Germany Wrap Up

Here we are into our first week of Fall and I am still recapping our summer trip to Germany.  This will be the last post on our trip.

We tried to take some cousin pictures and it is not an easy task to get them all to look.
Three is still possible.....

You throw in two more and it gets challenging

This is the best we can do

Then you throw in one grandma.....

This girl is always ready for a picture

The Cologne soccer team had their last pre-season game while we were there, so I took Evan to it.  We had such a fun date night.  It was hot out, but thankfully the stands were in the shade.

It was such a fun atmosphere at the pre-season game with lots of goals.

 Evan was really excited to see so many goals.

 

 He got to have a coke and French fries, so his night was made.  A cold beer for me and we were both happy!

It is just so much fun when I get to spend some one on one time with the kids.
Meanwhile the girls had fun at my moms house with their cousins.

I got to have a fun night out with Janina.  She invited me to go see a musical.  The show was great and we had a wonderful night out.
Not sure if this show exists in the US, but it was called "Dance of the Vampires" and was really fun.

And a selfie with the cathedral in the background

We had some professional pictures taken of all the cousins as well and they turned out so cute.  You can't even tell that the kids were not cooperating very well and there was a lot of bribery going on.....gummy bears and ice cream was promised.

The promised popsicle.....

My phone stopped working the night of the soccer game, so I have had to collect some pictures from Scott's phone and my mom's phone.....still missing some of our adventures.

We went on another "field trip" and took the ferry across the river to play putt putt and eat more ice cream.  

At this point the kids were so hot and did not feel like taking pictures.

This wraps up our Germany trip.  We had a little bit of a change in plans the day I was supposed to fly back with the kids, because Nora ended up getting sick the night before.  She had a high fever and I couldn't fly with her.  So, we had to change all of our flights and ended up staying almost another week.  We re-booked our return trip and flew into Ft Myers, FL and spend a day on the beach before making our way home.  

More of Germany

Scott got to Germany a few days after us.  We enjoyed an evening by the river for the Cologne Lights Fireworks.  The main firework is downtown from the river, but that is way past my bedtime.  They have a lot of boats that line up right by my parents house and then they make their way down the river for the big firework show.  There are smaller fireworks along the way.  It is one of my favorite nights to go see all of the boats line up followed by the firework.  We brought some drinks and sparklers and enjoyed the night.  My mom brought a pack of 100 sparklers and the kids went through all of them.  I am pretty sure they didn't even watch the firework show, because they were too busy with their sparklers.

More and more boats started to show up as it was getting darker.

The next morning we headed into the city for our annual climb of the cathedral. Evan decided to stay home with my mom, because he said it makes his legs hurt.  I was a little bummed he didn't want to go, but I also didn't want to have to carry him up all the steps.  

 I love to see the cathedral every time.  

The girls did great walking up the over 500 steps......

Afterwards we strolled around the city for a while.  It was getting pretty hot, so we didn't stay that long.

We went by my grandmothers house and she has a picture on the wall from when I was around Hannah's age.  Scott took a picture of me and Hannah in front of that picture. I do think she is mine:)

We also did our annual trip to the Gummy Bear outlet store with my parents friends.  The kids love this (especially Hannah) and take full advantage of my parents friends generosity.  We left with bags of gummy bears and all kinds of gummy bear swag.....including a suitcase to bring all of the gummy bears home.