The Red Folder

Ethan's daily folder had a BIG rip in it and I had been promising him all week that we would go to the BX on Saturday and get him a new one.  We were super busy on Saturday with basketball and it slipped my mind.  I promised that we would go Sunday.  On the way to church that is all he talked about.  After church, he wanted to go straight there.  We had lunch first and then hit the BX.  He pulled out the bin of folders and went through each color thoughtfully!  RED!  

He talked about that folder all the way home.   He was very excited to move the old papers over to the new folder.  We called Mar last night to chat and that was the first thing he told her!  I GOT A NEW FOLDER!  This morning at the bus stop, he told Ms. Shana, "I got a new folder!"  I am glad that he still gets excited about the little things!  A new red folder!!! 

Basketball Finale

After four basketball games this weekend, the season is over!  Yes, I put an exclamation point on that!   

 Ethan's team had a quick party after the last game.  Lincoln has his party on Monday night.  

After Monday, we have a one month break until baseball!  

100 Day of School Party

 Lincoln's Kindergarten tries to have a themed center day every few months.  They invite the parents and the kids complete different activities related to a theme.  This month was the 100th day of school!  

 I had to get a picture of this stinker with Ms. Hall.  She is the one that spoils him constantly.  

As I took the picture he says, "This will make the blog!"  

 

 This was my favorite activity.  They made a picture of what they would look like at 100!

Here he is all geared up in his 100 day crafts!

Bowling

Ethan's class has been taking monthly trips over to the bowling alley to practice their math skills.  Mr. Woodfork turns the screens with the scores off and the kids have to add their scores up.  After two trips to the bowling alley, I still have not figured out how to keep score when they get a spare or a strike.  I realized this time that the kids have actually gotten better with their bowling; therefore, getting more spares and strikes.  I found myself telling them to STOP BOWLING SO WELL!!!!

Maniac!

 He came off the bus yesterday saying, "I got a one but I don't know how!"  It was accompanied with a note asking what I fed him for breakfast!  She said he was all hyped up and silly!

Maybe he ate too much snow last weekend!

King's Castles

Sunday night, we drove about an hour north to Fussen, Germany and stayed at a hotel near Neuschwanstein castle.  

 We had a tour scheduled for the following morning, but we had to drive and get a peak of the castle at night.  It was breathtaking!Castle Hohenschwangau is across the "street."  It was also gorgeous at night.

 As we got closer to our hotel we noticed this castle which is called the Gothic High Castle of Fussen.  This is the view from our hotel room.  Gorgeous!!!

After breakfast, we took a horse drawn carriage to the top of the Neuschwanstein.  It sounds more romantic than it was.  It was really, really, really cold and it saved us about 30 minutes of walking up hill in the cold!

 

The castle was so pretty!  

 We waited outside and took a lot of pictures before our tour started.

I think their toes and fingers were completely frozen by now!Once again, the castle said no photographs.  

We were at the back of a HUGE tour of people, so I snuck quite a few pictures.

While we were listening to the audio tour in this room, BOTH boys turned and said, "WOW there are 600 candles in the chandeliers!"  They had such a good time on the tour. 

This was a view from one of the upstairs rooms.  

 As we left the castle, we saw the kitchen.  I think it was ok for me to take pictures here.  :)

We were a little warmer and it was downhill, so we took the scenic trail down to the town.  

Here is the Hohenschwangau Castle that we took pictures of last night.  We still had a big drive back home so we are saving this castle for the next time we come back.  

We all agreed that we are definitely going back!!! 

This shot was taken as we left the cute little town!  

Day on the Mountain

 I feel like I am commercial for Edelweiss, but we would stay there again just for the breakfast!  All you can eat AMERICAN buffet.  American being the key word.  I have to say that I am not a fan of the European breakfast.  I think it's the cold cuts.  I don't like cold cuts for breakfast.  The fellas chowed down every morning.  Yesterday, Ethan had three plates full.  Today, Lincoln had two plate fulls and three bowls of oranges.  He needed that breakfast to keep him going today!

 After our hearty breakfast we took a gondola up to the top of the Zugspitz (highest point in Germany). The fog and snow made it basically a white out for us.  In fact, I had no clue how this picture was going to turn out.  I just clicked!  

 This was another blind shot.  I just stuck my camera off the ledge and clicked.  You could not see this with the naked eye.  The fog and wind and snow made it too hard to see anything!  

We are really high up!

We had super high hopes to make it to the sledding slope and just sled all day there.  However, the only way you could sled was using their T-bar and their tiny sled.  The guy wouldn't even rent it to us because he said the boys were too little.  So, we ate lunch on top of the mountain and then saw a little hill we could sled down.  The problem was it took you right into a massive crowd of people who were getting ready to eat at the restaurant.  We tried it once to say that we did some sledding on the Zugspitz.  

Then we took the gondola back down.  On the way up, we waited in line for over an hour.  Once we we made it to the gondola we were packed in there like sardines.  I have such bad crowd claustrophobia that I almost passed out on the way up the mountain.  So, we made sure that we were first in the gondola on the way down so that I could stand by the window.  I got some really pretty pictures on the way down.  On the way up, all I could see were the jackets of the 30 people crowded around me!  MUCH better on the way down! 

 We headed back over to the sledding hill at Olympic Village that we went to yesterday. 

 Poor Nate carried all three sleds up about a million times!

 Lincoln became quite the daredevil, so Nate started going up with him.  I had to climb about half way to help Ethan.  He went down really fast one time and never got the courage to go up very far again.  The hill was SOOO steep and slippery that he couldn't get on the sled without sliding down.  

I had to sit to hold the sled for him.  

 Once he went down, I had to slide down on my bottom!

 The boys took a few runs together!

 I wish this picture had sound!!!!  We sledded for about an hour and a half and Nate and I had to drag them to the car.  It was 5:00 and they were still wanting more!  

We used so much energy today!  We all were excited about REAL hamburgers at Edelweiss!  We have not had a real hamburger (McDonalds doesn't count) in EIGHT months!  They were delicious and just what we needed after our busy day on the mountain!

Tomorrow we are heading to the famous Neuschwanstein castle!

Dinner in Garmisch

 Nate and Ryan made it back from skiing just in time to head to our Bavarian dinner.  

We got to see some cool German dancing.  

Dogs are welcomed EVERYWHERE in Germany.  

This dude came in with his gigantic dog and wanted a table.  

 This cute little German boy was all about posing for my pictures.  

He brought his hat around for some money and then posed for me!

As we left the restaurant it was snowing!  

When we got back to the hotel, they were getting ready to set off fireworks for President's Day!  We really, really, enjoyed our stay at Edelweiss! 

 I am sure we can find another reason to head back here again!

Garmisch

 Nate and Ryan headed to Switzerland to ski, so the boys and I joined Erica for some winter fun!

 Our first stop was Linderhof Palace.  

No photos were allowed, so we just got some of the beautiful scenery!

 This place was gorgeous!!!

 Erica and I got a picture in between the snowball fight that the boys were determined to have!

 Stinky Jones was so slow!

 After the Palace, we headed to Olympic Village and played in the snow.

 We told Lincoln that we were going to make him go to the top and sled down!

 We had another snowball fight!

 Then the boys sledded down on their bellies, and backs, and bottoms for a while.  We left the sled in the car that Nate took!

We caught this guy eating snow.  Thankfully, it wasn't the yellow snow!

Tomorrow we are sledding all day!