Misc....

About a month ago, Matt and I attended our first ball in the JAG Corps.  Army balls used to be a dime a dozen, but now they are not held so often.  This is our first one in 7 years...granted, we could have gone to one while we were stationed at Fort Iriwn, a couple years ago.  But if you do the math, I was 8 months pregnant with twin boys...not a pretty sight in a Ball gown!  I did not want to BE the ball at the Ball!  So I was very excited to go to this one.  We had a good time, danced a little and enjoyed some good company.  I am still convinced that Matt and I should take some formal dance lessons!

The day after the Ball, we decided to have a look around.  We had already been to the Heidelberg castle and old town, so we decided to drive a few Kilometers out of town and see Schwetzingen Schloss.

  This is a summer palace, but has one of the most beautiful, formal parks in Germany.

I have decided that I want to grow these tree arches in my future back yard.  

 The "boys" on a Saturday morning, fixing all the child locks the "boys" have broken.

 Anya was inducted to the National Honor's Society.

She was pretty excited about this!

 We have been exploring areas near where we live.  About 45 minutes away, there is a cool hiking trail called the Rock labyrinth.  You literally hike through the rocks and boulders they have stacked all throughout the trail.  The kids loved this, they love caves and climbing rocks...so natrually this was a big hit.

 We left our camera at home...so most of these pictures are after thoughts.  It was way cooler then these pictures show, I promise!

 Germany loves it's Italian Gelato.  Here we are sitting outside one of our favorite Eis shops.

 We spent an evening walking around Dresden.

There are some beautiful buildings in this town!

Outside the Crown Gate.  Hannah loved this gate...because of the giant crown on top.

It was a fun city to walk around, but very hard to find decent gelato...which is what we really wanted on this warmer then average spring day!  Still worth the drive out though...even without the good Eis!

Science Club

So, our blog is taking a bit of rest from our travels.  We really haven't been anywhere lately, just recovering and saving for our big trip to England and Scotland later this summer.  I thought I would take some time to update the normal life events.  Things that aren't as exciting as visiting the Alps in Switzerland.  This past year, Anya has participated in science club after school.  She has loved it.  They tie dyed shirts, after mixing their own chemical dying components.  They built hot-air balloons, studied astronomy, woke up at O-dark thirty to watch the Transit of Venus, but the funnest was the bottle rockets.  They each designed and then made their own rockets from plastic bottles.  This took them about a month, as the experimented and fiddled until they had the perfect rocket, that would achieve the most lift.

Here is Anya with one of her Rockets

The girls each got a turn blasting off a rocket, since Anya had made a few different designs.

Even the boys got into the spirit of things...

Getting ready to count down...

What a fun year, and these ladies are fantastic science teachers.  They are so excited about science, enthusiasm radiates from them.  That is what makes an awesome teacher!!

Jack getting in some practice time.

Swiss please...

*****Warning, lots of pictures because I am too lazy to split it into multiple posts*********
 For Memorial Day weekend Matt had another 4 days off work, so we decided to take a quick trip to Switzerland.  My pictures are a little backwards, What you will see first is Hitler's Eagle Nest retreat in Berchtesgaden, Germany.  We stopped there on our way home from Swiss land.  It seemed like a cool thing to do on Memorial Day.  What I knew was that Eagle Nest is perched at the top of this mountain peak, surrounded by other huge mountain peaks in the Austrian/German Alps.  The road is only open from May to October, and in accessible the rest of the year.  What I didn't know was that there are no roads all the way up to the Eagle's Nest.  You take a bus (no private cars allowed) to the parking lot below the Nest, and then you walk into the mountain by way of a long tunnel.  After that daunting walk, you get into an elevator which goes up 124 stories and ends inside the Eagle's Nest  itself.  Hitler sure did not want this retreat snuck up on!

 Here is a view of the Nest with the tunnel access at the bottom

walking along the tunnel.

Anya at the top of the peak behind the Nest.

 Hitler's formal dining room.  Everything in here (besides the tables/chairs and people) is still original.  It is now used as a restaurant.

 As we left the sun came out (again), while we were here...three different storm systems blew in.  This is a parting shot of the "Nest".  You can barely see it, way up there   on the tip of the mountain.

 On our way to Zurich we passed through Reutte Austria.  This is one of three castles you can tour there.  I want to go back now!

 Hannah, sporting her new glasses next to a fountain.  Zurich has hundreds of fountains all through out the city.  All claiming to be good drinking water.  After all Switzerland is known for it's fresh spring water...Evian here we come.

 A view up the river of the sky line of Zurich

The boys in front of Lake Zurich

Luzern, Switzerland

 Luzern in the background with Chapel bridge

 After Luzern we took a drive up through the berner Oberland on our way to Interlaken

 The water in these glacier lakes was incredible.  You could see the bottom even though it was quite deep...that is how crystal clear the water is here.

 How would it be to wake up to this every morning?  I think it would be awesome to have a waterfall in my back yard!

We had a quick trip to Switzerland, it was beautiful and I was glad that we were able to go.