twenty-nine and holding...

germany day 10.....

2009-09-16T13:51:00.002-06:00

day 10....(part 1)

today we spent the entire day playing tourist. which is completely acceptable when you go to a foreign country. you need to check things out. even president obama took the time to visit yellowstone when he was in montana.

first we headed to dachau. now, this isn't a place that everyone got all excited about. in fact, i'd say that when you go to germany, feel free to not mention: world war II, hitler, nazis, concentration camps or anything related to said topics, at least to the locals. they really would prefer to forget that part of their history. but for me, because of what i learned in public school, i felt the need to see things. (all the kids in germany go on field trips here, they really don't forget or pretend that it didn't happen, they are all very respectful.)

dachau was a very interesting experience. i felt no need to take pictures during my time there. not that you couldn't take pictures, i just really felt like it shouldn't be a place where you take tourist photos. i did buy some postcards, because i felt the need to support what they are doing there. (and the postcards had all the pictures that i would have taken on my own.) they have taken a very sad, somber place and made it full of educational things. so full that you'd have to spend 2 days there in order to read it all and take it all in. we did not spend that much time. they don't sugar coat things, so be prepared for the truth. they also don't make things sensational or hollywood-style. if it didn't happen there, they will tell you. and if it did, they will tell you that also. there are no embellishments and no censors. i wouldn't bring little kids. wait until everyone is old enough to understand that yelling, screaming, crying or playing isn't something that is acceptable here, at least to me. i don't remember anyone out of line. and personally, i'd recommend that they are old enough to deal with some of the emotions of seeing pictures of the dead. sometimes i didn't feel old enough to be there.

a couple of things really shocked me about dachau. first was that there is a city of dachau. lots of people live there. and the camp isn't in the middle of the city, but it isn't outside of the city either. i fully expected dachau (the concentration camp) to be out in the middle of no where and its not. it is very much in the middle of things. but as soon as you walk through the gate that says "arbeit macht frei" (roughly translated into "work will make you free") you aren't in the middle of a bustling city, you are in the middle of no where.

the second thing that shocked me (and hans and evi) was how much information is there. 20 years ago when evi and hans went there, they said there wasn't nearly as much.

the third thing is how big it was. this place wasn't small. not by any means. not compared to anything. and there were 100s of concentration camps. i thought there were only a few, the few big names that you hear about. but there were so many. when you see a map with all of them listed, it shocks the hell out of you. at least it did me.

after we had completely worn out our eyes from all the reading and learning, we walked around and wore out our legs. like i said, the place was huge. and emotional exhausting.

when we could no longer take any more, we left and headed to munich. because munich seemed like a different day, i'm going to post that separately. also because i took 98 pictures while we were in munich, the first day.

germany day 9

2009-08-30T14:31:00.005-06:00

day 9......

the best way to start any day is with breakfast. and apparently in germany, breakfast is catered to kids, just like here. only here we have sugary cereals with cartoons and marshmallows. they don't eat cereal for breakfast in germany. you get rolls and cheese and cold cuts. marshmallows are not allowed. but this is completely acceptable:

teddy bear meat. it was pretty much like bologna, only in the shape of a teddy bear.

he looks cute enough to eat! hehe!

tante baerbi and onkle franco left after breakfast. we missed them immediately. but we were off to sight see!

we headed to the ettal abby or kloster ettal, depending on where you are from. and the cheese factory behind the abby.

this was a mural that i saw from the parking lot. just on some one's house. i thought my dad would like it. actually, i think that if my dad didn't have a house with plastic siding, he should put these all over the outside. dad? what do you think?

so here is a little history of the abby. for those of you who don't read german, just check out the numbers. the abby started in 1330! it (i think) burned down a couple times and is currently a school. pretty impressive.

here's the view just as you step into the courtyard. it is beautiful. and if the day had been clear, you would have seen some pretty impressive (even by montana standards) mountains.

this is the inside. i'm going to take a big guess, since i'm not totally up on my abby-language and layout, but this seemed like the main alter.

much more exciting to me was the ceiling. it was so amazing. really, really beautiful. and i'm sure that if you were to attend mass, it would be quite acoustic. but the coolest part was the fact that the bavarians had their own style. and when they did big mural type painting like this, there was always one part that they sculpted. there was a leg that stuck out on this one. and i thought the style was called baroque, but when i googled it, i didn't see where it mentioned a painting and a sculpted piece. (apparently, i was not an art history major) anyways, it is pretty neat because unless you are looking of the part the isn't painted, you don't notice it right away.

here's the view as you are leaving the courtyard. which we did and headed around back to the cheese factory.

on the way to the cheese factory, i saw this. and i took this picture because it was funny. and i think that you don't need a translation to get the meaning. very good advertising. but i also took it because i thought it looked like dewey from malcolm in the middle, which is one of my dad's favorite shows. and i thought he'd like the picture.

the cheese factory was an amazing place, full of decadence. it is a fairly new place, so the building just looked like a regular building that you'd see anywhere. and they have special monk cheese. and they have cheese that monks put bacteria (the yummy kind) on everyday for three months, by hand. we got to watch a movie on it, in english.

we indulged in the best yogurt i have ever had, super stinky cheese (but it was soooooo good) and cheesecake. the funniest part about the stinky cheese, was that the cheese factor had a pretty strong odor, so there was no idea how stinky the cheese was until we unwrapped it the next day. holy moly! stinky enough to about knock you over. but it was probably the best cheese i've ever had. darn monks know how to make cheese!

then we headed to murnau to see tante petra and her two boys. we saw the school were tante petra teaches art. we had a nice italian dinner with her and the boys. and just had a nice evening visiting with them.

excuses, excuses....

2009-08-21T18:42:00.001-06:00

so my computer broke. the mother board went out. that is why there was (yet, another) huge delay in posting.

and while i probably should just give up on posting about germany (because it has been so long since i was actually there) my excuse is that it forces me to go through my photos. which means that i delete the bad ones and edit them so that if i ever wanted to make prints or something i actually could do that. and so by blogging, i get it done. its my excuse. maybe not a great one, but it works for me!

if you are completely tired of germany, well, then you are just silly. i mean, i haven't even gotten to the best part yet!

germany day 8

2009-07-22T12:11:00.008-06:00

day 8.....

this was the day that i spent the most time taking photos of caesar.

it was just kind of a family day, hanging around, visiting, all that good stuff.

i do have some photos of places around oberammergau.

so here you go:

this is the house across the street from where we were staying. if the clouds weren't so low, you could see the view we would have had.

o'gau is in the valley, so there are mountains all around.

i'd say a very small valley. its quite cozy, or claustrophobic, depending on how you view things.

this is a random house that i snapped a photo of....i just liked it.

this is a mural that i liked. i actually thought that my dad would really like it, so i took the picture for him. (hey dad! you like it? its pretty sweet, huh?) o'gau is the city of murals, just like whitehall....crazy!

these ducks were just chilling by the water when we went on our walk. and since i was taking photos of caeser, i had my camera out and ready.

and i caught them as they took off...

and as they flew away....

and as they landed.....what you don't see is that as soon as i focused on the ducks, caeser did too and chased them into the water. he would have probably jumped all the way in if hans and i hadn't been yelling at him. later, we found out that it would have been no big deal if he got all wet (he was wet from the snow anyways) but i didn't want to have to explain why the dog went swimming when he was back with us during the walk.

this could be my favorite thing in o'gau. except oma, of course. this is the o'gau castle. i'm told that someone built it just because they liked castles and that it isn't all that old, like the rest of the castles in europe. but i like to think that it is old and that it was a castle for the royal family of o'gau and that there was a beautiful o'gau princess who lived there. and then my story goes all over the place, from the princess being held captive or being free or being hidden in o'gau for all sorts of reasons but it all pretty much ends with her falling in love with a very handsome man, who, oddly enough, looks just like hans. *sigh* the end.

germany day 7

2009-07-20T21:53:00.006-06:00

day 7.....

was one of those days.

we woke up to this......snow....lots of snow.....lots of snow falling from the sky......

it was like christmas everywhere......

but what do you expect from the country that invented christmas....i mean, just look at all those christmas trees, no wonder!

but despite the nasty weather, we decided to take a trip to Schloss Linderhof. which just happens to be a castle. its a little one, but it still is a castle. in fact, its the only castle in which king ludwig built, finished and actually got to live in.

you aren't allowed to take pictures of the inside. such a bummer. so i can only show you pictures of the outside, in the snow.

here's the castle. that's the whole thing! see those people, they are standing right next to the castle waiting to get in. most people think of a castle as being excessively large. i think this one makes up for size with everything inside it and the grounds around it. apparently there are some really amazing gardens and fountains and such all around this castle. but in the winter, there are just piles of snow. so if you'd like the full experience, go in the summer.

this dude is on top of the castle. check out that detail! i mean, everyone knows who's castle it was, but unfortunately for the artists who built it, they just don't get the credit they deserve.

check out this carving....its so beautiful! (and bonus, boobs!) come on, what would a trip to europe be without some boobs? this won't be the first pic of boobs....

see? but this one is just one boob. because, well, i'm not sure why you'd just have one boob hanging out of your dress... either way, boobs are beautiful, even if we don't display them as prominently here in the states.

babies are always a favorite. actually are these considered cherubs? either way, too cute and so artistic! i mean, the detail is amazing...and its a white building with an amateur photographer taking pictures in the snow! so you know the detail has to be there, otherwise it wouldn't have shown up at all in the photos!

this guy has a tough job. i mean, just look at him! his face looked the most pained, that's why he got his photo taken.

ok, one more statue. this one is my favorite. (i could have shown you all of the statues on the castle but then you wouldn't need to go over to germany and see it for yourself.) so what exactly is he doing with his hand?

hey! that's not very friendly! crazy germans, show us boobs and then flip us the bird. (ok, so technically he's probably not flipping the bird. his other fingers have just 'conveniently' broke off and that one stayed. but it is funny!)

speaking of birds. check out this cute lil guy. he was trying to get out of the snow.

and this guy too! i have no idea what this bird was there for. but it was a great way to get hans to smile. and check out that snow! i mean, it is really coming down! it was not so great for the camera. i attempted to hold an umbrella over the camera, but it takes two hands to shoot, so you really only have a shoulder and your head to hold the umbrella. i recommend an assistant.

here's a cute pond. there were swans at the other end of it. swans are the royal symbol in germany, i think. well, at least that's the impression that i got.

this is a hotel near the castle. i didn't go inside but i had to include it because this is what i think of when i think of germany. this style of architecture. and maybe the snow.

i mean, if someone showed you this photo and asked where it was taken, wouldn't you say germany? could there be any other place that this represents? well, to me, this is germany.

and look how much it is snowing! but i do love the way this building looks. even if you have to squint through all the snow to see it.

the rest of the day wasn't nearly as cool as schloss linderhof. (schloss = castle)

germany day 7 & 8 part 1....

2009-07-05T21:49:00.005-06:00

day 7 and 8 were spent doing various things, but one of the things i did was take lots and lots of pictures of Caesar. caesar is a german shepard. of course, in germany they call them shepard dogs, not germany shepards. it cracks me up. but that's just me. dogs don't get complexes like people when you take their photo, so they are easy targets for people like me. plus, onkel franco asked me to. i'm not sure if i got any that he liked, but it was fun and probably was good practice for me.

meet caesar, he's a cutie. and actually he lives in italy. so technically, he's not german....

look how sweet he is....he was like a big teddy bear....

and look how cute...hairy little feet...

he was very comfortable in the snow....

hans played with him, by tossing him snowballs...caesar loved it...and i thought this was a neat action shot....

but this one is even better....he was really good at catching....

and this is what caesar would look like, right before he ripped your face off.....i even think it would be all blurry like that....

just kidding. he'd never do that.

i hope.

(blogger isn't working with me on formatting tonight, so sorry about the lack of spaces...)

germany interrupted again....

2009-07-05T14:45:00.004-06:00

yesterday was the 4th of july and while i know everyone is dying to see more photos of germany, i just have to share my fireworks pic.

i'm only going to share one. my favorite one. i think it is super-duper awesome.

we just watched everyone else's fireworks from our house. we watched from our living room, from our screened in porch, from our balcony (when we were snapping pics) and from our bed. the fireworks when until midnight here. it seemed that many people traveled outside the state to bring in the biggest and the best. hans and i were just glad to have so many to watch. (and that our house didn't burn down.)

there are probably 100 ways to get photos of fireworks, i went with this method. its too bad the 4th of july only comes once a year. because i feel like i could be a professional fireworks photographer and be happy the rest of my life. it was just so much fun.

i'm really proud of this one. what do you think? sweet, huh? (maybe i don't want to know if you think that it sucks.)

i took a whole bunch of pics....a bunch! and i think i have several to pick from that are good, but this one was my fav when i went through them this morning.

hope everyone had a good 4th!!!

(oh...and just an FYI....this is without major photo-shopping! (i only took out a couple really loud noisy spots) how cool is that!)

germany day 6....

2009-07-03T12:42:00.004-06:00

day 6

we slept in. we were just so tired from the day before, that we took it easy and didn't rush.

we had lunch with oma and opa (grandma and grandpa).

i had the brook trout...this was so yummy...and really beautifully presented. i didn't eat the red hot peppers though!

we played cards with Tante Petra. i was busy playing, so no pics....

we wandered around O'gau (Oberammergau) in the rain. i didn't want to get my camera wet...

and then Tante Baerbi and Onkel Franco came up from italy. Baerbi made us an amazing dinner that included fresh buffalo mozzarella....so fresh that it was still warm when she bought it that morning! no pics to share, sorry....

sorry day 6 wasn't very exciting, at least it was easy to blog about!

germany day 5.....

2009-07-02T16:16:00.006-06:00

....so we've been back from germany for months and months and months...and after being sick and getting better and being sick and being sick and having surgery and being sick....i'm FINALLY feeling pretty darn good! but with feeling better, you have to play catch up on everything you've been neglecting....and it seems that blogging gets neglected the most....

so, if you are interested in our germany trip still....feel free to read on, if not, just skip this post and hope i have something more interesting to write about later....

day 5

we got up and headed out of Ammerthal and to the 'german ranch'. (before we left the states i googled and searched and emailed people in germany to try and find a german angus ranch that was somewhere near where we were going to be.) one of them wrote back and were more than happy to have us stop by.

not only do they ranch, but they have a hotel, restaurant and sell their beef to local places....lots of work!

this is what we saw on right outside of the town the ranch was near. seriously....it looks spooky....people live CLOSE to this thing! well, too close for me!

we got to check out a bunch of cows....notice how their cows are in a shelter? they baby their cows a whole lot more than we do here. i think they put their cows in at night, every night...but they don't run 100's and 100's of cows either.

the babies are cute there too!

even a ranch dog. i think there was two running around....

we chatted...well, i should say that they chatted. most germans speak really, really good english but they get nervous. so there was a lot of german spoken. i think that evi learned more about ranching from having to translate than she knew from talking with hans. but that is kind of the way ranching is here, people just expect you to know things. i like to explain things to people. every time i talk to my grandma, i explain what we do, how we do it and why we do it. mostly because everything is new to me and i like to know things. so i explain them to my grandma and she really likes it because she's never been on a ranch and all of the terminology is new to her too.

this is a great photo to show you a little of germany...notice the sky, this might have been the best weather we had. and the semi in the background, a very rare sight in germany....and flat...here anyways, i'll have more pictures of mountains for you later. :)

these girls were curious...they even licked me....

i thought they had such cute faces....to me, a cute face is an important trait in cattle, especially females. no one wants bully looking cows!

this is one of his fields where a few of his cows were and one big bull. flat, flat....nice soil...not rocky like ours.

oh yeah...i know you've all been waiting for this....after we were done looking at the cows, we went back to their restaurant to chat. this is what they served us as a snack....holy moly...it was so amazing! i finished mine and our host promptly got up and got me another....i could have had a third, but i declined. it was soooooo good.....his wife made them. nothing beats homemade yummy-ness in germany.

and then after our chats and photos, we left....drove past the creepy nuclear power plant and saw this. it was just too crazy to pass up, so we stopped and snapped some pics. i think it was an artist's sculpture garden, but it just looked like a radioactive accident. i would have got the nuclear plant in the background, but there were trees in the way.

storks! they must have already dropped the babies off....

here's my favorite sign we found in germany....frog crossing. so apparently, they put up these signs to warn people of the migrating frogs. (squished frogs are slippery??) and once they really start migrating, they put up a little frog fence to keep them from crossing the road. then someone come by and picks up the frogs on one side and puts them on the other side of the road, all safe and sound. there was no fence yet and no frogs but the sign totally cracked me up.

finally, we made it to O'gau. visited with the grandparents, stuck our stuff in the house we were staying at and went to grab some grub.

and here's a cell phone pic to prove that i didn't just eat dessert the whole time. but check out this salad....veggies, a little lettuce (not the crappy iceberg) and a little dressing. you don't get to choose your dressing, but it was yummy. germans don't eat a ton of fruits and veggies, but they sure know to stay away from piles of iceberg!

scroll down

2009-05-30T17:44:00.002-06:00

since i'm still fairly new to this blogging thing, my 'new' post, is below my 'old' post.

so, if you'd like to see/read about germany day 4, scroll down below 'pics by request only'.

sorry!

pics by request only....

2009-05-22T13:10:00.003-06:00

i haven't been posting lately....i've been working on day 4 of the germany trip for so long now that i feel silly.....but things happen....

like you get sick, repeatedly and at first you think it is in your head, that the pain you feel is somehow fake. and somehow being awake all night puking from the pain is your fault and not a medical condition.....and when you finally confess why you are not feeling good to your family, your mom tells you that your grandma had the same thing, only they could never find anything wrong with her......so you think, great, its all in my head.

but then super-dad shows up.....well, actually he goes out of town....and he randomly chats with a guy who has similar health issues and figures out that your gall bladder needs to be removed.
so you freak out, because you don't want to have surgery and you pretend like you aren't sick.
but you keep getting sick....you just quit telling your family....

and finally, when you are so sick for so long that your husband threatens you repeatedly, you give in a go see the doc.

and he tells you what you already know.

you need surgery.

but during the time you are told this and the time you actually have surgery about 10,000 people tell you and your loved ones that they have had their gallbladder out too and that it is "no big deal"......"no big deal".....

but when surgery day comes around and you freak out as soon as your mom and husband are out of sight, and the anesthetist gives you 'something to calm your nerves' that puts you completely out.....

then you wake up in more pain that you've ever been in. EVER. and you are so out of it that all you can say is that it hurts when the stupid nurses want you to rank your pain on a scale of 1 to 10. if i'd been more coherent i would have said about 1,000.....so the give you more meds, you think or you just fall back into a stupor only to wake up again, in horrible pain and repeat yourself....and beg for your family....but they don't let you see your family right away. nooooo......that would be "no big deal". they make you wait until you are lucid enough to move from your bed to a chair before you see your family.....so you fight the meds hard enough to become coherent enough to ask to be moved. which promptly puts you back in so much pain that you have to beg for more pain meds....and again you have to rank your pain.....but now you are scared that they aren't going to believe you that it hurts soooooooooooo bad, so you say 7. you get a shot of demerol.....

and now you are sick....the vomiting lasts from the time you attempt to sit up in the chair, get dressed, leave the hospital and lay on the couch for 3 days while your mom (bless her heart) holds your head, your hair, rubs your back and brings you a cool washcloth. puking for 3 days...."no big deal".....

when the puking stops, then it seems that you are able to notice the pain again. only this time, instead it being your stomach, its your shoulder....and there is no sleeping with the shoulder pain....

and your mom leaves.....

and you feel lonely and yucky....

but at least your mom got to come and stay and take care of you. because it was a big deal!!!!! and still is! seriously! i have no idea why people say that it is "no big deal....."

and for the really curious people out there, my mom took pics of my stomach and my 2 gall stones that they let me keep....but i thought it best to not post them here....

germany day 4

2009-05-01T09:06:00.010-06:00

day 4 started out much better....

we had to go to Amberg (Ammerthal is little!) to do some shopping for Tante Isabella. which was just fine, because the shopping would be a good excuse to get to wander around and check things out.there's always a cool town square.....(do you like the sky in this one? i used a new thing i learned in my weekend photog class!)

another view of the square....i like how all the buildings are connected but very distinct....(yeah, i ps-ed the sky in this one too....i really like doing that! makes the sky look soooooo much better!)

some amazing buildings! (i hope you like to look at pictures of buildings....this won't be the last one!) yeah, i didn't make the sky cool in this one...can you tell the difference?

crazy old churches.... that's a fruit or flower stand in front of it, i can't remember now. we were a little early in the year for all the fruit/veggie/flower stands, but there still were quite a few. it was neat. i bet that during the summer the stands are just everywhere!

another neat building....and you can see how these old building are shops....i call this pic 'yellow purse' but because people are so jam-packed here, i'm sure those are apartments above the shop.

i just don't think that they build them like they used to....it is just so pretty to look at all the architecture over there!i liked how the canals are built right through everything....or everything is built right up to the canal......

this gives you a pretty good idea how things were, beyond the square....yeah, it is a little claustrophobic sometimes....and see how the building is curved? its not an optical illusion because of my camera, they really built them like that. you'll see more of that when we go to munich. oh and yeah, that's a church steeple....

when you walk behind the church....

you get to check out this. so, that's jesus at the bottom in the tomb.....and because i can't remember very much from my years in catholic high school, i'm not quite sure who the 4 others are....but i find that jesus (and mostly dead/dying jesus) is everywhere in germany.

right as we were walking away from dead jesus and the 4 dudes praying for him, i found the coolest wall....

i love it.....

this is possibly my favorite pic that i took the entire time we were in germany.....i have no idea why, but i just like it so very, very much....

then we went meat shopping!!!

are you ready for it?

because seriously...meat over there isn't like meat over here....especially if you come from a ranching family.....

you go to the "butcher" but really, its more like a meat-store. it seems that germans like processed meats.....

this is evi taking pics of the meat too. note: this is the view of evi that i had for most of the trip, camera up to face, snapping away....but if she had a pic of me taking a pic, she'd probably say the same thing...

here's some sausages...a whole wall of them. in the bottom right are the famous 'white sausages' that are not to be consumed after noon. or actually it is some saying about not letting them here the noon-day bell or something like that. both times we ate them, we ate them after noon, yeah, we're risky like that. but the story is because they make them fresh everyday, without preservatives and refrigeration was lacking back in the day, they'd spoil if you let them sit too long....now if you trust your fridge, you can eat them any time of day.

this is a horrible pic, i'm so very sorry about the crazy color. the napkin is suppose to be white...*sigh* anyways, this is something that we ate a LOT. it was our snack almost everyday we were out and about. i call it 'hot baloney'. that's what it is! a big thick slice of processed meat, similar (but better) than bologna served on a roll. hans and i shared this one, so it is cut in half, and on my half, i asked for some mustard. this mustard is sweet, it is almost like a jelly or relish than mustard and it makes the 'hot baloney' taste pretty good!

here's a selection of processed meats....i'm not sure which ones are what, but i'm pretty sure i ate a few of those in the pic. although nothing with anything green or red in it.....but possibly the large slices in the bottom right was consumed for breakfast on more than once.....it is kind of like bologna with chunks of real meat.

this was something i didn't eat. who eats this? i have no idea....but it is some meat, some veggies? and an egg in a gelatin-like substance....

oh yeah, here's more of it....and look, some in slices!! i personally have never seen any member of hans' family eat this. or buy it. thank god.

this was not in the meat store. this was in the window of a shop that sold little tourist-y things. if i remember correctly, hans' cousin said it was called a 'whopple-dinger'. they don't all look exactly like this, but i like to think of them like our 'jack-a-lopes'. creative taxidermy.ahhh...now here's a sample of what i think bavarian architecture looks like....when i think of bavaria/germany, this is what i think of.the last pic of the post....this was hans when we got back to the car after running all around ammerthal. i told him to pout for me, i say it was a stuck-up accent. one day i hope he'll crack a smile and i'll get a really good pic of him....not that this one is bad....

germany day 3.....

2009-04-25T15:58:00.005-06:00

day 3 started out bad. (day 2 was included in the day 1 post)

i was sick all night, so waking up was slow and painful. but i was lucky, even though i was in a foreign country, where i don't speak the language, in a house full of semi-strangers, in a bathroom where the toilets don't flush like ours (seriously, they don't, its sometimes a challenge when going to the bathroom in germany to figure out just what/where to press to flush, i should have taken pictures....), i had packed load of medicine that i thought i would never need (but needed) and the house i was in, belonged to a doctor. not that i was going to wake him up at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 am when i was awake....

so after i was drug out of bed and force-fed and reminded several times that everyone else felt just fine and wanted to go out and run around germany, i was up and ready to face the day....er...the afternoon. the doctor, hans' uncle (onkel hans) took my pulse and declared me ready to leave the house.

thankfully my illness was self-limiting and the only big drawback to the day was the constant rain. this was annoying and cold and made it difficult to take pictures, plus when i'm not feeling 100%, i'm not really into taking photos, but i have a few of my day....

we got on the train and headed to Nurnberg (pretend the u has two dots above it) or you can write it Nuremberg (the american way). the train is fun, really fun and MUCH better than driving in germany. hans' cousin Alex is living in Nuremberg, going to med-tech school (just like me! she's one of my 4 fave girl cousins hans has) but she had a little time to run us around the city and show us what she could in the pouring rain.

to get to her place, we ended up in a very large train-ish station. which is difficult to explain because i can't remember the exact name of it and i can't remember if we switched trains or if we just got on the subway or uban (pretend there is two lil dots above that u too).

first i notice that i have my own lounge....(um...yeah...my initials are DB!)

then i notice i have my own museum! (yeah, looks like museum in german is museum.)

ooooh! check it out, i'm that way!

turns out, DB is just the train/subway company thingy.....my initials are on every train station and every train (except the super fast BOB trains) and every subway, at least that i saw.

this is the subway......i'd never been on or seen a subway before. not all of them are decorated like this with the orange and white, some are yellow, some are done with really cool murals and such. but i only took a picture of this one. sorry.

we visited alex's apartment, had some yummy snacks and then headed out on the town.

now, here's the first of many, many food photos....i ate my way through germany. seriously, there was a huge amount of food over there and i tried to eat it all. or at least most of it. and i took photos....to show you (rub it in) all the good/weird food i ate.

this was like a jelly filled donut, covered in powdered sugar. it was HEAVEN...first off, the donut part was not donut-ty, it was not yucky, greasy or overly sugary. the jelly....oh....man.....it is hans and i's fave, its a really smooth, yummy rose hip jelly. we've bought and eaten this jelly in a previous trip, we've requested this jelly from evi when she went to germany and we brought back some of it for us too, this time. so now imagine that your favorite jelly in the whole world was in a yummy donut, covered in powered sugar.....

yeah, you'd look something like this. if you didn't share one with your husband so you could cut it in half and take pictures of it and then eat another one but have to share it because you shared the first one AND you already ate a yummy cake (kuchen, pronounced like coo-ken) that aunt isabella (tante isabella) made. like i said, i ATE my way through germany. and then walked it off....well...some.....

this is a church in Nuremberg. i can't remember what church though. a really cool looking one. see the tiny people? it was huge! we couldn't go inside this one, there was a service and then later it was closed. but the outside was pretty sweet.

this is the view from the castle in Nuremberg. the castle (which we walked around but not in) was built on a giant rock, so it is up higher than the rest of the city, hence, the views. see the church in the back ground? (maybe mid-ground)

here's a picture that shows you lots of apartment buildings....people live like chickens over there! but how else to do you cram so many people in such a little space? and the cobblestone streets. most of the streets/sidewalks are cobblestone, especially in the 'older' parts of town. this is neat, fun to see and walk on but i saw some girls wearing heels on this, i couldn't even imagine!!!

and finally, i leave you with a dessert....hans' onkle took us to a steakhouse. we ate Argentinian beef. it was good, but i didn't take a picture. instead i took a picture of the dessert that hans and i shared. this was battered, then deep fried, slices of apples with ice cream. mmmm.....it was so freaking good! oh and of course, it would be german if it was drizzled with chocolate.

germany, day 1 (and why i've been 'gone' for so long)

2009-04-22T21:35:00.003-06:00

i'm sorry that i haven't blogged for a while, although, this time i'd like to think that i have some sort of lame excuse. i went to germany for 2 weeks. the week or so before i spent getting ready and the weeks after, i've spent playing catch up. of course i also had to spend a weekend with my parents going to some photography lectures and things of that nature too.

so, i've decided to blog my trip, day by day and include photos. i hope this is exciting for you!

day 1-2

it ends up being two days, but you are awake for most of it, so it really feels like just one giant day.

we got to the airport with no problems, checked our luggage and went through security. easy as pie. we got to our gate with plenty of time to sit, relax, get something to drink and catch our flight. the gate attendants asked us if we were going to SLC and then promptly shuffled us onto the flight that was already boarded, so that we'd have no issues with the stormy weather by waiting for our flight. we thought that this was great, no waiting and we'd have plenty of time in SLC to catch our next flight and even get some breakfast.

when we are almost ready to board our flight from SLC to atlanta, they delay us...and delay.....and delay.... because of a valve that is broken on the plane. we run out of time, we know that we are going to miss our next connection, so hans spends a whole bunch of time getting us re-routed. we end up getting a flight from SLC directly to Paris and then onto Munich. only problem, we have to wait in the airport for HOURS. we spent a totally of 10 (yes, 10!!!) hours in the SLC airport. when we get on the plane to paris, hans and i aren't sitting together, it gets delayed because of some issue with the toilets not being empty, it is an 11 hour plus flight, with tons of turbulence and a very loud screaming baby. blech.

the paris airport is lame. trust me. go ahead and fly TO paris, just never fly THROUGH paris.

we make it to munich, get our luggage (it all showed up!) and meet evi (hans' mom). she ended up in munich quite a bit ahead of us, because of the plane issue, so she already had a rental car. and on our way to the car, i learned a new german word! if you ever want to know how to say 'booger' in german, it is said 'popel' (pronounced like opal with a 'p'). so there is a funny joke about a 'popel' driving and 'opal' (a brand of car) and wouldn't you know what our rental car is? yup, an opal....we were boogers the entire time!

we head to hans' uncle and aunt's house. while we are driving i see this:

for those of you who don't know, Fischer, is my maiden name. i thought this was funny. i told hans that he should have changed his last name instead!

when we get there we eat dinner (see, its a crazy long 2 days!!) watch a movie, well, i think i slept through part of it and went to bed before the sad ending (i'd seen it before and knew what happened). ahhh....bed.......

me, overexposed.....and answered prayers, unrelated....

2009-03-19T08:47:00.003-06:00

it has been a long time since i posted. i'm sorry. as punishment you get to see a completely embarrassing photo of me. will that make it all better? good. but i'm going to make you wait until the end. hehe

ok, so first a tiny and quick update as to what we've been doing and why there hasn't been any blogging. first we had our bull sale. that doesn't seem like to big of a deal, right? well, to my non-ranching friends, the bull sale is possibly the biggest deal that goes down on a ranch. see, ranches don't make money everyday of the year. they only make money when they sell their cows, bulls, calves, etc. so when our ranch has a bull sale in march and sells the calves in november, we essentially make money only 2 days a year. and those 2 days can make or break us. so, you can see, it is a pretty stressful time. we don't sell our bulls at the ranch (no place to hold a sale) so we truck them to a neighboring town. this requires a lot of time, effort and sleeping in hotels. hence, no blogging.

after the sale, we get to deliver the bulls. sure, some people pick them up and take them home, but some people have us deliver them. this means a whole lot of 'windshield time'. (hey, i didn't coin the phrase 'windshield time' but that is what people in montana seem to say the most!) hence, no blogging.

the third thing that is going on, is.....well, i'm going to leave a little something to blog about later. hehe! but it has required some of my free time too....hence, no blogging.

now, to the good part. a certain prayer of mine has been answered. i've known this for a while. but i just thought that i would share. (prairie mama, you posted your answered pray blog when i was going to post, so i waited a while, so it really looked like i was copying you! :) hope that is ok.)

i love cats. i always have. i think kitties are god's gift to the world.

see how cute they are?? awww, just melts my heart.....

and see how cool they are?? jack is the coolest...

i know not everyone feels this way and i'm ok what that, sometimes.... anyways, my parents were very understanding of my love of cats and i had a few when i was younger. i used to take them in my room and try to make them sleep next to me. i realize NOW that i would have had more luck with a dog, but i really, really wanted my cat to sleep next to me and purr while i fell asleep. they never did. so i used to pray and pray and pray to god. eventually, cats stopped being allowed in the house (sorry dad!) and i went to college. then along came jack. (see how cute and cool above) he's a very independent little kitty. he really doesn't seem to need humans for anything except filling the food dish and emptying the poop box. which is ok with me because then when you get loves from him, they are just that much more special.

except at night. then he needs you. he needs you bad! he needs you to lay and your side and make a little spot for him to lay in. he needs the lights to be off, the covers to just be right and for you to not move around too much. then he curls up and purrs you right to sleep. it is almost like heaven every night. i say 'almost' because he is a cat and sometimes when his needs aren't met, he gets a little snippy. but anyways, if you roll around or move or throw the covers off, he has to remake his place and sleep next to you.....even after hans gets up (i don't get up early, common misconception about volunteer ranchers) jack will get up with hans and then come back to bed and sleep in 'his spot'. i know, its weird.

here's the proof.

yikes! sorry if i scared you. see, completely embarrassing! but, it is the proof that after hans gets out of bed and i roll over, jack always finds a way to lay in 'his spot'. just like i prayed for so many, many years ago.

mums....and moms.....

2009-02-24T11:58:00.002-07:00

the best think about having a bunch of store-bought flowers around is that you can take lots of pictures of them while they are pretty and in nice lighting. you don't have to wait for spring to come or for the rain to stop. i've been trying to get hans to buy me flowers to take pictures of ever since i bought these mums for my mom at thanksgiving. so far, there have been no other bought flowers. but i haven't shown you all the neat pictures i took! so here are some more....
technically this photo is probably a little over exposed because of the lack of detail in the highlights (something i learned in my online photo class!) but i like it, so i'm posting it. and it might not win any awards but it just looks so bright and sunny....makes me all warm inside...

this one is probably more technically sound....i like it too...

and this one is a little overexposed again....what can i say? i like it!!! but in my class, they say that professionals tend to like darker photos...and i'm not a professional, so i can like this bright cheery ones, right?

i like the first and the third one because the background was all black, which was striking, but i gave it this nice orange-y glow....which i think looks cool.

so these mums were bought for my mom. but i probably need to specify which mom. i tend to collect moms, like i collect frogs...just kidding moms! i just find myself surrounded by a lot of women, maybe it is because of avon, some of it is because of who i married and some is just pure luck.

mom #1, is the mom who gave birth to me. she'll be the one who i call mom the most often. and she's the one who the mums were bought for. she likes to take pictures too. she's probably a better photographer than i am but maybe a little more shy about sharing her photos with others. she's a busy lady. i got my love of science and art from her. (thanks mom!) she's very 'math-y' and science-nerdy but still creative and artsy. it is a weird combination but we're goats (chinese horoscope wise) so maybe it has something to do with that. she's also a pseudo-vet. (i consider myself a pseudo-doctor sometimes, but that's just because i feel like i have more of a medical background than the average joe and my family always comes to me for medical advice, even though i'm no where near a doctor....) ok, back to the pseudo-vet. she loves animals and knows a lot about them. she's worked for a vet, so she's been exposed to that kind of stuff. i always go to her when i have a vet question. she's good like that.

mom in colorado, is the mom of my husband. i don't want to call her mom #2, because, well, numbering the moms seems like i'm ranking them and i don't want them to feel bad because they can't all be mom #1. i call her mom also, and sometimes when i'm explaining things to other people, my mother-in law, because calling everyone mom is confusing for people. anyways, mom in colorado, is also an artist. i'm not sure how this all works out, that my moms are so artsy....but, back to colorado mom....she's a definitely a more professional photographer than me. she's had her work published many times over. and i'm sure she never, never likes photos that are too overexposed. but besides photography, she paints, draws and all sorts of things, even woodworking. hard core artsy. i also need to mention that she's german. like FROM germany, not just of german decent. she did get her citizenship a few years back, but she still has an accent, you know, 'proof' that she's a real german. she's also the one to go to when you have any questions about travel. she's like the travel guide/agent of the family.

maybe the next 'mom' i should talk about is my step-mother-in-law. she doesn't get called mom, because, well, she came into hans' life when he was older, so he's always called her by her first name. but she's artsy too! holy moly, this woman can paint. she's starting to do some drawing too. and she can dance. she could dance circles around all of my moms and me. (sorry moms, but i gotta be a little honest!) not just dancing, but official, ballroom dancing kind of stuff, i'm sure i could beat her in car dancing. (car dancing is the dancing you do while seated in a car, either as a passenger or a driver...also known as chair dancing....) i think she also did some synchronized swimming, which is something that i think is very artsy...

my next mom got to be called mom because she could be my mom's twin sister. she's a southern bell (even if she doesn't think so!) is that supposed to be bell or belle? oh man, i don't know my southern well enough! spell check can't even help me! so this mom is my most recently adopted mom. but she's great. she also happens to be german....hmmmm.....very interesting.....she doesn't have an accent except when she speaks german. then you can tell. no gerglish for her! (gerglish is like spanglish, except not as well known) i haven't been to this mom's house to see if she's got photos or paintings all over the walls. but i have a feeling that she could hold her own in the art department.

i don't know if i have a lot of other people that get called mom....i do tend to call a lot of people 'mama'. its my way of giving them a loving nickname. i like calling people by nicknames, its more personal and.....well, seems more affectionate. plus when they have a bunch of kiddos running around, they are mama. i'm not old enough to call everyone honey, sweetie, darling....although i can't wait. i love when the old waitresses call you hun. makes me feel good.

i have called other people mom in the past, mostly friend's mom's growing up. and my teacher's, mostly by accident. especially my third and fourth grade teacher, i remember calling them mom by accident.

and there you go. my mums and my moms all summed up.

p.s. sorry moms if i forgot anything important you think i should have remembered....

this is a test....

2009-02-24T11:21:00.001-07:00

mostly to see if i can tell a difference.....or you can tell a difference....

so, is there??

silly cows, just for mom.......

2009-02-13T19:17:00.008-07:00

so, my mom, who reads my blog (sometimes, when she remembers and she's at work with high speed internet and who will never leave an actual comment but rather send me an email telling me what she liked about it and what i should or shouldn't post on here) has requested more cow pics. i think my mom is silly. so here's some silly cow pics. just for you mom. (i love you!)

this silly cow rubbed her head all over the hay bale and then tried to eat from the center of the bale. that is why she is covered in hay....silly cow...

mom also requested cute cow chin photos. here you go! doesn't get any cuter than that! right? see the cows lined up behind her? they were waiting to be fed. silly cows.....

another silly photo. what was this cow doing? its like a milk mustache....only, um, snow.....and i love the look on the other cow's face, "oh geez, bessy, she caught you on camera" silly cows....oops, this might be a silly diana pic, instead of a silly cow pic. i call this one, "why i don't sell avon to cows" or why i shouldn't be left alone with photoshop for too long. silly me.....

and this is my personal favorite. it cracks me up! hahaha! she had an itch. see in the cow world, this is socially acceptable. in the human world, only boys do this in public. silly boys. but funny thing about this photo, once i showed it to my father-in-law, it made him chuckle and turn away. that made me laugh even more. i love this photo. it isn't going to win any contests, but i think it is great. silly cow.....

winter blah....

2009-02-06T09:52:00.002-07:00

one of the bad things about living in montana is that you have to deal with winter several months of the year. it isn't always bad, snow is beautiful and when snow covers everything, it can be really amazing. plus, it is often very sunny here, which helps everything seem better. but this post isn't about the good and bad things of montana living....

the bad part of winter is the grey days, the days where the sun doesn't want to come out and you don't feel like it will ever come out again (but it will, in a couple hours even!)

last month i went out (on one of those grey, yucky days) and about with my camera and took a couple shots that i thought i'd share.

this is just some dead flower that i thought just looked cool. it was really cold and windy that day, with no sun, not a great time to be outside taking pics, but i tried. i do like that i got the background completely out of focus, so that there is nothing distracting from the dead flower....

so, it was very snowy that day (the snow hadn't melted yet) and as i was driving around, i saw this:
i'm not sure what it is, i call it 'red cup, white snow'. i like to imagine how it got there (did the wind just blow it there? was there a party and this is a leftover cup? did some crazy, fit-throwing kid toss it out the window of his/her parents car?) i also think it is weird how much trash you can find when out in nature. sure, i probably should have picked this up, but i liked it too much. it kind of reminds me of those paintings that are just a giant canvas with one red square on it, you know, the kind that hangs in high end galleries and sells for more money than i will ever make. i just hope that someone else saw it and thought, even for a second, that it was beautiful and not just trash....

my kids...

2009-01-31T20:48:00.002-07:00

i call them my kids, because they act like kids. or i just wish they were kids, i'm not really sure. but they are as close to kids as i have, so that is just what they get called. sometimes i call them my boys. sometimes i call them bad names, but only when they are naughty.

we got them when they were just a little puppy and little kitty, on the same day. they have had to learn to deal with the fact that they are different (one gets to sleep on the bed and one doesn't) and they think they are the same. they love each other and i think people don't always believe me. they like to snuggle when we aren't home, in our bed of course. and they both travel better and behave better when they are together.

but people have trouble believing that a boxer and a cat can be so in love.

here's proof.
awww....they are just that cute, aren't they.

blue eyes....baby blues...

2009-01-26T16:43:00.007-07:00

there are so many songs out there about blue eyes....

and you can see why....these eyes are amazing. i love this photo, which i snapped on my birthday with my new flash (thanks baby!) hans isn't smiling, which usually makes me dislike the photo, but those eyes!! mama mia! sorry ladies, he's taken! anyways, i think his blue eyes are gorgeous!

so one day i was talking to hans about his beautiful blue eyes and he just happened to ask, "did you ever even date anyone without blue eyes?" and then i had to think.....and i kept thinking....and, well, i just don't think so. i did have a big crush on a mexican, his eyes weren't blue, but we didn't really date. flirted, but no dating...and there are a couple guys that i'm not sure if i remember what color their eyes were...but the ones that i remember were blue. which is kind of freaky, isn't it? and i didn't think i had a 'type' of guy....

now back to the photo...i love his eyes so much and i think this photo really captures their beauty....

so why do i love this photo so much? he's not smiling and you can't see his eyes at all....

i love it so much, i kept playing with it in photoshop, because the more i played with it, the more i loved it...

doesn't it just evoke some weird emotion? i'm not sure what it is....

but i couldn't decide how i liked the photo the most....

maybe this one is my fav.....it seems kind of romantic.....

but this one is so rugged....hans' beard looks really dark here, but sometimes it does look that dark...and he looks all tough and 'rancher-y' (can't say cowboy, cuz he's not a cowboy, he's very specific about that) but at the same time, he looks all soft...or like he's deep in thought...either way, i love this photo.

the stock show from my point of view or more things that make me happy....

2009-01-22T16:17:00.005-07:00

the stock show didn't offer a lot of time to take pics. in fact, i think i only got my camera out a couple times. (gasp!) but i still ended up with some photos that just make me happy. perhaps they aren't great photos, they certainly won't win any awards, but i still like them and somedays that is all that matters. right?

here are the cows, all fluffed and shined. of course this isn't the traditional angle you would normally see of show/sale cattle, but i love the sun through the cute ear hair. i even like the sun flare at the bottom of the pic. i even like the natural bokeh in the background. (bokeh is the out of focus light shapes.) people try to get bokeh all the time and it just happened by a happy accident. people even use photoshop to make bokeh in their photos. (i hope i just made a link for all you guys to check out what wikipedia says about bokeh!)

so here's the cutest part of the cows. well, the second cutest part. (their chins are the first, but hard to photograph....in fact, i think all animal chins are the cutest part...just check out the closest animal...see? the chin is the cutest!!) oh yeah, back to the nose... their cute slimey noses are such a close second. and yeah, she's all drooly because she was trained to eat treats and when i'd talk sweet to her, she would beg and since i only wanted a pic of her sweet lil nose and didn't have treats, she was a lil drooly....but still wicked cute! (i'm sure all the mom's out there have pics of their babies with drool and/or snot on their faces!)

here is the sky one evening....well, this pic really doesn't need any explaination...

and this is my first attempt at trying to capture the beauty of all the old buildings in and around the stock show. there are so many beautiful buildings around denver and when i lived there i never was brave enough to take a pic. well, this isn't one of the neatest buildings, but i liked all the neon signs in the windows, with the sunset-y clouds. and i also photoshopped a bunch of ugly things out of this pic, mainly powerlines. i was going to show you the before and after, but i thought, that this is things that i love and not a show and tell post, so sorry people, you just don't get to see that today!

workin' hard at the stock show!

2009-01-21T14:42:00.004-07:00

a pic is worth a thousand words, right?

here's hans, working on making the heifer dry or fluffing the hair and making her pretty, i can't remember, we did a whole lot of both! the thing that looks like a vacuum isn't, it blows instead of sucks....

and when i say that we spent a whole lot of time washing, drying, fluffing and shining the girls, i mean it! they were washed or rinsed everyday, then they had to be dried, because as you can see, it was slightly chilly there...then after you wash or rinse them, of course there is all the grooming to be done! holy moly, I'VE never even had that much grooming. but they did look really good when it was all done. and our 3 girls were just in the sale. the show cattle usually have 4 to 5 people working on them at a time, all day long!

here's hans drying the heifer with a sham wow. yup, i'm totally serious! we spent more time trying to dry off the heifers than anything, so after watching the demo of the sham wow "up on the hill" at the trade show, we bought some and put them to really good use! they saved us a lot time, which was good because that morning that we used them it was cold and foggy.

check out hans' soaked rain gear. because there was limited space to wash cows and everyone washes their cows, you end up getting completely soaked. there was just no way to stay dry. you should have seen the people that weren't prepared with the proper outer wear!

this is my lil bro jake....or jakey, as i like to call him. (yes, i'm aware of the terribly composed photo as he has a pole sticking out of his head, but he's got such a cute smile!) he's giving one of the ladies some love . they are just that sweet....i kind of miss them. right now we're calving on the ranch (yes, i'll definitely have to post pics of that!) and the mom's aren't nearly this gentle. they would much rather you be a whole lot farther away! but the girls that we took to the show, mrs. t, paris, and purdy dirty, were so sweet and nice to be around. well, purdy had a bad day where she decided she liked to kick the boys....hehe. but paris was always such a love. she's the one that i miss the most. she liked to cuddle and snuggle and be scratched and eat cow treats.

and finally, here's me. it was my job to make them pretty and because i was working, i didn't have a whole lot of time to take pics. but hans grabbed my camera and snapped this one. i had just got done blowing her all off and she was ready to be spritzed and shined.

i have more pics from the show, but i'll be posting them later. :)

for the love of corn and comments

2009-01-18T12:39:00.002-07:00

i don't love corn in the "traditional love" of a food item. corn is something that usually is my last choice of 'veggie' and i really, really dislike creamed corn, blech! its like someone chewed up some corn for you, gross! (and i've recently eliminated corn completely from my diet, which is a whole different story.) my love of corn comes from traveling through nebraska this last november and seeing these HUGE piles of corn everywhere. it was rainy and yucky weather, but the corn was just so beautiful. it was also about the only thing to look at driving through nebraska. i tried to take some photos as we were driving through, but eventually hans just had to stop so that i could get a shot.

see? the COLOR of the corn is just amazing. the pic just doesn't translate it very well because the weather was so grey. but if you can imagine driving through this flat, grey state, then come across these giant piles of beautiful yellow corn.....

anyways, when we were stopped at one point to take pics of the corn, we saw this:

this was a truck dumping corn. it was cool. i'd never see corn being poured out of a truck before....

the other notable thing that we found in nebraska was the little bitty corn filled town of chapman.

what?? chapman, nebraska!!! we just had to take a pic for our uncle scott and aunt janet.

now, for the love of comments.....i love, love all your guys comments!!!!!! and i'm so new to this blogging thing i just didn't know how to deal with the comments, so i decided i'm just going to respond to all your comments, in the comments. that way you guys know i love you and your comments and i don't have to spend a lot of time emailing people about comments, which seems silly, at least to me. so, if you've left a comment, you can go back and i'll have responded (hopefully i can figure it out!)

sorry i wasn't able to post while we were at the stock show. the silly hotel we stayed at had internet but you had to pay for it! so frustrating!!

right place, right time...

2009-01-09T20:53:00.006-07:00

sometimes great/interesting photos are just a result of pure luck. it has nothing to do with the camera you own, the lens you just cleaned (or didn't clean) and it doesn't have anything to do with lighting. it just happens. don't believe me? check out wildlife photos sometime, most of them are PURE luck. (like a hawk landing on fence post near enough for you to get a shot of it with a mouse in its talons) sure, some of those people are out in the wilderness 24/7 waiting for that stroke of luck, but it is still luck. oh and they probably have a giant zoom lens. lucky bastards.

as i am not known for my luck, i don't have anything recent to show you. but this summer, we were up at our 'other' ranch and i came across this:

and i thought, holy crap! that looks like a nose growing out of a tree!

doesn't it? i mean, it is seriously cool but slightly creepy....(and you people eat fungus!!! ewww!!)

so i gave him a face....because it is nice to smell, it might be nice to see whats around him too....

he watched the ditch (that we just cleaned) fill with water....

and we left him, chilling in the forest, next to the babbling ditch....

i like to think that someone else came along and saw him and thought, whoa, how cool is that....

rare photos...

2009-01-08T21:37:00.007-07:00

it isn't very often that the photographer gets photographed. only on very rare occasions, like birthdays, when they reluctantly had over their camera to someone else, so that the moment can be recorded. then the photographer reluctantly posts them on the blog, so that people can see that they actually had a birthday. (that and i had a specific request, scott...) i did decide not to post the photo of the oh-so-cheesy grin as they were singing happy birthday to me. sorry to disappoint...

but hans did take some photos that i will share.

here's the cake...blue, sparkly and the inside was chocolate....mmmm.....hans did a good job picking it out. he has made me a cake before, they aren't always store bought.

me, blowing out the candles....once again, hans did a good job by not putting 29 candles on the cake...he's so nice about birthdays...

it wasn't a huge bash, but it was fun. my father-in-law (steve, in the jeans) and his wife (linda, you can see her leg), along with my step-uncle-in-law (my father-in-law's wife's brother) (scott, in the white shirt)and his wife (janet, in the red shirt) all came for cake and ice cream. in this photo, you can see the new floor (no more carpet!!) and the really nice view that we have. you can't really see all the guests, but its the only photo that hans took of everyone. also, check out the table that i designed and hans built, pretty sweet, huh? you can even see the John Deere Green house in town! well, just barely, look close!

after cake and ice cream, steve and linda headed back to the ranch, because the cows don't really care if anyone is having a birthday. but scott and janet stayed. we talked a lot (even about avon and janet made her first purchase!! she'll be hooked in no time!!) then we headed to the local pizza place for a birthday dinner. what?? you're confused that we had dessert first? well, on my birthday that is the way things go! sorry mom, you weren't here, so we did it my way! it works out really well too. because you aren't too full to eat cake and all that sugar leaves you hungry after a while, then after dinner no one is too full for cake or too tired. you really must try dessert first....at least on your birthday.

it was a great day. and just so no one has any misunderstanding about my birthday, is after my birthday, i just decide to celebrate my birthmonth. it pretty much works out like this every year. hans is very understanding about birthmonths. and if you've never had a birthmonth, i highly recommend it, like dessert first....

birthday, birthday!! and official grand opening of my blog!!

2009-01-07T11:55:00.006-07:00

it is official! welcome to my blog! i hope you like it!

today is also my 29th birthday. if you love me, you should thank my mom and dad today, they are pretty good parents. especially my mom. her labor was short, but i was born at 3:30 am, so she didn't get much sleep that night and i'm sure for the next few months too. i cried a lot as a baby (sorry mom!) so she spent the next year holding me almost constantly. i don't cry as much now, although i do like being held still....hey, blame my mom, she spoiled me early!

i was trying to think of a good picture to post today and its kind of hard to decide...for my birthday hans' dad is giving me an online photo class, which i am very excited to sign up for. and hans gave me a speedlight (woot!) i guess he really wants me to take those inside pictures at the bull sale! i have no idea how to use it, yet, but i'm excited and i've already played around with it. so there should be many, many more photos posted on here!

so my christmas cacti bloomed right at christmas this year (like magic!) i really like these photos and i played around in photoshop a little bit....

here's the sooc (straight out of camera) i like it, my camera just shoots a little on the cool side.

so i warmed it up a bit...so bright and beautiful...

then i did this...not as bright, but i think it is a neat...

here's the next on sooc, i like this one a lot, just the way it is.

but i played with it too, just for fun.

so, there's a few more things on here for everyone to check out. i really hope you like it and please come back often! leave comments!! (i love comments!!)

things i love....

2009-01-06T16:37:00.010-07:00

i love, love, love tracks. especially tracks in the snow. i like tracks in the sand, mud, dirt...where ever. i even like the little kitty tracks you get when a cat walks all over your car. i also really, really like to take pictures of tracks. and bird or duck tracks are just the best!!

so, on christmas day, hans and i decided that we should go out and feed the cows, give chuck a break, since it was christmas and all. so, i brought my camera and guess what i found?

all these cute tracks!! they were all around the hay. so i took pictures. they were so darn cute!

see how cute and tiny! mouse tracks! (or some other crazy small thing, like a mouse!) oh, and check out my "fittens". i made them! knitting fingerless gloves is way to hard and way too much time, so i knit fingerless mittens, hence, fittens! they work great for helping keep your hands warm while you are outside taking pictures. and they knit up pretty quick too. i should also mention that mine are a few years old. that is why they look a little ragged. they are holding up well, lasting through a few calving seasons. i wear them under my gloves all the time!

*****************UPDATE**********************

there has been some debate on what animal has actually made these tracks. so if you have absolute proof or just want to guess, please do. i still say mouse or some rodent. my mom says a bunny.... what do you think??

200+ photos....

2009-01-05T09:31:00.004-07:00

yesterday i took well over 200 photos, in the freezing cold. i froze my fingers off! anyways, i know all of you are thinking, 'that's awesome diana, 200+ photos! great job, i bet you got lots of good ones!' and now i'm going to tell you that ALL the photos are of the bulls, for the catalog. none of them are 'artsy' or cute, none are the way i would have done a picture of a cow, er, bull.

these are some cows in the field, a picture i took last march, but just to show you how i like to take photos of cows. i like this photo, i think its great.

i'm sure there will be lots more photos of cows on this blog, so i hope you all like looking at cows!

technically....

2009-01-04T17:26:00.007-07:00

....i'm not 29 just yet...

my birthday is on the 7th, but since i'm making this a great year, i'm getting a head start on my blog.

i'm hoping to use this blog to post my photos, show people a little bit of my life and keep in touch with those out of town.

oh and yes, i took the flower photo under the title....

see? pretty, huh?