn was very excited that there was a line of silver men and a couple of gold too in front of the church.  I think she would have finally given them some money, but I didn't have any change on me.



After we got some lunch we headed over to the zoo.  Sidney and Jonathan (Julie's son) have become such good buddies.  They were both so excited to get out of their stroller for a while.



Of course Carolyn was very excited to visit the zoo again.



I love the camels here.



There are some differences with a European zoo.  See the cat (not sure what kind of cat breed he was, maybe a cheetah)  in front of the stroller.  The wall to keep him in is only as high as Carolyn and it looked like that kitty could easily get over it if he wanted to.  I don't think you would see that in an American zoo, but he didn't act like he was going to make any move toward us.  He just kept walking his path.



Brian gave Carolyn and Sidney seal stuff animals for Valentine's Day.  The girls love them and have both been sleeping with them.  Carolyn was very excited to see the  real seals.



Three little monkeys checking out the monkeys.



Wonderful day and made me realize how far I have come in my comfort level at getting out here by myself with the girls.

Carnival

Everywhere I go around here these days I can see signs of Carnival - red, green and yellow flags being flown on houses, random people dressed up in costume in the cities, and this day we spent in Maastricht we saw parades of people dressed up for the choosing of their Prince of Carnival.



Carnival is huge here and it has already been very entertaining to see everything surrounding it.  And the parades haven't really even started yet.



Supposedly they have children's parades where all the kids dress up and more "adult" parades as well that have been described as similar to Mardi Gras (the adults are supposed to dress in costume too).  Almost every town around here has been advertising some kind of parade.



I love mixture of ages in this group.  You had  the very young to people who looked like they have been doing this for many years.



The girls and I are planning on checking out some of the parades.  I am excited that Carolyn will finally get to wear her Alice in Wonderland costume from Halloween

Brian's Twin

A couple of weekends ago we got to have a date night (Woo Hoo)  with several other couples and enjoyed a great Italian dinner in Masstricht, Netherlands.



I wanted to make sure I shared these pictures because of our waiter.  Brian is convinced that this is how he will look when he is older.  I love Brian's enthusiastic look in this picture and our waiter's bored (what a silly American) look.



I do see a resemblance but I guess only time will tell if this is truly Brian's twin.

Uniform

Although my husband wears it well, I really hate to see this uniform come out.



I can't complain though because last time he wore it Carolyn was just a little thing.  This picture makes my ovaries hurt.



So Brian will be deploying soon but thankfully it is a very short deployment.  Makes us realize that we aren't just over here for our own little European vacation.  Luckily I have these two to keep me busy.



And they are both very proud of their Daddy.

Miss Sally Carolyn

I talked Carolyn into having a little photo shoot with me this weekend.



It has been crazy windy here.  Hence the fly away bow.



So it is not my editing my daughter is a little pale these days.  Considering we only saw 10 minutes of sunshine this week we are all a little pale.



Sometimes I think I am creating a picture hog.  She likes to have them taken as much as I like to take them.

Sea Life Centre - Oberhausen, Germany

Last week we headed to Oberhausen to check out a German Aquarium.  Carolyn has always loved anything having to do with any animal and was very excited to go to the aquarium.



English was listed below most exhibits as well as German which was nice.  This was a touch tank and the lady could not think of the English translation for what was in the tank.



We finally figured out that they were shrimp.  The girls were not to sure they wanted to let them crawl on their hands though.



The English translation of this is Catfish.  I don't know about you but it doesn't look like the catfish I know.



This aquarium was also the home of the famous Paul the Octopus who predicted the winner of all the German soccer World Cup games.  Sadly he has passed away and this is the memorial to him.



Almost managed a picture of all of the kids minus Finley.