More Fun!!!

After returning from our fun and exciting vacation in France, we needed a little a down time.  We are now recovered and here is what we have been up to since....

Nathan joined a group of German kids about his age to work for three days to build a Lego City.  This project was huge, but they learned that team work makes things fun and they can get a lot more done with more hands working toward the same goal.  This was a really cool project and Nathan and his friend Sebastian rode the train to Germering each day by themselves.  This takes about 30 minutes each way.  Nathan was excited to have this responsibility and freedom to learn to use the train.  Sebastian goes to school in this town and is very familiar with the route and how to go about getting the tickets etc.  He showed  Nathan the ropes and now Nathan will show Charlie and I what to do.  :)

We met some people who are German, but lived in Detroit for the last 4 years.  They only returned to Bavaria last year.  Their son, Magnus, is in Nathan's class at school and helps him with understanding the German language in school.  They invited us for a BBQ at their house last weekend and I have never seen so much food.  We had steak, lamb, chicken, turkey, sausages, potatoes, veggies, corn, salad, cheese, bread, and probably more, but I can't remember after the food coma I was in.  Nathan and Magnus found a HUGE slug and took this picture to prove it.

The next day Nathan and I rode the ferry with our friends, Rosalia, Sebastian and Paul.  Rosalia's husband, Andreas and Charlie rode their bikes to a Biergarten on the other side of the lake and met us.  We took our bikes on the ferry and we all rode home together.  It was 35 km back home and I was riding the beach cruiser.  My butt still hurts, but it was a really beautiful ride.  I told Charlie that I wished I had a helmet cam to record all the beauty we were passing by.

The Biergarten where we met the men had a huge tower for jumping into the lake.  Of course, Nathan was all over that thing.  He didn't want to leave and we had to bribe him with another stop at another Biergarten that has really good cake.  Here is a video of Nathan doing a backflip off of the 5 meter level of tower.  He also jumped off the top one which we think is about 10 meters high.

Here is a picture of some of the beautiful scenery we saw while on the ferry.  These little boat houses are so cute.  I saw a lot of people lounging around on the decks and floating on air mattresses on the lake.  This part of the lake had a lot of lily pads and little fish.  We also saw a swan and some storks.

After swimming and eating lunch at the first Biergarten we all got on our bikes and rode 6.5 km to another Biergarten that is inland from the lake.  This was a very nice place with a playground, a party room and lots of tall trees to make shade.  Oh, did I mention that it was the hottest day of the year at 35 degrees Celsius?  This is about 92 degrees Fahrenheit.  By the time we got to this place, we needed to sit and relax in the shade.  We ate cake and spareribs and had some water and orangenshorle (orange juice mixed with sparkling water).

Nathan tried out the slack line and did pretty well.  He has much better balance than I do.  :)