Camping Brienz

A couple of weeks ago we went camping in Bernese Oberland with our good friends, the Hiatts. We spend Saturday at Ballenberg, which is an amazing open-air museum. Can I just say that I am a sucker for open-air museum? This one was really amazing with imported chalets from every region in Switzerland and dating back a few hundred year. We really had a blast.
If you wonder what Daniel is doing in this photo, he is being the Heisman trophey.





Evan, keep your head in!
With all the amazing things to see, I think this slug may have been the kids' favorite..




Jonas yelled, "Hey, Donkey! Don't eat the caca, okay?"
The Roundy's were able to meet us in the afternoon. Through some miracle, Daniel actually managed to get control of all six of these kids for about 30 seconds. Definitely picture worthy.


We visited the small chocolate factory at Ballenberg. Jaxon was enthalled watching this machine stir the huge vat of mouth-watering chocolate. I admired with him for a moment, thinking of how delicious it would be to dip some strawberries in that pool of chocolate. I asked Jaxon what he wanted to put in there. "I want to me in there," he replied. "And eat ALL the chocolate!"
Here we are at the campsite. It had a great park for the kids and an unbeatable setting. However, Jaxon's favorite?...
The elephant shower. My favorite? Being able to put all the kids to bed and be able to hang out just with the adults.
The next day we headed over the mountains to visit Lucern. We took a little time out to eat our lunch at this beautiful spot.

Lucern was fabulous and beautiful.





I absolutely loved the building facades.


The Hiatts left that evening from Lucern, and we stayed one more night. We had had the great idea of bringing our fondue pot to make pasta, since we had not yet bought a camping stove. The idea was good, however the pasta was a little soggy since the water never really reached a "rolling" boil.
The boys played in the lake at our campsite. I think I managed to capture to some degree the blue of this alpine lake. It is stunning.

We didn't let the rain keep us from a hike up some waterfalls the next day.



Okay, so this was something I definitely had never seen before: a slug eating a mouse. Gross, but strangly intriguing. Jaxon said, "Wow, that is a fast slug."



It was a great 3-day weekend!

Last trip to Germany...really.

After Salzburg we drove the three hours up the Nuremberg to spend a couple of days there. Of course we had to make one last trip to my favorite zoo in the world.



We had an up-close encounter with a marmot. That was definitely one of the highlights.


I have found myself trying to relive my youth in Germany through Jaxon. This was my very favorite ice cream bar when I used to live in Germany, the Bum Bum. It is bubblegum flavored ice cream with a bubble gum stick. You really have to be a kid to appreciate it, and Jaxon certainly did.
Going to the river with my parents. Maybe I should be asking myself why only my kids are stripped down to their underwear playing in any small body of water so often.
We found a nice little store full of some old junk. It's a miracle it is around.

We stopped in Heidelberg on the way back




The iconic Heidelberg monkey.




I had to get a picture of this before the end our trip. Since we had left for Austria immediately after Daniel had arrived home from work on Tuesday, I was in a rush trying to pack for everybody. Not surprisingly, I forgot I few essentials, including Daniel's casual shoes! He was a good sport, though, and didn't even complain about wearing dress shoes, well, everywhere (to the saltmines, to the zoo, trekking through cities....) He is too nice.

It was a great trip!