Weekend Fun!!

On Friday we headed to some great friends, Petra and Kai and their two children.  It was supposed to take 2 hours on good roads.  Well it started to snow and kept snowing and snowing and snowing.  But us being from the east side of WA we know how to drive in snow, so we got on the road at 3:30 with beautiful white snow falling all around us!  Well about an hour and a half into the drive we came to a complete stop, and I mean complete.  It felt like we were back on Snoqualmie or Stevens Pass when it was really bad.  So we inched forward and David told me to wake him when we moved again.  I totally thought he was joking, but he wasn't, he was really tired and fell asleep.  So at that point we switched sides so he could take a better nap.  We went less than 2 miles in an hour.  When we finally made it to what was slowing us down, I stopped counting at 24 semi-trucks either stopped or jack-knifed.  There was no police anywhere and I am guessing they stayed there until they could get moving again.  So instead of getting there in 2 hours it was 5 and a half.  But we got there and bless their hearts they waited to have dinner with us and it was a GREAT German meal!!!  On Sunday we woke up to beautiful blue skies and fresh snow.  After breakfast we got all the kids in snow gear, and us in our boots and headed out for a hike in the woods with some sledding.  The boys LOVED it and so did we!!  It was so quiet and serene!!  Snow touching all the trees, and falling off onto David too!!  It was truly a winter wonderland!!!

 

Heading down the first hill - all smiles

 

Giving AJ a big push - he looks a little wary

 

You can barely see but in the distance there are two yellow knights.  Nobody knows why there were put there, so they actually put an add in the newspaper asking if anyone knew why.  They were there to scare away the wild pigs, so David nicknamed them Scarepigs

 

Michael doing his snow angel

 

AJ right after he did his snow angel and right before he was attacked with snow!

 

The view on the way up to the ruined castle

 

AJ was hiding behind the tree to throw a snowball at David ;-)

 

This is a castle that was first used by the Romans as a lookout/base to watch the German's to make sure they didn't come over the fence.  I think it was back in 400 AD.   Then a guy built a Castle on top of the ruins in 900 AD who was illegally taxing people as they would caravan through the valley.  The people found out and decided to rise up against him and tear it down.  This is now all that is left of it.

 

Where did AJ go?  I was worried it might go all the way through and Michael wanted to stand on it.  They are on top of the wall of the castle and it is a long way down with lots of debris around the bottom

 

The beautiful trees with their dusting of snow!!  I missed this!

 

The three boys were planning on having a snowball fight with the parents and they told us they got the high grounds on top of the ruins and we had to take the low grounds.....

 

Well David fought back and was getting them pretty good.  It wasn't good packing snow, so it was more throwing all that you could get.

 

Then we walked back to their house had some hot chocolate and chatted.  We went to the Christmas Market in Bann.  Bann was originally the capital of Germany, at least Western Germany.  It was a beautiful market, but really, really cold.  It was -6 C.  The kids stayed home which I think was good because all we would have heard was complaints of how cold they were, so it was great to browse at all of the booths.  We found a few things there.  It was really different than the last two that we went to.  It was really big and right in the middle of downtown that had tons of shopping, luckily they drove because my van would not have fit in the parking garage.

 

This is something different than anything we have seen before - they are cooking salmon and had it put on all sorts of things.  It looked really good. 

 

One end of the market

 

We had to have our Gluwhein!!  It was yummy!! David had a cherry one and Petra and I had an apple white one!  I haven't tried that one before, but I will have it again if I can find it!!!

 

The other side of the market - it was really pretty

 

On Sunday we took off a bit early because the storm clouds were coming in and we didn't want another 5 1/2 hour ride home.  We also were trying to make it home for AJ's scout meeting, but it was canceled because of all of the snow.  But with such good snow, the boys and I decided to make a snow man.  It was THE BEST packing snow!!!  So we made a big snowman, so big our snow hats wouldn't fit, so it became a Viking snow man!!!

 

 

 

Luckily I had a big carrot in my fridge!!  We improvised on the eyes and mouth, but still cute.

 

David had to get his oil changed while we were making the snowman, but he made it back in time for the big snowball fight!!  The boys were having a great time throwing snowballs and then it was wrestling time!!  They all had a wonderful afternoon!!  And of course we had to have hot chocolate afterwards!!!  All in all it was a FANTASTIC weekend!!!