You have to see the Cows in the Mountains before you see the Cows come Home!

This is the statement that Rob made to make us climb the Kramer or some other mountainous range in Garmisch when we went down for a little camping.  The climb up was exhausting.  I was very impressed with Max who carried a backpack full of water the entire way and didn't complain.

 We finally made it to the field of cows and a little restaurant just before the summit.

 Sam tried to climb to the summit, but it got a little too scary on his own he said.  The way down was quite treacherous.  Max fell on his butt and face multiple time.  Emma fell really hard onto a tree root and cut up her bottom and leg real bad.  She says she still has scars from it.  I had brought my first aid supplies, so we cleaned it up and bandaged it, but she still had quite a ways to walk before we were back to the car.  Guess what we found at the bottom by the car!  Yep- cows!

Besides killing ourselves on an all day uphill hike, we enjoyed the Eibsee,

 traditional camping fun,

 a dinner/breakfast out at the fancy hotel

The Michael-Ende-Kurpark

 which had a maze

 and a barefoot park

and a herb garden complete with a poison part and plenty of places to be quiet and heal- hence the kur (cure) part.

  It was a trip we will remember!

YW/YM Date Party

In August we organized a dating party.  Dating seems to has gone the way of the dinosaur.  One thing I am trying to teach my boys is to date- for real.  I feel like it is my responsibility as a mother of boys.  My responsibility to the Young Women of this generation that are missing out.  Now dating is done all on line and through texting.  How can you really get to know anyone through texting?  You can say anything you want on a phone or a computer- things you don't even really believe.  It's only by dating that you get to really know people and how they treat others and how they react in all kinds of situations.  When my aunt first went on a date with her now husband, they went skiing.  He tripped and went down and she, coming hard behind him, could not stop and instead skied right over top of his head.  She was sure she would never get a date with him again.  Instead, he called her up the next day to go on another date.  He was impressed with her athleticism, she in his continued confidence and easy forgiveness despite having his head run over.  How can you learn that over a text- you can't!

Also Emma was sad that there wasn't any fun dating going on here.  In Ohio the boys and girls got together and planned fun things, like her first date when they went and did a scavenger hunt at the mall. So we decided to do a group date.  The girls asked this time.  

Each girl pulled a name- except Sara who was having her first date-  got to choose.

First they pulled a category.  Then they had to make a cake sculpture.  Next everyone guessed the category. 

You got a point if you guessed right and a point if someone guessed right on yours.  The minion cake won.

Afterwards they went and played ultimate spoons and card games.  It was a fun time.

We were hoping the boys would reciprocate, but I don't think they have learned that quite yet!  We'll keep working on them!

Rounding out July

I thought I would do a quick round-up of July, until I found out everything we did.  We are animals!

 We went strawberry picking

 And swimming

 We enjoyed the 4th of July celebration at Patch that Emma can't remember about 6 months later.  

 I did so bad on these segways when I tried to turn.  I actually ended up in the grass tripping over myself.

 We tried to keep cool any way we could.  It was an especially hot year and when you live on the 4th floor of an apartment building with no AC it gets hot!

 I finished up my year of German class with the immigrants.  I ended up doing one more semester before I quit all together.

 More swimming

 A trip down to Europa park

 A little fun at the park

 More swimming- this one had a rapids slide that would never in a million years be allowed in the US.  It sucked you under the water right here and then farther down again.  The last one took all the strength I had to get out of!  I learned to avoid that spot.  We played great games on this slide.  It had two pools at different turns and we would try to dive into one of them.  You had to push off at just the right time to make it into the calm pools.  Once we learned how to do it, we started playing a game where half of us were in the pool and half on the slides and we tried to see who would win by getting all of the group in one area.  The Pool people had to drag the Slide people into the pool and the Slide people had to drag the Pool people onto the slide.  Lots of bruises and scrapes from that game, but it was super fun!

 And some raspberry picking!

But that's not all!  No not by a long shot!

Emma and I went to Girls camp as leaders.  This is the flag I made for our cabin.

Our hike. I convinced newbie Eden to take the longer hike.  We ended up doing 6 miles or so.

 And where would you end up on your hike in Germany other than a castle ruins??

 It was wicked hot, so some water games were definitely in the mix.  I made sponge balls and we threw them at each other.

 Then we played relay games with the squirt bottles- I didn't have the best squirt bottles and no Target to run to in order to get new ones- boo!

 What a crew!

And finally we ran over to see Prague.

Beautiful Prague

Haha- I thought that was pretty funny- Czechpoint!  Emma got a sweatshirt when she came with the Model United Nations that said, "Czech me out!"

 The Fred and Ginger Dancing house

 Taking the steps up to the castle.  They made us stay half way up while they filmed part of a movie- it took a really long time and people just stopped listening to them and went anyway, so they had to take a break.  If I ever see a movie with a bunch of kids playing soccer around steps that has an indian looking market on them, I'll know I was there!

 We walked from our hotel everywhere- mostly along the river.  It was about 2-3 miles to the Charles bridge.

 On the Charles Bridge

 Not sure why this man was hanging out

 On the bridge watching the paddle boats.  They had lots that looked like swans!

 On our last day there we head to one of the most fun parts of the trip- to the indoor water park.  It was huge with 3 different rooms and a lazy river through it all. They had the pirate ship, regular swimming and hot tubbing, a wave pool and 

 A whole room of slides. 

This one had you going super fast when you came out of the lightless tube and then spun you in a circle and spit you out the bottom!  It was crazy!

 Traditional Czech pastry

 Of course we had to stop and eat at the Hard Rock Cafe.  It's our little bit of Americana wherever we go!