October 2023

October in photos (with Black Forest trip mixed in):

A belated Golden birthday celebration for Hannah. High tea at the Amstel Hotel, which had been on my list to do for a while! 

High ropes course in the bos with gymnastics friend, Sienna. 

Disney + Rijks museum as part of their 100th celebrations.

Let the year of 10th birthday parties begin! Julian's minecraft party. 

SA + FR + US

4th grade field trip to Jeugdland maker space

This was the first year we were here for the Amsterdam Marathon. It was a rainy, cold day, but we biked over to the Amstel to cheer on a few friends who were running! Jude was a master High-Fiver. One high-five was so intense, it knocked his (Pete's) glove into the race. Pete froggered in and rescued it! 

Pumpkin carving with Myra Mae

The kids had very specific ideas for their Halloween costumes. Jude wanted to be a bag, which took a good bit of planning and engineering. Maeve wanted to be a female Alexander the Great.

Annual trick or treating with the Makers, Nazlawys and Gilberts. Annual walk around the neighborhood in the pouring rain. One of these years, it won't rain for our trick-or-treating, right!?  Jude's costume did not hold up in the rain and proved difficult to walk in so he pivoted for trunk or treat at school and threw together a cowboy costume. 

Bright Halloween rainbow

Herfstvakantie End in Lahr and Heidelberg

We left Waldkirch Saturday morning and started our journey home. We stopped off in Lahr for a few hours to see the Chrysanthemum festival and then made our way to Heidelberg, our last stayover of the trip. 

Goodbye, mountains! 

The Chrysanthemum festival was small, but Lahr was a cute town and some of the flower displays were lovely. It was a festive atmosphere with food stalls and music stages, but we didn't linger too long as we wanted time to explore Heidelberg. 

Cute family pics on the Ferris wheel

A single Crysanthium plant! 

And finally, Heidelberg! I'd visited this university town as a stopover on a solo train journey I took from Koblenz to lake Konstance in the summer of 2005. It was nice to be back with the family. We made it up the church tower just before it closed and enjoyed the views over the town and the river Neckar. We didn't get up to the castle so we'll have to come back! We spent a long time in an amazing Christmas store and then found a trendy burger spot for dinner. 

Goodbye, Germany! 

Europa-Park 2023

We saved the best for last in the Black Forest (in the kids' opinions anyway) and went to Europa Park on our last day. We got there when it opened and left after closing, making the most of fun day. Jude loves rollercoasters and as we learned after a tearful ride, Maeve does not. It took a while to get into a good groove with the kids wanting to do different things. But we found that with a giant lollipop to entertain her, Maeve was happy waiting while Jude was in line for the big rollercoasters. The park has "baby switch" which allows one parent to ride with Jude and then use a special pass to cut the line with the second parent to do it again. So Jude got to ride every big coaster twice in a row. I bet he's hoping Maeve never takes to rollercoasters! There was also a free reservation system through their app and that also let us cut a few lines. 

The park is separated by countries/regions and was very fun to walk around, especially with all of the Halloween decorations. 

We got a beautiful huge rainbow at the start of the day! 

Before realizing she doesn't like rollercoasters.

Dutch teacups in the NL section

A slightly creepier version of Its A Small World

The Blue Lolly that saved the day!

Crazy people going on the ride that gets your really wet in October! 

For lunch, I'd read about this restaurant, FoodLoop, which sounded really cool and it was! We ordered food on a touch screen, the chefs up above made the food, put it into metal containers with lids, and strapped them onto the food conveyor belt/rollercoasters. Food flipped upside down on it's way to the tables. Very entertaining! 

We ended the day on the Arthur ride, which was really fun, and then discovered the whole indoor Arthur section of the park, shutting the place down. 

Glad to have finally made it to this amusement park!