It's That Time of Year Again...

It's official... Fasnet season has begun... Woohoo! :) It's time for all of the crazy, colorful, festive, costumed characters to come out and let the Fasnet parades begin! :) On Sunday, we headed out to Langenargen for our first parade of the season... We braved the bitter cold weather and enjoyed ourselves tremendously! Needless to say, it only whet our appetites for more of the excitement to come during this crazy season they call Fasnet! :)

Brian and I waiting for the start of the parade...

(I was also proudly wearing my Chicago Bears hat in support of them that day... Unfortunately, they didn't end up winning... Grrr!)

Our friends, Larra and Zeynap...

My favorite costume started the parade... The Seegockel (i.e. the sea chicken)!

This is the costume that represents one of the groups in Friedrichshafen... yay! :)

Notice the really tall "cows" in the distance... The heads sounded kind of like those clapper toys for kids... Very funny!

Funny, that is, until they ran up to you and clapped the teeth together very loudly in your ears! :) Here, we got to see one up close and personal!

Larra made a friend! :)

The Sea Creatures...

The Hexen (i.e. witches) waiting for their cue to start running...

This was one of the girls that was standing in front of us... Typically you see alot of 12 -15 year old girls lining the streets during these parades and "acting" as if they want no part of these characters... Well, that is, until one of the characters starts "picking" on them and then the girls start giggling and smiling like crazy! It's one of those things where outwardly they try to appear as if they want nothing to do with it, but inwardly, they're desperately wanting the attention! :) And, this girl definitely got it!

This poor girl got picked up and thrown into a box of leaves...

This was a very cool looking costume... Part of it was made out of real bird feathers!

These owls were searching for girls to throw into this basket filled with what appeared to be the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag... Yuck!

I thought the cat costumes were rather cute! :)

Meow!

I would hate to be the poor girl that was thrown into that container of hay! :)

And, as much as I tried to blend in with the crowd, I somehow ended up getting targeted as well... Lovely! Here I am trying to negotiate getting my hat back from this character! :)

Meanwhile, while I was negotiating for my hat, this poor girl next to us was picked up and had her feet taped together... I was quite thankful that all they did to me was take my hat! :)

Skiing Schruns...

We headed into the Austrian Alps on Saturday to mark our first time out skiing this season! What a perfect day it turned out to be... Clear skies, lots of sunshine, and great skiing conditions! We couldn't have asked for a more perfect way to kick off this year's ski season!! :) Here's a peak into our fun-filled day... Enjoy!

Heading up in the lift...

Can you tell I was feeling slightly giddy about finally getting back out on my skis?! :)

Our skis, with the view of the sun coming up over the Alps in the distance... Such a pretty view!

Gorgeous!!

Getting ready to hit the slopes! :)

Brian getting ready to hit the slopes for the first time since his accident... Yay! :)

Heading up the lift to a section further up the mountain...

Our skis... I know, we're dorks! :)

You can't really see it in this picture, but everywhere we looked that day, all we could see was sparkles... The small snow particles would get caught in the wind, and the sun shining on them caused them to look like tiny crystals filling the air... It was so pretty! :)

The clouds were starting to roll in towards the afternoon...

Heading back down the mountain, all red-faced (gotta love windburn!) and tired from a fabulous day of skiing! :)

Brian did awesome for his first time out in two years!

Our view as we headed home! :)

Can't wait to go back again very soon...

(Fingers crossed for good weather this weekend! :))

When The Fog Rolls In...

What an interesting week it's been around here! First off, the weather we've been seeing here has been completely crazy! It went from being sunny and warm (mid-50's) last weekend, to 3 days of nothing but fog, and then it finally snowed... Weird! And, then to top it off, I ended up with the flu this week... Yuck! It had me laid up for almost 3 days.... Which, for a busy body like me, made for a very unhappy camper!

But, today's Friday and the start of the weekend, I'm feeling 10 times better than I felt just a couple of days ago, the sun is out, AND there's snow... And, we all know what snow means... Skiing!! :) So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the snow conditions are good in the mountains this weekend, and that I'm feeling well enough to go out... Can you tell I'm just a little anxious to head out skiing for the first time this year?! :)

On that note, it's time to get busy around here... I've got a house that is overdue for a cleaning, a Farmer's Market to get to, cupcakes to make for our friends' birthday party tomorrow, lesson plans to get done for Monday, and alot of phone calls and emails to answer that were neglected by me earlier this week! :) With that said, I hope you have a wonderful Friday and an excellent weekend! And check out some of the pictures Brian captured of the foggy weather we had this week... (He was looking for reasons to get out of the house while I was sick! :)) Enjoy!

Sunset over the Bodensee...

Watching the sunset from the Strandbad last weekend ... So pretty!

The view we had last weekend... Gorgeous!

And then the fog came rolling in for a few days...

I love this pic because of the cat sitting on the log... He's longing to get to those ducks and swan! :)

I think this is a very cool looking picture!

It was so foggy you couldn't see the Alps on the other side of the lake!