Amy D Hope Mini Session | Cancer Mini Session | 24 October 2015

Hello dearest friends!

Saturday was our Breast Cancer 5K event, so I brought back the Hope Sessions.

The guest speaker flew to Germany all the way from Texas, just to share her story as a Breast Cancer survivor. Her husband is an absolute sweetheart and I am so excited that I got to meet them both!

Being on a military base, it's sometimes difficult to find a good place to take pictures. It was super foggy this day, but we wanted to try to capture the beautiful autumn weather that surrounded us, once the clouds lifted.

Amy (the guest speaker), her husband, their guardian Angel Judy (Eilene's mother), Eilene's husband Bill, and Eilene (the event coordinator and a Breast Cancer survivor herself. Because we were on a military base, Judy suggested a picture in front of the tanks around base. 

The leaves are just so pretty here! I am so happy to have these lovely people in my life. Each and every one of them.

Amy, her husband, and Judy- whom they call their guardian angel. Although they had never met in person before this event, they had met on Facebook. Judy had helped them both through the entire process. I can totally believe that because Judy is such a sweet woman. 

After she, Eilene, and Bill get back from their adventures, they want to have me over for a birthday dinner before Judy goes back to Texas. Super sweet woman I tell you!

Amy and her husband

During her speech, she told us something beautiful about her husband.

During her treatments, she would have to change the bandages herself because they were like open wounds, but her husband wouldn't stay in the room. She wondered why for a while, but eventually got the nerve to ask him (this is such an emotionally trying time that I can only imagine what it must have felt like for him to keep leaving the room). When she finally asked him about it, his response was "I don't want to remember you this way." He never stopped supporting her throughout her entire treatment process, but he didn't want to remember the open wounds. He just wanted to remember how beautiful his wife was.

See! Super sweet!!!!

You guys may remember this awesome couple from my very first Hope Mini Session.

Eilene and Bill are both cancer survivors themselves, their daughter has cancer, and Eilene spends her as much time as possible to bring cancer awareness to everyone around her. Bill is the sweetest man I've ever met, he never complains, he always supports her in anything she does, and he is just so kind!

These three women are some of the kindest women I've ever met!

So thankful to have them in my life.

Bill got a picture of all of the ladies that were there. 

Elke, me, Judy, Eilene, and Amy

Elke works with Eilene in Graf and came to support the event. 

She stood in the cold weather and laughed with us during this photo session, so we of course wanted her in at least one picture!

I always find the most inspiring women.

Which is why I do what I do.

To celebrate these inspiring women!

Hemhofen Medieval Festival | Festival | 10 October 2015

Hello Friends!

This past Saturday my usual group and I went to a medieval festival about an hour away from us. It was an awesome little festival. It was the smallest festival I've been to since I've been to Germany. Thankfully it was a little bit warmer then we expected, although it was still chilly.

The first things we saw once we got our tickets into the festival was the Blacksmith. It was pretty cool to watch, and it took a little bit of time to try to get a picture of him working. I showed this to someone in my unit and they told me they thought I had taken a picture of an old picture. I laughed and told them that it was a picture that I took myself. 

In the center of the outside ring of the festival was this little stage where these three German girls were singing together. I loved their outfits, I only wish that I could've actually understood what they were singing.

Once we got to the center of the outside ring, we stopped for some food. Dom was a little cranky around this time so his mother let him play with her spoon. When it was time to give the spoon back, he because extremely upset. I tried to distract him by taking pictures of him. This one turned out to be my absolute favorite picture.

In the center of the event there was a field fenced off that was used for both jousting and dancing. It was quite entertaining to watch. This was the perfect action shot of the jousting, they eventually dropped all of their weapons and shields and ended up rolling around on the ground. 

These were the pretty dancers

Eventually it was time together and Dom wanted to walk, so I couldn't resist taking this picture. I only wish I hadn't gotten the stroller. It can't always be helped when you're taking candid shots though. 

I hope you guys had an awesome weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ludwigsburg Pumpkin Festival | Festival | 03 October 2015

Hello dear friends!

I know it's been a while since I've posted, and that's simply because I've been busy I've been going on adventures to festivals and things here in Germany, but since they revolved around alcohol, I wasn't comfortable bringing my camera with me. 

This past Saturday, my friends and I made the 2.5 hour trip to the Ludwigsburg Palace, near Stuttgart, for the annual Pumpkin Festival. It was something I went to last year (but it was too rainy to bring my camera then), so my friends and I were anxious to go this year. Thankfully it was such a beautiful day to go to the festival!

When you walk in the front gates of the Palace grounds, this is what you see (it's more in the distance, there is a long walkway between the front gate and this point because it's all gardens). Then there is this giant pond in the center, and then the palace. On either side of the palace are gardens as well, and then you take a walkway on the right side of the palace to get to the actual festivities in the back of the grounds.

according to my Translate app... this means fly

Once you get around the back, there is so much to see! The grounds are insanely huge, there are lots of garden areas, and for this event, they made sculptures out of pumpkins. There were some awesome sculptures and I didn't get a picture of each and every one because I got side tracked with some other awesome things.

These are the sculptures I did get a picture of. 1) piano, 2) airplane, 3) man on a flying carpet with a magic lamp, 4) man with wings, and 5) eagle. If you want to see more pictures (or individual pictures) check out my Facebook page. I am pretty sure that every year they have a different set of sculptures, and yes, they are made entirely of pumpkins.

On the palace grounds, there is a beautiful little tower, this is Repunzel's tower. The picture on the left was taken at a distance once you enter the festivities area. The picture on the right was a closer picture once we got up toward the tower. As you can see on the right side of the picture on the right, they have Repunzel's hair raised and lowered (it has a giant pink bow on it)

This is a beautiful little cottage on the way to Repunzel's tower. I had never seen it before, but it was cute and I almost missed it, tucked in among the plants.

In the kids area of the grounds, there was a giant pond with this fountain in the middle of it. There were too many people to get a decent unobstructed view of the entire pond, but I like how this picture turned out.

This entire building is covered with shelves of pumpkins (this is a little store where you can buy different merchandise- I bought a Halloween candle holder and a post card). I just thought the walls of pumpkins were awesome. I believe these are all different types of pumpkins!

When you walk into this event, this is one of the views you see as you walk down the sloped walkway. It didn't occur to me to get this picture until we were about to leave.

At the top of the slope at the back of the palace they always have a main sculpture, this one was of a rocket. Last year it was a giant pumpkin crown!

The gardens around the palace grounds are absolutely gorgeous! So well taken care of and colorful!

This is the back side of the palace in all it's glory. The entire building is just insanely gorgeous! I just had to try to capture this beautiful picture.

I hope you guys and gals enjoyed the pictures from this festival. For the rest of my adventures, I will try and take my big camera so I can get more pictures before I leave Germany. Next weekend I am supposed to be going to Berlin with a friend of mine, so be on the lookout for those pictures. If you have any questions, please feel free to get ahold of me, or if you just want to talk.

Hope you guys enjoyed another glimpse of the beautiful architecture that is all around Germany!

Be on the lookout later this week, since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, there will be another round of Hope Mini Sessions to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness. The flyer will go live later this week and be valid until the end of October.