She who dies with the most ornaments...WINS!

First off, I'm a huge fan of blown glass ornaments. It's borderline addiction. I love the different shapes and designs people come up with, the colors and the craftmanship TOTALLY amaze me.

Back in 2002, a great friend of mine got me a gorgeous collection of blown glass ornaments that came in a custom storage crate (looks like a wooden crate) and all the individual pieces have their own specific place for storage. LOVE it! She got it for me cause that was MY first set of ornaments. Ever since then, I've been slowly adding to the collection whenever I find something unique or as a reminder to an event in my life :)

Well, when Eric and I were in Aachen last week, I remember seeing some glass ornaments I wanted to get but COMPLETELY brain farted to go back and get them once we were done making our rounds. Once we got back home, it dawned on me that I forgot to get 'em :(

I happened to be "in the area" today since I was at Brunssum (a NATO base) to address an issue with my work card.. since that went to hell in a hand basket and I didn't need to go into work , I figured I'd head to Aachen since it was only 20 minutes away verses going back at a different time. Just for reference, Aachen is a lil over an hour from my house, so might as well hit it up since I was just down the road from it. So, I managed to find a parking spot in the streets of Aachen.. and that alone was a miracle! LOL. Anyone who has driven in Aachen knows what I'm talking about.. narrow cobblestone streets and the parking garage is NOT meant for SUV's. It's definitely meant for hybrid, smart cars, coupes, sedans..all smaller types of vehicles. I'll put it this way, if I attempted to take my Xterra into the parking garage, the rack on the roof would get torn off. Yup. SO, street parking it is! Luckily, I found a spot pretty quick and it was only a block away from the Christmas Market (thank god).  Once I was parked, I scurried up to the market, knew exactly where I needed to go since I only wanted to go back to that specific vendor and get outta dodge.

The lady was so nice! She said I looked like a kid in a candy store cause the look I had on my face with all the different ornaments, lol. 

Ok, so don't laugh.. the main reason I went there was to get a Pickle. Yes, a Pickle. It's a German tradition to have a pickle in your tree, but I never managed to find one stateside. Well, I finally found one..and go figure.. in Germany, lol.  Here's the reason why Germans have pickles in their Christmas trees: "A pickle used as decoration on a Christmas Tree seems odd at first, but it is an old German tradition. It is customary to hide a pickle among the branches of the tree on Christmas Eve. The first child on Christmas Day to find the Christmas pickle receives an extra gift. The reason for 3 sizes of the pickle are for the age of the children. The largest pickles are for the toddlers. As they grow up, the pickle size gets smaller."

I also found a Beer Mug that I thought was rather fitting for Belgium, so I picked that up. I dont think you can tell in the picture, but there's glitter on the white foam so it puts a lil' extra "pazazz" to it, lol

Once I was done payin' the lady, this Coo Coo Clock caught my eye. It totally made me think of my Grandma since she has one in her living room :) Figured I needed to have a lil extra reminder of my Grandma in my Christmas tree, lol. Ya gotta admit, this is a pretty cool lookin' little ornament!

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For my Grandma :)

Tomorrow, I'm shipping out Christmas goodies for my Grandma as well as my Dad. Honest to God, my Grandma is THE hardest person to shop for! She'll always say "I dont need anything! I'm too old! If you have to get me something, make sure it's something you like since you'll inherit it anyway".....yeah... makes me all warm and fuzzy when she says that...NOT!

Anyway, remember about a month or so ago when I posted pictures of the cute "Home is where the Air Force sends us" house? Well, I ordered a little house like that for her, but as a key ring holder:

I figured she'd really like it considering it's hand painted and it looks similair to the homes in Germany (where she's originally from).

I finally sat my tail down and whipped up a Christmas card to include with her goodie.. I've been meaning to work on it for a while, but things kept popping up (like usual).  I used CTMHs "Aspen" paper stock, Sparkles, Liquid Glass, Flurry dimensional element (for the snow flake), Aspen Stickease, 3D Tape, Bonding Memories Glue, scalpel, the "Merry Christmas" and the presents are from the "No Peeking" stamp set, then the message on the front of  card is from the "Holiday Warmth" stamp set :) The presents were colored with Exclusive Inks and the snowflake was hand painted with 3 different inks from ink pads..

I'm thinking she's gonna like this :)

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"Hood-tastic"

Yup. I didn't post about Thanksgiving. Mainly because I didn't bust out a huge turkey or anything...although that's what I'll be doing tomorrow. We ended up spending Thanksgiving with some friends of ours (about 1/2 the base, it seems) was there...had a blast! Tomorrow (saturday), I'll be cooking a 22lb beast since Eric thinks it's required that we have a massive turkey..and all it's trimmings for the sake of making sandwiches.

Anyway.. I'm sure you're wondering what my post is about considering the blog title is eye catching and all that jazz..

Eric and I went over to Aachen, Germany today for another date day :) One, I love date days since we finally get to have some "us" time, venture out and see some things, unwind and fart around. Second, he suggested that we go to the Christmas Market that's in Aachen since he knows I'm always on the hunt for more decorations for the house.

Yes, I love Christmas :)

Last weekend, we went to the Christmas Market in Hasselt.... it was a pretty big let down, to be honest. I was expecting a whole lot more than what there actually was. This time around, I was VERY happy with all the different vendors that were set up in Aachen. Vendors were freckled all over the place and there were tons of options as far as random trinkets and decorations to get for your home :)

In the midst of walking around, Eric remembered that there was a Starbucks somewhere in Aachen. I honestly forgot that there was even one on this side of the planet, lol.

MMMmMmMmMmMm...... Toffee Nut Latte....freakin' YUM!

Eric & I being our adorable, loving selves :)

We actually managed to find some pretty cute stuff for the house. ...

This.... is "Hood-tastic" Santa. Eric actually spotted him when we were trollin up and down all the aisles where the vendors were. This lil' guy pretty much sums up Eric, lol.

He actually fits in quite nicely with Eric's...yes...Eric's.... decorated shelf. The blocks say "Bah Hum Bug".

Since we've been together, we made our own little tradition of picking out a new ornament each year. So, while we were pluggin around, we found this one vendor and we absolutely loved the "carved" santa statues and ornaments she had. Not to mention, the gal that ran the booth was VERY nice!

This is Eric's choice

Here's mine:

At the same booth, she had these awesome "carved" Santa statues. Eric and I were so torn between 3 of 'em because they all had alot of detail, personality and "unique" qualities.  We finally agree'd on this fella..mainly because we're huge animal lovers and he was surrounded by fur-babies :) I think he'll fit perfectly in our home!

Last but not least...I can't forget about "Chuck"... Eric nicknamed my little reindeer "Chuck" for some reason. I'm thinking it's a sub-conscious thing cause he wanted to chuck it out of the car since it's yet another Christmas decoration for the house, lol

Once we got home, settled in and had some dinner... Eric helped me out by bringing in our fake Christmas tree that I managed to purchase for $20 (hell yes!) and it's 220v. The lights are already IN the tree, so it definitely cut down on how many times I needed to wrap even more lights around it. It's tradition to pretty much make our tree visible from outerspace..

Once the tree was set up, John and I went to town on it :)

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Scentsy

Go figure.. I posted the other day about Gold Canyon, yet I have a Scentsy party, lol.

The party went well & got to spend time with some of my lady friends :) The party closes tomorrow & I'm looking forward to getting some of the Scentsy wax's in. Mainly, there's one called "Poinsettia Pine"..TOTALLY makes me think of Christmas! It has the smell of Poinsettia and Cranberry (atleast I think it does). I also picked up Pumpkin Roll and..uhhh....Apple Pie. Melissa (the Scentsy Consultant) lemme take home a bar of "Sugar".. I LOVE it, but kinda figures it's a discontinued scent.

Anyway, here's some of the warmers I'm ordering:

I ordered two of the "Treasure Chest" warmer...one's for our house and I'm sending the other one to my Dad. Not saying that his house NEEDS it, but.. it doesnt hurt to make the man smell go away :)

Eric picked out "Borneo" for the Man Cave..

I love this one.. it's called "Plymouth" and it's the warmer of the month for October. I figured it'd look good with the fall decorations :)

I'm still debating on weither or not I wanna get this warmer. Mainly, it's because I'd only be able to use it during the Christmas season, ya know?

Once the show was all over .. I got to hang out with Melissa for a lil bit while helping her clean up & put things away. Turns out she had even more warmers stashed away then what was in the show, lol. In fact, she was willing to sell off 2 of them to me.

This one..called "Cherry Blossom"

.....then this one, which is a Cornucopia. Perfect for the fall season :)

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Santa....nevermind...

Eric, John & I headed over to Schinnen today to pick up our Thankgiving goodies...like usual, we popped into the BX and trolled up and down the aisles to see if we could find any goodies. For my birthday present, Eric got me an iPod Touch (which I'm madly inlove with) and I've been looking into getting some sort of stereo system for it. Mainly, so I can have it playing in my office while I'm working on my scrapbooking stuff. Sure, I could just use my headphones and such..but I like being able to play my music while I'm walking around the house without the cord getting caught up on stuff (which happens FREQUENTLY, especially while I'm cleaning).

Well, we were checking out the stereos and came across this:

They're wireless speakers that detatch from the base unit! I plug the itouch into the docking unit, then I can either leave the speakers attatched, or I can detatch them and put them in different rooms in the house! The signal & sound quality on these lil' buggers are awesome! The salesman handed me one, turned it on (each speaker has it's own on/off switch) and told me to start walkin, which I did. I walked from the electronics department all the way up to the second floor and it was STILL getting the signal and playing the music! SOLD. Totally sold.

Best part? It's dual voltage :) I can take this bad boy back to the US whenever the time comes!

Merry Christmas to meeeeeee

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Dear Santa....

Gimme gimme gimme!

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Omi-gah

A friend of mine here talked to me about Gold Canyon Candles a while back... I gotta say, I'm pretty attatched to Yankee Candle. In fact, I actually have a Yankee Candle lip balm (buttercream flavored).. yeah..die hard.

Anyway, Josie managed to find out that one of the gals here sells Gold Canyon. Not her, persay....but her mother sells it and ships it over here since Gold Canyon doesnt ship to APO's. I'll admit, I was a bit skeptical. I trolled through their website and they have a huge selection of scents, flavors and even cute decorations. I picked out Toffee Drizzled Popcorn as well Pumpkin Pie...wham bam, paid for my goodies and awaited their arrival.

When I came into work today, there they were. My two candles. I took one sniff off the Toffee Drizzled Popcorn and I wanted to eat it. All 26 ounces of the jar.  Then, I took a sniff of the Pumpkin Pie, just as awesome, but a little potent on the spice. Eric popped in towards the end of my shift and I had him take a whiff of both jars and he's just as enamored as I am, lol.

Once we got home, I lit up the Toffee Drizzled Popcorn...my house smells like....heaven :)

I think I'm gonna switch from, "Team Yankee" to "Team GC". Well...there's no thinking to do.. I'm doing it. LOL. The prices on their candles are insanely reasonable. You get more for your money. Here's their price list:

Around $19 for a 26 ounce jar of awesomeness? Hell yea! A Large Jar (22 ounces) from Yankee Candle is $25....all the prices across the board are SOOO reasonable for Gold Canyon! NOW I totally see why Josie was beating me to death about ordering from them, lol. I already have my next ordered prepped and ready to get..it's bordering on $90 so far, eeek!!

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Poland...oh...dear ...dear...Poland....

Where to start....where to start.......hmmmmm.......

I guess I can post pictures since that'll pretty much illustrate the trip... screw it.. I'll add my commentary... it'll probably cause me to get strung up by my thumbs...

You know how grayhounds chase a "rabbit"? Well, "Team Honda" was the rabbit and "Team Van" (the group I was with) managed to trail behind them.... in fact, we trailed so much that we eventually got seperated from them while in Germany. Keep in mind, we managed to keep a steady pace of 80-85 mph, in Germany...where it was cold & rainy WITH windy roads and construction zones. Luckily, Barb (the driver for Team Van) had "Thomas", her TOM TOM, and he managed to guide us to Poland. Well, once we hit the Poland border, he kinda went MIA, but he managed to check himself and get back on track to take us to our hotel. I must say, Thomas was entertaining since he had a nice British accent and when you managed to go over the speed limit (which we managed to do alot when we were trying to keep up with the rabbit).. it'd sound like Big Ben was going off... ya know, the whole "DONG" sound. lol. The best part...whenever we were talking and there was a "point" being made, he happened to "DONG" at the right time, so it seemed like he was putting his two cents in, hahahaa...

We think the Police was keepin' an eye on Team Honda's leadfoot driver :)

On our way to Poland, we happened to come across two castles...they were literally across the highway from one another! I wish I could've gotten better pictures, but hey...atleast I got something, right?

After porking out on cookies, waters, chips and all kinds of snacks, we managed to cross the Poland border ..which is when Thomas decided to take a small vacation. I think when Thomas went MIA, that must've been a "sign" or something for things to come...

When we finally managed to find our way to the right exit ..here's how the scenery was looking... looks promising, hunh?

By the way... this isn't fog. This is smoke from the industrial smoke staks that're all over the town we were in.

After 8ish hours on the road, we finally made it to our hotel...

This is the restraunt that's attatched to the hotel..

The parking lot... kinda doesnt make you feel all that safe, to be honest...

The lovely view adjacent to the hotel...it's a "yard" for the horse that's in there..

When the horse realized there were people around, he rushed over for some much needed attention...

If I could have done it, I would've strapped him to the roof of the van and taken him home. Poor thing had a very crappy living situation :( He loved gettin a ton of attention from us! I was starting to believe he was inlove with me..

Once Team Honda showed up....yes, we beat them there despite the leadfoot driving on their part... the phrase "Slow & steady wins the race".  Anyway, once they showed up and we got our room keys, Melissa, who was my room mate... made our ways to our room to get settled in. Here's some pics of our spaceious living arrangement... by the time we were ready to go home, Melissa and I came to the agreement that we think our room service maid smoked while cleaning the room. It had a very noticeable smell of dirty cigg's.

Keep in mind, my back was pressed firmly against the door..

Melissa and I could've spooned and not even known it....

Our breath-taking oceanside view..

Our football field sized bathroom..

Once we got a little settled in and assessted the situation at hand, we decided to head on down for some food since I think we were all getting to the point of canibalism, atleast Team Van was...

Here's a map to show how many people have come and stayed at the Hotel Protea:

When you walk down a little further, there's this display case of Russian nesting dolls, wood dolls and other trinkets. I gotta say, they were absolutely breath taking cause of the craftmanship and detail to the dresses. I ended up getting a little doll for myself (just a little one).

Relaxing in the hotels restraunt

Much NEEDED booze!

Once we were done gorging on food and drinks, we all tottled off to bed.. at the hour of 7pm. But ya know.. traveling 8ish hours really takes it's toll on the body.

The next day started bright and early to hit the pottery shops with vicious tenacity..

In all honesty...I can't recall how many pottery shops we actually went to. They all started to become a blur since alot of it looked the same. Given, I found some cool pieces here and there, but it all started to mimic one another.

We managed to fit some lunch in between all the shopping.. I had perogies it was awesome. It's green onions, cheese and potatoes in a "pot sticker" style ravioli.

Here's some Polish money....

20 Zlotych is worth 4.87 Euro, or $7.30

100 Zlotych is worth 24.39 Euro, or $36.53

Ok...more shopping...

I'm surprised this didn't get strapped to the roof of a car to take home...

Oh.. by the way.... we were expecting to see Kliczkow Castle. I mean, I know that was  HUGE reason why I wanted to come on this trip. Sure, we have castles and such around Belgium and Germany, but it was gonna be really cool to see a different style of castle.

This is what we were expecting to see:

What we actually saw:

Stunning, hunh?  I thought so, too.

Funny thing, the castle offers daytime tours and it's very educational, great experience for tourists...so I've heard..over and over again.... but.. oh ...atleast I got a picture of my amazing Apple Strudel.... it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.... I wanted to lick the plate.

Here's Melissa's Terimisu

On our way back from our 4.....or 5 hour dinner... I dunno how long it was considering I started to black out towards the end:

The restraunt in the hotel:

Wood carved animal heads:

Can you tell me what's wrong with this moose?

I could really go on ...and on...and on....and on about the trip and all the things that I saw , heard, smelled....yeah...

But...HEY! Here's all the pottery I managed to find :)

Little wood stein...it was way too cute to pass up. I managed to score one for John and another for Eric.

I was ELATED to find this cookie jar! I know it sounds extremely retarded to be that happy about a jar...but after ALL the shops we went to, we finally found it at store # 12...or #13...or maybe it was #20...either way, it was a sight for sore eyes!

Go figure... an Air Force plate... in Poland....really? lol

I went to Kliczkow Castle and all I got was this mug..............................................

This is actually a humidifier... you fill it up with water and hang it on your heater. When the heater kicks on, the water steams up and it helps add humidity to your place & helps prevent your skin from drying out.

The Russian wood doll that I purchased:

All in all, I ended up with some funky pottery, got to spend some time with Team Van and got to see Polish coulture first hand. Sure, it didn't turn out like we were hoping it would, but... hey... atleast I can say I've been to Poland.

.......Right?

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