Over The Border And Through The Woods With Grandmothers We Will Go

We arrived in Germany on the 4th of July. On July 8th our very first visitors arrived! Grandma Hopkins and GreatGrandma McColley came to check out our new home and help us get settled.

Unfortunately the only pictures I have of their two week visit are from our 'vacation within a vacation'.

On Sunday July 13th we drove to France. We arrived at our hotel in the early afternoon and decided to spend what was left of the day in Ob.ernai:

Ob.ernai is in the Alsace region of France:

After wandering through town square we had dinner at the restaurant inside the historic La Halle aux Bles. Grandma got the Alsace specialty 'backeoffe':

GreatGrandma and I both got tarte flambees:

 The only issue with our dinner is that all the portions were HUGE and we had way way too much food!

After dinner we had to take a picture in front of Saint-Odile's Fountain:

Directly behind the fountain was the stopping point for the carriage tour of Ob.ernai. The boys really, really wanted to go on it:

It was a lovely tour all the way through the city with only one small problem... the driver only spoke French and Dutch. We opted to have him give the tour in French... but we maybe understood 30% of what he was saying:

After our tour we decided to discuss what we had picked up over ice cream:

Saturday (a.k.a. Bastille Day) we spent in Strasbourg:

The first thing we spotted was a carousel in the middle of town:

We then toured the cathedral. Pearson, Brayton and I did the 'walk as quickly as you can' tour while the rest of our group took the more leisurely 'read things' tour:

We then ate lunch at a little cafe in the cathedral square. The boys had already had a quick lunch so they opted to go straight for dessert.

The waiter talked us into ordering two ice creams because they were 'very small':

Pearson did not agree with that description:

After lunch we took the river tour of St.rasbourg. It took us from the center of Petite France all the way out to the European Parliament via several locks:

After the river tour we visited the Museum of Archeology inside the Palais Rohan which had very cool door pulls:

We finished up our sightseeing by hopping on the mini-train which took us through areas that the river tour had missed. The boys weren't super interested however and spent the whole ride looking at their souvenirs:

The mini-train stopped near the carousel... so we went on it again:

Brayton spent most of the ride in the carriage with Grandma and Pearson... but moved over to the motorcycle with McColley on the last couple go arounds:

He liked the motorcycle so much he convinced GreatGrandma to go one more time so he could ride the motorcycle the entire time:

On Tuesday July 15th we headed back toward S.tuttgart but stopped to check out Bad.en-Bade.n. We wandered the city. First to find lunch and then to find the baths:

We left town and headed up into the surrounding hills to find Altes Schloss:

The castle is now in ruins but is still interesting to look around. It also hosts Europe's largest wind harp:

Plus the view down onto Ba.den-B.aden is amazing!

Saying Good-bye To England

Our final month of living in England was a whirlwind of end-of-school activities, sightseeing and saying good-bye to our 'usuals' and 'routines'. Here's what happened:

Friday June 6th

McColley and his best friend Alex R. were the narrators for their class' end-of-the-year spanish class drama production:

Sunday June 8th

We FINALLY made it to the British Museum:

The boys (all of them) enjoyed looking at the Greek and Roman ruins and figuring out all the deities represented on the temple artwork:

But McColley and Brayton had the most fun pretending an Egyptian god was punching them out:

We had to wiggle our way up to the front of the line to check out the Rosetta Stone:

Pearson didn't think it was interesting enough to stay awake for:

After checking out the Egyptian/Greek/Roman/Phoenician sections we finally went to the information desk and grabbed a kid's activity pack. It led us through all the other areas of the museum in search of dragons. One of the activities in the China section was to find this merry gentleman and then try and stand like him:

Thursday June 12th

McColley's last day of school and final run to the bus

(which was at the stop very early... McColley was not actually running late):

McColley's principal was also having his last day of school (he was retiring after 40 years) so all the kids were asked to dress like him for his last day:

Tuesday June 24th

While McColley was having fun at a sleepover at Alex's house Brayton, Pearson and I went bowling at Alconbury for the last time. Both boys stepped up their game and bowled without any help from me:

Brayton was upset that Pearson got a better score but since it was the first time Brayton had bowled without the slide I think he did really good!

Wednesday June 25th

We had to visit the Burghl.ey Fountains one more time before we left... even if the weather wasn't totally summer-y:

The boys had a lot of fun figuring out how to manipulate the fountains:

McColley quickly figured out how to target his brothers with the spray:

Thursday June 26th

The base library hosted a Raptor Show and it seemed like everyone went out to see it. At the end of the show the boys got a chance to pet two of the owls:

The next week was filled with final playdates for the boys and packing out the house for B and me.

On Thursday July 3rd we departed England and started our new life in Germany.