Sunday, August 30, 2009

July-August re-cap

At the beginning of July we had the opportunity to fly to the states and meet up with Craig for the fourth of July week-end. We stayed with my folks and had a wonderful time reconnecting with family. While Craig was with us we took the kids to the ocean and we also took them canoeing and rock-climbing.

This is at the DeLorme Headquarters in Freeport, Maine. It has a really cool, huge, light-up, revolving globe.

Morgan with 2 cousins. Molly (left, age 12), Megan (middle, age 15) and Morgan (right, age 11)
When we came back to Germany we went to Legoland. This is Mia taking her driver's license 'test'. She thought it was soooo cool to get her very own license.
In the center of the park is Europe made with Lego's . It was amazing. They went into soooo much detail.
The girls watching a "Mama Mia" performance.
Going on the safari ride, of course we HAD to get a photo of the lego Rhino for Granpaw!!
and since Grandpaw wasn't there, the girls decided to adopt this one.
One day in late august our neighbors had about 20 butterflies on their bush. They were really neat to watch.
just a picture of Mia that I like.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Autobahn Adventures


So, on one of our many trips to and from our new residence I am driving towards home on the Autobahn. We are in a stau (traffic jam) and things get even slower. Eventually I come upon a disabled car. As I am about to try to merge into the right lane to go around I realize that it is Craig's car in front of me. His car had totally died. I stop, put on my hazards and push his car to the side of the road. Of course, we had to cross a lane first. If traffic hadn't been going really slow I would never have dared to be on foot on the autobahn! I called ADAC, the german version of AAA and they said it would be 45-60 mins until they could reach us. They had a lot of disabled cars (It was a HOT day-for here anyway). 60 mins later the ADAC guy calls and says that he is stuck in the stau behind us and it would be awhile before he could get to us. So, we wait some more. (We did have to let Mia pee off the side of the road). Finally the bright yellow car shows up. It is NOT a tow truck. The man gets out with a hammer. Craig and I just kind of look at each other. He crawls under the car and starts hitting things with his hammer and we're just thinking. 'duh, the old hit it with the hammer trick'. Well his car starts right up! We do the paperwork and Craig attempts to drive off but the car dies again. Again, the hammer trick works. Again, it dies. so, he hooks Craig up to a tow rope and tows him off the next exit. THEN, he finally calls the tow truck. Luckily, there is a McDonald's at this exit. The kids and I go there to get food while Craig waits for the tow truck. The tow truck driver though wants Craig to ride with him the rest of the way home. It turns out that the fuel pump was kaputt. (the mechanic replaced it for less than 20 euro). Not so fun adventures.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Summer Sledding

Morgan and Gaby went on a trip with Youth Sports to a Sand Mountain. You can ski, sandboard, or sandsled. It looked wicked fun. I hope we can go with the whole family some time!




Friday, August 7, 2009

Hiking to Kallmunz

Morgan (in brown), Gaby (in the middle), Amelia (lower left) with our good friends the Keeler's. That is Delaney (in the pink) and Teegan (in the light blue). We grabbed our dogs and went for a hike and ended up at the Kallmunz castle ruins. Check out how far the dogs tongues are hanging out!

Some random rock design in a park near the river.

It always amazes me that these German towns are built right next too and even into the side of the cliff/hill/mountain. As you can see there is plenty of land where I am standing but the town streets are so narrow we would call them alley's but they are 2 lane roads!

I think these look like giant zucchini flowers.

I think this house is pretty.
I think this house is crazy! ( and yes, there are people living there)
This is a converted bomb cellar--it's now an apartment.

Monday, June 1, 2009

May-June Re-cap

Right after Craig left for the summer (4 1/2 months in Kansas) Gaby pinched a nerve in her arm and passed out, hitting her eyelid on a cabinet doorknob. I can't believe how close she came to serious damage.

This picture was taken for Daddy for Father's Day.
Over Memorial Day week-end the girls and I went to Switzerland with Morgan's Girl Scout troop. We stayed at 'Our Chalet' near Interlaken. This was the view from the Chalet.

The first day the girls went on a long hike to Engstligen waterfalls-the second largest waterfall in Switzerland. I stayed behind with the 3 small girls (Mia included)


The second hike, I got to go too. We hiked up to a little falls and glacier!



The girls found this in the stream bed-at first they thought it was a relic from WWII. We decided it was a charge used to jump-start an avalance.


The second day we were there We went on a ropes course. Mia of course was too small but they let her gear up and then use the teaching/practice/low course. She, of course, thought this was pretty fun!
walking on the rope bridge

going down the mini-zipline.

These 2 videos are also from the ropes course. The one on the top is Gaby rapelling off a bridge. She was the first kid down. (pretty amazing since I didn't think she would go down at all!) The video on the bottom is Morgan on the high zipline. (for some reason I only caught about a 4th of the ride!)


Friday, May 1, 2009

Feb-April 2009 re-cap

Though Halloween is being celebrated more and more every year the time for dressing up is Fasching in February, which is like Carnival in Rio de Janeiro or Venice. This is at a Kinderfasching party.

This year Morgan's soccer team was disbanded due to a lack of coach so she switched last minute to softball to be on a team with her friend Delaney. She really took to the game. She played catcher for the first half of the season, and 3rd base the second half. Her team was undefeated. Go Tigerettes!





Thursday, April 30, 2009

Spain in April-recap

The Benedictine Monk retreat at Montserrat in Catalunya (Spain)

To get there, you ride this yellow cable car. . .
until you reach this
Then if you hike above the monastery. . . you see this.
Enjoying our favorite snack in Barcelona. Churros (long stick like donuts) and Chocolate (hot chocolate that is so thick it is like drinking warm homemade pudding).

Looking out over the Mediterranean Ocean.


It was actually pretty chilly the whole week we were there (55-65 degrees) but the kids insisted on swimming anyway. This time, fully clothed. We loved all the beaches!!!!
I love this building but I never figured out what the pink camo thing in front of it is.
The highlight of every vacation for Mia is finding playgrounds.
This one had a zipline.
Morgan's hair clip. We shopped at a flea market and found great hair accesories.

We passed this to and from Barcelona and our apartment. It is some sort of crypt. It kind of creeped out the kids.We spent quite a bit of time hunting this cathedral down--several subway changes, lots of walking and when we finally get there we decide that next time, we buy a postcard and just say we went there. It was rather hideous, closed for renovation, and it was the warmest day we had there. This is the La Sagrada Familia Cathedral.
Park Guell von Antonio Gaudi-
So, after the cathedral disaster we decided to take the kids to what the guidebook said was a nice quiet park to see the gaudi lizard statue and enjoy the park. Apparantly it's not such a quiet park anymore.
and the lizard statue was quite small and you couldn't see it well due to all the people. Oh well.
The architecture was neat though.