Happy 21st Birthday

Yes it is true, I finally hit the grand age of 21 and am legal to drink. Well I guess technically I was living in Germany and had already been legal since I was 16 or something like that. Of course there was no getting drunk at my birthday party (it was the sabbath for crying out loud, I would never). However we did do something very fun we went to a castle!!! Kevin surprised me the day before my birthday and took me downtown Heidelberg. Annalee dropped us off at the train station and we road it down to the castle. We did some walking down town then headed up for a grand tour of the castle. This castle holds one of the worlds largest kegs (ironic huh for a 21st birthday). After seeing the keg we walked through a pharmacy museum and around the grounds of the castle. The Heidelberg castle is very old originally build in 1412 however it has been burned many times (see the next post) and bombed. Anyways it was beautiful and very relaxing and down town Heidelberg was also very beautiful.

We then headed to the main train station and caught a train (just in time) to Sandhaussan a nearby town with an amazing Italian restaurant called the Bunker. After some yummy pizza and our last cone of Gelato Annalee picked us up.

On my actual birthday thanks to Kevin and Annalee I woke up to a beautiful bouquet of flowers that included Daisy's (my favorite). We then went to church, ate a great taco dinner and of course had some yummy cake. Following the Berg tradition they of course smashed my face in the cake. The girls all thought it was "SO FUN" however as you can see from the pictures Carson was very scared and screamed through the whole process.

Frankfurt Temple

Before we left Germany we made a trip to the Frankfurt Temple. It is small compared to what I am used to but it was still beautiful. They have head sets so that you can hear the session in English which was nice. Afterwards we enjoyed a nice picnic lunch and headed home.

Karlsruhe Zoo

I have wanted to go to a zoo FOREVER and I was finally able to go while in Germany. There is a zoo in Heidelberg where we lived but we heard that the one in Karlsruhe that was about 45 minutes away was much better so once again we took the kids out of school and headed there for a day. The day was full consisted of animals, laughter, "I'm hungry's", lunch by the elephants, ice cream, and ended with a fun little boat ride.

Schwetzingen Gardens

One thing Germany has that America does not is beautiful palaces and gardens everywhere. One of these such places called the Schwetzingen Gardens was about a 10 minute drive from Annalees. So one day we sent the 3 older girls to school packed up the two younger kids and headed to the gardens to take a lovely stroll and feed some fish. It was beautiful!