On the Way Home

We stopped by King Ludwig II's castle on
the way home...he wasn't there. But we got
to see where he lived! This is the Neuschwanstein
Castle, which is the one that most closely resembles
the Disneyland castle.

This was taken from a bridge over a really
deep ravine that runs on the right side of the
castle. It's hard to imagine anyone living in
such an amazing place. It's also hard to imagine
how he got UP to his amazing place in the winter
time with only horses or wagons (or whatever
royalty used in Bavaria in the 1800's).

The Top of Germany!!

Getting up there...

We took a little cable car from the bottom of
the mountain, all the way to the top.... I mean
STRAIGHT
UP!!!
It was way scary, and really fun!! Geoff and
Aliya had a little relief-cry at the top, but
otherwise there were no incidents :-)

And once we were there and had seen the
top from the viewpoint, we took another (less
scary) cable car a little way down the other side
and ate snow and sledded...

... and finished up the day with huge cups of
hot chocolate. What could be better!!

What big sisters are for....

Isn't it nice that William has big
sisters that help him get dressed
in the morning?? Um...not so much.

The GOLD cowboy belt is the perfect touch

Treating at the hospital (no tricks for sick people)

"Cardboarding Pumpkins"

William kept talking about "cardboarding"
something, and I was so busy CARVING the
pumpkins that it took me a minute before I
finally figured out that he thought that I was
"cardboarding" the pumpkins. He even told me
not to cardboard HIM when I got too close to
him with a knife!

I cut the tops off of the pumpkins, but the
kids got in there and "scooped the goop" all
by themselves. They thought it was pretty gross.
I heard things like: "This feels like brains" (made me
wonder when they had felt brains previously), and
"ewww it's so slimy!!" and, "can I lick this off of my
hands?".... but they did a good job!!!
Emma did her whole pumpkin by
herself for the first time ever! Hers
is the one with the heart eyes.

There are PUMPKIN PATCHES in Germany???!!

We were all so excited to take a field trip
to the Pumpkin Farm! I had thought that
we would have to just get our pumpkins at
the store this year, but a friend found out
about a patch and so we went!

We all rode, like cows, in the back of this truck
from the farm buildings out to where the pumpkins
were. It was great. William is STILL talking about it!
MOO!

Along with the truck ride, they also
gave us a free tour of their farm which
included pet-able chickens, cows, ducks
and ponies. The kids LOVED it!