Wednesday, September 10, 2014

School for the Monkeys right into a vacation

After a little more summer ...


Legoland- lines were long, because the German's are on holiday as well, but we still had fun.


 New student orientation.  Sam went as a Freshman and Emma went because she was giving tours as one of the Ambassadors of the school (She got picked with 19 other students out of over 60 that applied)
 New hair cut and style for senior pictures

Temple trip with a stop at Chipotle!  Yummy, yummy!
 Rob got hit by a car on his way home from work.  He hasn't biked much since.

It was time to go back to school *sigh.*

I was ignoring the start of school this year, so I had very few things ready.  I stuffed random supplies into backpacks (I lost the list of supplies), had them buy lunch the first day and didn't take pictures until the end of the day.
  Here is Joe doing an awesome impression of "I'm actually headed to school, not already come home!"
 Yes, I send my child in filthy clothes most days- um no!
 Not really fair to Emma and Sam who had sports after school, but I forced them to anyways.

 I told Emma I would get better pictures the next day, but as I was running out the door, I yelled, "take a picture of yourself."  And they did!  Serious, Mother of the Year candidate, right here!


* Sigh* is right.  I am with the kids on that one.  Summer is fabulous with that whole sleeping in thing!  Of course, Rob hates it!  He is so glad to have us all back to getting up early, so we go to bed on time!  You know Rob and sleep.  It's his biggest issue in life.   
They only went to school for 4 days before Rob had a vacation and then we all had a vacation together.  I don't quite understand why they start that way, except maybe they are trying to slowly wean them off of vacations.  So after 4 days of school, Rob and I went downtown Stuttgart to the Wine festival, while the kids went to school.



There was some yummy food.  Rob ate a huge ox meet sandwich.  I had spatzele with mushrooms and artichokes in a mushroom gravy sauce.  It was super yummy.  We walked around and admired the different booths and then went to the Rathaus to check out the open elevator. 


Not only does it go up and down continuously and you just jump on and off, it slides to one side at the top.  The sign said everyone off at this point, but we kept wondering if we could ride it when it slid to the right or whether it collapsed a little when it slid over and that's why they wanted everyone off.  Darren (one of the friend's we went with) decided to just jump on and try it out.  He actually made it out alive, so we all tried it.  I don't know how he had the guts to do it, because it gets really dark and you have no idea what is going to happen to you when it starts sliding over.  Amusement ride for adults!
The next day we got up early and drove to Berchtesgaden.  We went up the very windy (as is winding, not blowy) path with sheer drop-offs.



 Rob kept trying to get me to take a good long look, but that is not one of my favorite things.


 We saw the Eagle's nest at the top.
 Joseph lost a tooth up there and threw it over the side of the mountain.  Now there is a piece of Joseph in Palmyra, New York and one in Berchtesgaden, Germany.  We are seeing if we can grow another Joseph.

    We also went and saw the Konigsee

 and went to the salt mines.



The salt mines was definitely one of our favorite things!  The spiel was in German, so we just admired everything and had fun sliding down the railings, riding across the lake and getting scared over and over again by the tour guide, who took a liking to scaring Emma, particularly!  I would say, from the look of his age, he was flirting with her.
Sunday we did a Sound of Music biking tour


and even though it started to rain half way through it was definitely a favorite thing.  Such a fun way to see the city.  Here are some of our favorite things:
 Salzburg, Austria- home to Mozart and the Von Trapp's
 Music hall that the Von Trapp's gave their last concert in before running away- at least in the movie
 cemetery that was used as a pattern for the one in the film- they couldn't get all the film equipment in here, so that's why they had to build a set instead.
Big huge pretzels with chocolate and hazelnut or cinnamon sugar or just salt
The oldest and best bakery, according to the tour guide.  We had to take her word for it, because they weren't open on Sunday's.  They moved all the dead who were in the market place under the bakery's water wheel, but apparently they still make great rolls.  Eww!
 Maria's wedding church
 Hohensalzburg fortress
 Back of the Von Trapp mansion or the mansion they used to say it was the back and the lake that they all fall into.  They forgot that Gretel couldn't swim and had to cut quickly and fish her out.
Singing Doe, Ray, Me with the music that the tour guide kept on the entire time and finding the answers to her challenges!  I got the one about who lived outside of the fortress walls right- the executioner!  And the kids found the match to an art piece.
 A different house was used as the front of the house- I skipped along the gate just like Maria did when she first arrived at the house.  We also touched the gate that Julie Andrews touched!

The abbey with the red roof- no pictures, sorry.
 The Dwarf garden


 Mirabell Gardens
 The Gazebo, that you can no longer go into because an 80 year old decided to recreate Liesel's scence and fell and broke her hip.  Crazy old lady!

This pear tree was pretty cool.  It was close to where we stayed in Austria in a little skiing village.
 They were having a peasants festival and all the towns had some scene with straw people.

Our last favorite thing was the chicken picture in our apartment.  It was painted by the owners "husband" he said.  Rob said, I am sure he meant "wife."  And then we all said, "are you really sure.  An artist name Cazien? Sounds like a dude to me."   Rob was flummoxed.  In the end he was right, it was a "wife." She came out when we purchased the painting.  It's now hanging on our walls.
Quick, fun trip, before school really started.  The next week seminary started also and now Emma is taking pictures of Sam sleeping in cubby holes and across benches, anywhere he can find.  I have to get those pictures from Emma.  They are kind of funny!

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

love the picture and travel log- would love the sleeping pictures too grandma