Mom's Visit: Bamberg, Germany

Day three of Mom's visit was spent in Bamberg. Another town within an hour radius of "home". This was my first time to Bamberg and I so enjoyed it! The weather had dropped a bit and I must admit I preferred keeping my hands in my pockets rather than taking pictures. So unfortunately there are only a couple Instragram shots of the town. 

These day trips with my mom have made me realize how much more I prefer exploring the city on a weekday. Less weekend hustle and bustle.  We walked aimlessly for the most part, but used the awesome 'blue dot' on the Google maps iPhone app to hit a few key sights. All in all a great trip exploring another picturesque German town. 

Mom's Visit: A Day Trip to Rothenburg

I seriously can not get enough of this city. I think this is the 3rd time I've visited and it still has not gotten old! While Mom was still adjusting to the new time zone we decided to stay close and just make day trips the first few days of her visit. The first of which was Rothenburg. We leisurely strolled the town, did a little shopping, and had a delicious lunch.

Moving Mondays @ My Traveling Troop

Today I'm being featured over at My Traveling Troop for 'Moving Mondays'.

Kristina has a fabulous blog where she shares about her life as a Navy wife. 

Her family recently made the trek from Monterey, California to SINGAPORE.

Kristina is creating an incredible collection of tips and stories of military families living all over the world.
Getting the news that you're PCSing to another duty station can bring on all sorts of emotions.
 Excitement, but also fear of the unknown. There are so many questions running through your mind!
That's why having a database where you can go to read other spouses experiences is so beneficial.

So if you get a chance today stop by My Traveling Troop and read my Q&A session with Kristina.
We cover everything from the pros & cons of living in Germany to travel tips and my newest obsession: Crossfit.

If you're a military spouse be sure to bookmark her blog or add her to your Google reader because let's be honest... none of us know when or where we'll be living next!

Pumpkin Festival at Ludwigsburg Castle

Only in Germany are pumpkin festivals located in the backyard of a freakin' castle. 

So we started at the upper grounds of the Ludwigsburg Castle and made our way down to where the winners of Germany's biggest pumpkin competition were being shown off. And boy were they huge! Then we ended up wandering for oh, I don't know, about half an hour trying to find where all the delicious pumpkin flavored food & beverages were located. We ended up completely encircling the entire castle grounds and realized after that if we had taken a right instead of a left at the front of the castle we would have been there in about 2 minutes flat. Fail.

Once we made it to the "backyard" of the castle we were welcome by the aroma of cinnamon-sugar roasted pumpkin seeds. We made sure to pick up some pumpkin wine and ate a delicious variety of pumpkin dishes. I chose a large portion of pumpkin ravioli placed in pumpkin soup. There were pumpkins literally everywhere & even statues made out of pumpkins.

Our quick little day trip was abosolutely perfect! Everything I love about fall rolled into one day. Perfect fall weather. Beautiful blue skies. A crispness in the air. The leaves changing. Pumpkins everywhere. And boots and scarves as the dress code. 

Thank you, Chipper!

This pretty much sums it up for me. Every word is true--

"It will seem quite odd to watch a Braves game next year.

A constant will be gone.

The last man from Atlanta's historic run of division championships will retire.

Every time one of them left it was painful--

first Maddux, then Smoltz, and now Chipper Jones."

-Morgan Carter, Bleacher Report

It's sad to see that era officially come to a close.

No Skip Caray on the radio… no Bobby at the helm… no Chipper at 3B… so odd. 

Atlanta Braves, NL East Champs for 2013... 

I don't even want to mess around with the bogus wild card spots!