Project 365 -- Erin's 33rd Year

Well another birthday has passed, remarkably only as it was truly awful. Waking up to a stomach flu at 1am and not going back to sleep until 5am doesn't start your day off exactly right. Thankfully, it was a weekend and James was my hero and took over for childcare in the morning. My fever broke in the afternoon and I started to feel like a somewhat like a person again that evening. However, the ickyness lingered into the week enough that I did not start out my Project 365 as quickly as I intended.

The idea behind Project 365 is to take one picture a day for a year... 365 days. I found out about this photo idea from my friend Katy's blog earlier this year, but too late to start it for this calendar year. The inspiration struck to modify the 'year' to be my age-year. In general, this idea intrigued me as this year will have lots of change, and opportunities for me to be creative and capture this unique point in my life. Oh, and if I like a photo James took better than mine, I'm going to feel free to subsititute it in --- man and wife being 'one flesh' applies to photography too right?

Unfortunately, with my post-sicky yuckyness I didn't actually start the project until 2 days after my birthday. I thought about my photo, and planned it out, but didn't have the energy to execute. I have since forgiven myself (taken a mulligan, for you golfers out there), and now plan to forge ahead and be 'honest' about the rest of the photos. On the bar to the left you can find a slide show of my photos, obviously growing as time goes on. Here is a link to the Picasa Web Album if you'd like to read any of the captions that go along with the photos.

Next weekend we are off to Reims, France (in the Champange District of France) to stay at a guest house in a small Champange House and taste champange. I will update on our first traveling with 2 munchins and all the bubbly details of our trip. Here's the link to where we are staying, if you want a sneak peak: Champagne Mont d'Hor

A quick stop in Trier

We went to Trier, Germany's oldest city, on Saturday morning. I must say that we have become highly efficient tourists. We spent a total of 1 hour and 16 minutes wandering around the town according to our parking ticket. We saw the Roman city gate dating to 180AD, checked out the cool double church (yes, for some reason they built 2 massive churches next to each other and connected them with courtyards), ate bretzels (like a pretzel, only soft and yummy) and bought 20 euros worth of licorice and gummies (check out the shop's site if you want to drool and read some German http://www.baeren-treff.de).

The double church was the coolest part of our tour for me. There were no stain glass windows in the 1/2 we saw (kids got cranky, so we went on our way), but it housed some amazing statues. Anna wanted to know what they were, so I talked with her about men taking sharp sticks and slowing breaking the rocks until they had their statue how they wanted it. I tried to relate it to her drawing with her crayons, but I think the concept still is a bit above her thinking. Someone was playing the organ as we walked in... and really that's the best way to see a church... filled with beautiful sounds praising God... it takes away the cold empty feeling you can sometimes have in these massive cathedrals.

So, 1 1/2 hours after we began we were back in our car for the long 40 minute drive back to our house (& Sammy's bottle). It's great to live in such a tiny country; you are close to so many cool things.

The Building Went Boom! Part 2

So, the homes continued to be torn down on Friday... and let me say what a fantastic entertainment it was for Anna. She spent 45 minutes at a time watching the diggers and cheering them on... "Oh, good job orange one!" All mom's of toddler's should have such exciting diversions next door; I was able to do much emailing and online banking while she was so diverted.

The excitement is not without some problems however. See the picture below of James unable to get to work, as he was blocked by a dump truck :)