Happy Thanksgiving!!!

 We celebrated Thanksgiving early this year. Mia has School on Thursday and a big English Test (the first one of the year) on Friday. The English Test is not such a big deal for her (although - she still has to study ;-)), but being that we invited her friends to Thanksgiving, we had to consider that they would not be able to come on Thusday because they would all be studying too. And so.... yesterday, we celebrated early and had 20 people come to our house for Thanksgiving! I have mentioned before that I am not a great cook, nor am I usually a happy cook, but for one day a year - I really do enjoy cooking! I think it is always fun to share our Holiday with people that don't know it. Our friends' young daughter asked if you receive gifts on Thanksgiving and I was quick to chime in that No - that is the beauty of Thanksgiving! It is my favorite Holiday for just that reason!! Simply to give thanks and appreciataion for those near and far that make life so good!  Hope you all have a Wonderful Thanksgiving too!

Mia made place tags... With so many people in such a small space - we had to carefully plan it out :-)

Yes - she was definitely excited to have all of her friends come! She played bartender once our guests arrived. She made a drink menu and everything!

Such yummy food. I don't know if I have ever cooked for 20 people by myself before. I had no idea exactly how much to cook. We made 2 Turkeys just in case and luckily we will be eating leftovers all week long! (One of our favorite things about Thanksgiving dinner is the leftovers!)

I think (hope) everyone had a lot of fun!

And I know the kids had a blast!

And like always - we are so glad we have our little table cloth tradition. It is 15 years old now - so fun reading and remembering all of those past Thanksgivings with friends and loved ones!

Fall Sports

Bailey and Camden just wrapped up their Fall Sports Seasons. Camden ran cross country this year and Bailey cheered for Football. I was happy that Camden ran Cross Country. It is not easy to get up and run 4-6 (Fast) miles each and every day. A runner is a bit of a special breed because it takes quite a bit of self discipline - which frankly might not always be Camden's strong suit :-). He did great though and while he didn't qualify for Eurpoeans (which is where the top athletes from all of the American Schools in Europe Compete), he did consistently run just over 7 minute miles, and being that lots of the terrain was hilly - I was proud of him. He definitely would whip me in a race! Not sure if he will run cross country again next year, but I was quite happy that he tried it this year! The Football team finished in better standings then they had anticipated - which made the games much more exciting! Bailey had a fun season -  we were proud of her for receiving the "Most Dynamic" award at their Banquet. Now - on to the Winter Season...

Burg Hohenzollern

On the way to the Black Forest, Mia and I stopped and went for a gorgeous hike to see one of the most famous castles in Germany....

It was just a short detour for us.. and only a short hike

The sky was beautiful

A crisp Fall day. Here we are taking a "shadow selfie" :-)

pretty fields

and lots of other "hikers" - notice the hiking poles - very popular among the Germans 

We actually took a wrong turn (we hiked to the wrong side and came out on top of this beautiful view - but it wasn't quite the view we came for :-)

We had to do a bit of backtracking

And had to climb back down the hill a bit..

Finally!!! - this was the view we came for...

A little closer...

Like a Fairytale!!!!

So I took a picture of Mia pretending to have the castle in her hands (the trick is - you, the photographer, have to move to have the camera somewhat in the right place...

And here is Mia's picture of me - so funny!!! :-) She was trying to get me to move to the right spot - but it didn't quite work :-) 

So pretty!

Priceless View!!!

So special to have this one on one time :-) 

More pictures of the Black Forest...

One day when we were at the "See"(pond)  we saw a guy making these rock formations. It was actually really neat how he would balance the rocks in intersting positions (the photo doesn't really do it justice)

The kids decided to try it for themselves.. First you had to collect the perfect rocks...

It required serious concentration ;-)

Almost done...

She created a Fox (with a tale and all). I thought it was quite clever!

So much character in almost every building! No cookie cutter architecture that is for sure!!

A German tradition that we love is "Kaffee und Kuchen". Around 4:00 each day, many Germans have coffee and cake. Usually the cake is not sweet like we tend to have it in America. This was my Black Forest Cake that I had one afternoon when we enjoyed our "Kaffee und Kuchen".

We went to an animal park one day on the Swiss Border, where you could feed the Animals. After the kids ran out of their animal feed, they had just as much fun trying to collect the scraps of feed that had fallen from vistors before us. I was amazed at how much entertainment it brough them.

An owl. We loved watching his head spin around!!!

This was adorable. When you entered the park, there was the "kasse" or cashier as we would call it. No people involved, just the honor system. 3 euro for adults and 1 euro for kids :-) You just leave your money in the hole.

Baby Wild pigs

So fun!

And the goats were a hit too!

Black Forest (Schwarzwald)

Mia had Fall Break the other week, and she and I went with some friends to the Black Forest for the week. The Black Forest is famous for its Black Forest Cake and Cuckoo Clocks and sits right on the border of France, Switzerland, and Austria. In fact it was funny because my phone would switch to roaming because we were too close to the Swiss Border. The weather was Gorgeous (atleast for Germany in November) and we had a great time outside in the forest each day. We went over to France one day too (before our friends arrived) and had a fun day with the Barbarian Apes. It was definitely a great break from school and everyday life!!!

The Fall colors were so pretty! It is very funny too - this lake is a big tourist destination. I would probably call "the lake" a pond because it is so small. It is extra funny because the German word for Lake is "See". Which makes me think of "Sea". When you don't have huge bodies of water around, I guess every square inch of any body of water is precious. They even had  double decker boat tours and stuff :-)

The tourists were bustling all around "the pond" It was so quaint and cute though!!! It gave me the feeling of Christmas even without any Christmas decorations...

We went over to the Alsace region of France for the day (only about a 1 hour drive) and visited the Barbarian Ape park there. We have been to a few of these and it is really cool. The Apes were brought over from Morrocco and survive in mountain regions. They give you a handful of popcorn when you buy your tickets and the Apes are free to roam around and you can feed them. 

It is very interesting though how tame they seem to have become. When we were in Gibraltor, the Apes were much more aggressive.

We had a really fun time! *Notice the fog - we were actually in a cloud - it definitely looke like a mysterious forest!!!

There were about 2500 apes there and many babies. The only popcorn rule though was that you could not feed the babies.

So this was really neat... did you  notice the fog in the photos below. We were actually in the clouds on a mountain in the Ape photos. After we left the Ape Park, we drove even further up the mountain to a Chateau called Hat Koenigsbourg. We drove so high up that we were above the clouds.

Notice the white in the photo - those are the clouds below the Chateau. Mia was so funny - she said on the way home - "Yeah  - I can finally cross that off my bucket list. I stood on the the clouds! *I didn't even know that she had a bucket list or that she knew what one was for that matter:-)

This was the cute village at the bottom of the Mountain. So adorable with the vineyards and Fall colors!!!

Back in Germany and more Fall colors - this arch was for the train tracks. It was neat because when you paid the tourist tax at the Hotel (which was very cheap), you also got free public transportation for the Region. It included busses and trains! Definitely a nice benefit for those staying in the area. 

Here was another cute town. I love the traditions of the Kerwah pole (and we weren't even in Bavaria!)

This was our hotel/apartment for the week (Not the entire thing, just a an apartment within it) 

They even had chickens running around next door

And cows near the playground too!!!

One day we went to Germany's Highest Waterfall

It has been very dry here so it was not as impressive as it can be - but still very pretty! (This is just a tiny piece of it - it goes on forever!)

The Black Forest!!

It was so nice just to be out in the woods!

We stopped at this old Mill for lunch one day. It was called the Hexenloch (the Witch's Hole)

And this is the famous Flack Forest Cake!

And the famous Cuckoo Clocks. The kids were all so intrigued by these!!