Tuesday, July 28, 2015

We Are Back

We are back from a wonderful trip to Germany.  We had so much fun spending time with family, meeting my new niece and celebrating her baptism, exploring new places,  re-visitng favorite places, making a trip to London to see Ashley and enjoying some good food.

Me and the girls left 5 days before the boys did and we stayed 2 days longer.  It is such a long trip and the time difference is tough, but it is so worth it.  The night before we left Hannah lost her 4th tooth.  She was a little worried about the tooth fairy not finding her, since we were spending the next night on an airplane.   Lucky for her the tooth fairy found her in Germany and paid up in euros.  She said the German tooth fairy was the best, because she brought a lot of money (I didn't have any euros yet and my dad didn't have any small bills).

We had great weather overall and spent a lot of time outside.  The first few days we were there were very hot, so my dad bought a kiddie pool for us.......and I say us, because I enjoyed it as well.  You see that small slide?  I went down that slide multiple times on my belly, just to make my daughter laugh.  I made quite the splash.
It was so hot and with no air conditioning it was very hot inside......so we brought Nora's bath tub outside just to cool her off.

I think these two were happy to see each other after being separated for 5 days.  They acted silly all day.
The next day we took a trip into the city and had dinner at a brewery.
Nora enjoyed playing in the laundry basket.  She did so well adjusting to the time difference, just took her a few nights.
Another trip into the city.  This time we took a little river cruise boat.
While in the city we went up the Dom cathedral with all three kids.......that is 536 steps in a small spiral staircase.  Hannah did awesome and walked up and down the steps all by herself.  Evan made it about 1/3 of the way and then Scott had to carry him.  Nora.....well she was nice and cozy in the ergo strapped to me!  I counted this as my workout for the day.

Ice cream while waiting on our return boat
The next day we celebrated my nieces baptism and I did not get a lot of pictures.  It was a beautiful day and a wonderful celebration.  After the church service we headed to a restaurant with a nice terrace and outdoor play area for the kids.  We enjoyed a wonderful meal and great company.
  Let's just say that a church service where you have to sit still and be quiet is not Evan's strong point. The service was in a beautiful old church and Evan walked in and said really loud "Hi guys" and realized that there was an echo, so of course he had to test that out a few more times.  He did look handsome though.
Hannah wanted me to take a picture of her hair.  This is about the extent of my fancy hair dos. 
My brother with the two monkeys
Evan found the ice cream
The entire family all cleaned up

We ended the night with fireworks.  It was the night of the "Cologne Lights", a huge firework downtown set to music.  The big firework was not until midnight, but there were several smaller fireworks along the river leading up to the big one.  The boats were all lined up on the river in the suburb where my parents live ready to get the signal to head downtown.
Evan played hard all day and was passed out, but woke up fresh just in time for the fireworks ....you can see every meal he had that day on his outfit.  He was filthy.


Evan was way more interested in the sparklers than the actual firework.
It was a beautiful ending to a wonderful day!
Next up was our trip to London