Spring, gateway to an adventurous Summer.

We have travelled since this time last year when I posted. Promise. Here's a rundown so that I can get started on our more recent travels!

May of 2011 you would have found us:

Eating Bavarian cuisine(With Oskar in the restaurant with us, so strange!) and drinking beer brewed by monks at the Kloster Kreuzberg. They've been brewing beer there since 1731, and have had a monastery there for a hundred years longer.

[My lunch, Schnitzel, German potato salad, and wine!]

[Camden, Josh, and Oskar hiking up to the top of the "mountain" where we were able to see...More "mountains", not worth the hike honestly, they were just hills. A Washingtonian knows a mountain when she sees one!]

The whole trip to Kreuzberg costed €55, around $70. That included lunch for the two and a half of us, a glass of wine, a big beer, a jug of beer to take home, souvenirs, and a jar of honey. And honestly? For not being a beer drinker, their beer was danged good!

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Drinking wine and admiring cars in Prichsenstadt, a moated somewhat medieval looking town.

We didn't spend more than €20($25) this day, if that. Two glasses of wine, and a snack was all we had. I'm going to pretend like we didn't waste half a tank of gas getting lost. What a strange place for a town! Who would ever find that turn off?

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Danananun Danananun Daannnaanana!!! The circus came to town! (And yes, that is the song they played!) We missed the actual performance, we got to go on training day. It ended up being way cooler than we expected! One thing they also do here is let you go behind the tents and pet the animals! 

Total tally for the day was €30, about $40 or so. We spent €16 on admission, €4 on the charge for going to see the animals, and the rest on snacks!

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Swimming! June was hot, hot, hot! The lake is about fifteen minutes from us, we packed a lunch, and headed out!

The total cost for our awesome family day-getaway was a whopping €0, which roughly estimates out to $0 :) My kind of day!

June 2011 Hoxit sightings:

Frankfurt, just long enough to grab something to eat, walk down the street where the rich shop(D&G, LV, Gucci, etc.), snap a ridiculously cute picture of Camden, grab a few of Josh's friends from the airport, and pay €15 for parking. Frankfurt just has zero appeal to me for some reason. It's like wanting to visit SeaTac, the city, not the airport. Thanks, but no thanks!

Total for the day was around €30, $40, we grabbed McDonalds for lunch, and paid for 

parking, that was it!

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Heidelberger Schlossbeleuchtungen the castle illumination and fireworks show in Heidelberg. Most incredible experience yet in Europe. 

We set out in the afternoon(Nothing I like more than being able to laze around all morning then take forever to get ready!) on our three hour drive. The city of Heidelberg is one the River Neckar. In 40 AD the Romans built a fort there, but even before that, between 600,000 and 200,000; a man died there. Turns out he was the earliest known human to live in Europe. No biggie.   

We started out on the South bank of the city, in the Altstadt, or "Old City". We got to eat Chinese, yay!! 

[View from our seat at dinner]

After dinner we wandered around for awhile, before making our way across a foot bridge, where we got to see the locks in action! 

We made it to the North bank of the city, where it's mostly residential, then acquired ourselves a fantastic spot to watch the show. 

Then we waited, waited some more, waited some more(Geez it gets dark late in the Summer!), then the castle burning started! 

[Fireworks!]

Once the fireworks ended we noticed everyone hightailing it across the bridge, so of course we followed too. Still not sure what the hurry was, but we followed the crowd back to old town, where we instantly started panicking because we couldn't remember where we parked. Then we spotted a Starbucks! Who needs a car when you can have a cup of good Seattle coffee? I'm not a huge Starbucks fan back home, but gosh it was good to see something familiar!

(The interior of Starbucks, which ended up being the inspiration for my living room/dining room :) Who doesn't love purple!?)

Caffeinated we had no problem finding our car! Grand total for our incredible day trip? €80($110), dinner, snack(Crepes), coffee, and parking. Heidelberg was truly magical, one of my favorite cities by far, exactly what I pictured when I thought of a German city! They do the castle illumination and fireworks three times every summer, so we're definitely planning a trip this summer!

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Rothenburg ob der Tauber, one of Germanys famous medieval fortress towns. About 45 minutes from us, and very tourist friendly. We set out in the afternoon, just for a quick trip. The literal translation for Rothenburg ob der Tauber is "Red fortress above the Tauber" but in all honesty I don't remember seeing a river.

Our first stop was the Crime and Punishment museum, which was really macabre, but I enjoyed every minute of it! Filled with terrifying devices from the Middle Ages, like "Shame Masks" and the infamous "Iron Maiden"...

 [As you can see by my reflection, I would be a perfect candidate for the Iron Maiden]

[Witches dunk tank, outside the museum]

After the museum we found ourselves a little hungry(Yeah, I know) so we grabbed a gelato, found a sunny spot to sit, and did a little people watching. 

 [My husband is an incredible photographer.]

[Pictures like this make me so thankful to have had an opportunity to live in Europe, how amazing will it be for Camden to be looking back at pictures of himself in ancient cities?]

We wandered around for a bit more, then made our way to the wall that surrounds the city. We climbed up on of the towers for a birds eye view of the city.

 [Gorgeous signs like this were above many businesses in Rothenburg]

[View of the tower]

[View from the tower]

Rothenburg ob der Tauber was really neat, and I definitely want to go back in the winter while they're having their Christmas market! Museums in Germany are really reasonably priced, I have yet to go to one that costed more than €10 for an entry fee, most only around €5, children under six are almost always free. Our total for the day was €25($35). €4 each for the museum entrance, €2 each for the tower entrance, and our ice creams! 

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

On a side note, at this time last year(June of 2011) Camden's obsession was horses. While in Rothenburg he got this cute little guy, who is still floating around his toy bins somewhere; although after Oskar got to him, he is face-less.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Schweinfurt Volksfest, an annual carnival that lasts about ten days. Kicks of with fireworks, ends with fireworks! Rides, games, food, whats not to love? Also it's directly across the street from our house!

Money spent at the Volksfest is hard to calculate. We went multiple times, sometimes just for an ice cream after dinner, sometimes for dinner, sometimes for rides...Pony rides and kiddie rides were around €3 each, and dinner was normal German cheap(Beer, and main course with a side for around €10).

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Wilhelma, a zoo in Stuttgart, Germany. Originally built in the mid 1800s as a palace it was opened to the public as a botanical garden in 1919. After closing down during WWII, it reopened in 1949, and in 1951, they had an animal exhibit of giraffes, zebras, antelopes, and penguins. WELL, the animals just never left, and they just kept adding animals, elephants, tigers, etc., etc. It's really incredible to be able to see not only animals, and beautiful gardens, but also gorgeous architecture. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. 

 (The hippo was farting. I consider myself a pretty mature person, but who can resist laughing and photographing a hippo farting?)

 [As you can tell by Joshs beard, he was on leave!]

Admission to the zoo was only €12 per adult. We also had a snack(When don't we?) and Camden found a little friend to adopt, we spent around €60, $75.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Ok, a little time out from travels. As you can tell, we had a ton of time to travel in June, and Josh was hairy. Which pretty much in the military life equates to him being on leave. Which is almost always directly related to a deployment. Sadly enough on the 5th of July, 2011 he deployed to Afghanistan. 

Late June/early July we squeezed in a few things that we considered important, un-missable milestones in Camdens life. The first was potty training. Luckily easy for us, at 19 months, after just two weeks, Camden was completely potty trained, even at night! That led to ridiculously cute pictures such as:

 And:

[Pit stop on the side of the autobahn]

Potty training also led to some other, less adorable things, that I will refrain from posting pictures of. I'll just let you use your imagination. 

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

We also decided to switch Camden from his crib, to a toddler bed. Which Josh made :) He's so manly! We roughly used this tutorial(Build Two Toddler Beds for $75) and it was perfect! We got the fabric, and bedrails from IKEA. 

July we said goodbye.

We got to celebrate the 4th of July together:

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

And on the 5th of July we had to say goodbye.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

The rest of July was spent mostly moping about in our PJs, and picnicking at our favorite local park. They call it the Wildpark, and its a game park, they have a swimming place for the kids, a petting zoo, and lots of animals. Admission is free, but they have incredible shortcake cookies that you just can't pass up.

Well, that pretty much sums up our Spring/Summer of 2011. August and the Fall of 2011 Camden and I found ourselves many adventures. But they definitely all deserve their very own blog entries, so stay tuned!