My Favorite Views

 Bebenhausen Monastery

The Monastery is beautiful around every corner!

Hohenzollern Castle

Amazing!!

They were even having their Christmas Market at the castle while we visited. Extra bonus: my mom got to go with us!!! Yep, she has already been out for a visit!!! If only there was a way to kidnap her so she could stay forever!! I'm working on it mom ; )

Notre Dame in Strasbourg, France

Inside Notre Dame de Strasbourg, France

Little Italy in Strasbourg, France

Dornstetten, Germany

Troy's Family is from this beautiful town.

View from the park in Sindelfingen

Random town that took our breath away as we came around a corner. The picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice.

The view from the top floor in our house.

Another view from our top floor window.

O.K. this one is not one of my favorite views. Waaaaaaaaahhhhhh. The movers broke my favorite Pottery Barn bowl that I took a newborn picture of Sarah in. Darn it : (

BIG BLUE COMES TO GERMANY!!!!!

We FINALLY got our van!!!!

It is so cool seeing it with the big German license plates.

So, we hit the Chocolate Factory . . . What? We know what's 

important!!

Learning about how the chocolate is made.

Push the button and a little truck comes around and drops a piece of chocolate in the dispenser. 

The chocolate store!!!

Jacob is holding up some of the caramel filled goodness.

So many flavors to choose from!

The family after the walk through!

Smiles for all the chocolate we left with!!

Bye Ritter Sport!!

SENSAPOLIS!!

This is the indoor fun park that we walked 1 hour and 5 minutes with 3 kids to go to. It was worth the walk though!! The boy's played and played non-stop for about 4 hours!! It has all kinds of different areas: tree houses that are 3 and 4 stories high, Castles, Space Ships and Science and water areas. Super Cool!!

King Eric

King Jacob

Shooting the balls in the Jungle Area

Making a tornado

Nice shoes Jacob. You may want to size down a bit.

Ahhhh he has been captured by the aliens.

Eric shooting balls from the Pirate Ship.

A little harp anyone?

Such a cool throne room!

Fishy swimming in the tub

Eric and the wacky room

Ballroom with a night time sky

Nice shoes Eric, Perfect fit. (Don't you love his headphones?

It was so loud in there he needed a buffer)

Super Slides

There's that kid again. She keeps following us everywhere . . . Oh hi Sarah!!

After the hour walk there and then running around for 4 hours we were pooped for the walk home but we headed out and about 2/3 of the way there it started raining on us. By they time we rolled back into the hotel we were a mess. Hot showers and Big naps for everyone!! The boy's still talk about our trip there so it must have been worth the effort!!

More Parks, More Playing and a Trip to the Wine Festival in Stuttgart

Cool Hammock swing

Sarah was such a good sport

Spider web rope jungle

Silly kiddo

Climbing the bridge

The park even had a steam engine train you could ride for 1 Euro on Sundays

Then we rode the train up to Stuttgart with another family to walk around the wine festival. It was the first weekend we were there and we had a great time. Everything is just so beautiful!!

Let Me Start From the Beginning . . .

O.K. the time between August 26th and December 11th has disappeared into a land far, far away. I think I am just so overwhelmed by all that we have been doing, seeing, and experiencing I have verbally shutdown. I can't even begin to tell you how much I LOVE living in Europe, but people, it is no easy task. We were a one car family for FAR TO LONG. God bless you folks out there that can hack it as a 1 car family but clearly I am not one of those people. Anyway, to give you a glimpse into our lives here let me start from the beginning.

There is a beautiful park near the hotel that we spent a lot of time at. They had hundreds of different birds that were kept there. Plus a good restaurant and a playground!

They had an awesome slide that for some reason our kids were terrified of in the beginning but once we shamed them into going down it we couldn't get them off. They loved it with such passion that Eric pushed a little German girl down it because she apparently hesitated at the top and Eric was ready to GO!! You're welcome!! 

Lightning McQueen is EVERYWHERE. Almost more than America. This is at a grocery store in the area.

Our first German candy goodies! 

And God bless the Schnitzel!! The boy's love it and it always comes with pommes (fries).

Onkel Otto's in Sindelfingen. Home of the MONSTER SCHNITZEL that is bigger than your plate. No we did not order that. Their regular schnitzel challenged the edges of our plates. Yikes!!

Them we hit Hoffmeister, which is a huge furniture store like Ikea that always has some sort of entertainment in their parking lot. In September they had water boats . . . 

Choo Choo Trains . . .

And cute little girls . . . Oh wait that one is ours!! Hi Sarah!

We did A LOT of walking because our van hadn't arrived yet and we hadn't gotten our German Driver's Licenses yet either. It was good for us and really forced us to brush up on our German and get to know the area. The first place we ate was Burger King and I ended up eating some sort of chicken sandwich with curry sauce on it because I didn't know the words at the time to order it without sauce. But, like I tell the boy's "a picky person is a hungry person" You just have to roll with it.