Days 5-6 Untersberg - Austria

I know... too many pictures on this post... but we really had a good time & I just had to share....

On our way between Salzburg & Berchtesgaden.. we stopped in the town of Gartenau to take the cable car up to the top of UNTERSBERG---




Check out the stream... its this color because of all of the minerals...

1776 m to the station on top... WOW

(I don't normally have a fear of heights... but found myself wondering what I would do if the cable snapped...YIKES)

both of my children have a "thing" about collecting rocks from where ever we go.... Oh yes... mommy carried this little gem all of the way home...

There is a peak on this Mt. which reaches over

19oo m.

Bjørn & I decided against going to the top... (sheer laziness-) but Dane wanted to go...

I, of course said NO...

but was out voted by the boys... Dane made the trek alone with my camera.

(the reason I have no pictures of him on the top)






But he took this one of us from the top ... What a little trooper he was.. he is always amazing me... WOW

(do I look fat in this picture?)

View from the top... the white river...

The Griswolds on tour....

View from the top... We made it.. Yea!

What's up?! Need ideas

Full speed over here...

Baby boy is at AMERICAN Camp in Oslo... & having a BLAST.. I hope he remembers to take loads & loads of pictures ...

This is the first time to be away from us (not counting grandparents) & seems to be doing welll....

Birthday planning is ON...

Eva's 5th birthday is next MONDAY...

When did she get soo big?

Guess what kid of b-day party we are going to have?

Monday is also our our wedding anniversary... & I am CLUELESS...what to do?

I hate to blow it off A G A I N.... But kindda impossible to go out - when it is also your kids b-day----

Neither of us want or NEED anything.... So what to do? Any cute ideas or suggestions...

Blog Hop... Favorite Kids Photo...

I found this today...
the weekly Blog HOP... HOW FUN!





This week is my favorite kids photo...

I love this photo of Dane in Paris last week, for sooo many reasons...

1.) I LOVE the BERET... I love that he wore the Beret the entire time we were in PARIS eventhough we didn't see anyone else in the city wearing one....


(we both love the movie European Vacation, & I joked about getting us all berets...I didn't know he was serious... )

2.) I love him just soaking in everything about PARIS.

3.) & I love that he LOVED Paris... can't wait to take him back

Click here to enter your link in the blog hop and view the entire list of entered links...

Day 5 Berchtesgaden, Germany - the Eagles Nest

After leaving Berlin we decided to drive straight to Berchtesgaden....due to the rain we ended up stopping a before we got there & stayed in a hotel.... not what we had planned, but still...NICE.. we had made it BAVARIA... (I will state this over & over... I LOVE Germany...& really love BAVARIA...)

First stop when we arrived in Berchtesgaden was The Kehlsteinhaus (known in English as the Eagles Nest). The house was commissioned for Hitlers 50th birthday and took 13 months to build. It lies on the tip of a mountain (the Kehlstein), 1834m above sea level and is one of the most popular attractions in southern Germany.

The entrance into the mountian leading up to the Eagles Nest...

Dane was in absolute AWE...
the view...the history...

After climbing up to the top we went back to the historic building which houses a restaurant serving traditional Bavarian food.... for hot chocolate & good German beer for mommy & daddy..

(Have I mentioned my love for German Beer?)

This is the only picture I have of the little princess in front of the Eagles Nest....

We bounced between Berchtesgaden & Salzburg for the next couple of days.... We ended up going back to the Documentation Center Obersalzberg (below the Eagles Nest)

it opened in 1999 to explain the role of the area in the Nazi regime. Unfortunately, virtually all the information is in German only, although the photos and videos are graphic. English audio guides are available.
Of more interest is the bunker complex that was constructed to protect the leadership during air raids. A vast complex of tunnels gave access to the outlying properties.

HEY a big ol' shout out to the COLLINS family from Laredo, Texas... thanks for keeping it classy!

Nothing screams UGLY AMERICAN like writing all over the walls of a museum.... :)

I will post more pictures of our trip to Berchtesgaden tomorrow

I ♥ Faces - at the beach....

Wow...have I missed playing along with I ♥ Faces... nice to be back.

This weeks theme is "at the beach"..

I had the same problem I have almost every week...Which picture to choose?

We live 5 min. from the beach so we spend A LOT of time there.... I have a ton of pictures of the kids in matching outfits... posed on the beach...but I keep coming back to this one as being my favorite....

I love Eva in her mask... sand on her chin & her little baby belly.... this is just sooo Eva.... I also liked the kids on the diving board behind her....

(as you can see our beach is a bit different than most of the beaches you see in the US.... where we live, our beach consists of sandy little coves nesteled in the rocks....)

Head on over to I Heart Faces, & see who else is playing! Are you playing yet? if not...WHY NOT? Sooo many neat bloggers who WOW me every week...get on over there...go on ...

Day 3-4 Tropical Island Berlin

So on to days 3-4

about 60 KM south of Berlin is this little GEM...

TROPICAl ISLAND ... My pictures just don't do it justice... it is an old Zepplin hanger which has been converted into "Tropical Islands" Warm water... white sandy beaches... special roof so that you can still get a tan while you are inside... spa's, shops...restaurants & nightly entertainment...

Tropical Island is HUGE.
High enough to fit the statue of liberty & long enough for the eiffel tower lying down.
We were so early in the season that is wasn't crowded... & another cool thing... it is opened 24 hours a day! ...the first day we managed to hang in there until about 11 pm. the kids were in & out of the water for almost 13 hours...& STILL weren't ready to say good night.






We camped here right outside of the "hanger"... (the TiPi pictures in my previous post are from Tropical islands...) - our "tipi" looked pretty small next too them...but I thought it was a funny shot after I made such a big deal out of having to sleep in a "tipi"





(to give you an idea of how massive this place is, the balloon <---- is carrying people up into the top of the dome.)

Tropical Islands also has a full Rain forest.




Without doing a full on PR spot for Tropical Islands, I would HIGHLY reccommend it if you are in the Berlin area... or anywhere in the frozen north... The camp gound was CLEAN..FRIENDLY, HELPFUL. & a pretty good value. If you stay at Tropical you get 2 days park passes for the price of one...

it was a great start to the family vacation.... We left beautiful SUNNY/WARM Berlin area for RAINY/ WET..BAVERIA....

Home again home again..Where to start? DAY 1

I have been writing my blog -in - my- head- for the past two weeks.... but when it comes down to it...eek...where do I start?
Break it down day by day?-- a list of do's & don'ts or just lots & lots of pictures?

OK--- Let me just start by saying I am sooo very proud of myself & my non camping family.... WE MADE IT.

We actually camped 10 out of the 14 days away... I had a blast... & except for being cold...(FREEZING my tail off... I loved it.) The camping grounds we found, by pure LUCK were awesome... the ones in Northern Germany were the best... & I would do it all again.

What I learned this trip.... We are NOT ready to sign up for a stint on the "Amazing RACE"..
-although I am sure we would make for some pretty fun/pathetic TV. We would lose on the first leg...

My children ROCK!

We CAN live without TV/Cell Phones/Internet for 2 weeks.

traveling with your family...children..husband is NOT the same as backpacking with your girlfriends when you were in college...

I planned WAY too much for us to do. Bjørn & I figured our pretty early on, I had tried to stuff way too much into our 2 weeks away.

NEXT time... we will pick a destination & take our time. The moving camp almost every day wore us all out....


Lets start with the TI PI.... You know I was a bit worried about sticking out with our TI PI... (Norwegian LAVAA...) turns out there was nothing to worry about...



no one even noticed....













Seems Tipis are all the RAGE this year!







Day 1....

Took off EARLY & drove through Sweden & Denmark....

Made really good time... Bjørn & I had our first argument over the "other" woman... the GPS - who would end up dictating our trip MOST OF THE way... We made it into Germany early evening & LUCKED out with an AWESOME campground..

CLEAN.. friendly... playground & a BIERGARDEN... what more can you ask for... Dane made some nice German friends ...

First stop BERLIN... We managed to see Checkpoint Charlie, the remains of the wall & Brandenburg Gate... I had my first & BEST schnitzel of the trip.

After about 5 hours of walking around the city we took off to go to TROPICAL ISLAND... which is about 60 km south of Berlin.

We had an AWESOME time in Berlin.... what I would do different NEXT time....

print out a city map. Park the car by a metro & get a day pass.... use the public transport to get to all of the sites....

by the time we found everything the kids were WORN out... ok... so were Bjørn & I...

8 -14 - 25

8 the number of countries we went through
14 the number of days it took
25 the loads of laundry I have before I go back to work tomorrow...

I will start posting pictures ASAP...

We had a B LA ST!

Guten Morgen! Greetings from Germany/Austria

Hey yall!

I thought I would be able to write more often... but unable to get an internet connection. I have loads & loads of pictures I will bore you all with when we get home....

I am LOVING this whole camping thing... REALLY... WAY different then camping when I was a kid...

We started the trip in Berlin... 2 days in Tropical Island.. & decided to high tail it down to Austria last night so we could really enjoy our time in the Alps... Bad move....

Can you say R A I N... & lots of it. We stayed in a hotel last night... because the thought of trying to dry everything out was not appealing...

Checked the forcast & looks like rain for the next few days...bummer... so the question now is do we tough it out or head on over to the French Rivera?..... We will have to decide something this afternoon...

I so wish I could post pictures of the kidlets... they are having a B L A ST... both have made German Friends.. & are trying their best to learn a little German.

Oh & the TIPI not soo bad... I thought we might stick out like a sore thumb, but my oh my...
we got nothing on some of these professional campers... WOW..

I will write when I can... wish us luck & sunny skies... I am off to have a yummy breakfast & teach my babies to yodel!