Everyone laying out in front of our chalet we are staying at. We had a Sunday "devotional" as we weren't up in time to go to church. The weather was perfect and was sunny and warm, but not too hot.

All loaded up in the car ready to go see some sites for the day.

We went to Hohewerfen Castle and they had a birds of prey demonstration which the kids and myself really liked.

Hohenwerfen Castle was pretty neat. Especially the arms display and the birds of prey demonstrations. The castle was used in the old film "Where Eagles Dare" which we watched before we came.

Ashley wasn't feeling too well, so only Brad, Megan, Ian, and Brecken went with me up to the castle, and Kindra, Ashley and Mitzi slept in the car in the shade in the parking lot. The kids really liked Hohenwerfern Castle.
6-6-10 Sunday
Late start. We were going to go to church, but got a pretty late start as I think everyone was pretty tired. While we were waiting, I laid out in the sun in one of the deck chairs they had. As we missed church we had a little devotional on the deck at the chalet. As it was almost 3pm by the time everyone was up, showered, had lunch, and ready to go, we decided to just go see something close by. We went to Hohewerfen Castle which is only about 10 minutes up the road. This is where the older WWII movie Where Eagles Dare was filmed. We had seen the movie before we went, and so it was neat to see where some of the scenes from the movie were filmed. When we got there Mitzi and Ashley weren’t feeling too good, so Kindra stayed in the car with them. I figured they’d all probably just have a good nap. When we first got to the castle, they had a falconry show and it was pretty cool. They brought out an owl, several falcons, a couple hawks, a couple eagles, and a couple vultures. One of the giant vultures landed right next to Ian and think scared him half to death. After the falconry show we went up to the main part of the castle and toured a display of old weapons. Brad especially loved this as he has a thing with swords, crossbows, and things like that. He asked to borrow my camera and I think took a picture of every sword, knife, and halberd in the display. As we got out, they were having a sword fight in the castle court. They had some stalls set up around the castle court, and in one of them they had a bow you could shoot. Ian hit the target (which was quite small) 2 out of the 3 shots he took. We had a bit to eat at the castle, then rode the lift back down to the parking lot and went back to the chalet for the night.

The kids before we left our place in Germany playing with the baby ducks and the kids in Germany.

All of us on top of the Zugspitz on the border between Germany and Austria.

At the bottom of the Zugspitz they had a playground and a trrack with these fun "cars" that you pedalled. The kids had fun racing on the track.

On our way to the place we were staying in Austria we found a place with an alpine slide and the kids wanted to go for a ride.

6-5-10 Saturday
Early easy ride, then drive to Zugspitz, then on to Austria. Woke up to again perfect weather with clear skies and went on a great easy ride. Got everything cleaned up and packed into the car and ready to move on to Austria. The people who’s farmhouse we were staying at, their kids brought out some baby ducks and Mitzi had a great time with the baby ducks. Finally with the weather good and heading to Austria we decided to do the Zugspitz on our way. The Zugspits is the highest mountain in Germany and is right on the German/Austrian border. You can go up one way from Germany or the other way from Austria. Although I was planning on going up the German way, we ended up on the Austrian side, so we took the tram up to the top. It wisks you from the valley floor up to the top of the mountain in about 10 minutes. It’s pretty vertical and an amazing ride. When we got to the top everyone was hungry so we had lunch at their panoramic restaurant at the top. It looks out over a glacier that looks like they were still skiing on. The observation deck looks down on the valleys in Germany and Austria, has an amazing view of a lake, and then is surrounded by the Alps. It really wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be at the top, although there was still tons of snow. The Austrian side at the top seemed very organized and formal, then as I went over to where the German side was, there were a bunch of tables, and everyone was drinking beer, and eating pretzels and sausages. Brecken I guess is a little scared of heights and the ride up and on top she was a little freaked out. There were some gliders flying around and the views of the Alps were amazing. After the ride back down there was a little playground with a track with little pedal cars and trikes. The kids had fun racing around the track. Then it was on to Austria to try and find where we were staying. So far things have gone very smoothly except for the technology end of things, and I thought I was pretty prepared for that. My phone hasn’t worked, and we haven’t had any internet. I’ve been able to hit 2 internet cafes to check my emails. The place we were staying at in Austria had sent a couple emails. One with a map, and the other with her phone number and asked us to call when we were getting close and they’d meet us in town and take us up to the chalet we were staying at. I hadn’t written her number down, and as we were coming into Salzburg I decided to try and find an internet café to try and get her number to call her. I couldn’t find one, we grabbed a bite a McDonald’s and decided to just try and find the place thinking they might be there waiting for us. Surprisingly we found the place just from my memory of the map, and the pictures we had of the place from the internet. I say surprisingly, because it is actually about a ¼ mile up a very steep dirt road off the main road. I think we had a little help from upstairs finding the place, as it was getting later. The keys were under the front mat. The chalet we are staying at is pretty amazing. It has some old doors on the inside that are from the middle ages with hand formed hinges. One of them is painted, you can tell it’s extremely old, and has the date 1627 painted on it. Although the chalet itself is probably fairly old, it’s had a lot of updating and the insides are very nicely updated and comfortable.
Hello, or Hallo in german from Kindra, I have done better here than I thought I would. In fact people must think I am german because I have had 2 people come up to me and ask me directions – in german! I had to say “I sprechen sie English” and then they smiled and said something in german and walked off. I think these people have never seen one couple with so many kids! We get a lot of looks and counting- J. I have thoroughly enjoyed this trip , even the teenagers,

Beautiful ride. It was actually very sunny most of the ride. The roads were fantastic. I rode to Austria and back. Great ride.

The kids really enjoyed the swings, teeter-totter, and goats at the place we were staying in Southern Germany.

We really enjoyed staying at the place we did in Southern Germany.

Brecken, Ian, and I ate at the famous Hoffbrauhaus, while the rest ate at the Hard Rock Cafe across the street. I'm glad we choose the Hoffbauhaus. The food was great, and the atmosphere was all Germany.

The stein in this window was almost as tall as Ian.

6-4-10 Friday
Great Ride, finally sunny & Munich. Went on a great ride this morning. It was finally sunny. I rode to Austria and back. It was only just under 40 miles total and took a little more than 2 hours. There isn’t much flat road around here, and it’s hard starting the ride, as you coast down the hill, don’t get a chance to warm up at all, and have to climb up about a 10% grade for about ¼ mile. I had to stop and keep taking pictures as it was so beautiful. I feel like I’ve died and gone to cycling heaven. No stop lights, very little traffic, beautiful scenery, and no big trucks that red-necks gun as they blow past you with 6” to spare. Every day I try and take a different route, and stumble across some little village a cluster of chalets, or a farmer taking his cows across the street.
The farmhouse we are staying at has a swing set, and teeter toter in front and the kids were playing as we waiting to leave. We’ve kind of settled into a bit of a routine. Typically I got for a ride in the morning, when I get back, hopefully some of the kids have had showers and are getting ready. We finally leave the house about noon if we are lucky. But I find that after going out for a few hours to see things they kids have had about all they can take for the day, so we head home for dinner. Today we went to Munich. It was a little over an hour’s drive, but then took a little while to find a place to park. It was pretty busy and felt like there were a ton of people there. I found this company that does free city tours in Munich, London, 3 different tours in Rome, Paris, and Amsterdam. We decided to give it a try. They make their money primarily on tips and then selling the other tours that they do. For instance they do a tour to Neuschwanstein castle. The tour we did had about 50 people total on it, although we made up 8 of that group. We told them we might not make it the full 3 hour tour. It was very interesting, and taking the tour gave us a lot of insight into the sights we were seeing and made them much more exciting. He told about how Hitler started his “revolution” in Munich, but then was arrested and sent to prison for treason. Seeing the sights and being told a lot more of the storey brought out a lot of the history. Towards the end of the tour the kids were getting really hungry, so at the Hofbrauhaus we decided to ditch the tour. Kindra didn’t like the idea of eating at the Hofbrauhaus as she thought it would just be a rowdy drinking hall with a bunch of drunks. Munich is kind of known for it’s drinking and partying. This wasn’t helped by the fact that a group of very drunk guys probably in their 20’s staggered in front of us and 2 of them basically passed out in front of us, and the rest of the group were just making fun of them. Kindra decided to go eat at the Hard Rock café across the street from the Hofbauhaus, and everyone decided to join her except for Brecken, Ian, and me. We went to the Hofbrauhaus, and I’m glad we did. True a lot of the people there were drinking, but there were also a lot of families, it was pretty noisy with lots of atmosphere, and the food we had was great. I had a pork knuckle with dumplings, Brecken had a kind of mushroom soup with mushroom dumplings, and Ian had a plate with different sausages on it, then we all had apple studel for dessert. There was a band playing, the food was great, and the atmosphere seemed very authentic. Lots of fun.

Although Mitzi's small, she's still pretty heavy to carry around when she falls asleep or wants to be held. Here Brecken's helping out by carrying her for a minute.

Neuschwanstein is the famous castle of southern Germany, but Fussen, only about 5 miles from Neuschwansein has a castle as well that has great views of the city, and an art collection. It's pretty interesting seeing some of the art from the middle ages.

On the outside of Fussen castle, it was painted with some pretty cool designs and pictures, as well as this clock.

In Fussen, they had these fountains that were on top of the large rock columns, then the tops would spin as the water came out. The kids really liked it.

Although I'm not in very many pictures, as I'm usually the one taking the pictures, Brad took one of me on the bridge overlooking Neuschwanstein Castle.

6-3-10
Neuschwanstein Castle & Fussen. I went for about a two hour ride this morning in the rain, despite what I said yesterday about riding in the rain. I wanted to get my ride in, as I hadn’t the last couple of mornings. It was really coming down at times. I was totally soaked. I felt like I was riding my bike through a cold a lake.
We went and saw the town of Fussen first. It has it’s own castle and a lot of the rooms had been furnished with art work from the middle ages. Some of it was really cool, some was a bit odd, and some was downright weird. There was one picture that was supposed to depict when King Herod had the babies killed, trying to kill off the new “king”. It had a bunch of plump, very alive looking babies on the end of swords with blood gushing out. Pretty gory. We then walked along the castle walls overlooking the city. Everyone was pretty hungry and most of the stores weren’t open. Apparently today was some type of holiday. There was a store open that sold these ball type things that were like strands of dough formed into a ball, then fried. Some of them had coatings like chocolate or powdered sugar, and some of them had some filling as well. They were OK, but not great. Different than anything I had tried before. We then hiked up to Neuschwanstein Castle. It’s about a ½ hour hike. The stroller we bought for Mitzi was perfect, and has been great going over coble stones and hiking around towns with her in it. The hike was beautiful and the forests look fantastic with tall trees, ferns, very green and mossy. The hard part is taking Mitzi into castles like Neuschwanstein. Her attention doesn’t hold too long, and she has to be held almost the whole time. Neuschwanstein was pretty amazing. I find a lot of things they did back then amazing in that they didn’t have the power tools, computers, and other equipment we have today, yet they build these massive amazing castles up on the top of a hill. It probably had 4-6 floors. After the castle tour, Brad and I hiked up to the bridge that overlooks the castle while the others grabbed a bite to eat in the castle café.

One of the cafes near Neushwanstein Castle.

Megan trying out the local headwear.

Hohenswangau Castle.

Everyone waiting for out tour of Hohenswangau to start.

We we starting to wonder if the rain was every going to stop.

This snail was litteraly as big as my hand. I should have put something down so you can guage the size.

Mitzi had fun even if it was raining.

6-2-10
Hohenschwangau. Again it’s raining when I woke up in the morning. I’m not quite dedicated enough to wanting to go out and get soaked for an hour or two on my bike. I’d probably just get sick any way and be miserable for the next week. When I was at the internet café yesterday I pulled up the 10 day weather forecast, and it said rainy for Wed. and Thursday and then mostly sunny for the next week with highs in the upper 60’s and lower 70’s. That would be nice, as we haven’t hardly seen the sun since we’ve been here and it would be nice to have sunny weather for a change. We went and saw Hohenschwangau today. We were planning on seeing that an Neuschwanstein as well, but it was raining, and by the time we finished the first castle the kids didn’t want to go do the other one, so we decided to do it tomorrow. Neuschwanstein castle is the fairy tale castle built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, and Hohenschwangau was his dad’s castle and where he grew up. They are right close together near the town of Fussen. There’s a great place that has Doner Kabap’s. They are similar to a gyros, but larger and probably better if they are done right. We had Doner Kabap’s for dinner.

Today we visited Linderhoff Palace, which was one of King Ludwig II's palaces he build. It was pretty small but impressive. I especially liked where he used to dine in private, and the table he ate off of was on a kind of elevator so it would be piled in the basement with food, then raised up when he was ready to eat.

It was a pretty rainy day at Linderhoff Palace in Germany.

The girls trying to stay dry.

Megan and Ian in from of the long staircase waterfall at Linderhoff.

6-1-10
Linderhoff and Garmisch. I woke up this morning thinking I’d go on another bike ride, but it was raining pretty hard, and I didn’t feel like getting soaked. Brecken and Kindra went for a walk that was supposed to be a jog. I went into the nearest larger town looking for a laundry mat. I thought we had a washer and dryer at the place we are staying, but we don’t. I also thought we had an internet connection which we don’t. I didn’t find a laundry mat, but did find a replacement camera to the one Brad lost. Prices are pretty good here. I bought a Casio Exilim with over 10 mega-pixels that is pretty small for 59 euros or $75 at the current exchange rate of about 1 euro = $1.23. I think a similar one back home would cost at least $125. The drop in value of the euro over the last 6 months has helped. We decided to go to Linderhoff castle today. It’s certainly off the beaten path. You have to drive way up this isolated canyon for about 30 minutes to get there. It’s pretty ornate, but not terribly large. It’s in a beautiful setting though. Then we drove to Gamisch and decided to find a laundry mat. Parking and maneuvering around these small towns isn’t always the easiest, especially in the little larger van we have. I found a parking place near the town center area and decided to find a tourist information place and ask them where we could find a laundry mat. We didn’t have a ton of laundry to do, but doing about 1 load of whites and one of darks now would get us through Germany and to Austria, and I’m pretty certain that we have a clothes washer where we are staying in Austria. I walked all the way through the pedestrian center of town and couldn’t find it, and finally asked at a shop, and it was back where I started, so I had to walk all the way back to the start. They showed me on a map where the laundry mat was, and I found it pretty easily. I dropped off the clothes and they said they’d be done in about 2 hours. Kindra said the Mitzi needed another warm outfit, so I took most of the kids and went in search of a warm outfit. I found one, and found and internet café. I dropped the kids off at the car and hit the internet café. I had over 300 new emails and my mailbox was full, so I hit the emails as fast as I could. I responded to as many as I could as quickly as possible and deleted a lot of them. By the time my internet session was over the clothes were done, so we picked up the clothes and drove back to the apartment. For once I wasn’t totally exhausted and we fixed dinner and had a bite to eat, although Mitzi and Ian were fast asleep.

The Kids at Ehrenberg Castle.
Ehrenberg Castle just over the border in Austria.

Dinner in Mittenwald, Germany. It looks like Brad and Ian both had a few too many pints.

5-31-10 Monday
Ehrenbug Castle and Mittenwald. I woke up this morning again at 6am. It had rained fairly hard through the night, but wasn’t raining in the morning, although it was pretty cool and wet. I got up and went for a bike ride. I ended up riding about 50 miles in just under 3 hours. There isn’t much flat ground around here. Even right onto the road we were staying on, I coasted down the little hill, then it was immediately up a 14% grade hill for about 100 meters, then up and down, up and down. The scenery though is spectacular. Towards where I was turning around, I was up on a plateau, and I could see the alps in the distance. They looked like the Tetons, except they went clear across the horizon. Several times during the ride I felt like I must had died and gone to cycling heaven. The roads were so much smoother than what I’m used to riding on, I didn’t see a traffic light all morning, of the few cars that past me, they gave me plenty of clearance, and the scenery was incredible. The only downside is that the roads were wet, and it was pretty cold. My bike computer said it was 41 degrees, and although most of me felt comfortable, my toes were pretty cold by the time I made it back.
We finally left the apartment about noon after Kindra had exercised, and everyone had showered and got dressed. We decided to drive to Mittenwald, but as we were going we decided that we’d go to Innsbruck Austria on the way, which is only a little over an hour away. After only about 20 minutes though we saw a castle in front of us up on hill and decided to stop. We were just over the border into Austria, and stopped an Ehrenburg Castle. They had a museum there we went to first that had a bunch of medieval armor and told some stories about life in the middle ages. Then we hiked up to the castle which was only about a 15-20 minute hike. It’s pretty much just ruins, but pretty cool.
We then drove on to Mittenwald which remind me a lot of Oberaumergau. It’s about the same size and has lots of picturesque shops. Mittenwald is famous for its violin making. After waking around the town we decided to have a traditional Bavarian dinner and found a place to eat. Several of us had the Weiner Scnitzel, which was good, and then we all had apple strudel with a vanilla sauce which was fabulous. It was almost an hour drive home and by the time we made it, I was really tired again, despite the fact that it was only about 9pm.

5-30-10
Church & Oberaumergau. In some ways I like the first few days being over in Europe, because I’m normally not a morning person, even though I’d like to be more of one. At least the first few days, I wake up at 5:30-6am feeling rested, but by about 9pm I just fall into bed. We decided to go to church today. We brought clothes that would be suitable for church, and I looked up on-line before we left the locations that would have the closest churches to where we’d be staying. It was about an hour’s drive, and we made it there just before it started. It was a little branch of with about 30 people in a little chapel. There was a pair of missionaries and they asked if we’d like a translation. We said we were OK, but just before it started they brought us head-sets anyway and said the branch president insisted. The kids were really quite good in church. They were much better than they are at home. We started driving back, and decided to go to Oberaumergau. They are having the Passion Play this year that they do every 10 years since the middle ages when the town was mostly spared from the plague. We’ve already read a few things about the plague in Europe during the middle ages. Within a couple of years it decimated Europe killing in excess of 25 million people. They estimate that within just a couple of years that 1/3-1/2 of the population of Europe died from the plague. Just outside of Oberaumergau we stopped at a store that sold dirndls and leiderhosen. Ashley bought a dirndl. In Oberaumergau besides the Passion Play, they are famous for their wood carvings. We went into a number of the shops, but I couldn’t find anything I was thrilled with. It has been lightly sprinkling off and on most of the day. Last time we came to Switzerland, Kindra was really upset that we didn’t buy a Coo-Coo Clock. (I’m sure I spelled that wrong) She staying in the car with Mitzi, and I found one that I think she’ll really like, so I bought it and had it shipped home. If I can keep it a surprise from her, and keep her from buying another one, I’ll surprise her and give it to her for Christmas. This area of Southern Germany is absolutely gorgeous. Cows with bells, thick forests, green meadows, high mountains, cute chalet’s and chalet looking buildings, quaint towns with white churches. It really is a fairy tale like land. We are staying about at a farm house that has a couple apartments in it. I get the impression that the grandparents live in one of the apartments, and they rent one out to people on vacation like us. It is about 200 meters from the end of a pretty lake out in the countryside. It’s very comfortable with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, and kind of large open foyer area. They have cows, goats, and a couple of cats. Mitzi loves the animals. Again, by the time we made it back to the apartment everyone including myself pretty much fell into bed.

Megan looked at the map before we left and found Meggan and said "we have to go there", so we did. It was right on the banks for Lake Lucerne.

Brecken at the Bern, Switzerland temple where we stayed last night.

I was really impressed with Lucerne. The lake was beautiful and the town/city was very interesting. It had these 2 wooden bridges that cross the river as it leaves the lake and splits the city. There are paintings as you go across the bridge if you look up that have been there since the middle ages. It's pretty neat.

5-29-10 Saturday
Lucerne driving to Germany. I woke up about 4am with Mitzi crying. I took her and tried to entertain her. Brad played with her a little bit while I took a shower and got dressed. Then I took her for a drive with Ian about 5:30am. Finally the rest of the girls were up and getting ready by about 7am, and we were ready to leave by about 8am. We hit a grocery store for some food and basic supplies that we needed, and headed to Lucerne. I didn’t quite know what to expect at Lucerne, but loved it. Lucerne is at the end of a beautiful lake with mountains and trees on all sides. Right at the end of the lake, the river leaves the lake and splits the city in half. We parked about a mile from the city center by a park right next to the lake and walked from there. There’s a beautiful walkway right next to the lake with big trees along it. The city center is extremely old and has 2 wooden bridges that cross the river. These bridges have been there since the middle ages and have scenes painted in the eaves of the bridges. When Kindra and I came to Switzerland about 10 years ago, we stayed a night in Interlaken and loved it, but we both agreed that Lucerne was much better than Interlaken. It had the beautiful lake, the mountains and hills around it, the history of the down-town area, and much more. Anyone going to Switzerland needs to stay a day in Lucerne. After we left the city center and walked back to our car, we let the kids play in the park for about a half hour and they had a great time. We then had about a 2-3 hour drive to where we’d be staying the next week in Southern Germany/Bavaria. Of course, 10 minutes into the drive everyone was fast asleep and I was left again to fight staying awake. One of the things that I bought to take with us that has proved to be a huge benefit was a Garmin GPS unit with maps of Europe. You can tell it where you want to go, and it tells you how far until you have to make the next turn, reminds you when you get close, estimates pretty accurately when you’ll arrive at your destination, and more. It’s been fantastic already. I’m also planning on taking it on my bike. I’ll probably leave it off the first ½ of my bike ride, then turn it on and tell it I want to go back to where we are staying, and I won’t have to think about getting lost. We made it to where we were staying in Germany and everyone crashed into bed.

5-28-10 Friday
Arrival in Europe. We could see on the airplane it showed where we were and where we were flying to. We could see we were flying over the English Channel and then into Belgium. We made it to Brussels in one piece. We had almost a 2 ½ hour lay-over in Brussels. Brad wanted to borrower the camera I had got, so I let him, but told him to keep track of it and take good care of it. Of course he left it on the plane when we arrived in Geneva, so we lost 1 camera. Also somehow we lost the DVD case that had most of our DVD’s in it. Not sure who’s fault that was, but it must have been left on a plane, or else I just haven’t found it yet. I’m pretty sure it’s gone. When we arrived in Geneva, we picked up our bags that had been checked through, as well as my bike bag. We were leasing a van from Renault and were supposed to call them when we arrived to make arrangements where we supposed to meet them. They were supposed to have a shuttle at the airport to take us to our car. I had bought SIM cards for mine and Kindra’s phones for Europe, but I couldn’t get it to work. Also when I tried a land line, I couldn’t get that to work either. Finally after asking a couple people I found out that we had to travel a couple hundred meters across the airport to the “French” side, and then the land lines worked. They came and picked us up in a shuttle and took us to our car. I was going to drop my bike bag off in Lausanne, Switzerland with the people who’s chalet we are staying at our last 2 weeks, and they were going to drop it off at the chalet so it would be there when we finished our trip. Unfortunately I couldn’t get in touch with them as I still couldn’t get my cell phone to work, so we didn’t drop the bike bag off. We can take it with us, and when we get to each new place we are staying, we can take it out of the car, but that’s just a pain and takes up space in the van the days we are traveling between places we are staying. We managed to make it to the outskirts of Bern where we were staying the night, despite my almost dozing off a half a dozen times. I felt like I was about to end up like Chevy Chase in the movie where he fell asleep in the car on their vacation and they ended up bounding across fields. Actually I feel a little bit like we are the Grizwalds on our European Vacation. Everyone but me was fast asleep in the car by the time we made it to where we were staying and I got them into beds before I crashed for the night.

5-26-10 Wednesday
Last minute preparations. For those that don’t know me and my entire family terribly well, I’ll start off like some novels and introduce the characters. My name is Adam Catmull, I’m 41 years old, and I’ve decided to take my family of 8 to Europe this year for the summer. My wife, Kindra, and I have been married now for almost 19 years. I can’t believe it. I always viewed middle age guys who had kids who were 16+ as old, but I certainly don’t feel old yet. Anyway back to my wife. I love her to pieces, but she isn’t always the most organized person. That means the planning, preparation, and execution of a trip like this falls almost entirely on me. My oldest daughter, Brecken is 16 ½ and is very excited about our trip, as are the 4 oldest kids. The two youngest I don’t think really understand what all’s going on. Bradley is 14 ½ and has been a bit of a challenge the last couple of years. He’s always been a bit of a challenge having ADHD, but this last year or so, he’s really struggled in school. He’s smart, he just doesn’t like to do the homework and we seem to be butting heads a lot lately as I try and get him to do his homework, clean his room, etc.. I’m hoping this trip will do him a world of good and show him there’s a world out there besides video games. I hope the trip will also built up our relationship which I feel has deteriorated over the last couple of years. Megan is 12 1/2, a sweet heart, and really looking forward to the trip. Ashley is 10 and has been working hard around the house to earn money for the trip. I’m not sure what all she plans on spending that money on, but she’s looking forward to it. Ian is 6 and is a little noisy at times for European standards. We’ll have to find a way to keep him from causing a scene everywhere we go by being too noisy. Mitzi is almost 2 ½ and a handful. She isn’t the most mellow of kids and always wants to be doing something. She’ll be a handful at times.
Today I got up early at 5:45am so I could get in a ride before I packed up my bike and got ready. I went on a 2 hour ride with Curt Doman and then when I got back to my office I realized I had locked myself out and had my normal hide-a-key up on my desk that I had used the day before when I had gone on a ride. So I decided to ride home and help pack until people arrived at the office. Kindra still had a long ways to go to pack her and Mitzi. I helped with that, then finally went into work. I had a lot to finish at work, and had to pack up my bike and bike gear. I thought I’d get home early at maybe 5pm to help get the house ready for us to leave, get the bags in the car, and get the house ready for us to leave, but didn’t get out of the office until nearly 8pm. I still had a ton of things that had to be done, and didn’t get most of it finished until almost 1am, and I still had a good couple of house before I’d be ready to go.



Finally at the airport ready to go.
5-27-10 Thursday
Off to Europe. Our Europe trip kicked off with almost no sleep for me. I was up until about 1am cleaning the house, finishing the packing, and getting everything ready to go. Then I was back up about 5am to start getting everything ready to leave. Our plane left at 11:15am, so I wanted to plan on leaving by about 8am to get to the airport by about 8:30am. With so many kids and bags I felt like I had to plan in some cushion in a lot of what I was doing in case of emergencies. We made it to the airport just fine, and got all checked in. Every time we would check in, go through security, etc. a lot of the people would kind of glance up as I hand them 8 passports and kind go “wow”. Several of us, most notably Kindra and Brecken threw a lot of things in at the last minute and we ended up some things in bags I didn’t know, and our carry-ons were more packed than I’d have liked. Kindra’s mom and dad drove in their car out to the airport with us and drove our car home. We made it onto the plane OK, but it was a small plane with only 18 rows and 2 seats on each side of the aisle. We were spread out all over the plane, despite me telling them when we checked in that we’d really like to sit together, especially as we had small kids. Actually it went better than I had hoped to Chicago. Probably because I was up by myself and also because the trip was new, exciting, and there were plenty of distractions at this point. Our plane was a little late leaving SLC, then we detoured a little north to avoid some turbulence, so we arrived in Chicago about 15 minutes later than we were scheduled. By the time we got everyone off, those that needed to went to the bathroom, we checked where our next flight was leaving from, and made it across the airport to our departing gate, it was about 30 minutes before our flight was to leave, and only about 10 minutes before we were supposed to board. Nobody had had virtually anything to eat all day, so we grabbed quick bites at the McDonald’s in the airport and boarded the plane. Luckily we were mostly together for the flight over. Unfortunately our bags were all over the place, and trying to find what you wanted was difficult. I spent a good portion of the time trying to entertain Mitzi, but she seemed want to go between me and Kindra. I tried to start a book I was reading, but I kept starting the same page over and over. I think I dozed off for about an hour. I knew it was going to be a challenge staying awake over the next day or two.

6-10-10 Update. For those who have checked my blog, I appologize for not having posts daily. Things are going well in Europe and we are having a great time. Unfortunately I have had a few technology issues. I thought we had internet at the place we are staying, but we don't. So I haven't posted to the blog. I have however been keeping a daily journal with pictures, and once I can upload them to the blog, I will. Stay tuned for posts. Thanks, Adam