The past few weeks

OK, so there have been many things going on these last few weeks and I just haven't sat down and wrote about them but I suppose late is better than never.

Friday February 11th
We picked the boys up early from school and headed toward Freiberg, about three hours away, for a trip to the temple.  We planned to meet up with some friends in Zwickau at a car museum.  They also have three boys and we figured it would be a nice halfway stopping point for our trip...boys like cars, right?  Well after two hours in the car what boys really like is to RUN and we were asked more than once by the security guards at the museum to please keep our boys under control.  I think they had fun though.  The museum had a race car game they could play as well as a "build your own car" computer game that they enjoyed.  After the museum we headed to McDonalds for dinner where they were once again extremely wild but I figured that was OK at McDonalds.  We got to Freiberg and we played some games with our friends, the Platt family and then headed to bed.

 Julian at the car museum, he wasn't too happy to be strapped in his stroller so we let him run around with his brothers after a while

 Townsend and Emerson playing the race car game at the museum

The boys found the coat lockers at the museum...what can I say?

Saturday February 12th
Hyrum and I attended a session at the temple while the Platts watched our kids and then we switched so they could also attend a session.  After the temple we had lunch at our favorite Doner Kebab restaurant in Freiberg and then we went to the swimming pool.  A fun time was had by all, especially the three 7 year olds who could go down the water slide all by themselves and they enjoyed a bit of freedom at the pool.  The trip home was wonderful because the boys had exhausted themselves at the pool and so slept most of the way home.  Hyrum and I had the rare opportunity to listen to a podcast that was actually interesting for adults, instead of listening to the audio for a childrens movie that was playing in the back seats:)

 Freiberg Germany Temple

Monday February 14th

Happy Valentines Day!  The boys were sent to school with a whole bag full of treats to pass out to their friends and they returned home with boxes stuffed to the brim with treats.  When did Valentines Day start involving more candy than Halloween?   Hyrum had taken the day off work so we could spend some time together.  We put Julian in daycare for a few hours and enjoyed a nice salad at Hotel Bohm here in Grafenwoehr for lunch.  It is so nice to sit at a table in a restaurant and talk quietly together about our day and not have to worry about crying kids or boys crawling around under the table.  Hyrum made me a fabulous dinner with my two favorite foods, broccoli and sweet potatoes! 

This is a photo of the boys Valentine boxes after they had already eaten about half the candy, I wish I would have thought to grab the camera sooner...those boxes were overflowing!

Flowers from Hyrum

The yummy dinner Hyrum made.  Stir fried broccoli with chicken and spiced sweet potatoes with yogurt dressing.

Saturday February 19th

Our Stake held a fasching party for all the primary kids in the Stake.  My calling is in the Stake primary presidency so I was heavily involved in the planning for this activity.  Last year about 30 children came to the party so we planned on about 40 children for this year.  Well, more than 80 children came!!!  Poor Hyrum was sent to the grocery store to buy more food and treats for the children.  I believe the party was a success.  The kids played games and enjoyed some yummy German sausages and krapfen (German donuts).  Unfortunately Townsend wasn't feeling too great that day and Julian was just a little scared of all the noise going on around him, so that made it a little harder to be in charge of all the activities that I was supposed to run.  Overall I came away feeling like it was a success, even though it was really crazy!

Can you tell Townsend doesn't feel great?  I was so busy running around I forgot to take any pictures so thank you Tera for sending me this photo!

Monday February 21st

The boys were home from school and Hyrum had the day off work because of Presidents Day.  We wanted to do something fun together but little Townsend still wasn't feeling well (it turns out he had pneumonia!)  We decided to go for a short walk around the Felsen Labyrinth.  The boys and I had been there a few times but Hyrum had never gone so we thought it would be a fun little trip.  We hadn't planned on there being so much snow on the trail so we were all just wearing our shoes instead of boots.  Poor Townsend couldn't really breathe very well so I ended up carrying him most of the way.  Everyone was pretty cold even though the sun was shining.  Needless to say, our hike was very short BUT we did enjoy the short time we got to spend outside in the fresh air.

Emerson broke this icicle off one of the rock outcroppings.  It was the clearest and smoothest icicle I have ever seen.

At one point Hyrum was carrying both Townsend and Julian!  What a great Dad:)

You can see the sun was shining and it was a beautiful clear day but we had to turn around before we reached the top.  I'm sure the view from the top would have been amazing.  We will definitely come back this summer!