OK, so I CAN put my finger on some of what is keeping me busy....



I've always wanted to learn how to can things and make jam/jelly. I found a friend who is equally interested in experimenting. We've been meeting at my house once a week (sometimes more often) and trying out all kinds of jam and jelly. It's wonderful having a house that was originally two houses. I have two kitchens! I can run the stove upstairs and downstairs and we get a full production line going.

So far we've made strawberry-banana, strawberry-kiwi, spiced strawberry and peach. We've had some that didn't gel and are failures but so far we've done well and are pronouncing the venture a success.

So, that's why I'm not at my computer any more. I'm busy prepping, jamming and cleaning up sticky and yummy messes!

The day after Ryan came home from being stranded he was met with an inundation of house-guests. It seems like our entire last base is moving here and we had yet another family to welcome.

Some of you who have been reading here since the beginning of time (ie, since Katy was born) may remember this photo:



Payton and Katy were born in the same hospital on the same day (and both Daddies worked for the same squadron). Payton is a mere 12 hours older than Katy. I got to visit Payton as I was wandering the halls of the hospital while in labor.

My how time changes us all. Payton is the little boy in the navy blue shirt in the photos that follow. I think Katy has a full inch on him now and probably a pound or two.



We had 7 kids racing around (Ryan is a bit older than the others and was much too cool to be running around in our yard screaming like a banshee; which was the preferred activity of the younger ones - actually, Landon wasn't racing around either, but you'll see why later and that I'm sure he wanted to be) and had a lovely time grilling burgers and hot dogs for everyone.



Katy was FASCINATED by baby Landon. I wasn't so sure that this was a good thing. She's slowly learning to be gentle but doesn't always have the concept down.





Of course, being a copy-cat she can always manage.



She was trying to be sweet and offer some of her hamburger to Landon and didn't quite understand why all of the adults jumped at her.



A wonderful time was had by all and we were glad to welcome yet another family that managed to escape from Cannon.

I'd love to pretend there is a great a valid reason that I haven't updated. The truth is: there isn't one. Life just keeps slipping past me at an alarming rate.

I have more entries worth of pictures than I'd like to admit so I'm going to start plugging away on then of forward date them until I get you all caught up. Katy and I are leaving over the weekend to travel with some friends and meet some other friends (sound vague? Yes, it is, intentionally so). We're renting a house together and will have 5 adults (Ryan is the only one of the three families that can't go - boo) and 7 kids all under one roof for a week. I know that I'll have plenty of stories and pictures to share after that adventure.

I took these pictures the week Ryan got stuck in Chicago. He had been TDY to Dallas and got stuck. He came home about 30 hours later than scheduled and his luggage about 30 hours later than that.

At about 10pm I started to hear quite a clattering noise outside so I went to investigate. It turns out that they were threshing the field behind our house. STARTING AT 10PM!! Luckily, it didn't wake Katy. So, I stood outside and watched for a long time. The machine was so close to our yard at points (I took these pictures from inside our fence) that I could have easily underhand tossed a rock at it and hit it.

We slept VERY well on Saturday night. Katy slept so well and so late that Ryan and I both got up at a decent hour (later than we would get up for him to go to work) and each individually wandered over to the shower building and showered and got ready for the day. We then started breaking down camp. We unzipped her tent and opened it up and went inside, then continued breaking down camp noisily. She was still asleep.



Finally we were able to pry her eyes open and she and her new monkey graciously agreed to come to breakfast.



But only if they were allowed to eat bananas and play with the stickers.



We finished packing up camp and headed out for the day. Katy insisted on squeezing in one more round of mini-golf before we left the camp site.

On our way home we decided to drop by Strasbourg, France. We've been several times and it's a lovely city. We stumbled upon a concert and dance performance of some sort.



Katy and Ryan danced to the music and a good time was had by all.



I just love how beautiful Strasbourg is.



Of course, the old-fashioned carousel certainly helps make it more fun.





We wandered through "Little France" (weren't we in France already, you might ask? I asked the same question), which we'd never been through before. It was incredibly quaint and I can't wait to go back and explore some more on another trip.





On our way out of town the adventure truly began. We didn't have much gas in the car and knew we needed to fill up soon. In Germany there are gas stations along the autobahn and we'd seen some in France, so we assumed we'd have no problem. The car tells us exactly how many kilometers of fuel we have left. We watched the gauge creep down and down without a gas station in sight. Finally, we were down to 50 kilometers left (yes, that's really not much - we were in trouble!) when we found a gas station right off the road. Nothing is open on Sundays in Europe and this was a "pay at the pump" type station. There were cars there, so we were relieved and pulled up to the pump.

Ryan got out to pump. He came back to the car and told me that the credit card wouldn't work. We'd had a fraud alert placed on our card a few weeks ago, so I assumed it was residual from that and told him to try another. Nope, not that one either. We went through everything in our wallets with no luck. We started to sweat a bit. I poked at the navigator and found that there was another gas station about 10 kilometers away so we resolved to see if that one was attended and headed that way. We got about 6 kilometers into the journey when the navigator directed us to pull into the FERRY TERMINAL. Yes, it wanted us to take a ferry, on a Sunday when the ferry wasn't running, to get to a gas station that we had no idea whether was attended or not.

Dejected and starting to panic, we turned around to the gas station we'd been at before. We pulled in and resolved to try all the cards again. This time a German man approached us and indicated that he couldn't get his cards to work either. We were slightly relieved that we weren't alone in our predicament, but it didn't help us get any gas either. The man two pumps over was successfully putting gas in his car so with all of our resolve and our most pitiful looks (it wasn't hard at this point to muster looking pitiful - we'd been camping for two days and were scared out of our minds that we'd be walking home from France) we approached him and asked if we could pay him cash and he use his card to put some gas in our car. Thankfully, he agreed. He made several jokes about the fact that only the French are allowed to buy gas in France on Sundays.

Now we had enough gas to make it home, thankfully. Of course, what we didn't count on was the fact that we might get stuck in construction and a detour loop that we couldn't get out of. We retraced the same route over and over in an attempt to get out. After about 45 minutes we were successful and headed on our merry (ok, cautiously merry) way home.

Katy was very good throughout most of this. She seems to have a "Mommy and Daddy are truly stressed and need me to stay quiet and out of the way " radar and does very well when we're trying to think our way out of these situations. Quite a bit later than expected, we finally limped home.

It was a wonderful weekend, but what an adventure!!!

After a long night with no sleep, morning came much too early. But, we were undeterred. We were going to have a good day and we were going to make this camping thing work (I had put a back-up list in the car of nearby hotels in case we felt like we needed it). We made the decision to leave our camping gear at camp, head out to find a dark sheet to put over Katy's side of the tent and a full-sized pillow for her (Katy doesn't sleep well without a pillow and the travel-sized one I brought just wasn't enough, apparently).

First, we started off with some breakfast over the camp stove. Hash browns, sausage and raspberries, yum!







After cleaning up and getting dressed, we headed off to do our shopping on our way to the main event. Apparently we had really talked the monkeys up well because every few minutes Katy would make the sign for monkey and grin. She was a little disappointed that we had to stop at a store first (but, we found the sheet and pillow that we needed).

Finally, we arrived. Monkey Mountain (Montagne Des Signes) has 280 Barbary Macaques running free inside their preserve (the sign said they'd had 11 babies this year too).


We paid our admission price and stood in line for the safety briefing, which was conducted in French, of course. The man looked at us patiently and switched into English as best he could. We got the gist of it. Don't tease the monkeys, don't touch the monkeys, and stay away from them if you aren't actively trying to feed one. Also, no yelling or running. Hello!! Have you met our child? We were a little nervous.

We instantly caught sight of our first monkeys and were very excited.


They only give a small handful of popcorn to each adult and you MUST keep it in your hand (they don't want monkeys to start attacking people to pick pockets or start stealing baggies or the like - which makes sense). Katy needed some too, so here she is carrying her first piece of popcorn.



We found a small group of monkeys playing excitedly. There was no one else around, so we figured this would be our chance to get in some good, quality feeding.



Ryan got in the first feeding...



Now it was time to allow Katy to approach a monkey; SLOWLY.



She put out her hand, and.... SUCCESS!!



She was so excited!



Unfortunately (or, fortunately) I only got the back of their heads for the following transaction. Katy and Ryan play a game all the time where she pretends to give him some food and then takes it back and puts it in her own mouth. Fine and funny when you're playing with Daddy, but not acceptable when feeding monkeys. Well, Katy offered the popcorn to the monkey and took it back. Ryan grabbed her arm and forced her to offer the popcorn so it wouldn't think she was teasing it.



The monkey grabbed the popcorn, took half a step back, ate the popcorn, took half a step forward again and reached out and SLAPPED Katy across her still outreached hand. It happened so quickly that it took us all a while to take it in. Luckily, she wasn't hurt; the monkey was merely telling her not to do that.



After that, Katy was much more cautious about approaching any monkeys. So, it turned out that the little slap was better than any lesson we could have taught her.



The thing that I loved about the preserve was that the monkeys could take or leave us being there. It wasn't like a typical farm animal petting zoo where the animals mob you and jump all over. Here you had to wait patiently for a monkey to decide that it wanted to approach you.





A much more cautious Katy tries again....





Sometimes the monkeys could care less that we were even there.



We got to see some of the babies clinging on to their mother's bellies....



And, of course, feed many, many monkeys.





The view was breathtaking.





Here Katy is signing that the monkey is eating (the staff fed them fruit at certain times of day).



The monkey did NOT like us watching him eat; see that face? We moved on pretty quickly.



Katy decided that she was hungry too. No food was allowed in the actual preserve so we made our way back to the outside world, but not without stopping for a few more feedings first.













A snack and some time to run on the playground later and we were all set to go again.



Luckily, they let us back in and gave us a little more popcorn, so we got a few more feeding attempts in.











At this point we figured that it was time to move on. if Katy was going to lay down in the dirt and attempt to nap, we had truly exhausted her.



So, we headed onward, but not without me getting a few feedings in first.



After Monkey Mountain nothing seemed like it could compare. We decided to let Katy take a nap in the car (which was much needed) and headed towards the Mulhouse (France) zoo. I'd read it was good and it wasn't too far away.

The zoo was adequate but anticlimactic after feeding monkeys all morning. I didn't even end up pulling out the camera. Mostly, I think, due to sheer exhaustion. We spent the afternoon watching polar bears swim and do tricks, howling at wolves and looking at baby flamingos (I'd never seen babies before!) and then headed back to camp for the night.

After more swimming and mini-golf we were all exhausted. We artfully arranged the car so that it would shadow Katy's side of the tent, put a dark cover over her half, and got Katy put to bed easily. Ryan and I followed behind very quickly and fell into an exhausted sleep. We ALL slept all night this time.

The true adventure was had getting home; it used real survival skills. Stay tuned for that episode!