The Cruz Family

What does one do when their is no salt for the Roads???

Sunday, January 31st, 2010 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Apparently Germany is having the hardest winter in about 15 years, and with the snow -comes the necessity for Scrapping and salting the roads.  Well apparenlty Germany is running out of salt to salt the road-so they have limited it only to the major roads and autobahn.  We live about 2 small towns from the autobahn -so getting places has been an adventure within itself.  Cyra and I have taken this time to enjoy our time with eachother and getting caught up on much needed laundry duty.  Here are a few pictures of what our back side and front side of the house looks like.

[

and her are a few videos of what Cyra and I kept ourselves busy with during the snow storm

(click on the links below)

Cyra the Gymnist

cyra playing again

Christmas with Family

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

We were blessed to have our family come to visit over Christmas and New Years.  It was so awesome to see Cyra reconnect with her family in such a loving and familiar way -it was it we hadn’t been apart for the past year!!!  Cyra and I were recovering from Pneumonia while they were here- but in good family fashion -we shared the time and the germs. :)  We were busy almost every day, we made a trip to Luxembourg, Trier, Aachen, Paris for a couple of days and we hit Saarbrucken on the way back from Paris to eat a great place called Die Alte Brauerei - check out their link  www.diealtebrauerei.com

Here are a few pictures of our time with Family! It was awesome having the house bustle with people and not feel cramped for space.  I do miss them dearly and look forward to our next set of company arriving in September!

Memories

Sunday, December 20th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

When I was younger my favorite memory is spending the night at my grandparents house and having breakfast with them the next morning.  In classic fashion my sister and I disagreed on everything and in classic fashion we could not agree on what we wanted for breakfast.  I was always a pancake girl and my sister always wanted waffles - though I enjoyed both breakfast items, what I loved about the pancakes that he made, was that they were made in different shapes…we had clowns, cactus, smiley faces, and even mickey mouse silhouettes.  Now mind you these were all done free hand and I absolutely loved them!!!

Since having Cyra we have pancake breakfast on Saturdays.  A few weeks ago my mom sent me a mickey mouse pancake mold that she has had since we went to Disneyland at the age of 2 and 3yrs and decided that Cyra should receive the benefits of it now.  I absolutely love it!  And Cyra loves it too!  I am so glad that we can share this tradition with our daughter, even if the specialty pancakes are made by mold not by hand! lol

Strasbourg Christmas Market

Sunday, December 13th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Saturday we got a call from our friends, Anne and Jason inviting us to go to Strasbourg, France for their Christmas market.  Since Tony took the call he said he would have to wait and talk to me once I woke up.  :)  As soon as I woke up, I jumped at the phone to call and confirm that we would indeed be joining them! :)  It was about a 3 hour drive, we packed all 5 of us (tony, myself, Anne, Jason and Cyra) into our VW Jetta.  It was snug but it was so much fun, we talked the whole way.  Typical of me, I forgot my camera and I was so bummed because once we got parked and started walking around - I so desperately wanted to take pictures.  Luckily Anne was prepared with her camera, so I just need to get a copy of those pix and then I will share them all with you.

Christmas markets are something that Germany and some areas of France do.  They usually start the weekend after Thanksgiving and go for a full month - so roughly a day or two before Christmas. They usually have vendors selling all types of goods, (jewelry, AWESOME FOOD, handmade trinkets and many other things).  In very typical style, they had street acts playing in different areas, some bands, some singers, some were fiddlers…we walked to crowded streets while sipping on Gluehwein (hot spiced wine) and eating typical french and German sweets (chocolate crepe’s, these wonderful chocolate covered marshmallows on wafers, I don’t know their real name but oh simply divine).  It really kicked my spirit into Christmas drive!

We even had a great dinner at a cute little French bistro -everyone was having their afternoon coffee and beer while the us (the obvious Americans) were ordering dinner lol (it was about 5ish, but the french don’t normally eat dinner until 7ish).  I had a steak with a Gorgonzola Cheese sauce with a side of fries, and can I just say -that I firmly believe that all fries should be served with a side of Gorgonzola cheese sauce! lol Tony had the Spaghetti Carbonara and it was pretty good.

Since I figured I pretty much ruined my diet, I decided to splurge and share a bag of Churros - made just like the one’s we use to eat in Spain when I lived there.  Fresh and so awesome! :)  We finally got back around 930p - a very long day, but well worth it on so many levels! :)  Thanks again Anne and Jason for a wonderful trip!

Carving Time

Saturday, November 14th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

I just realized that I never posted any pictures of us carving our pumpkins -so here you go.  The last one is of our pumpkins inside our house - taking the picture from our street.  Yes our front door is all glass.  Oh and mine is the funky one -you can’t really tell what it is, but it is suppose to be a french ghost with a beret.

Insomnia and Halloween Pictures 2009

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Another night of sleeplessness, I keep having these weird dreams and  I don’t know whats going on but I wake up about every 3 to 4 hours. Tony is gone for a couple of weeks so I am left to my own devices of trying to go back to sleep.  UGH!!!!  This morning at 430 when I woke up, I tried tossing and turning into bed -but when that didn’t work I decided to go down stairs and surf the internet.  I then realized that I had not posted Halloween pictures of Cyra! :(  BAD MOMMY!  So here you go - hope you enjoy!  If one good thing can come out of my Insomnia - let it be at the very least updating my blog….maybe I will have a midnight cleaning party tomorrow!

Dinner Time

Thursday, October 29th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Its always been a family tradition on my side of the family to let the kids experience the wonders of BBQ Ribs. :)  I was probably a couple months old when my parents and grandparents let us slobber on a good rib bone, and so as with most traditions, we decided to introduce Cyra into the wonderful world of Ribs - and it was AWESOME!  Tony grilled some ribs tonight and we let Cyra enjoy all the messy goodness of eating them off the bone.  And like her mommy and Tante- she dug right in!  I even taught her how to lick her fingers afterward lol!     Hope you enjoy the pictures

Pumpkin Patch 2009

Sunday, October 18th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

This weekend was a big weekend for Cyra.  On Saturday we took Cyra to the Pumpkin Patch near Ramstein.  Before we left, we took some pictures in our town next to a house that has beautiful fall leaves covered all over it!  It really was a perfect place for fall pictures!!!

Here are some pictures of Cyra at the pumpkin patch.

We also went through the corn maze that they had on site.  Tony and I were surprised how expensive the pumpkins were over here, some were about 30 Euro  - or about $45.00 and we aren’t talking like huge, we are talking average size. Yikes!  Cyra loved picking up the small pumpkins, so we got her a few to carve back at the house.

After our adventures and pictures at the pumpkin patch, we ate dinner at Ramstein and decided to check out the new BX.  Its pretty amazing.  Ramstein has always been known for having a large BX -however this is like Macys and Super Walmart rolled into one!!!   Now I can get my Philosophy face wash, my nars makeup and victorias secret underwear (just to name a few of my favorites) lol  While we were there, we picked Cyra up her first Big girls potty.  We brought it home and let her experiment with it.  She even decided to share her big girls potty with her bear!

Overall it was a great day!  Hope you enjoy the pictures!

I need a babysitter

Thursday, October 15th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

So last night Tony and I went to the Tops in Blue’s concert on base, and of course we had Cyra with us.  Normally she is really good at events like this, she really enjoys singing, dancing, light changes all that stuff-  but for some reason last night the little booger would not sit still.  Early on she met up with a few of her friends from school (yeah I realize what I just said) but she did, there was a little girl there from her class and so she tells me “Nolanie” and I said oh you see you friend Nolanie?  she goes yes…then she gets up on the chair next to me and starts yelling her name…(seriously is my kid 2 or 12?)  So then the little girl recognized Cyra and they both look at each other and smile and take a deep breath in like “hey woman, how is it going”  except no real words were exchanged.   I swear it was the funniest thing ever!  From that moment, she didnt want to sit still, she thought it was appropriate to yell and roll around on the floor -because guess what…her friend was doing it 1 row and a few seats back.  Oh joy!  So me being the mother that I am, and not finding this appropriate at all - had to excuse Cyra and myself 3 times from the concert to talk about appropriate behavior at public functions.  Overall, we all survived, and although I get a kick out of my daughter and her antics of being a 2 year old - I think somethings should be enjoyed children free.  I NEED A BABYSITTER!

New Adventure

Thursday, October 8th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Here on the coach with my wife living the dream

.