Neuschwanstein Castle

We spent a Saturday going to visit this castle--Neuschwanstein.   It's the castle that Disney patterned it's Cinderella castle after.  (And according to a tour guide that we met Disney pays a hefty amount each year for rights.  These castles bring in so much money!!!)  Some of the pictures are just of the view from the castle--which was incredible.  Some are great shots of the castle from a bridge that you can hike to.  You're not allowed to take pictures inside, so I don't have any of the inside.  Anyway, it was spectacular!

 And you have to finish off each outing like this with ICE CREAM!

We're home!

We are home, happy and safe in our comfortable home.  : )  The quick version of our trip home was that the boys were great and the 10 hour flight honestly seemed to pass rather quickly.  

SO, now I want to continue to share some of our trip with the pictures that were still on my camera. (However, that was also broken during the last two weeks of the trip.  Yep, not good luck with the technology.)

These pictures are just on a morning outing during the week.  I took the boys to a historical area downtown and to the English Garden--large, beautiful park in the center of Munich.

 This man was playing "Memory" on the cello and it was BEAUTIFUL!!!  I literally stood there with the boys and just cried.  I LOVED this moment.  : )

To be continued.....

Our laptop was dropped and now the internal hard drive is not working.  SOOOO, all of my pictures are on there.  I'm REALLY hoping that it can be salvaged once we get home.  In the meantime, this is David's laptop and we're not allowed to upload pictures on it.   We get home in a little over a week, and I'll get to work on posting more pictures as soon as I can. 
We are still having a good time and I'm anxious to post about our weekend trip to Salzburg and to the incredible Neuschwanstein Castle.   It's the castle that Disney has used as a pattern for it's Cinderella castle. 
During the week the boys and I go to parks, explore a little bit, do laundry and groceries, ocassionally have an outing with friends that we've made at church and get naptime in during the afternoon. There's a quick update.  : ) 

Happy Preston

Friendly Hunter

And here is Hunter with his new German friend.  ; )  They really did play well together, although I know in this picture it just looks like he's hoarding the toys.  : )

Olympic Park

So, as I've mentioned previously, the summer Olympics were held here in 1972.  This is a view of the Olympic Park.  The tall needle building is a restaurant that rotates 360 degrees every hour.  You can also just pay to go up in there and have a beautiful view of the city.  The buildings below are a stadium, an event center, and the olympic swim building.  David, Benjamin and Hunter actually went swimming there yesterday, how cool is that?  I didn't get good pictures, though, because the kids pool was in an area that I couldn't get to without admission--Preston and I strolled around the park instead. (I forgot my swimming suit, or we would have joined in the fun.) 

 There is a hill in the park that you can climb to have a great view.  It's much larger than you can tell in this picture, and was built from WWII rubble.  David challenged Benjamin to run to the top and Hunter to walk all the way and they could have a treat.  They did it!  Anything for a treat, right?

 Love this picture!

 Water balls!  We're going to have to let Benjamin do this before we leave.

 Track that we have fun watching people practice on.  

Benjamin

So every day the boys I go on walks in the Olympic Park.  Here are some fun Benjamin pictures I've taken, the other two boys are often taking a nice ride in the stroller, so that's why I have these Benjamin pictures.

One enormous snail!

Benjamin has been inspired to work on his moves by all of the athleticism around us.

Is there anything that could make me feel like a luckier mom than this sweet boy bringing me a flower?

 Benjamin is ALL boy and lover of climbing trees.

 Lego shark at the aquarium in the Olympic Park-we got a pass so it's been a nice place to explore.

 AND the best thing I did was buy legos for Benjamin.  It's our main activity while Hunter and Preston take an afternoon nap.

I can't believe this boy will start kindergarten when we get back!  He's ready, though, and so excited.

Nymphemburg Castle

Our first full Saturday here we ventured to a castle that is not too far from where we live.  Nymphemburg Palace is a Baroque palace in Munich. The palace was the main summer residence of the rulers of Bavaria from the late 1600's into the mid 1800's.

 A view from a balcony in the back of the palace, the picture doesn't do it much justice-it was big adn beautiful and there are trails to walk on all around in those trees.  Some of those kings were hunting people and they would go out into the forests to hunt.

 The ceiling in the great hall--very ornate and the ceiling in the whole room was painted.

 One of the bedrooms--being in the palace made me wonder so much about the people that lived there and what their lives were like.

Interesting--this room was called the "hall of beauties."  One of the rulers had several-over 60 I think-portraits of women who he felt portrayed great beauty.  Some of the women were "commoners", some were royalty.

This is the room where Ludwig II was born, a ruler in Bavaria who was the "classic fairytale prince".  Truth is, though, I am learning that he lived a rather eccentric, sad life.  Anyway, many of the incredible castles in Bavaria were built under his reign and he nearly bankrupted the country to build them.  However, he's forgiven now because they bring in a LOT of tourist money today.  : )

After exploring the castle we stopped at a bakery (they're everywhere) and got a ring of bread that we broke into chunks to eat for lunch.  : )