Germany: Movie Park

This is my last post of summer vacation pictures! Can you believe it? I thought I'd never finish. Well we may have overdone it a little with the amusement parks, but we all had such a good time. Our last stop was Movie Park in Germany.

Jimmy was a little cautious at first in jumping but towards the end he was having a blast!

More driving...Glade is just thrilled!

We had such a wonderful summer and feel so blessed that we got to see so many family members...and so many cool places too.

Cologne, Germany

With a few more days left of our vacation, we stopped in Cologne, Germany.
Here's the Cathedral of Cologne (Dom). It is so huge!

This is possibly one of my favorite pictures from the summer...so sweet.

And there you have the Rhine River

This last stop wasn't planned, but when we saw a Lego store we just HAD to stop! I think the adults had almost as much fun as the kids did! We love Legos.

Oh, and how could I forget, we also went to a Gestapo Prison. It was sad but very neat also. Sadly, no pictures of it.

Germany: Fantasialand

We've decided the way to vacation (enjoyably) with kids is to split up the seeing of castles, museums, and the like with a day in an amusement park. So our next one was Fantasialand in Germany. Again, we had lots of fun.

Of course it had a carousel (several, actually).

I don't think I've ever seen somebody take so many pictures as Grandpa. It still makes me laugh thinking of all the things he took pictures of (haha, love ya dad).

Can you believe I let my baby play in the nasty ballpit? She couldn't either...and she loved it!

And here was Jarom's favorite ride...it looks like he's riding it alone...haha!

Luxembourg

Our next stop was Luxembourg. I loved it...SO gorgeous! Above is Jarom in front of the Palace of the Grand Dukes.

It was quite humbling to be in the Luxembourg American cemetary and memorial.

We got to see Patton's grave.

Jimmy found a cute little frog friend...ew, sick!

Look at the cool chimney.

To entertain the boys we gave them a toy catalog and crayon. We told them to circle the toys they wanted. I think it turned into torture rather than fun, haha! Jimmy was sad by the end thinking of all the toys he wanted. Woops!

Such gorgeous views

The Casemates du Bock were pretty cool...lots of stairs though! I was impressed how well the boys handled it with their little legs.

I was also impressed with how well the kids did in the car. We did a lot of driving but thankfully did pretty well to split it up so we weren't in the car for too long at a time. The above picture was taken when we had to take a little stop and let the kids stretch and Myra eat.

Jimmy thought it was so cool that he had his own bed. He didn't even care that it was a play pen! :) The boys loved staying in all the different hotels.

My New Nephew

Glenn and Amber (my brother and his wife) just had their second little baby boy minutes ago!

Kru Conlyn Lovelace

Isn't he just adorable? I love all his blonde hair! Now if I could only hold him. :(

Congrats you guys. I sure love you and miss you all.

Give sweet Kru hugs and kisses for me.

Antwerp, Belgium

We rented a large van so we could all go on a little adventure together. I was just glad I didn't have to drive at all! Major thanks to Grandpa for doing all the driving...what a trooper! We made our first stop in Antwerp, Belgium.
The boys were thrilled to spot Spidey!
Jarom tried to toss Jimmy in the water.
And Jimmy tried to get him back!
Our cool view outside a little restaurant.
My delicious Belgium waffle....Mmmmm, I want another one right now!
Myra loved the waffle too. :)
And we finished it off with a cool castle.

Efteling

I figured it's about time to finish up those vacation posts. We went to Efteling (a Dutch amusement park) with Jarom's parents. I love Efteling! It's so gorgeous, well-kept, and of course lots of fun.

It is focused around storytales...some of which were familiar to me and some not. The one above was a donkey that poops out gold coins, which of course was a HUGE hit with my boys! We saw a girl get hit in the head with a gold poop coin. Don't think this would fly in the states!

A cool talking tree

They even colored the feathers on the birds!

Jimmy & Grandma

The huge teeter-totters were SO much fun! That is until Grandma and Grandpa got on them and we started worrying they were going to hurt themselves and we'd be pushing them in the strollers! They got way too wild. :)

The whole park is covered with gorgeous flowers.

Jimmy went on this boat ride with me last year and hated it. He wanted to try again this year and surprise, surprise...he hated it again! Poor kid.

Myra having fun with Grandpa.

Glade loved driving the car.

...As did Jimmy!

We had such a great time!

Difference #6

#6.

My kids used to fall asleep in the car.
Now they fall asleep in the bike.

As much as I will love having a car again some day, I will miss this bike SO much! It really is lots of fun (when it's not raining or freezing cold).

P.S. Here are links to Difference #5, Difference #4, Difference #3, Difference #2, Difference #1. I should start doing labels on my posts!