Remind me of this misery in February when I'm complaining about the cold, dark winter days

Well, the heat has returned with a vengeance.   A seriously mean vengeance.   But Peter had a three day weekend and we were determined to make the best of it, despite the one hundred degree temperatures.   Luckily it didn't heat up until the end of the week so bible school wasn't a total oven.   And we spent a lot of time this weekend at the pool, which helped.  Here are the pictures from the week:

Walking up to the biergarten.   Notice how the grass is completely brown and burnt to a crisp?   It is like that all over this region.  

First day of bible school was a great success.   Susannah had a great week.   We had to add pink accessories to our outfit everyday though because the bible school t-shirts were a little to boyish for her taste.   

Her friend Nora came over for a play-date after their first day. 

Lunchtime!  

And now Frozen time!    They acted out entire scenes from the movie and it was cracking me up.

Jumping on the trampoline after day 2.

We discovered the Sarah Avery is a big fan of mac n cheese.   She loves to rub it in her hair almost as much as she loves to eat it.

Peter was traveling for the first couple of days of the week.   This one was pretty excited to see her Daddy.

Most definitely a Daddy's girl.

If I try to take her while he is holding her she grips him and cries.   I remind her that I'm the one who birthed her and nourished her for the first year of her life, but she doesn't seem to care.  

Friday after bible school we headed to the pool.   It was packed, but we found a nice shady spot and enjoyed the afternoon.

Susannah loves the pool so much now that she can swim.   No matter how long we have been swimming, she always begs to stay for "5 more minutes."

We knew the pools would be obnoxiously crowded on Saturday so we packed up the car and headed out of the city to our favorite little hiking spot for a shady picnic next to the creek.

Unfortunately, these sheep had already laid claim to said creek.   At first this seemed charming, until we realized that they were actually in the creek  and they brought a herd of flies with them.   Needless to say, we packed up about 30 seconds after we finished laying everything out. 

Time for plan B, so we headed to the pool that is in the little village there.   It was so awesome.   There are only a few thousand people in the entire village, so the pool didn't feel crowded at all.   We did get a couple of stares when people heard us speaking English though.   I think we were the only people at the entire pool that didn't know everybody else.   

Sunday morning we headed to church.

And spent the afternoon at Stuttgart's biggest park.   Susannah rode the carousel.

And fed the ponies.   

SA and I hung out by the ponies while Peter and Susannah played on the playground.

Sarah Avery is just like her sister and loves animals.   She laughed and laughed at the geese and the ponies.  

And this chicken that had escaped from the petting zoo area and was mingling around the picnic blankets.   

We ended the afternoon on the little train that goes around the park.  

I tried to tickle this one to get her to smile at the camera, 

which worked, 

until she bumped her head.   

"Too much effort to smile in this heat Daddy."  Contrary to what these faces portray, we all had a great time.  Sweaty, but great.

And now we are starting week 2 of no kindergarten.    But this week we don't have VBS to take up our mornings.    We do have some picnic play-dates planned though so hopefully that will keep us busy enough.   We miss and love you all!