August Happenings

Since I'm WAAAYYY behind on posting blogs, I think the best thing is to just give some brief updates on our month of August...prior to our big vacation....Here's our fun...

Weinheim Festival - most towns have a summer festival and this one was one of the bigger/better we saw. Great Ferris Wheel and food - weather was not the best



What happens after a day of bike riding and swimming...after being taken off Mom's bike (where she was sleeping) and set on the ground she just collapses on the doorstep to continue her nap!!!

  BALLOON FESTIVAL at LUISENPARK...a hot and fun day at one of my favorite places. We spent most of the day there while Daddy was in Brazil/Mexico - and discovered an entirely new part of the park! Best news...we FINALLY saw some balloons lift off !!


The Chinese Garden - I felt like I was at a mimi Epcot Center!




We found great areas to walk through the rivers, play on large musical/stone instruments and wander through paths looking at animals, plants, airplanes and balloons! The sisters are loving the cool water in this photo!!!




A handful of the balloons we saw!!

NUTS AND FRUIT EVERYWHERE!!  As Tim says, no one should go hungry here...there's fruit and nut trees all around the area and everyone picks and enjoys as you desire.  Our favorite discovery are the chestnut trees - super cool pods (spikey green balls that turn brown and burst with nuts).  On this day, we brought home a bag ful of chestnuts and the neighbor girls quickly showed us how to crack them and eat them!

Sofie and Rylee cracking chestnuts!

 CHILDREN'S FAIRY TALE FESTIVAL AT HEIDELBERG CASTLE - neat afternoon wandering around the castle watching many fairy tale characters act out stories  - and also play various games!  We may have missed out on some things because of the language barrier, but most of the actors tried to do some parts in English for us!   It was also the first time the girls saw the inside of the castle so that was fun for them as well!


Here Rylee enjoys a story and then she searches - and FINDS - the shiny golden ball.  The actress was nice enough to tell the story in both English and Deutsch just for Rylee!!




One of the games...from a fairy tale I was not familiar with???


JOHANNISHOF - a cool restaurant that serves their own produce and many other local specialties...and they have a great playground too!

 TIERGARTEN IN WORMS - we spent a day with Valentin, Katrin and Sasha Beltz at an Animal Park which was like a nice small version of a zoo. It was a rediculously hot day (as you can tell from their faces) but we had a lot of fun!





We fed goats, horses, donkeys and more! I really wasn't sure Chloe would ever leave the goats---she still loves animals!!!