Happy Halloween!

Trick or Treat...smell my feet...give me something good to eat...

if you don't, I don't care....I'll pull down your underwear.

We had a great time trick or treating this year.  On post trick or treating is allowed from 5pm to 7pm.  We were ready to walk out the door right at 5pm...and so were our neighbors!  We spent most of our time trick or treating with My Little Pony and Supergirl!

Bella showing off the beginning of all the loot she collected on Halloween...



It took her a few doors, but she got the concept down quickly. 

The biggest problem is that she wanted to go into people's houses to get the candy!

There were a few really spooky houses.  I loved it. 

This one was "less spooky" but she was mesmerized by it all the same...

We finished our neighborhood and then My Little Pony just wasn't quite done yet so we had a potty break...emptied our loot buckets and went out for more...this is the start of round 2 of Trick or Treating.

Another door Bella found very spooooky!

This is right outside our house...thats HER pumpkin.  She is still so proud of it!

Another cool Halloween setup...these pictures just don't do these houses justice.

Some of them really went all out in the decor.  It was great.

Home at last!  When we combined loot buckets from our first and second rounds of

Trick or Treating she had SO MUCH CANDY!!!

She's trying to decide which three candies she wants to eat before bed tonight.

Her first choice was a caramel.  That made me laugh...



And then it was time for bed...she wanted to sleep in my bed and I said no.  She got so upset and cried so hard that she promptly barfed up all the candy she ate.

I love this holiday.

Happy Halloween!!!!

A picture worth a thousand laughs...

After the Kirwa Festival

Caramel Apples!!!

After the pumpkin patch...

So there is a story about what happened AFTER the pumpkin patch last weekend.  I know...who would have thought a day could be more thrilling than what I've already described?!!!

Well, poorly planned that it was...we headed to the pumpkin patch right at lunch time....without eating first.  So by the time we'd picked our pumpkins and paid for them we were all starving.  We stopped in a small town on the way back home and parked and ate.  Well, we ate...Bella played (literally) with her food...

And then she took random photos of us....

Anywho...when we were done eating, playing and posing...we went to get in our car and discovered that a Kirwa Festival was going on.  Perhaps you remember the Kirwa post from a few years ago?  Its when they spend hours raising a huge 100 foot tree into upright position through the manual labor of the males?  And girls flounce around pouring beer into mugs for the laboring fellows to drink from...

Well, yep not only did we find a Kirwa Festival, but the tree was blocking our car from leaving the lot. 

FOUR HOURS LATER...I drove us home because John had decided to help raise the Kirwa tree thus negating his ability to drive (remember beer?)

And to top it all off...Bella had a potty accident and I didn't have any extra clothes so I wrapped her in my sweater and made them look like MC Hammer pants.  Oh...you should have seen the looks us crazy Americans got on this cold day watching the Kirwa with a little girl in MC Hammer pants playing in the dirt with no shoes/socks.  I truly felt like I'd grown up in the smallest of towns in Oregon...

Oh wait...I did.

Pumpkin Patch

Remember last year's pumpkin patch photo?  I stuck the girls inside the wooden box of pumpkins at the commissary?  Well, this year I actually found a REAL pumpkin patch....

Bella at her first pumpkin patch...can you see it?  If you squint and look really hard you'll see a strip of field with orange-ish forms on it.  THAT is a pumplin patch. 

I know...I know...its not your typical hay ride, apple cider, corn maze pumpkin patch...but it also isn't the box of pumpkins at the commissary!

Not only was it Bella's first pumpkin patch, but it was our friend Christina's first pumpkin patch too!  How you get to be mid-20's and not have ever gone to a pumpkin patch is beyond me.  She says its because there are none in SE Texas...

I BEG to differ...

Texas: Houston, south east Texas and surrounding counties Pumpkin Patches, Corn Mazes, Hay Rides and More


I'll be forwarding her this link for sure.  :)

Anywho...back to the 2 year old's first pumpkin patch experience...first we went for a big walk and found a really heavy pumpkin.

Then it was a really dirty pumpkin...(see hamsey daddy back there looking on?)

Then we had to take just a short rest on a pumpkin from all that walking and running around...

Then Daddy found HIS pumpkin!

Which finally prompted Bella to find her pumpkin...isn't it so cute? 

And if the photos weren't enough here is a short video clip of her finding the baby pumpkins...Oh, aren't they so cute?!

Brandenburg Gate

And so the final chapter in our Berlin trip...its about time, right?

The Brandenburg Gate...here is what I know about it...

1.  Its a well known landmark in Berlin that marks entrance into Berlin.
2.  Its in East Berlin...or was...now its just in "Berlin."  :)

And here is what it looks like...

From the front....

From the back....

My favorite shot of us with the gate.  ha ha ha.....

And the big colums...they were giant.  And yes, thats me geekily peeking out from behind it.  We THOUGHT it would be a cute photo, but now I just see it was pretty dumb.  As penance I'm including it in my blog.  :)

Last, but not least...when I did some research about the Brandenburg Gate I realized that it...like so many other wonderful buildings, monuments, statues, squares, etc. are huge symbols of the East/West...The Iron Curtain...Communism...Liberation....hope....peace....and it really is overwhelming to think I had the chance to go and experience THAT...not just see the gate...not just take a picture of a well known monument.  Makes one stop and say..."Woah."

From Wikipedia...

Vehicles and pedestrians could travel freely through the gate, located in East Berlin, until the Berlin Wall was built, 13 August 1961. Then one of altogether eight Berlin Wall crossings was opened on the eastern side of the gate, usually not open for East Berliners and East Germans, who from then on needed a hard-to-obtain exit visa. On 14 August West Berliners gathered on the western side of the gate to demonstrate against the Berlin Wall, among them West Berlin's governing Mayor Willy Brandt, who had spontaneously returned from a federal election campaigning tour in West Germany earlier on the same day.


Under the pretext that Western demonstrations required it, the East closed the checkpoint at the Brandenburg Gate the same day, 'until further notice', a situation that was to last until 22 December 1989.

The Berlin Wall

Good grief...I've got to catch up or before I know it October will be over and done with and I still won't have even posted our pumpkin patch photos!

So...back to Berlin...and the wall.  Actually...better said as The Wall.  With capitals because when you talk about The Wall people always seem to know what wall you are referring to...

So...I got to touch it.  See it...touch it...kind of experience it...

The most surprising thing about it was how short it was.  Short as in "not tall" as opposed to the length...because that wall went on FOREVER.  When I saw The Wall for the first time it was not intimidating at all...not even a tiny bit.  I imagine way back when there was razor wire and stuff on top maybe?  It might be time for another history lesson.

From Wikipedia...

"The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin.

The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses.

The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period."


Ok...so no razor wire...but the "death strip" sounds and looks pretty daunting from pre-fall of the wall photos.

And now for the big reveal of MY experience at the Berlin wall.  I'm starting with my absolute favorite photo from that day...

And then looking down one side of the wall....

And then the other....

And me touching the wall.  :)
 

 
And then just some interesting other works of art on the wall...
 

 
And in the infamous words of Arnold Schwarzenegger..."I'll be back."

Checkpoint Charlie

Imagine waking up to the announcement that your city was divided in half and during the night 6 foot high barbed wire fences were erected to stop you from going to work or visiting your family or friends...and even more troubling was the fact that it stayed that way for 30 years. 

That is essentially what happened to the people of Berlin on August 13, 1961. 

Its also one of the reasons I really wanted to go to Berlin and see first hand some of the remnants of the cold war era...and the division of the beautiful city of Berlin. 

One of our first stops on our tour was Checkpoint Charlie.  Named "Checkpoint C" - the Charlie came from the phonetic alphabet and it has forever been the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War and the only crossing location for Allied troops.

I was a little surprised at how "insignificant" Checkpoint Charlie looked at first.  I think it was less "impressive" because it was lacking the East Berlin guard tower...the rows of barbed wire and blockades and the heavily armed soldiers...instead I saw this...

That little white thing that looks kind of like a trailer?  Yeah...thats Checkpoint Charlie....and a little closer view...  (can you see John standing there in the front?)

These "soldiers" are actors and you pay them to take a photo with them...

Now interestingly enough...I learned in my research of this place that the original guard shack is located in a museum and is significantly larger than this little replica.  Plus...just for full disclosure...it also didn't have those sand bags in front of it.  It looked more like this...



Photo borrowed from here



Photo rights and permission here

Apparently there was also an eatery there called the "Eagle's Nest" that allowed the allied forces to peer over the wall into the border area of East Berlin.  Now they've since transformed it into this newer more modern restaurant that doesn't feel the need to be secretive about their customers...
 

 
Just kidding...but it did make John and I laugh when we saw the name of this restaurant.
 
Back to more important things....This sign is also a replica of the original.  I guess they wanted to make sure everyone knew that there was no friendly American faces once they crossed over... 
 

 
And while walking around I got to see and touch pieces of the Berlin Wall.  I found these absolutely fascinating...
 

 
But...I'm just putting these here as a little teaser...I've got a bunch more to say about the Berlin wall.  Meanwhile...stop and think what you'd want your family to know if you couldnt see or talk to them for the next 30 years and maybe make a phone call or write an email today...?  Just thinking outloud here...