Craig Ferguson Live

Craig Ferguson came to the Enlisted Club Monday night and Cody and I are fans of his Late Late Show. We had a great time!

The guy on the left was the opening act for Craig.

The Biosphere

So as most of you know, I work at a school age program on Ramstein AFB. I'm going to try to describe our program a bit. There are around 200 kids we are in charge of on any given day. The kids are divided up by age groups into different rooms, and each of those rooms is named after a color. Kids aged 5 through 2nd grade are called "primary" kids and don't interact with the older kids.

I work with the older kids - who start at 2nd graders and go up to 10-11 year olds - the older kids are called "secondary" kids. Secondary kids are split up into four different rooms: Turquoise, Purple, Lime and Yellow. There are about 24 kids for each of these rooms as well as one Lead Counselor and one "Summer Intern." I am the Lead Counselor in charge of Yellow Room, and my kids range from 8-11 years old.

Okay - now that you have some understanding of what I'm talking about (*hopefully) - I'll tell you about our little excursion. Yellow Room and Lime Room went on a field trip today to the Biosphere (basically a glorified nature park/nature center). The kids had a good time and it was nice to be outside

In the photo above, we are all about 40 feet off the ground, working our way through rope bridges that span the tree tops.

Much to the kids' delight, the rope bridges ended in a massive curly slide. Ms. Megan had the privilege of taking 3 -4 terrified children back down a set of "escape" stairs instead.

Here is about half of my "class" at the bottom of the slide, waiting for the others to slide down.

The picture above shows the progression of the field trip. By 2:30 pm, all the kids were hot, tired and grumpy. Ms. Megan's the only one still smiling.

Here we are on the way back to the bus, where most of the kids promptly fell asleep.

Baby DeYoung (12 Weeks Along)

Hooray for new ultrasound pictures! I am 12 weeks 3 days along.

Here is an outline of our baby.

The picture above was taken because the baby was sucking his/her thumb.

I think the picture above is my favorite. At this point in the ultrasound, the doctor just smiled and said, "you have a very relaxed baby - and look - it's a very smiley baby, too."
(Can you see the smile? :)

And last but not lease, a close up. I'm disappointed because this picture was taken two seconds too late - two seconds earlier and you would have seen his/her fully extended arms and his/her legs crossed in front - we could even see their little toes!

Throughout the ultrasound, our baby was moving around leisurely. We could see the little arms waving around and the little legs moving.

Next appointment is June 30 - stay tuned.

Kindsbach

I realized today that I have very few pictures up of our actual town: Kindsbach. Here are some pictures in an around our lovely little town - it was a bit rainy today, but that makes the pictures all the more normal for the setting.

Above is the trail that Cody and I like to walk after dinner at least twice a week. On the other side of the green fence is the town's soccer field. There are NO parking places in our neighborhood on Sunday's because of the soccer crowd - it drives Cody nuts.

Just some rolling hills and scenery along the walk. Below is the town church - we can hear the bells ringing on Sunday.

Today I detoured from the usual walk and was rewarded by finding the town's little lake, complete with a railed-off shallow section for kids, a boat-house where you can rent little canoes, and a neat little playground.

Below are some pictures of the road that leads to our house.

And, last but not least, our vine covered home by the forest.

We're Having a Baby (For Sure!)

Here are the first Ultrasound pictures of our baby!! I am 8 weeks 3 days as of today. Revised due date is 12/12/2009.





We got to see the baby's heart beating and he/she was even moving around a little - that's why he/she is in a different position for every picture! We'll get another ultrasound at 12 weeks (or 3 months). :) :) :) :) :) :)

Trier

Cody had the day off today (Friday) so he took me to see Trier, home to several historic sites!

First of all, the drive to Trier was gorgeous - we had a nice, sunny day for it! There were beautiful fields full of yellow flowers:

After seeing so many fields with greens and yellows, we were completely taken aback by a black field! It was a solar farm:

When we got to Trier, our first stop was the Basilica - this is the place Emperor Constantine set up as his throne room in around 100 A.D. There are just not words to describe how majestic this place feels inside! It's where I would set up my throne room!

Here Cody is standing next to a wall built a couple thousand years ago by the Romans - it just blows me away that it's still here.

More of the Roman Wall

Here I am in front of the Imperial Bath House. Constantine originally started it's construction as a sign of prosperity, but ironically enough, he halted construction in 312 A.D. due to lack of funds! He used the partially-finished baths as a barracks for his imperial bodyguards.

Below is me in front of the palace of the Archbishop Elector. The palace was closed, but it was the gardens that were spectacular!

Here are the Gardens:

One of the biggest tourist attractions in Trier is The Dom or the Cathedral. It is massively huge. Unfortunately, it was a bit too dark inside to get any good pictures, so you'll only get to see the outside:

And last, but not least, here is the Porta Nigra, or the Black Gate. It is another of those incredible relics that remain from the Roman Empire.

It was a great little day trip! I was so excited to begin our travels here in Europe!