THE CATES

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!

A BIG Happy Father's Day to all of you Fathers. Especially to my own Father and to my Father-in-Law, both Wonderful Fathers. Also to my husband, Jeremy, the best Father for my kids that I could have asked for. He is such a wonderful Dabo (as the boys like to call him) - in their eyes he can do NO wrong! He always puts his family first and makes sure that the kids and I have everything we need. He works hard to support us and then comes home at night and does laundry and dishes. We take turns putting the boys or Whitney to bed at night. The boys LOVE it when it's their turn for Dabo to put them down. They love having his attention, he makes them feel so special. When he's at work they all (even Whitney) ask about him all the time, because they are thinking about him. He plans the best trips/vacations for us no matter how stressful things are. Thanks for being such a great Father, I love you sweetie.

Speaking of those fun vacations....

We just got back from a fun vacation to Garmisch, Germany which is in the Bavarian Alps - near the Austrian border. We stayed at a beautiful resort. The scenery was breathtaking! The trip was about 5 hours to get there, not too bad, but we still got a little stir crazy from being in the van for so long.

This picture was actually taken in Austria on the drive down. My camera isn't that good so it was frustrating I could capture exactly what we were seeing.

Finally we arrived! The resort is only a few years old. It was built for the US Military and just about everyone there was American... even the workers. So we felt right at home!

Our room - the kids loved that it opened up to a little yard area. It was perfect.

Jeremy told me about a gorge that is a popular tourist attraction. I saw pictures of it and it looked so fun to walk through and I knew the kids would love it. I took the boys while Jeremy stayed at the room with Whitney for a nap. It was only suppose to be a 20 min hike to get through the gorge. So, I get to the place and tell the guy we want to hike in the gorge. He charges me 15 Euro which seemed like a lot for just a little hike, but I pay it. Then he tells me (in German) to get on this cable car that was really, really little and scary looking. We all get in and are completely confused why we need to get in a cable car. The cable car takes about 15-20 min taking us up this HUGE mountain. We are high in the sky and I'm freaking out. Oh yeah, and there isn't ANYONE around!!! We finally see a building and we stop. There is another guy (who only speaks German) at this stop who helps us out of the cable car. After we get out I turn around to ask him where the heck we are and how do we get down, but he has vanished! So... all alone on the top of this mountain the boys and I start walking. lol! It took us 2 hours to get back to our van. We never did see the gorge. :(

In the cable car. I'm sitting across from Connor with our knees touching. Aiden is on my lap.

In the distance you can see that we are eye level with the clouds! OMG!

The walk was beautiful. I had bought ponchos for the gorge because they said you get really wet there. As you can see, we are still wearing the ponchos because I was still thinking that we were going to see the gorge. lol!

My little animal lover! Aiden found a caterpillar. Towards the end of our hike he didn't care if he ever saw another caterpillar, slug, or snail. They were everywhere!

It was kinda weird that we kept seeing these crosses along the way. The boys didn't like them.

They're getting tired of me taking pics. lol!

In the middle of no where we would see these little huts. go figure!

The boys were really excited when we came upon a little fenced in area with some baby goats. I wasn't paying attention but I guess Aiden must have touched the fence at one point because Connor went to try and pet one of the goats and Aiden yelled "NO! Don't touch it Connor! I touched the fence with my forehead and it shocked me!" Now THAT would have been a good picture. Poor little guy!

We heard some really loud bells ringing and couldn't figure out what it was. After we got closer we saw it was a bunch of sheep in the field. We couldn't believe how loud those bells were.

No one tried to touch the fence around these guys! We had so much fun watching them play though.

So when we finally reach the bottom of the mountain I notice this sign posted. It looks like these are all the different paths that we could have taken on this mountain. It is a total miracle that we made it down in one piece without getting lost!

That night we got a babysitter from the resort for the kids. Totally worth it!

Jeremy and I walked to the downtown plaza that is lined with beautiful buildings and restaurants. We decided on this one (Alpinehof), but when we went in we couldn't find anywhere to sit. They don't have hostess at German restaurants that seat you. Jeremy asked one of the waitresses if there was anywhere else to sit. She took us outside and told us to sit at this table with another couple already sitting there. This is a common thing in Germany apparently. It turned out that the couple spoke enough English for us to communicate and we all laughed so hard all night. It was really quite fun.

The next day the boys went to the Adventure Kids Club where they got on a bus that took them all to a reptile zoo, the rode a boat on the river, they fed them lunch and entertained them all day! The boys loved it. Whitney was too little so she went to a little preschool with other kids her age. The teachers said they were all really surprised at how happy she was and she transitioned really well there. Whitney would love to go to a preschool everyday. She is so social!

Jeremy and I had our own Adventures without the kids this day. It was SO wonderful!
We took a bus to a small village and visited a local cheese factory. We saw the cows that made the milk, we saw how they turned the milk into cheese and then we ate A LOT of cheese and yogurt. It was great!

They treat their cows really well here. They actually get a summer "vacation" where they go way up in the mountains somewhere all summer without milking. At the end of the summer they dress them up with flowers and parade them through town. They have a very natural diet which makes the milk, cheese, yogurt, etc... very healthy.

The cheese factory

The village of Ettal. So charming!

After the cheese factory we went to a working Monastery. You can click on the link if you're interested in the history of this Monastery. It was quite incredible. The Monastery itself was beautiful.

I had to take a picture of some real Monks! lol!

After the tour of the Monastery everyone went to buy some beer or Snapps brewed and bottled by the Monks. Here's Jeremy trying to decide what kind of Snapps to try. ha ha!

If you asked the boys what their favorite part of the vacation was it goes in this order:

#3 - the babysitter
#2 - their Adventure Club day without Mom and Dad
#1 - SWIMMING!!! Every day!