Castle Illumination

The Johnson's had a big bbq dinner with all of their Ramstein friends two Saturdays ago.  We met in Sankt Leon at their place around 10 am.  The guys quickly set off for their 10:36 am tee time and the kids and wives settled in at the Johnson's playing and visiting.  It was amazing that even with 19 kids hanging out that it was relatively calm since they all played so well together.  When the guys returned, we had a yummy  bbq complete with shish kabobs, bruschetta, baked beans, warm artichoke dip, fruit salad, jello and more.

We caravaned over to the castles around 6pm.  This is a yearly tradition in the Heidelberg area.  The town with these four castles is called Neckarsteinach and lies on the Neckar River about 15 km. east of Heidelberg.  This little valley has four castles all visible from the crest of this big meadow.    One is occupied and didn't participate in the show, but it was still a great view.  

 The kids played in this meadow for hours waiting for it to get dark out side.   They ran around this field playing football and chasing the frisbee disc.  They also just hung out talking and laughing and playing with the Bowsers dog: Ellie.

I spent almost all of my time in this here chair since I was on crutches due to a Stress Fracture in my hip that I have apparently been walking and exercising on for 3 months.  That explains all the pain and suffering I have been enduring ughhhhh.  So I started taking random pictures of cute kids.....

Ms. Lucy

Ms. Karley

My littlest precious!

Uh Lisa?  Do I get any donut on my face?

It was a fun night with the Bowsers, Flakes, Johnsons, and Chuggs.

It was getting cold for the little ones so they ended up in the Flakes car playing i phones, and i pads.

The big boys.... waiting for the show.

The show was pretty amazing.  It started up with 3 of the 4 castles glowing to which lots of the kids wondered if they were on fire.  Then the fireworks show started.  It was really good.  Our kids were especially grateful since they missed all Fourth of July celebrations this year and hence hadn't seen fireworks yet this summer.  After the fireworks that lit the sky for over 15 minutes, the 3 castles somehow had a firework waterfall flowing down a side of them.  It looked amazing and was nothing like I had ever seen before.  Afterwards we had a very late night and long drive home.  Not a good mix for 9 am church!