Schwedelbach Germany

 This is our new home in our village!  We love it!  It is so much nicer than what we were gearing ourselves up for.  We are in love with Schwedelbach village.  Its safe and the kids can have so much freedom here.  This is one of the main reasons I wanted to move here.  I will post later about the inside since we are still kind of camping out in it.  Although our first 2000 lbs. of stuff arrived and it does make it feel more like OUR home.  The loner beds, couches, and tables from the Air Force are very functional, but not the most comfortable.  We feel blessed however to have these loner items.

 Jared purchased a new car about two weeks after we got here.  Its a 500 series BMW.  Its used, but just barely.  The previous owner babied this car and it hardly had any miles on it.  It takes the German curvy roads very well according to Jared and handles really nice at 120 on the Autobahn.  Not that he would know:)

 This little field is right kitty corner from the edge of our backyard.  It has some goal posts in it for practicing soccer with all the German neighbors.  Our kids have made fast friends with Max, Leeza, and Paul who live across the street from us and don't speak a lick of English.  (Thankfully their parents do) They play a lot of soccer together.   We have since met more neighbors.  Moritz, Leo, Luka, Ben and Jula (pronounced Yula).  After meeting our German neighbors..... it kind of hit me that we live in a different country.  

This is a close-up of the field.  Behind that goal is path that leads to the outside edge of town where there is another sportsplatz.  This one is finished really nice, is enclosed, and has turf inside.  Its like an outdoor mini indoor soccer pitch if that makes any sense!  They have paths and trails all over around the villages connecting them through the hills.  Bike rides will be common for our family.

Playmobil Park

 To round out our week at the Johnsons, we visited Playmobil Funpark together.  Chris had the Friday off so we all got to go.  Playmobil is a German brand of toys.  Everyone here loves them and they now have 7 new fans!!!  Its so cute and fun to play with.  We couldn't help but purchase some sets to take home with us.  We got the camper, the ski boat, the water airplane, and then let each kid pick a guy to bring home.  What an awesome day!

 When you first enter the park there are a lot of these little life size guys all over for the kids to run by and take pictures with.

 As you can see, our kids waisted no time getting comfortable here

 First stop was this slide and climbing area.  Very different than American style play equipment.  Lots of ropes to walk on with gaping holes to fall through and get hurt on = lots of fun!

 Next stop the pirate boat.  Wow was it fun!  How about walking the plank for real?

 They had these barges that you could pull across the lake

 But these rafts were even more fun.  You just wade around out there with all your fellow rafters  Jared had a lot of fun trying to steer this with all his helpers

This was our first real experience being around a lot of Germans since arriving.  The kids kept trying to talk to us.  Its frustrating not knowing what to say back.... Jared said it made him feel all alone even though we were surrounded by a lot of people.  Lunch time was interesting.  We didn't know any of the names of the food so we did a lot of pointing and smiling.  We learned that they pretty much eat everything with a fork including pizza and french fries.  We have a lot to learn.  The kids got a cute playmobil guy with their lunches.  

 Cole liked the cowboy hat

 Jake loved climbing this while we watched him precariously perched up there.  It was a bit of a nail biter.

 Behind Noah's Ark is this great area to hands on play with the water Playmobil toys.  Our boys could have stayed here the entire time!

The King and Queen watching over there people in the courtyard

I have no idea what this sign says..... but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest its something not good

 The amazing castle

 Love this little dude

Carter let Cole have a turn with the monkey hat in the car!!

Monastery Ruins and Hitler's Ampitheatre

 After Jared joined us in Heidelberg we were ready for an outing of exploring in Germany.  Lisa took us to some ruins that used to be a monastery up in the hills above Heidelberg.  How much fun is jumping, climbing, and running around a bunch of ruins??  For a kid A LOT!  (it better be since we are going to be doing a lot of this over the next three years!!)

 Megan Josh and Cole have become fast little friends.  Cole loves Megan!

 The view of Heidelberg Castle from the ruins

The story goes that Hitler tore down a lot of the Monastery so he could use the bricks to make this giant ampitheatre where he would deliver grand speeches to his followers... not sure that is fact or not

Next we explored these ruins.  The kids ran and ran and climbed everywhere.  The funniest thing happened here.  There was a giant tower to climb in these ruins where I was standing with Jared to take this picture.  While we were up there Jared thought it would be fun to throw the frisbee (the kind with a huge hole in the middle), to  Carter who was down below.  It was headed right to Carter when the wind picked it up and it ended up skimming these models and photographer there doing a professional photo shoot!  It was so funny.  The German guy up on the tower with us was busting up....so Jared quickly pointed to him when the people looked up at us and said "It was him!"  If you look closely up in the corner of this picture you can see the models. 

First family picture in Germany

The very frisbee is in this picture on Ryan's head....The group being themselves....Shortly after this picture, it started to rain so we all headed back to the cars as quickly as we could!

First Week in Germany

Some of our best friends ever moved to Germany a year ago through the Army and live one hour south of where we will be stationed. They were so kind to offer to let the kids and I stay for the first while so Jared could do in processing which took three straight days on base for him. It was the best way to transition to a new country, time zone, climate, and life. We feel so blessed to have them here to ask questions, travel with and mostly just hang out!! We love the Johnson Family and have known them for years. They like to vacation even more than us.... which I know some of my Las Vegas friends will find hard to believe! Thanks Chris and Lisa for being the best host and hostess ever. Who else would say can't wait til you get here and really mean it when 11 kids under 13 are involved?

We took it easy a for a lot of the first week. We were feeling trashed from the time zone thing and then Josh and Cole got a tummy bug for 1 day which made for some long nights or days however you want to look at it.

 First impressions of Germany:  Its very green, there is a lot of agriculture and farming everywhere, there are a lot more flies and bugs than were used to, it rains in the summer at least once or twice a week, and sometimes its really cold, (I had to use a hair dryer on Jake the first morning we were here to get him out of bed and dressed because he was so cold!),

In Germany most people live in villages which vary in size, but have houses closely built together and then lots of countryside and bike paths, and fields between them and the next village.  It makes for a beautiful atmosphere and provides lots of places for kids to walk and explore.  The villages are really very safe so our kids will definitely have more freedom to go be kids.

Of course Carter found a frog on our walk in the fields by the Johnson's house.  I love how mesmerized Luke's eyes are in this photo

Some more first impressions:  People like to walk and ride bikes.  The most common cars are BMW, Opel, Audi, Volkswagon, and Puegots.  They are not all high end vehicles.  These companies make more affordable versions of these cars here.  The driveways are short and so you park right outside your front door.  Germans take driving very serious.  There are lots of right away rules, signs, and laws to learn before they will grant you a driver's license.  

Isn't this the cutest house ever?

There are village parks everywhere.  Germans do not care about California Safety Standards when building their parks.  

Yeah just try to get 11 kids to look all at the same time and smile normally for a picture.  I dare you.

We went to the River Neckar Park which is in downtown Heidelberg close to their house.  They have very interesting play equipment in Germany.  Its unique and every park is a little different.  Its all very fun!

Heidelberg Castle off in the distance