In by the hair of my chinny chin chin...

Yes, we're off tomorrow on our next mini-vacay. We're all excited as it's finally cooler and we're going to see Christmas-sey stuff and events. Yes, 6.30pm tomorrow night is the Christmas parade with the Big Guy pulling up the rear before the 30 foot tree lighting ceremony afterwards. There's the marketplatz (yes, the town was founded by a large German community) to be discovered and other assorted experiences of fun, sights and sounds.

We're actually not staying in Fredericksburg as it was crazy expensive for what you got but instead will be staying in another town about 20 miles away (Kerrville). The drive will be around 3 hours from here and we plan to pick the girls up from school after lunch but before naptime. Sleeping in the car may not be the most comfortable for them but it's the best way to kill time on the trip. I'd prefer not to put the DVD player on. You know what I mean?

Anyway....

What I wanted to do was get the last mini-vacay piccies up before we left. I promised (well kinda sorta) so I want to follow up on that. What I didn't realize is that we have not pulled off any of the photos off the new camera since buying it and that was quite a while ago. It took it's time in downloading and boy do I have a bucketload of piccies! I'll post some random piccies soon as some of the pics involve events that I have already blogged about so it'll be a collective.

Sorry. I digress again...

So...New Braunfels.

Firstly, the reason for going? Storm misses sausages and sauerkraut so when we found out about Wurstfest it was on like donkey kong!
Secondly, it was a chance to get out and about and since (supposedly) the weather was going to be cooler and it was in the hill country we thought that it would be just downright lovely to get outta town!

Anyway, it turned out that the sausages and sauerkraut were ok (not necessarily fantastic) and it was a lot hotter than I had packed for.

But it was nice to get away and see something different. Anyway, to the photos (I know you're dying to see them...)

We got there late in the afternoon, light was fading and we just walked along the Guadalupe River in a park they have there. Saw lots of deer and played on the swings/slide trying to burn off energy before dinner. Dinner was at "Oma's Haus" where the decor and fare was fairly average.

The next morning we found out that Wurstfest was starting later in the morning and since we were meant to catch up with friends later that evening at Wurstfest we thought that we would hit the Christmas Shoppe at the Schlitterbahn water park and then go on the train in Lando Park.

You can imagine what is was like with 2.4 year old twins in a Christmas shoppe. It was all hands on deck! We only managed to get piccies once we got to their courtyard.

 This swing caused a multitude of issues as both girls wanted to sit by themselves and swing themselves and then of course, they didn't want to leave. Tears, drama, meltdowns. What fun!

 What a cute smile (again, before the tears!)

 We parked and thought that this was the way to the train (through Wurstfest) but oh, no. Luckily it was a lovely day and actually worked out well going through the day versus the night. We got a text from the friends that we were supposed to meet that night who told us it was crazy busy and since the girls weren't feeling that well (remember we were all affected by colds at that time) we wouldn't have ended up going that evening anyway.

So, we got a piccie taken by a guy in lederhausen!

 The hall where the food and drink was.

 The main hall where the drinking festivities were going to be held.

 The girls were tall enough to go on the carousel. Sydney was nervous at first but ended up loving it. Kendall was just thrilled by the whole thing!

 Eating the "Five sausage stick" in the entertainment tent. There was a huge oopma band (sorry don't know the right name) to the right of the picture playing at we ate.

 Kendall fascinated by the band.

 Syd just wanted to dance...

 The next morning we found the train around Lando Park.

 Ok, change of pace quickly. Here shows the view that we had from the train on one turn - yes, those are not crows - vultures! Huge.....

 Beautiful area with duckies.

 Later that day we caught up with friends in San Antonio. One of them brought a puppy. Syd went bananas over this cutie...

 She loved walking her. She was the right size.

 Very relaxing lunch in the park.

 Kendall loved walking the maltipoo that another friend brought with them. The girls so loved it as neither dog pulled them over (like Rudy and Oscar sometimes do)

So after this we got home to a very happy pair of puppies who could smell "those other dogs" on us. We had fun but I just wish we hadn't have been sniffling and coughing the entire time.

November was a really rough month for us (me and the girls) healthwise. Just plain ol' rotten. We're on the other side now though. Yay!

Fingers crossed that our trip away tomorrow will not take as long to blog about.