Birthday Girl

I had a wonderful birthday. We decided to go on a Rhine river day cruise and see some castles in the famous Rhine valley. It was a great day!

Marksburg castle

Beer and bratwurts on the cruise with our friends Rob and Heather

Marksburg castle in the background

On your birthday, you get to ride the boat free!~ Another perk!

Rheinfels castle....it use to be the largest castle on the Rhine back in the day (hundreds and hundreds of years ago)

the trolley train to take us to Rheinfels

another castle (don't know the name of this one)

When we got to Rheinfels castle they had lots of kiddie games that day. The kids got to play a few of them while we were there.

the Rhine valley is also know for its wonderful wines. They have vineyards everywhere......grapes were even growing on sides of buildings

The Rhine river

Playing with our friends....

The last few days we have been doing playdates with Dylan and his family. They are leaving Germany next week and the kids will be very sad to see him go, but we are enjoying as much time with him while they are still here. Dylan was in Mallory's Preschool class this year and his Dad and Billy worked together.

Summer swimming....

The kiddie pool is bigger than our whole apartment!

diving for rings........I bought her some diving rings a few days ago and she loves it!

VBS

Both of them had a blast at VBS this year. This was their first year to go since last year we were moving and couldn't fit it in our schedule. Our community had 20 volunteers from a Virginia church, who came over here to organize our much needed chapel. It was so nice of them to prepare our VBS for a year and come all this way to help our children. Here's some pictures of the last day parent's picnic.

Family days......

Relaxing at the park

A stork decided to visit us while we were relaxing.

The fish in the lake greet every boat when you go by

Now it is time to play in the water

Daddy needs to get wet too