Schwarzwald

This past weekend we drove two hours south to the northern part of the Black Forest and stayed at...you guessed it...another youth hostel. You never really know from the pictures what its going to be like, but again, it didn't disappoint. There was meadow all around it, a play ground and a soccer field! Oh happy day! The beds can be hit or miss but these beds were sooooooo comfortable that I didn't want to get up. Well, I never do, but this time because the bed was so comfy. And my absolute favorite part, as usual, is waking up to breakfast and coffee already made. Its the best thing ever.

Leaving the youth hostel to check out a nearby village. A beautiful creek runs through here, or as Marc calls it, the sewer.

There's the youth hostel in the distance.

Magical polka-dot fairy tale mushrooms.

Heading deep into the black forest. The Brothers Grimm were inspired by these woods to write stories like Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Hansel and Gretel.

Walking around in here I have to say that the forest floor seems different, almost like another miniature forest. There were delicate little trees that looked just like the big ones, but tiny. And itty bitty ferns. Maybe all forests are like this and I was just swept up in the fairy tale stuff, but I can see how this was so inspiring for stories. Its a wonder I didn't break into the song from Sleeping Beauty, which I have been known to do.

Pretty sure Hansel and Gretel built this after they escaped as a safe house for other kids lost in the woods.
That's one theory.

It's difficult to capture the colors and beautiful light on a cellphone, but this is pretty good. 

After the walk we went to a place called Mehliskopf which has skiing in the winter and bobsleds and other stuff in the warm months. We definitely needed to do the bobsleds.

Tobin just made the cut to go alone as a ten-year old.

Doren and I headed up the hill. I'm not a fan of roller coasters, going downhill, or speed in general, but we had to try it.

Whew! Glad that's over. It was too fast and scary for me even though I had the brakes on the whole time. Now to the ropes course where my kids do the scary stuff while I watch safely from the ground. They did a ropes course at the weird Pinnochio Park in Italy and loved it, so we figured this would be pretty much the same.

They look like they're going to fix a telephone wire.

Jonah's like nbd. 

Its pretty much the same but a LOT higher.

Toby did just fine on the first course but ended up having to be rescued from the second one. It was pretty scary and I felt really bad for him. A guy had to climb up and use a special tool to detach his harness from the cable while everyone was watching and waiting. I was worried he would feel bad or embarrassed about having to be rescued but fortunately he was fine. Jonah, on the other hand, isn't phased at all. He steps out onto the ropes like its a sidewalk. One part was literally a tightrope with nothing to hold on to. He wasn't scared at all! This is the same kid who will scream and wail if one of the five foods in the world he's willing to eat happen to touch each other on his plate.

Maybe in a few years, pal.

The youth hostel didn't serve dinner on Sundays so we walked across the meadow to that village to a restaurant. Oh my, the Spaetzle! They baked it with grilled onions and cheese. It was divine.

Devouring the (plain) Spaetzle.

The next morning we had our breakfast with only one other couple in the whole place. The staff asked if we could check out a little earlier since a bunch of kids were coming and they needed our room. Sure enough, as we were walking out, no less than one hundred teenagers poured through the doors with backpacks and suit cases to take over the whole place. We made it out just in time!

Before heading home we went to the nearby town of Forbach to find the Goat Path I'd heard about. We barely found the entrance only because a man was feeding the goats and we saw them rush towards him right as we passed. It was a little slice of goat heaven. A deep grassy ravine with a rocky stream running through it and goats trotting around with tons of space.

One of many adorable houses. This is the only time I had my camera ready.

The goats were way down on the other side but when they saw us coming they trotted across a little bridge and up the hill to greet us.

These apples were such a deep, blood red. Kind of like Snow White's apple. COINCIDENCCCCCE???

Juicy and delicious but rather tough. There's your fiber.

Jonah singing Old MacDonald had a goat. Look how impressed they are.

Now to the cow side...

Look out for cow pies!

I mean...do they even know how beautiful their life is? The commercial says "Happy cows come from California" but I've seen how cows in California live. 

Happy cows live in the green meadows of the Schwarzwald!

It's so darn PEACEFUL!!

It would be sad to be in the Black Forest and not eat Black Forest cake spiked with liqueur. Alas, we couldn't find anywhere that was open at the time so we didn't get any. We also didn't see any cuckoo clocks, which is a shame because this is where they come from and, like, my favorite thing. BUT we did manage to get some very thinly sliced Black Forest ham!

We walked around the village of Forbach and found a really cool wooden bridge. We took a little trail along the river and found an amazing playground!

This piece would be lovely in our living room.

Speaking of benches, I melted right into this big, comfy one.

That's it for this trip! Hopefully someday we'll go deeper into the region and do ALL the Schwarzwaldy things.

The Goings On

I got an email notice the other day asking if my blog was still active. I haven't written anything since April! Why, I wondered. Could it be that (gasp) I feel sort of ...settled?? Is it possible? Also, we haven't gone anywhere in a long time so its just been normal life. But normal life has been pretty full and fun when I look back at all the pictures. So, I guess I'll just go back through the things we've done since April.

Me and my baes took a lady trip to Baden Baden. Uh! It was so fun!

This has a been a year of many visitors. Our first this year was my dear, ol' friend Becky and her son, Eli. He's the one that looks just like Toby, but taller.

Here she is at soccer practice doing some body work on my injured neighbor. She gives and then gives some more!

I did a Muddy Angel run with some friends. Key word: muddy. This event required (almost) zero physical ability, so it was fun for all. I really just did it for the mud and because I wanted a legitimate excuse to throw out the hideous shoes I was wearing. 

Baby Bingsu turned four! 

Cousin Joe came to visit!!

The boys really wanted a pet and Tobin latched on to getting a hamster since a girl in his class has a hamster. We love the idea of a dog, but I didn't grow up with animals in the house so I'm not quite ready for that commitment, since, let's be honest, it's going to be MY responsibility. Maybe someday. Anyway, his desire for a hamster coincided with my desire for his nine-year old self to get his act together in a few ways that I knew he was capable of, thus the Hamster Pact. We wrote down some rules and expectations that he needed to follow for three straight weeks without being reminded. It was pretty basic stuff like clear your plate when you're done eating, take the trash to the curb on Sunday evenings, put your clean laundry away. He could easily have been doing all this but he just didn't without being reminded over and over and it was getting on my nerves. The Pact started off good and he made it about ten days, but then he messed up and had to start all over. It took about seven weeks to complete the three consecutive weeks, but he finally did it.

At the pet store picking out a very fluffy, Teddy hamster.

Some friends gave us an old bird cage.

Introducing Fluffy Butters, being transported to his forever home. He has an awesome life, jogging on his wheel and eating our vegetable scraps on top of his regular diet of delicious pellets. And Tobin has been a good, responsible pet dad doing all the feeding and cage cleaning.

A local church hosted a traveling American high school choir. They asked us if we could host a couple of the "kids" for two nights, presumably since we're American. Here are my two kids, age 18, and just graduated from high school in Virginia. I went to their concert and oh my gosh - it was amazing!!

Then Paulette came! She has visited us in just about every house in every country. 

Then I turned forty.

Oh, and just before I turned forty I started a little bizzy-nizzy. Long story short, and after a handful of other attempts over the years at finding "my thing" it finally occurred to me that I really love organizing stuff, as in, I lose all sense of time and forget to eat, which NEVER happens otherwise. There is no exploding closet that I don't want to get my grubby little mitts on. It also occurred to me that no one else in the American community here is doing this but lots of military families probably need it because they move around so much and its hard to feel settled in. So, I'm super proud of myself because I figured out all the things (mostly in German) including getting the business license, the bank stuff, the website, the PayPal, etc. I'm trying to market to the large American community here but its still slow going. I've had a few paying clients so far but I know it will take some time to get the word out. The good news is, I'm good at it, I really like it and (so far) there isn't anything I really don't like about it, unlike the other things I've done. Yay? I hope!

Jonah turned seven!

As much as I like the idea of having a dog, I also really like the idea of being a family who camps. I loved camping pre-kids! Post-kids...ehh... its taking us some time. Now that Doren is four, we finally have all the kids mobile, potty-trained, not napping and not doing stupid stuff like eating sand. We also still have all the camping gear that we haven't touched in years. I found a sweet little campsite just forty-five minutes away (in case it was awful and we needed to leave). Let's do this!

All loaded up. Since I'm out of practice with the camping and this is the first time with all five of us, it took about four days just to prep all the stuff. You literally have to bring everything. This is going to be fun, right?!

Oh boy! Setting up the sleeping bags. This is a huge, two-room vintage tent from when Marc was a kid. #old
It has a tag that says JCPenney Sports Center.

We get the whole meadow to ourselves!

Collecting firewood, or entire trees, from the forest.

Unpacked and I'm immediately laid out in camping mode. Scram, kids!

A book, a can of wine and a bag of chips. I really excel at leisure non-activities.

A little pond at the campsite.

Finally they're out of my hair and doing something on their own.

But it wasn't long before they came back asking every five minutes, "Is it time for hot dogs and s'mores? Is it time for hot dogs and s'mores?"
Me: "No! It's 2:30pm and 85 degrees! Scram!" (snore)

Eventually we had to give in to all the whining and start a blazing fire way too early.

It looks even more idyllic with the filters!

I realized that my boys have never seen a sky FULL of stars. They've seen regular starry nights but we've never been out in the country at night when you can see all the millions and billions. How sad! I wanted this to be the night, but being summer it was still light out at 9:30pm. Finally, by 10:30 when it still wasn't dark enough, they couldn't handle it anymore and begged to go to bed. Errr...maybe next time.

The next day we drove to a park in a forest with a big lookout tower.

We circled all the way up...

...and saw this view! The Saar river. This is what we call a hairpin turn.
And then it started to rain. And rain harder and harder.

We drove back to the campsite in a storm and, lo, all of our stuff was SOAKING WET. Pillows, sleeping bags, towels, all of it. And all because we weren't prepared with a rain cover for the JCPenney tent. So with the boys still in the car (and complaining) we haphazardly shoved in our wet, dirty stuff while getting wet ourselves. So that was that. Barely 24 hours of camping. It's a good thing it was only 45 minutes from home. But we learned a lot for next time. Like, just because its summer doesn't mean you're not going to almost freeze to death in your allegedly sub-zero sleeping bags. And bring a rain cover!

Then Emily came and we took a picture on the same rock from when Cousin Joe came!

Then Aaron and Justin came! 

Then Abi came!

Then school ended and the two older boys took swimming lessons (for the third or fourth time). But this was the year it finally took for Tobin. Phew! One of three can swim!

We spent a lot of time this summer at the local pool.

And the French girls came!

And a piano came! Check this out...Jonah has a piano elective at school and it got me thinking how neat it would be to have a piano in the house in case any of these boys are miraculously interested in more than just soccer. So, on a whim, I sent out a text message to local friends if anyone knew of a really cheap piano, preferably brown wood. Three minutes later one friend said that another friend was giving away their old piano and I should call her. So within about five minutes from sending the text, we were the future proud owners of an old brown wood piano. Just ask, people! Just ask.

Fingers crossed one of them gets into playing. The only thing cuter than a cute boy is a cute boy who can play the piano.

And Marc's parents came to visit! They got here just after the two-week heat wave in time for some perfect weather.

Now you're up to date. We still have more visitors coming this year! Will you be one of them someday? XO