The kids are enjoying the freedom of summer! There isn't a lot to do besides go into the city center, so they're actually getting a lot of reading done! They are super excited to go back home for a few weeks to be around friends! Ashton graduated from Kindergarten this week. His teacher loved him and his knowledge about bugs and all creatures!
On Thursday for our mutual activity the young women planned an activity where we all prepared lip syncs. Emilee and Spencer did a duet to the Spice Girl's, "Tell me what you want!". It was classic seeing Spencer lip sync as a girl. They did a great job and won 3rd place in the competition. You can watch the video if you click on the pictures at the bottom of the page.
Jacob and I did the Jimmy Fallon and Brad Pitt yodeling skit. We changed the words and held them up in both French and English so everyone could understand. It was pretty tough yodeling in two languages! The favorite line was when I told Jacob congrats on the 9 second solve. Recently he finished a Rubik's cube in 9 seconds. Pretty impressive! The yodeling took first place so we got a box of Oreo cookies! Yes!
The venus fly trap bloomed!
Friday night we had a party at our house for all of the teenagers in the ward. They had a blast playing games and then finished it off playing some futsal in our local commune futsal court. There is a good core set of kids here and we're glad the kids have a good time with them.
The next morning we got up at 5:30 am and headed off to Frankfurt to see Kim's parents. They are serving a 2-year Mormon mission in Frankfurt and got there 2 weeks ago. It was great to see them again as it has been about 7 months since we left. They looked good and doing great. They train the 29 church auditors in the western Europe area. They'll do most of the training via webex, but they should get to travel to Poland, Spain and the UK.
They live in a small apartment just a couple minutes away from the Frankfurt temple. We walked down through the small town and got German apple strudel again. It is delicious stuff!
On the way out of their apartment we immediately noticed that they have the exact same car as us, even down the the color. It is the smaller size, but other than that it is exactly the same thing. We were joking that it would be funny if it had the same scratches. We walked around the car and were surprised to see that there are scratches in EXACTLY the same places as our car. The previous missionaries look to have had the same problems getting in and out of tight places, the same as Kim.
From there we drove to Rüdesheim Germany. It is a beautiful little town on the Rhine River that is famous for shopping, wine making and the Niederwalddenkmal monument that celebrates the unification of Germany back in the late 1800's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niederwalddenkmal
We shopped, had a nice meal and took the chair lift up to the monument. It was very warm and we were super glad that we didn't have to hike up the hill. The chair lift was interesting because it takes you over fields and fields of grapes. We later found out that it takes a pound to a pound and a half of grapes to make wine. Up and down the Rhine valley there are tons and tons of grapes, so I'm sure they make a ton of wine in the Rhine valley.
From Rudesheim we said goodbye to Kim's parents and drove down the Rhine. It was fun seeing all of the impressive castles, barges, grapes, etc. as we drove down the Rhine. There were literally castles around every turn of the river. We looked it up later and they used to charged you a toll to go past their castle. Nice.
At Koblenz we took a bridge over the Rhine and headed towards Luxembourg. You gotta love the Autobahn. We went the fastest we've ever driven in Germany at 190 km/hr. It was nice to get home at around 8:00 pm. It was so hot we basically laid down on the couches and waited for it to cool down a bit before going to bed.
By the way, Kim has fallen in love with the European tradition of putting red flowers in your windows. She's got big plans for next summer for our house in Highland!
Today, Spencer had to talk in church. He did a great job. I think it was the first time that neither Kim nor I helped him. We had a nice relaxing Sunday and enjoyed talking to the Cahoons over Google+. What a cool tool!
This week we are looking forward to hosting the Averett's. Kim's cousin that is currently living in Saudi Arabia will be visiting the last part of this week. Then we head to Paris for a day to pick up Emilee's friend Tori. She's flying out for the week before we go home. We're super excited to have her here and show her around this part of Europe.
Week 30 Pictures
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