Golden October

This fall weekend was picture perfect with the sun shining and temperatures enjoyable to be outdoors. Saturday morning's market shopping trip was successful as we filled our bags to the brim and our hands were carefully balancing the delicate purchases. This week Eric found wild boar brats to be grilled for dinner. The girls had their entire lunch with the little items the vendors gave them along the way: little pretzel rolls, slice of lunchmeat, carrot, tangerine, and a piece of chocolate for dessert.

We drove up to the forest to get some fall pictures of the girls playing in the leaves after lunch. Unfortunately, the leaves have not fallen a great deal in the woods yet, but we did find a pretty pear orchard for our photo session. 

The rows of trees had beautiful colored leaves, so this was our backdrop for the photos. Emmie found a pear still on one of the trees, so from then on the pear became a prop in the pictures. We did manage to get a few nice shots out of 200 plus that Eric took between goofing around and half smiling or one smiling and the other one not.  We then went to the playground to make the most of the beautiful fall day.

In the late afternoon, we hiked up to the meisterturm in the forest with the Wendel family. It was a nice walk with great conversation along the way. The children played while we relaxed enjoying the fall air before we returned home for the evening.

This month on Sunday mornings, Pastor Carsten is incorporating a little bit of every country or region which is represented at ICF in each service. This weekend it was the Americas. To start the morning service, we sang a traditional hymn with the organ and to end the praise portion, we sang, "I'll Fly Away" and "When the Saints Go Marching In". The girls loved dancing to the final songs as the instruments did a fantastic job playing the songs' tunes.

Sunday afternoon, we drove to Hochheim's playground. It is a large playground for the young and old. The tower structure is built on a hill, so the entire play stucture appears even higher in the air as you approach it. Eric went with the girls on the large climbing bridges and tunnels up to the large tower. Once they got in the tower, there was a fast and steep slide. Initially, Adeline did not want to do it anymore, but after she wiped away the tears, she did the slide 4 more times. Emmie did it once and that was enough for her. She enjoyed the long zip line. After monkeying around, the girls went for a bike ride as Eric and I strolled along the surrounding bike paths.