A week with family

We've had a great week staying with Anne-Marie and Lisa and all the kiddos. It was a nice break from our travels to get to stay in a house and enjoy some American items, thanks to the US Military base.
July 5th - We laid around the house all day after a long day out the day before. Lisa and Anne-Marie went to base today and bought a huge brisket. We cooked it all day in the oven and enjoyed it, along with mashed potatoes and beans, for dinner. Lisa also took this opportunity to color my hair. She did a great job for her first time and I enjoyed the view sitting on Anne-Marie's balcony.

July 6th - Today we took a road trip to Rothenberg, which is about 1 ½ hours away from Leonberg. Lisa, 4 kids and I went in Anne-Marie’s Tahoe while Mike, Anne-Marie and 2 other kids rode in the “hippie van”, Anne-Marie and Ben's VW van. We arrived in Rothenberg close to lunch time. So, we loaded everyone up in strollers and walked into the town of Rothenberg. The first restaurant we saw was a Chinese restaurant and we all decided on it because it would be a nice change from the German food. After lunch, we proceeded to walk further into the town to the world-famous Christmas store. Mike was nice enough to stay outside the store with the kids while the girls went in to shop. The store immediately puts you in the Christmas spirit because there is Christmas music playing and it is filled with Christmas decorations. There were so many ornaments that it got to be overwhelming. An hour later, we finally made our purchases and exited the store. Mike and the kids were still hanging in there, but the kids were definitely getting fidgety. We then walked to an area of the town where we could get a good view of Rothenburg. This gave the kids an opportunity to run around for a while. After this, we did a little bit more shopping before getting stuck in the rain. It was 6:00 and the rain was really coming down. Lisa and Mike ran back to get the cars while Anne-Marie and I waited with the kids. After loading everyone up in the car, we drove out of Rothenburg stopping at Burger King to pick up dinner for the kids to eat on the way back to Leonberg. We arrived back to Leonberg around 8:30. All kids were asleep except Abby so we put all the kids immediately to bed.

July 7th - We had another lazy day. We left after lunch to head to the local indoor pool. Mike, Lisa, and I took 5 kids with us to the pool (Anne-Marie stayed back with a napping Kaja). It was a very nice indoor pool with a baby pool, wave pool and water slides. Abby and Mike really enjoyed going down the tube slide while the other kids enjoyed the baby pool area. It was fun and really wore all the kids out.

July 8th -We went to Legoland today. Legoland is located in Gunzburg, Germany which is about 1 ½ hours away from Leonberg. Again, it required us to drive the Tahoe and “hippie van”. We arrived at Legoland around 11:00 and were immediately shocked by the cool weather. When we stepped out of the car, the temperature was around 60 degrees and the wind was blowing. The skies were also threatening rain. We walked into Legoland and went straight to the store to find jackets for all. After everyone was taken care of with jackets, we continued in to the park and walked around the mini-land. It was neat to see many of the German places that we have already visited made out of a bunch of Legos. From here, we just proceeded to make our way through the park, enjoying many of the parks rides, features, and play areas. We battled the brief rainstorms all day long, but it never lasted long enough to end the day. At 6:00, it really started raining, but luckily for us, the rides stopped running at 6:00 so we couldn’t do anything else anyway. We decided to feed the kids before leaving the park so that we could just get in the car and head home. It was about 7:00 when we left Legoland and had sleeping kids by the time we made it back to Leonberg.

July 9th - We had another lazy day. Mike made a late breakfast for all of us which consisted of eggs, bacon, and biscuits. It was very good. After putting the kids down for a nap, Lisa, Abby and I walked into the small town of Leonberg. There wasn’t a whole lot to do, but we enjoyed looking in some of the shops and getting ice cream. The walk to the town was down hill so that only means one thing for the walk home...it was all uphill. We took a short cut which took us up a very steep hill. Abby was in the stroller and it took both Lisa and I to get it up the hill. We definitely got our workout. When we got home, Anne-Marie had gone to the grocery store to get food for dinner. Mike had decided to grill hamburgers because it was such a nice day outside. He also had Anne-Marie buy the ingredients to make a cake and so he made us a cake. It was all wonderful. Mike turned into “Betty Crocker” today.

July 10th - We all got going pretty early this morning. We went to the Panzer military base to go to the Post Exchange (PX). Our first stop was to eat lunch. The PX has a small food court, but had all the American type food we could want. Between all of us we had Popeye’s and Pizza Hut. After lunch, we got all 3 boys hair cut. They were so cute getting their first "military" cut. Austin went first and we tried to get it cut the way he normally does, but ended up having the guy buzz cut it. So, that led to the next 2 boys just getting a buzz cut as well. After the haircut we went into the main shop at the PX which is just like Wal-mart. Mike and I stocked up on certain things that we haven’t been able to find since leaving the states. It was fun to have the opportunity to get some stuff. We left the PX and went to the Post Office on base. Here we picked up many priority mail boxes in order to ship stuff home at American prices. We then took all the kids to the playground on base where they played for the next couple of hours. There was a charity pasta dinner at 5:30 for the "Run to Remember". Anne-Marie and Lisa are running in the race tomorrow, which honors fallen soldiers. We enjoyed a great dinner and had an opportunity to meet some of the other spouses and families that are also stationed in Germany.

Happy Birthday USA!

July 4th--Our big event for the day was going to the 4th of July celebration on the Patch Barracks Military base here in Stuttgart, Germany. We all loaded up in two separate cars and headed onto base. The line was a little long to sign us in, but once inside, there was plenty of parking and not just a huge crowd. The kids enjoyed going down slides, bouncing in the bounce house, running around, eating and getting their face painted. There were so many fun activities and it was all free. We had good ole American food of hot dogs, hamburgers, french fries, and corn on the cob. The fireworks were supposed to start at 10:30 (it doesn't get dark until then) so we were all anxiously awaiting them, but at 11:00 there were still no fireworks. So, we decided to start walking toward the car and watch the fireworks from there. Once we started walking though, the fireworks started. We all stopped and found a place to watch them from. We really enjoyed them. Austin was really funny though because he liked some of the fireworks and then others he would say "I don't 'yike' those fireworks." It was about midnight before getting back home.