It has been a LONG time

Hello friends!  I missed you, did you miss me?  So much has been happening in the past month, I had barely time to breathe.  Because you missed me so much, I wrote you a huge post, hope you enjoy it.

Here are some happenings from the past month!

Ludwig had a soccer tournament!  It was a lot of fun watching him and socializing with the fam.  I think I completely embarrassed him by taking a ridiculous amount of pictures.  Here are some highlights.

Check out Ludwig and his crazy goalie skillz!

Father and son

The biggest fan

I also got to meet another Ludwig's cousin, Andrea.  

It was a fun day for all!  Ludwig was completely dead and damaged; now he is taking a little break from soccer.

I also did some crazy blueberry picking.  I love love love blueberries, I have been eating them almost everyday.

You can eat as much as you want while you pick the blueberries and pay only for what you take home.  Not a bad deal!

My main squeeze ;)

I am kinda obsessed with that little tiny spider in the middle.

At the end we collected 7kg, I think.

Rubber boots were a requirement since it was muddy and cool.

I love you THIS much!

mother and son

Also, I think I am unintentionally training for a triathlon.  I am running, biking and swimming, now I just need to find a race, hahahha.  So Monday and Tuesday, Ursula, Ludwig's mom, had a vacation from her job and we together did a pretty awesome bike tour.

Monday
Destination: Schleissheim Palace wiki
Distance: 77km
Swim: Kuh Lake

On the way to the palace we stopped by a lake and had a 25min swim.  I think Bavaria has the best lakes I have ever swam in.  They are clean, for the most part quite, and free!

Step into the cool and refreshing water!

We were basically the only people there!

Here is an awkward picture of me.

Then we got to the palace, but unfortunately it was closed since it was Monday and they were getting ready for a huge party for all the big wigs in the Bavarian government.

Lots of statues and perfectly groomed gardens.

This is my new background

And this is where we had our picnic, not too shabby right ;)

Monday night I was pretty beat but Ludwig's mom probably could have gone another 77km, she is a pretty tough lady.

Tuesday

Destination: Augsburg

Distance: 90km

Swim: some lake

We had very good luck with both our trips, the weather was great and no rain.  Today it has been raining here ALL DAY LONG.  So I hate the cold and the rain, but I love how everything here is green, not brown and yellow like in Colorado and Texas.  I think I am just more used to no change in the weather for months and when things change you are in a different season.  Here the weather changes all the time, and when making weekend plans, the weather is a hot topic, no pun intended. 

This trip was full of adventure!  During the first 10K Ursula got stung by a bee under her eye.  Thanks to my always prepared husband, I had his first aid kit with us which had a remedy for almost everything, including bug bites.  When I was contemplating on taking the FirstAid with us, I was thinking--'if I take it then we will definitely used it, it happens every time'.  I guess I was right.  In any case, I was glad I had it.  

I've been wanting to go to Augsburg for long time now.  It is a very old city actually founded by Romans, blah blah blah, if you are interested you can wiki it.  The city was very interesting, reminded me a bit of Basel, pretty crowded with tourist and very hot.  We hung around a bit and went to the Town Hall and saw the Golden Room.  Then we walked around for a bit, ate ice-cream and then started our journey back home.  

The golden room 

I did not take a lot of pictures in Augsburg mainly because I was already dead and was not really in the mood for snapping photos.  On the way back, we saw a real snake, bunnies, and a lot of naked people at the lake.  Germans LOVE being naked.  The puritan in me is outraged--'you are not animals, put on some clothes!'  I am sure I will get used to it just like I got used to seeing Americans swim with shorts and T-shirts on top of their bathing suits.  Humans are weird.  In any case the swim was perfect, refreshing and rejuvenating after biking for a few hours.  

The rest of the trip was pretty brutal, lots of hills and wind.  Needles to say I was completely dead!  And  today was my first day in a while where I got to catch up with things, like laundry, cleaning, writing emails, writing this ginormous post....hope you are still reading.  

In all honesty I am a bit tired of the typical vacation: big city, hotel, site seeing, eating fatty and expensive food in restaurants, I am all about combining exercise and travel these days.  It is cheaper, healthier and in my opinion a lot more fun.  

Today I also took a really nice bath, did my nails and shaved my legs, ok I get it, tmi.  Well it was a great day!

I took a nice Lemon Balm bubble bath that my husband got for me from his JOB!
His company makes all types of bio-degradable, ecologically friendly,
cleaning products!  And some of those products are bubble baths :)
Great for me since I LOVE anice relaxing bath!  HWR Chemie

You all have a grea rest of the week!