Crazy King Ludwig and His Castles

When I went on my first trip to Europe with the IUP Chorale in 1998, we visited one of King Ludwig's castles, the Castle Linderhof.

Thanks, Wikipedia!

Linderhof had some crazy amenities, including the "Venus Grotto," which is a cave with a lake featuring scenes from Wagner's operas.  Apparently, Ludwig was a great "lover" of Wagner, if you catch my drift.

On our Germany trip, Kevin and I visited what is probably King Ludwig's most famous castle, Neuschwanstein.  You've seen it, even if you haven't heard of it.  Images of it proliferated those college poster sales, and it's the castle that Disney's Cinderella castle is based on.

The poster picture you've probably seen probably looked something like this:

You can buy this poster from posterlovers.com.

 Since we were going there in December, we had fantasies that the castle would look as beautiful and ethereal as it does in this photo, but, in reality, if there had been this much snow, we wouldn't have even gotten close to the castle.  And I don't think we could have seen it from this angle, regardless.

But more about the castle in a minute.

Bun in the Oven!

In case you missed it somehow because you read blogs but not Facebook or email (or maybe you don't know us, in which case, WELCOME!):

What we shared on Facebook.

We're due right around the end of December, so we're looking at a little Christmas baby!  Which was unintentional, by the way.  When I realized it, I was like, "ooohhhhh...."  I was focused on getting pregnant, not when the baby would be born!  Whatever happens, he/she is sure to be the best Christmas gift ever!

And, speaking of he/she, to answer the second question everyone asks, no, we are not finding out the sex.  There are so few good surprises in life, we want to be surprised.

We hope to keep updating this latest project on the blog, as well as some of our other ones!  Yes, I still need to finish Germany, and yes, we planted a garden that I would like to tell you about.  At 12 weeks, I hear that more energy for me is right around the corner...I hope.

For now, enjoy some outtakes from our "Bun in the Oven" photo shoot:

We tried looking like we were patiently (or not-so-patiently) waiting.

Our eager anticipation started to look a little like crazy.  I'm guessing this will be me closer to December?

And, of course, obligatory hand-heart belly shot:

With the bun, of course.

Pool Opening 2012

We used our pool for the first time this summer this past Memorial Day.  It reminded me that I never posted pictures from last summer's Fourth of July/Housewarming Bash!  Let me tell you, the pool-opening went much more smoothly this time around.  We had a custom-fit cover made for the winter months, whereas last year the previous owners had essentially thrown a tarp over the pool and had it weighed at the edges with logs.  The cover made all the difference.  Last year, the pool was filled with all sorts of dead critters, leaves and grime, but this year there was just a little crud and it took us (Kevin) only a weekend to clean instead of, oh, I don't know, a month.

Anyway, here are some photos from last year's inaugural party.

Artsy.