Family Photos and other news

Finally! We got a family portrait done!! Can you believe it, after all these years!? haha! Family, you'll be getting your copies soon ;). We got a lot of different poses. They actually gave us one extra, we got one of Elizabeth on her own since we already have the boys' school pictures by themselves from last year.

So here you go, here's your sample.... the real ones will be in the mail. Hopefully soon :)

(I think this one of the boys is my favorite)

(Elizabeth doing her cabbage patch impression)

(unfortunately I have to say this one is my least favorite, but meh, guess it could be worse)

(the munchkins all together)

(I love this one!!)

(I actually, believe it or not, like this picture)

We start school on Monday (the 17th)!!! I've been scrambling this week trying to get all the loose ends and planning put together! This should be a fun adventure for us! I cant say the boys are overly thrilled with the idea of starting school. They want summer to last "forever", they said the other night. Me, on the otherhand, I'm grateful everyday that God has given us the opportunity to be able to homeschool. These are such precious years!

I'll keep you all updated on how things are going through the year, what we're studying, etc. This week, basically, will just be getting familiar with everything and what we need to do. You know, normal first week of school stuff. :)

Well I should get to bed! It's late and we have church in the morning. It's so hot and muggy tonight, I'm not exactly looking forward to going upstairs. I know, our mere 80 degrees isnt anything to the weather a lot of you are having this year but muggy is muggy, no matter how you look at it... especially when your A/C is an open window and a fan. HAHA!

Elizabeth Dances

I caught Elizabeth doing this today. She starts her music and then dances away... so cute!!!

Elizabeth sits up today!

You may have already seen these videos on Facebook, but incase you havent or arent a Facebookee, here they are!

Elizabeth turned 7months today, and she has decided that sitting up is her new thing to do! :)(hope this works)

PS dont mind the messy living room. The boys and Dennis did their "boy's night" sleep over thing and I havent picked up the blankets from the floor. They're just so comfy to lay on vs the hard wood floor!!

Fairy Tale Gardens

Oh! I'm so excited to show you guys these pictures!! We went to the Fairy Tale gardens up in Ludwigsburg this week. We had so much fun and it was much bigger and better than we expected!



There's a giant palace up in Ludwigsburg- just 30mins north of us here. On the palace grounds, there are many gardens, one of them is the Fairy Tale Gardens. We expected just to see a bunch of flowers with a sculpture of Alice in Wonderland here and Snow white there... spend an hour, get some lunch and go home. BOY! were we pleasantly surprised that this was so much more!


The grounds were giant! We had to walk quite a bit to get to the area where the Fairy tale gardens actually were. This was pretty neat, there were a bunch of funny sculptures lined up amoungst the flowers.



When we finally made it to our destination, this is what we saw!!



If I understood it correctly (everything was in German of course), this was Goliath rising up out of the castle. You had to knock on the door and he would rise up saying something that we couldnt understand LOL. The boys thought it was fun to run away.



This park was so fun! Pretty much everything was interactive. This donkey below, you put in a few Euro cent and he spit a golden chocolate coin out his mouth!



The boys opening their treasure :)


This, below, was the old witch's house from Hanzel and Gretel. You rang the doorbell and the window would open and she would peep out. HAHA!



Of course, Little Red Riding hood and the wolf!



Here the boys were being forced to smile infront of a story telling of SnowWhite and RoseRed.



OH OH OH!! You must see this!!! This is Rapunzel's tower... notice her golden lock hanging over the side for her prince to climb up. Amazingly, you shout up to the tower, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down you hair!" (or really, just shout real loud LOL) and the hair ACTUALLY comes down!! HAHA! We got a kick out of that!!


Another view of the tower to show you how big it was!


They had little rides to go on too. This was a little boat ride story the boys went on. At one point they went through the fish's belly from Pinoccio's adventure.


Here was another, You shout at the cave door "Open Sesame!"and the door opened to reveal the treasure!



Of course, a trip is not a trip unless there is a playground involved. LOL!!



OH! and there's Ella!! I cant wait to go back when she is a little older so she can play too! She had a good time watching her brothers run around though :)


OH!! Random picture here. I saw this house as we were coming into Ludwigsburg. I didnt get a good picture of it because the light had turned green just as I got the camera out. This house (the white one with the orange roof) looked almost exactly like the house from Alice in Wonderland to me. HAHA! You know, the one that is the white rabbit's house, where she eats the food and grows REALLY big! Eh, maybe it was just me. ;)

LegoLand Deutschland

(disclaimer: this is going to be HIGHLY picture intensive)

Dennis had the day off Friday so we decided to take the day and go to LegoLand here. The Germans were all still at work and kids still in school so there were nearly no lines to all the rides. And Praise God! He held off the rain and t-storms while we were there so we were able to enjoy ourselves.

Here we go!!

The boys standing near the lego entrance waiting to go in. They were SO excited!

They had these Lego sculptures all over the place. Completely made of lego and so funny!!

We even caught a few trying to sneak in without paying.

In the center of the park was Lego City. They had complete cities replicated in lego. It was really amazing!

This is the same building as the picture above. Look at all the details, we think that's supposed to be Obama and the German Chancellor. Notice the new reporters and Polizei sectioning the street off.

This was an itty bitty statue, just maybe a foot tall... look at that detail!

This was supposed to be Lucerne, Switzerland.... I wanna go!!

Dad, I took this one just for you.

They had a complete airport, one of the planes was cut in half so you could see the passengers inside.

OK! on to the rides!! The first ride of the day. Ryan and Dennis spun around on a train.

Then the boys rode horses as knights defending the kingdom!

They also took a safari ride through the jungle. I think they were louder than the animals though.

As well as a scenic canoe ride.

I dont think they wanted this one to end.

We dressed the boys in their bathing suits, in case they might get wet. We had NO IDEA!!

They had an all out water play area!! They had SUCH a great time.. got SOAKED

Check this thing out though! It was called a Menschen Trockener (human dryer). Pop in 2euro and it dryed the boys off with forced hot air. We got a kick out of that!

Another large lego statue, this one squirted water out at you as you passed by! (a lot of water spraying things in this park haha)

They had a lot of children's play park areas too. This one was actually one of the smaller ones. They boys loved these! A very family friendly park!

Peek a boo Ryan!

There's Seany!!

Ryan was the brave one on all the rides. He saw this one right away and said, "I wanna go!"
You cant see them very well, but if you look in the middle of the boat, see the red shirt, that's them. haha! (my camera was no good for this)

Look at this!!! Ryan's first roller coaster ride. We had to buy the souvenir picture!! his face is classic!! He loved it though!!

We went on to Pirate's cove and they rode a boat where you could spray water cannons at people and the other boats as you passed by. They also had cannons lined up for the spectators to use as well. Check out the naked lego man to the left in the picture there. HAHA!!!

Funny Pirate band playing music as you wait. (see how soaked the boys are!)

Oh yes! And Elizabeth was there too! She had a good time watching all the kids run around! :)

We were beat when we got home. It was a great day of fun.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July so we're praying the weather holds out again so we can enjoy the festivities on base and maybe some fireworks too. :)

Good night!