39 Years Young

Another year has come & gone.  I swear time flies as you get older.  I'm officially 39 years young now.

I had a wonderful birthdya weekend in Rothenburg & LEGOland & then just chilled on my actual birthday.  My friend Nancy sent me some fun clothes & shoes for my birthday.

Cari & Justin found the most amazing Evil Queen gift set for me.  I love it.  It has an Evil Queen pez dispenser, an Evil Queen lip gloss, & a beautiful Evil Queen eyeshadow palette.  SO MUCH FUN.

My mom & dad sent me some Mickey Mouse cookie cutters, a Disney World cookbook (YUM), & a fun little hair scrunchie that makes my hair go up in a bun super cute.

For breakfast we had some German yogurt & Trek found a fun johannasbeeren tart that was delicious.

For lunch, Trek drove me 30 minutes away to my favorite fast food place on one of the bases here.  They make amazing baked potatoes with LOTS of yummy toppings.  It's my favorite.

And for my birthday cake we had German Schnitte which is my all time favorite German cake. It's a light angel food cake with cream in the middle & fruit with gelatin on top.  I love them all.  For my birthday I got 2 slices, on strawberry (erdbeer) & one raspberry (himbeer).

The highlight of my day was riding my bike on the beautiful trails here & finding a "you pick" flower garden.  You pick whatever flowers you can find & then put some money in the little coin box when you're done. I picked this beautiful boquet for under 3 Euro.

Then the 11-13 year old girls from church surprised me with a "heart attack" on my front door.  They were hiding & jumped out with flowers, chocolates, & letters.  I love these girls so much. I just got "released" from my calling in our church (in our church you switch out "jobs" regularly to give you well rounded experience in all areas & my time with the girls is coming to a close which makes me sad.  I've SO loved doing weekly activities with them & teaching them in Sunday School.), & it was nice to be able to get a little closure with them.  They're the best.

It was a wonderful birthday.  39 years down, MANY MANY more to go.

Life's an adventure.  Live it to it's fullest.

LEGOland Deutschland

After our wonderful breakfast in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, we hopped in the van & drove an hour an a half to LEGOland Deutschland!

We didn't know there was a LEGOland in Germany & were very excited to know how close it was to Rothenburg.  The kids were SO excited.

I was really impressed at how concerned LEGOland was for the safety of their guests.  We had to purchase our tickets online & only a set number of people were allowed in the park at a given time which meant it wasn't very busy AT ALL.

Some rides were closed because there was no way to ensure that there would be no germ spread or distance on them & we were okay with that.  I think there were only 3 or 4 that we saw that weren't running which actually isn't bad at all.  All the other rides had lines with 2 meters of space between each family.  They were very diligent at making guests keep that distance in line.  Everyone had to wear masks in line & on rides & there were hand sanitation stations at the beginning, middle, & as you got on each ride.  You also had to sanitize your hands as soon as you got off each ride.  I was SUPER surprised when I saw the employees sterilizing the rides after each use.  Every single time someone got off a ride, they's spray & wipe down the ride top to bottom.  It took some time which made the lines a little longer, but I was grateful they were taking SO many precautions with COVID.  It made me feel a little safer.

The kids loved it.  They had roller coasters, kid rides, shops, food stands, & more.  They were in heaven.

Our favorite "ride" in the park was the fire relay race.  In teams of 4, you run to a fire truck made out of legos, pump the pump in the centre to make the firetruck go forward on a rail, then put on the brakes when you reach the building.  Once you get to the building, you run out of the firetruck & pump the water through the hose & put out the fire in the building.  Once the fire was out, you jump back in your truck & pump/race your way back to the finish line.  SO FUN.  We had a head start at first, but the boys totally beat us in the end.

The Lego City here was all famous European buildings.  It was beautiful.  People are SO talented to figure out how to build these things with LEGO.  I loved Cochem Castle the most.  It's my favorite in real life too.

The boys had fun learning to SPIN like LEGO Ninjago.

I think the kids' favourite "land" was the Egyptian land.

While the big kids rode the scary roller coaster, I took Craiger & Canyon to ride the knights horses.  They were super cute.

One of the kids' favorite rides of the day was the water ride.  It was very similar to Splash Mountain & the kids loved it.  I was proud of Craiger & Taya for going on it with us.  They were super scared, but ended up having a blast.  I was laughing SO hard because while we were standing in line, we got a glimpse of the drop at the end of the ride & Craiger exclaimed "Whoa!  Look at that ride.  I'd never get on that one!" He didn't realize THAT was the ride we were in line for.  He figured it out pretty fast when I started laughing & he cried a little bit, but put on his brave face & ended up LOVING the ride.

Another fun ride was a cute pedal car ride where you pedal yourselves across the top of legoland.  My kids LOVED this one.  I let Canyon & Taya do all the pedaling for us & they loved it.

There was a cute little hot air balloon ride.  The girls didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the boys did.  They treated it like the teacup ride a Disney & Trek got off ready to puke.  ha ha ha.

It was a really fun day.  I'm glad we decided to go.  The park was open from 10-6 which was absolutely perfect.  We left at 6 & still got home by 9pm.  It was a perfect getaway weekend.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

For my birthday, Trek asked me where I wanted to go.  We FINALLY got the okay from his office to travel further than 100 miles from our house.  My answer:

Rothenburg ob der Tauber!

It is & always will be my favorite city in Europe.  It's only 2 1/2 hours from where we live which makes it even better.  We packed up early & drove into the city so we'd have the whole day there.  We checked into our 400 year old hotel (which was used as a tannery in the early 1600's) & then ventured out on an adventure.  We decided to show the kids the outer wall of the city first.

Rothenburg is special because it's one of the only surviving medieval cities in Europe.  The wall around the city was built in 1300 & some of the building within that wall are dated as early as 980.  CRAZY right?  Rothenburg was a rich city for years with huge homes with extensive properties.  Then in the 1600's they were hit with the plague & with the 30 years war where 40% of the city was destroyed.  All that remained was the part inside the wall.  After the war the city was poor & couldn't afford to rebuild it's once thriving city.  It sat untouched for over 350 years which means now in 2020, the city still remains in it's medieval majesty.  It's rare to find a city untouched like this.  It's BEAUTIFUL.

The outer wall is just as beautiful as the city itself.  It towers around the entire altstadt (old city) & it's fun to just walk around & see it all.

After we walked all the way around the city (2 miles), we went inside & started looking at the inner part of the city.  We found a nice park where we sat & ate a picnic lunch & took pictures of the city all around us.

There are so many beautiful old buildings in Rothenburg.  They are all unique & have been kept up beautifully.

The gardens are spectacular & they have flowers, shrubery, & trees growing everywhere, even on houses & buildings within the city walls.

After walking for several hours, we stopped back at our sweet little hotel to settle down & rest our feet before dinner.  Our hotel was 400 years old.  The rooms were adorable, the beds AMAZING, & the view outstanding.

The hotel has the most beautiful back patio area where you can sit & eat foods from the bakery.  It lies right against the city wall & the flowers grow everywhere.  It's looks like something straight out of a fairy tale.

After resting a little bit, we ventured further into the old city admiring the churches & buildings all around us.  It's just gorgeous.

The most famous place in Rothenburg is the Plönlein.  It's a funny crooked yellow timbered house with 2 of the city gates on either side of it.  It's the most popular place to take a picture in all of Germany.

Rothenburg is also known for it's schneeballen (snowballs).  I'm not sure what they are exactly, but their some sort of pastry dough that is fried (like a funnel cake shaped like a snowball) & rolled in chocolate or nutella or cinnamon.  They are SO delicious.

For dinner we found a lovely German restaurant that had the most amazing schnitzel & spätzle ever.  The kids loved their schnitzel nuggets & brats.

On the way back to the hotel, Craiger bought me a cute little chocolate high heeled shoe for my birthday.  It was the sweetest thing ever.

While I was getting the boys rested, Trek & Cadence ran outside the gate to get some pictures of the old bridge leading to the city.

After the food had settled, we were rested, & ready to explore more, we made it back to the city center for the night watchman tour.

This guy has been leading this tour for over 35 years.  He does English tours on Fridays & Saturdays at 8:00 & German tours on weeknights.  He's hilarious & a wonderful storyteller.

After the tour, the boys had a special night out where they walked along the city wall to watch the sunset.  It was a great bonding time for them.  I stayed back with the girls & we chatted & watched movies in the hotel room.

The next morning we woke up & our hotel served us the most delicious European style breakfast ever.  We had scrambled eggs, sausage & bacon, yogurt, cereal, every kind of bread imaginable with meats & cheeses, fruit, & fresh squeezed juice.  It was heaven.

It was an absolutely spectacular way to spend 24 hours on vacation.  I wouldn't have traded it for the world.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.  My family, history, Germany, beauty. . . I feel so blessed.