Frühlingsfest & Easter

This past weekend was the kick off to the annual Frühlingsfest here in Stuttgart.  It's just like Oktoberfest, but on a smaller scale, and it runs from mid-April to mid-May.  Last year it was the first fest we went to since it started 5 days after we landed.  This year we arranged to meet up with some friends there.  Before we left for the fest, though, we had a mini-adventure.  Shanna wanted to pick up some soil and tomato plants, so she took the car & went to the Bauhaus while I stayed at home to do some of the yard work that needed to get done since we won't be in town this weekend.  A few hours after she left, the doorbell rings and I answer the door to find her standing at the door with nothing in hand.  Turns out her keys had fallen out of her purse when she got out of the car, and she'd left her phone in the car to charge, so when she got back to the car she'd locked her keys and phone inside.  Thankfully there was an Ubahn station nearby, so she was able to take that back to our house.  We took advantage of the situation and brought the dogs with us to get them tired out so they'd sleep that afternoon when we left for the festival.  We eventually got the car, drove home, and started to get ready for the fest.

Once ready, we met Jesse at his house (he lives 5 minutes from ours) and we all walked to the train station and headed to the fest.  We started off at a smaller, less busy tent and were met there by our friends Penny, Adam, and two of their friends.

We stayed there for about an hour, then headed the main tent.  Penny, Adam, & their friends had gotten tickets through work, but we found out about it too late.  So they walked right in, while we had to wait in the "general" line.  They would let a handful in at a time as people left, but after 45 minutes of waiting we'd barely moved.  At this point we noticed a guy walking near the line discreetly selling the wristbands needed to get inside.  We walked up and offered him 20 Euros for 3 wristbands, and he said ok.  We put them on and walked right in.  It wasn't until we found our friends and saw their wristbands that we realized the ones we had were fake.  They looked mostly the same, but under close scrutiny it was obvious they weren't real.  Thankfully the security people at the front were just glancing at the wristbands and didn't look closely.  We stayed there the rest of the night and had fun with the whole group.

The next day was just a relaxed day.  Because of the time difference we couldn't call anyone for Easter right away.  Shanna got creative with my Easter basket, not only with how she put it together, but also knowing that I always take a shower as soon as I get up in the morning, so she left it in the bathroom so I'd find it right away.

Later that afternoon when people in TX and DC were awake, we Skyped with the nieces & nephews.  After that I called and talked with my parents and grandmother down in Florida.  It was good to talk to everyone...turns out there's a good chance my Dad will be out in this area in mid-June, so hopefully that'll work out.  The last time he was here was the day our boxes arrived, so the house looks a little different then he remembers.

For dinner that night we fired up the grill for some steaks, and Shanna made garlic mashed potatoes and this great new recipe that was almost like a carrot/cheese/onion casserole.  We also opened one of the bottles of wine we'd been saving that we got from the Wine Expo in France a few months back.  For dessert, Shanna baked a lemon cake that was delicious.  Dinner is pictured below...and yes, that's the wedding china.  It's the first occasion we've brought them out.

The weather was perfect yesterday, sunny & 75 degrees, so we had to eat on the back deck.

That's it for this past weekend.  Friday we drop the dogs off at the kennel and head to Maastricht in The Netherlands for Queens Day Weekend, so I'll have another post next week about it.

Clicking the pictures above will take you to higher resolution versions of each one.  I also tried something different this time when I was referring to old blog posts, and it's what I'm going to do going forward.  Instead of saying "covered in a previous blog post" and making that the link, I'm just going make whatever sentence I use to talk about the previous experience into a link that you can click to read the previous blog post if you want.