Gutenberg (Gensfleisch) Museum

We had the opportunity to see the museum dedicated to Gutenberg's discovery.  Amazing to see the first printed Bible from 1455.  Beate and Marlene got the chance to try out a reproduction press!

Beach at the North Sea

Samuel's sand castle

Walking through the dunes to the beach

Looks like North Carolina but water is much colder!

Vacation in the Netherlands

Well we finally made it to August and are in the Netherlands for the week.  We have really loved it here.  We rented a cottage near Holten.  It has been fun just visiting the local area.  One of the great things about travel it discovering new food.  We have found some great items that we love.   

Poffertjes - mini pancakes are served with butter and powdered sugar and go great with any meal!
Stroop Wafles - just what you would think waffles but with a twist caramel on the inside!
Speculaas - Baked cinammon and brown sugar... delicious

Wiesbaden visit





Beth, Sam and Marlene standing in front of the Roman city walls









Oldest part of Wiesbaden built by Emperor Valentinian between 364 and 373 AD.

Visit to Cologne and the Mouse!

	Well we got to visit Cologne Cathedral or the Dom as the locals call it.  The spirals are 515 feet high and give a great view of the surrounding downtown.  Marlene and Samuel made it all the way to the top.
	It is great having Beth here for a visit.  We have had a great time showing here around.

Ice Cream Specialty!

Well the kids have finished their first year at school here.  To celebrate we decided to go out for ice cream.  They still have ice cream parlors here.  They are mostly run by Italian ex pats here in Germany.  They do a great business in the summer. 

 

One of their specialities is Spagetti Ice Cream. They make an ice cream Sundae that looks just like a plate of Spagetti.  The colors are spot on. They substitute strawberries and strawberry sauce for tomato sauce even press the vanilla ice cream through a spaghetti press so that the ice cream looks like pasta noodles.  This shop had at least 15 different types of spaghetti eis on the menu.  We all just loved it!

A tasty Italian specialty ice cream, The Spagetti Eis!

Happy 4th!!

We all went out to the local Freundschaftsfest which allowed us to celebrate the 4th of July with our German neighbors.  There is a great video someone posted on youtube.


We all had a great time.  Samuel really enjoyed the cotton candy as you can see.  The rides were great and we enjoyed watching Germany beat France in the quarterfinals of the World Cup!  Go Germany!!

There was a great ferris wheel which gave us a great view of downtown Wiesbaden. The kids thought it was great.

 Samuel and his friend Timmy were quite enthusiastic about all the various kinds of candy for sale at the fair.  The popcorn that is often sold here is the what we would call kettle corn (sweet).  This surprised me the first time I went to the movies here and ordered popcorn.  The first bite was shock as I was expecting a salty taste.  All in all it was a great 4th of July and we look forward to the next Fair which comes to town this Fall.