Weekend Fun

Weekend Fun

We had a great weekend with great weather. Saturday we ran some errands and hung out and on Saturday night we had a babysitter (finally!) and Shelby and I went out to dinner in our village and then bar hopping. Finding a local babysitter has been difficult because not many people in our village speak English and my German is still pretty limited. Our friend Lena who works at the bar down the street from us has been helping us try to find someone so that we can go out here in town once in a while. She finally found us a sweet older lady named Irene (pronounced in German I-rain-uh)to watch Colin. She doesn't speak a stitch of English but we don't care, lol! Lena helped us communicate and set up for her to come visit and watch Colin. In the summer she works at the Erdbeere Hof (strawberry farm) which are very popular here (like u pick kind of places) and during the winter she cleans business and homes. This is how Lena knows her, she cleans the bar during the winter. She was great with Colin and happy to watch him. After some bad German/English communication we were off for a baby free evening, yay!

We were all set to go to our favorite restaurant here in town but found out that they (like everyone else in the village) are closed for holiday. It is not unusual for businesses to just shut down for weeks on end during the summer holiday season so they can go on vacation. The backerei (bakery) right by the house has been closed for a week or two already) and I have to walk across town to the other backerei every day to get my bread for dinner. Our favorite restaurant is closed for a whole month! We found another place that that was delicious and had some excellent steak. The steaks were no joke, HUGE! The chef/owner lady even put these cute little radish mice on our plates as garnish. After dinner we were stuffed but still had to order some strawberry ice cream sundae that was the dessert of the day. Fresh strawberries and German ice cream (blows our Bryers crap out of the ocean!)Yum!
After dinner we went to the bar where Lena works and had some drinks and then went with her to some other bars. Of course a couple were closed for holiday but we found a few to entertain us.

Sunday morning we went to the pool on base. Colin loves the pool and we are going to have to buy an annual family pass soon. There is a baby pool and a big pool, plus a huge pool for lap swimming. The big pool has a couple slides and waterfalls and a playground thing in the middle. We take toys and Colin has a blast. This time he walked (with Shel holding his hands) right to the stairs of the slide and went up them and we helped him slide down. When we put him back in the water he walked right back over to the slide again for more, lol. After the pool as soon as we put him in his seat he passes right out.

When we got home we worked in the garden for a bit watering and fertilizing. Several blackberries needed picking and also the red currants so I gathered up those to do something with. Colin played in his wagon while we worked in the yard and watched his puppies play. Later that afternoon we went on a bike ride around the village. I got several pictures of things around the town and also of the places we rode to. We went to the Steinenschloss castle ruins that are right by our house. It was so pretty and awesome to see the ruins and old stones laying around. According to the link (visit the site, copy the link and then paste it into a google translater to translate the page to english) this castle was built in the year 1024! After the ruins we took another path in a different direction and found some cool cavern things with a small waterfall. We put Colin in the creek but it was too cold for him and it made him mad. Shortly after we got there the mosquitoes found us and they were huge! We will have to take bug spray next time! The scenery and landscape here is so amazing. There are paths for bikes and pedestrians only all over the place and you stumble across the coolest things when you are on them. It's always an adventure to get out and go around here.

We came back from bike riding and put some chicken on the grill and had fresh corn on the cob, yum! Colin really liked his chicken. He is so methodical when he eats, I will have to video him one day. It was a very fun weekend.