Auf Wiedersehen Oktoberfest, Hello Furry Ones

This past weekend we hosted our annual Oktoberfest party - our final Oktoberfest celebration of the season.  

The festivities included all the expected elements - beer, brats, pretzels.  And like everything, it has gotten easier to figure out how to find these things with time.  

Many key elements were repeats:

My dear artist friend Suzie let us use this again.....

And the pretzel lady found last year did not disappoint....

Zoe's dirndl from a past Munich trip + this year's shopping spree = Zoe got her friend Noa in the spirit too!

Of course, we always aim to improve - this year we were pretty excited with some new additions:

Most exciting....
Our very own table-top KEG-ERATOR!

Friends at the Embassy helped find a keg delivery service.....

(THANKS KM & Lexy!)

A simple addition - but in this land of limited websites & confusing Cyrillic the excitement went to our heads!

We also welcomed a new addition last year who was put to good use

(Damn - is this a way to make friends with the under 12 set!)

After jacking the 35+ kids up on sugar, maybe the most helpful addition......movies in Zoe's room

(An ipad + a computer monitor = a fab pair!  Thanks Logan for the continued "Home IT" brilliance)

But, in the end, the festive people are what made our final 2013 Oktoberfest fantastisch

And proved you don't have to be German to get in the Bavarian spirit 

Sunday, we said 'auf wiedersehen' to Oktoberfest, put away the beer steins & Bavarian trumpet player decorations......then welcomed a few more additions to the house:

Zoe's kitten "Snow Salt McDougal"

His brother - Quincy's kitten - "Yang Pepper McDougal" 

And Xavier's more contained furry friend "Hammy" the hamster

Oh, the irony of spending $50+ for this guy and all his supplies while paying $50 a month in Chicago to ensure nothing of this sort lives on or near our property!

But the smile does it every time!

Here's to the festive spirit of Oktoberfest & being a sucker for your kids' smiles!