"There's the witch!"

It can be frustrating to live in place where we are barely understood. However, sometimes it works out to our benefit!!! Today, we took Ashley, Lexi and Shane to a castle. The girls literally couldn't wait to get there. In their minds, it would be like something out of one of their fairy tale books, complete with talking mice and beautiful princesses. And in the end, except for the mice, mommy and daddy delivered!

We walked through beautiful gardens, as you can see in the pictures, one was decorated completely in pumpkins. Pretty cool! The kids even got to roll around in some hay bales. The best part of the day, however, was when we entered the massive courtyard of the castle. There, we saw at least 5 bridal parties ... princesses in their flowing wedding gowns -- JUST FOR ASHLEY AND LEXI! And there, smack dab in the center of the courtyard was a lady dressed for the Venetian Fair (a masquarade thing) down the road. She was all in black, down to her pointy-toed black shoes. Her hair was wild with some hot pink streaks ... and she was wearing a black mask (again, for the fair). Lexi took one look at her, pointed and SHOUTED, "Mommy, THERE'S the WITCH!!!" Greg and I just laughed. Thank goodness the poor lady in black couldn't speak English.