Happy desserts

Patrick made these delicious palatchinken (don't know if that's how you spell it), aka crepes. Yummeee!

Biking trip

Yesterday my friends Marion, Patrick, Olivia, and I went on a bike trip. We biked along the Seig river to a lake, went for a swim, and biked around the beautiful German countryside. I got an opportunity to use my mountainbike as we went off-roading through some mud bogs, sorry no pictures of that. I ended up quite dirty by the end, too bad we didn't go for our swim after the mud, that would have been the way to go.
At the lake we used this little, um, shall we call it a changing booth? It's just a cloth tunnel to change in. The smarter ones are the ones that are tight around your neck so they don't fall off while you change. This one you have to hold with your teeth. HA!

The rest in picture form

I guess these pics didn´t post. I couldn´t resist putting in this `rear-view´ of Phinny.
Also, the first picture, showing the valley, has the place we stayed at in the center of the picture if you enhance it, you can see, all cute and nestled in a little valley. Precious.

Holiday in Austria

I went this last week to the Merl Family Reunion in Eisenerz, in the heart of Austria. Beautiful! We stazed in a Familie und Jugendlichegasthause, so a family and youth guest house. I stayed in the room with Koko, Patrick and the boys, which was great except for waking up in the middle of the night to a little Phinny crying. I was also awakened by two excited little boys in the morning, between 6.30 and 7am! Besides that though, it was really lovely. I got to see Patrick´s family, I was particularly glad to get to see his parents ´Mama and Papa´, Crystle and Harry. They are great!!
We went for a hike Monday. Patrick brought the kinderwagen up this ´short-cut´which ended up being a huge, steep climb up the side of the mountain. I don´t have the best pictures of helping him, but I put this one on here to give you an idea of what we did. I helped him carry the buggy up, first with Phinny in it, as he was sleeping. Whew, a great work-out. When I get the pictures from Patrick´s brother, I´ll put a picture of me hauling it...quite funny!
There were so many delicious Heidelbern, or blueberries. We took many a breathers to pick and eat.
I had a ´beauty night´ with the little girls. We are posing Napoleon Dynamite-style.
We spent 4-5 hours at the Leopoldsteiner See, a very ´frisch´ lake, aka, freezin´cold!!! I went in once, which was enough. =) I got sunburned as it was a lovely day.
We went on an ore mine tour, some of the finest ore comes from there. We went down into the mine so we had to wear the rain jackets and hard hats, then rode on a huge truck. They have been mining from this area for hundreds and hundreds of years!
I left with Patrick´s brother and sister-in-law, Michy and Anita back to Gramastetten, close to Linz for the night. I had planned on taking the rest of the week to go visit friends in Switzerland, but it would either be €450 for a rental car, (not including gas and country fees), or €250 to take the train over and then back up to Bonn. Neither of these was really an option financially so when I found a ticket directly to Bonn for €59 I couldn´t pass it up.
Disappointing, but alles gute.
Now, I´m back in Bonn. I went for a long bike ride today, though it would have been much longer had my bike not gotten a flat.
So, there you have it.
I will now go meet some friends at Frittebud for a cheap, yet delectible, burger and fries (good thing I biked so much today!)
Much love to all from Germany!!!

Adventures!!

I'm not sure if these pics will post, but here are a few of them anyway. So, the first is when I biked with the boys down to Konigswinter to try to hike up to the Drachenfels ruins (shown here), but the way was far too steep so I'll have to do it when I can get somebody to come with to help carry the boys up.
Secondly, a picture from Koko's office overlooking the Rheinau park which I bike through several times a day, and in which there are numerous adventures to be had...playgrounds, paddle-boating, kite-flying, bier festivals, rock concerts, flea markets, etc.
I went with the boys on a "mini-cruise" up the river (which is actually south because the Rheine flows south to north) to a little island where we had lunch, this was the boat we took.
And finally, it rained profusely today so I took the boys to the Haribo store where they make every kind of gummy candy you can imagine...gummy bears, boys, butterflies, snakes, strawberries, lots of black licorice, licorice, sweet, sweet yummee, yummee licorice...Let me know if there is something in particular you are craving and I'll see what I can do about getting you a delicious gummy treat.
I shall try to be more consistent in my picture taking and blog posting. Too many things happen to not document. I am headed to southern Austria, or Corinthia, on Saturday with the Merls. Should be much fun! I will probably leave a little early, not staying the whole week, so as to be able to take a detour to Switzerland and see some friends there before returning to Germany.
And the adventures continue...