Germany Trip Week 2

I'll be surprised if anyone even really reads these posts I'm doing about my trip. I split them up so they won't be humongous, but they're still humongous. So have fun reading, thanks if you read the whole thing! This week was a lot more relaxed than last week which I appreciated, this trip has left me a little exhausted. So I will start where I left off last week!

Sunday-It was Abigail's baptism day! She was lucky enough to be baptized on her actual birthday. It was Abigail and one other boy from the ward that were being baptized. Sarah had told me a few days before that she had been asked to arrange a musical number for the baptism and she said she was just going to sing a song. So being the wonderful sister I am I offered to sing with her if she wanted me to. Mom found a song for us to sing and played the piano for us. The baptism was great Abby only had to go down once, and the spirit was very strong. It also needs to be mentioned that the refreshments were delicious, Sarah made gingersnaps and the mother of the boy being baptized made no-bake cookies.
Monday-This morning we took Mom and Dad to pick up their rental car and they headed to Italy for a little mini trip. After we got their car Sarah and I went and got our hair cut. The lady cutting my hair was German (but spoke English) and my hair ended up about an inch higher than I asked it to be. The back of it is cute though. Later that day we went to Globus, which is like a German Walmart; crowded, cluttered, and weirdly organized.
Tuesday-Sarah and I left Jared at home and we went to a city called Dahn and went to a basket factory. Well it wasn't actually a factory, but a store, the actual factory is furthur down the road. It was an awesome store, they had a lot of stuff, not just baskets. We spent a while in there and both came out with a lot of cute stuff. I got a VERY cute baby blanket, the only thing now though is that our baby needs to be a girl because it's definitely a girl blanket. Now that I said that though our baby will probably be a boy! After we were done at the basket factory we went to some castle ruins that were in the same city. The names of the castles were; Altdahn, Grafendahn, and Tannstein. It was interesting, a lot of stairs! The views were amazing everything is very green here. While we were up there we heard a bunch of sheep going crazy! They were so loud, and while we were up there they moved from one end of the valley to the other, so since we couldn't see them we decided that they must be in the back of a truck or something and were not liking it. It was pretty funny though how loud they were. On our way back home we stopped at a strawberry field were you can stop and pick your own strawberries! It was pretty fun, it rained while we were out there but I love the rain so I didn't mind.
Wednesday-We had talked about what we wanted to do with the strawberries and we decided on strawberry shortcake and jam! So Wednesday morning Sarah made some delicious bread to put jam on. While it was cooking we made freezer jam, I had never done this before and it was really easy and I'll probably do it again sometime now. It turned out wonderful. After we were done with the jam we went on a walk to the waterfall that isn't too far from Sarah and Jared's house. It was a nice walk, mostly shady and downhill! The best part was that Jared was going to meet us and drive us back, so we wouldn't have to turn around and walk back up the hill after we got the the waterfall. The waterfall was pretty small, but in a really pretty place.
Thursday-I just stayed home all day! Jared had a picnic thing for work and Sarah had a final to take for her class. So I was left at home all day and I did my laundry. Here's the sad part of my day, I didn't wake up until 10 and I fell asleep at around 4 and slept until 7. So even though I slept in and basically just sat all day I ended up taking a three hour nap. Mom and Dad came home that night and we sat around the table talking about their trip, they had a good time, and my mom was very happy about her Italian.
Friday-In the morning we went to the BX on base, they have a little shop that is Christmas all the time and we got a lot of German Christmas decorations. After this we went back to the basket factory since my mom had missed it and we knew she would like it. After that we kept driving and went to another castle, people still live in this castle, so it was cooler than the ones Sarah and I went to on Tuesday. This castle is called Berwartstein. They had a lot of authentic stuff in the castle, suits of armor, old waffle irons, a cross bow, cannon balls. . . I'm assuming they were authentic at least. It was fun to walk around and look at everything. They had a really cool bench with a dragon carved on it and a knight fighting it.
Saturday-We went on the barefoot hike! My mom and I had been looking forward to this Sarah and some of her kids had done it last year and had a good time. As you can probably guess it's a hike (or more like a walk) that you go on without shoes. There is a bunch of stuff for you to walk on like mulch, muddy water, rocks, sand, grass, mud, wood bridges, balance beams and a lot of other stuff. It got our feet and legs pretty dirty, I think what got us the most dirty was the muddy water. After the barefoot hike we headed to the Edelstein museum which was a gem mine. We were all starving though so we found the museum them walked to find a restaraunt. After we ate we went back the the museum, but it was going to close in half an hour so we just went into the gift shop. After that we headed back home and we had a bonfire! One with a lot of smoke because Jared had cut down a bunch of branches off of a pine tree and the needles were still green. We roasted marshmallows for s'mores (are you jealous Megan?) and just had a good time.
That just about ends it for this week. I should have mentioned in my last post, I have taken a lot of pictures, but I'm not going to be able to put them up here until I get home. My dad goes home tomorrow and my mom and I are here until Thursday. It's been a long, fun trip, but I can't wait to get home!