My Sick Girl & Weekend Recap {Ramstein & Tubingen}

I spent today nursing my sick baby girl.  I suspected something was coming.  Over the weekend, she'd started coughing and complaining of a sore throat.  I suspect it's the change in weather (gotta love fall!) or maybe she just caught a bug at school.  Who knows?  All I know is that I was happy to be home from work taking care of her.  After work yesterday, I'd dragged her over to the PX to buy a few things (namely a much-needed pair of running shoes).  As soon as we walked through the door, the grabbed her bear-bear and climbed into her bed.  Shoes and all.  I had to pull her out to give her a bath; poor thing.

 

 

She woke up with a 102 degree fever, which broke by early afternoon.  I'd spent the day pushing tons of fluids and by evening, she was her usual springy self.  She is, however, a bit hoarse.  I'm taking her to the doctor in the morning just to see if we can rule out strep throat.  Let's cross our fingers for that!

 

As I sit here making this post, baby girl is sound asleep and I'm semi-watching the Hunger Games.  I figured I'd tell you guys about our weekend since I've seen the movie a few times already. 

 

On Saturday, I drove out to Ramstein Air Base for a bazaar.  It's basically the same bazaar we have here at Patch Barracks every spring.  The bazaar rotates through all the military bases in Europe (or maybe just Germany) and Ramstein is just a two-hour drive away.  A friend and I just figured that we'd head out there and see what we could find, if anything.  The PX at Ramstein is also tons better than ours.  We had to do the token stop at Johnny Rockets before even thinking about doing some shopping.  Nothing like a good American burger and a strawberry milkshake.  Vaiosina loved it!  After a good hour or so of shopping, we stopped to take a break and a pretty decent picture, if I may say so myself.  Love my little girl!

 

 

What's really cool about that day is that I actually drove to Ramstein and back to Stuttgart without any problems. Not sure if you guys remember, but I got into an accident over a year ago.  Since then, I basically have a stroke anytime I'm on the autobahn.  I finally made an entire trip without freaking out.  Go me!

 

On Sunday, Vaiosina and I ventured out to Tubingen, one of our favorite cities in Baden-Wurttemburg (our German state; of which Stuttgart is the capital).  We'd been to town a few other times and just love going back.  It's a sweet college town just 20 miles away from Stuttgart and is situated on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.  As such, the town is very picturesque with buildings dating back centuries (like it's town hall, it's castle, and the University of Tubingen), streets lined with canals, cobblestone streets, narrow alleyways and the traditional half-timbered, medieval houses.  Actually, one of the times I was in Tubingen previously was for the same festival we returned to see on Sunday--the Umbrian-Provencal Market. 

Every year, Tubingen's partner cities--Aix en Provence and Perugia--present their regional and home-grown specialties.  I'm talking wines, cheeses, produce, spices--you name it.  Last year, I took some pictures, but never posted them.  This year, I totally forgot to bring my camera and ended up using my iPhone.  Still got some good ones.  It was an utterly perfect day in every way--the weather, the atmosphere, and the company :)

 

 

 

 Too bad all of this goodness turned sour with Vaiosina getting sick.

Let's hope the doctor gives us a thumbs down on strep throat tomorrow morning!

Have a happy hump day tomorrow everyone!

P.S.  Malu's doing well.  We hear from him every now and then when he has a spare moment from his training.  We'll be meeting up with him this weekend in Nurnberg.  We are very excited!