pumpkins and castles. this is a fairy tale life.

saturday, we enjoyed the beginning of the fall season with a trip to ludwigsburg, germany, to enjoy the pumpkin festival. the festival was on the castle grounds and was absolutely awesome. it was pretty warm, so it didn't exactly feel like fall, but it is still september.

there were pumpkins everywhere, as you can imagine, and the theme was "switzerland". there were pumpkin structures of all types-the matterhorn, a swiss army knife, cows, all things switzerland. plus a few other things that weren't exactly swiss, but were interesting, all the same.

 

we ate pumpkin burgers (delicious!), pumpkin soup (amazing!!!) and some of us got to partake in pumpkin wine. being 31 weeks pregnant, i smelled some. and then bought 2 bottles. 

i think the coolest part about the grounds was the marchengarten-a kiddy land, based on popular fairytales. it was a permanent structure and was pretty awesome. 

some days, i look around and am kind of amazed at where we are. it wasn't all sunshine and roses getting here, but we have been here for a little over 7 weeks and things are finally starting to feel a little easier and real. 

adjusting to change is something i have always had a hard time doing, even though i have changed so many times now, you would think i would be a old pro at it. i think i crave routine just enough and moving definitely has no routine to it-especially moving to another country.

this has, by far, been our most difficult move to date. being displaced with an almost 3 year old, a big dog, a big ol' belly, for such an extended amount of time and in a foreign country is a bit overwhelming. made more difficult by the fact that the person i have been over the past 7 weeks, is not the person i identify myself as. 

i am generally pretty evenly keeled-not overly emotional or easily stressed out, and i feel like i generally take emotional situations in stride-deployments and tdy's usually don't ruffle my feathers much. but during this move, i have cried more times than i would like to admit, and still after 7 weeks of being in the country, i get very easily stressed and overwhelmed. i have been blaming it on being pregnant and sleeping on, what my husband so poignantly calls, a hobo's bedroll. 

we receive our household goods shipment in 2 days, and my hope is that with a few good nights of sleep we will all be a little less grumpy.