The Trip...part 1

At the Mirabella Gardens...the fortress is way up in the background.Ben likes!!!

At the fountain with Dad!

The church in Monse

Sorry Ben, Lynda cut off your head, but its a great view!

So pretty!

Doris, Lynda Eric and new wife Rebecca.

Ha ha! I got Grandpa!

Checkmate! Thomas playing Harry Potter chess!

From our hotel room!

Those are mountains!

our view looking over

A kid friendly hotel in Europe!? They DO exist!

Dad in the Salzburg streets...

After the fortress tour!

Kings of the mountain! Coffee anyone? Maggie is wearing baby...the new trend!

inside the fortress

views from up top

beautiful scenery

interesting architecture!

I found monks! I was so psyched! My boys at the fountain!

Denny in Salzburg!

Maggie and Stephan

Mozarts birth house

At Francos!

First off, I just wanted to give a shout out to our friends Amy and Kevin who are going through a tough time. Amy is in the hospital recovering from Guillian Baire Syndrome and her two infant twins are with her twin Jen back in Idaho Falls. We can't sit with her in the hospital nor can we offer babysitting services in Idaho Falls, but we want them to know we are thinking and praying for a speedy recovery!

That being said I wanted to note here that my intention was to actually write while the trip was going on so I could sort of keep a journal for later reference, but that fell through because we were just so busy....then ALL THREE of the kids got sick in Romania....more on that in part 2. So for now, I will just start out with Salzburg...ah, Salzburg!

Dad and Denny arrived on Sunday, we picked them up at the airport, went home to drop off stuff, gave them the grand tour of our German home, then hopped back in the car to go to meet John and Shelley at their place. I was delighted because John and Denny have so much in common when it comes to 80s music and culture. John is an awesome guy from St. Louis, knows everything there is to know about any band from 75-91 (roughly) and always has a beer in hand ready to greet you! While Shelley and I talked about the Twilight Series, they examined his huge collection of music (all cassette tapes). It was just as I had hoped. Then after that we spun around and went to what is now one of my dad and brother's favorite restaurants, Francos! An Italian place that has made its way into our hearts here in Bavaria. We enjoyed the food, wine and good atmosphere, and ofcourse, Grandpa played with his grand daughter. She won his heart with his smile!

After talking most of the night away, we were up and packing to get on the road to Salzburg to meet Maggie and her beau, Stephan. We managed to make it there with no hassle. In my ever expanding German vocab I was able to ask for help to the Dom Platz and find her. Maggie, you look just the same, you never change! You still look gorgeous and happy! We happily met Stephan who was wonderful and speaks great english. Ben was his usual whiny self most of the time and Stephan made a comment that he had never heard a child whine in english before. I found that strange, I had never heard one whine in German before. :)

We looked around the streets, found Mozarts birth house ate lunch and then took in a tour of the fortress a top of Salzburg and you can get a spectacular view. Salzburg means, salt fortress. The boys were very happy as we finally got them some ice cream and they got to ride the tram up to the fortress. We did a tour, Maggie got to help me pack Abby around in the sling, Then we had coffee at the restaurant there and talked! I have missed Mags sooo much. So now she better come visit me! Or else we can go to Salzburg again and meet, because it was just charming.

After a fond farwell to my friends, we continued on to find our hotel. This one I had done alot of research on. The hotel Pension Gerl. A family friendly place included an indoor and outdoor pool, trampoline, swing set and life sized chess board. We are teaching Thomas how to play so he thought that was awesome, besides we saw one at the Dom platz that he was obsessed with!

My cousin Eric and his wife Rebecca and my two aunts Doris and Lynda (Erics mom) showed up about midnight. I was beat so I didn't meet them until morning. But then we went on the Sound of Music tour which I booked on line weeks ago from Panoramo Tours in Salzburg. We got to see some major highlights from one of my favorite films. Hey who doesn't love a film about a singing nun? Anyway, it was wonderful. We got to go into the church where they filmed the wedding scene which actually is in Monse, outside of Salzburg up in the lush green lake area. Let me tell you it had some breath taking views. We got to see the gazebo, the lake where they all fell in the water and the house where they filmed the opening seen in I have Confidence in Me. If you don't know what I am talking about, watch the movie!

I do have to add that I got the answer to the only trivia question they asked on the tour. They wanted to know what mountain Maria was talking about when she was explaining to the Mother Abbess why she was late. Its the Untisberg people! And I got it! So I won a free beer for KC, who unfortuneatly was head on into a cold and was miserable, ofcourse, knocking back beers with Eric until three am didn't help him any! But I enjoyed myself a lot! We got to go to the Mirabella Gardens afterwords, there are wonderful views of the city from all over.

Shortly after the tour we were able to check out of the hotel and return to Heilsbronn to get ready for our trip to Romania!