Ramsgate & Home Bound!

The kids wanted McDonalds, I wanted FishNChips, we all got what we wanted. :) Elder Wilcox had transferred while we were away on holiday, but lucky for us he was opening up a new area right north of Dover, and so we had to stop and hang out for a bit!

 His new companion was Elder Jentzch, and we discovered quickly that we knew his cousin that had served in our area years ago.

 Can't go to the seaside without some ice cream, I think Carter was hoping that they had the giant size for him to enjoy.

Boys chillin'

 The kids convinced us that playing in the sea had to happen. When we had pulled up in the morning this whole area was seaweed, the tide had come in and the waves were pretty exciting. Brennan was in heaven and could have played in the waves all day.

 We have actually never been on any seaside front where the waves were this active. They were hitting the walls and splashing us all. The kids thought this was hilarious. We had to tell them about 100 times that it was time to head to the car.

 For a mobile phone timer shot this was one of the best family shots we got the whole trip. It was a great afternoon and we were glad we got to see Elder Wilcox in his new area.

 Mike found his name on the Coke a few times, but it was when I saw this one that I laughed out loud. Mike's family will understand the long running joke with this one, maybe even some friends might get it, but I couldn't stop laughing.

The last 29.1 miles of our 2500 miles of road tripping fun was the longest drive ever!! It was a great trip, but coming home after being on the road for that long was also fantastic!!

Ludwigsburg Palace and Gardens

The kids were such troopers. When we actually counted the miles, we had gone well over 2500 miles in these 11 days of travel, so although there were definitely times that children were over the top with attitudes and/or enthusiasm, they did alright. We did a little Google search for our stop for this day, because we didn't really have a plan and when we read about this palace it sounded like a great stop. Ludwisgburg Palace and Gardens would have taken us all day to see and do everything, so we just stuck with going through the nursery rhyme, children's stories part of the garden.

Gorgeous day in Germany, so sunny, so hot, perfect last day!

We tried so hard to get Mason to lay down next to these guys for a picture, but it just wasn't happening in his world.

Sand sculpture that Carter was amazed with. 

Catchin' a ride on Dad's shoulders because my big brother Mason sat in my stroller and wouldn't get out. 

They were having some sort of Harvest Festival that evening, and there were giant pumpkin, gourd, and squash art all over the grounds. The weight lifter you see is made out of them. Also, who doesn't love a good hill to roll down, although we learned that our children need some lessons in technique. Mike and I wanted to be able to move the rest of the day, so we didn't show them this time.

An entire boxing ring, a swimmer, a carriage, you name it and they had a sculpture for it. 

A cave we went through that was there to keep a certain climate for these flowers.

The kids were very excited about the flamingos, I was not excited about the smell of this pond. 

SO MANY HILLS!! I needed a kiss for some extra strength, good thing I have a great guy by my side always willing to oblige.

We are still trying to figure out some of the plant life they had around the garden. We saw a lime tree, and some other common ones. Any ideas as to what these two are?

Rapunzel's tower, of course it was closed for some gardening they were doing. You can normally go inside and to the top. Would have been fun!

The following are all the different stories, however everything being in German was a bit of a problem for us. The kids still had a great time. This wolf/dog thing spat out golden coins(chocolate) when you gave it 10cents. The frogs with the crowns were a big hit, trying to get across without getting wet. of course they all wanted to get wet.

The water was boiling over in the pot on this one. 

The castle was a favourite of the kids, they would pull a lever and the king would rise to the top and say a bunch of stuff that we didn't understand, maybe I should learn German. :) On all the sites we started to notice there was a sign over a main part of the display, we thought this was a title of the story. Then we learned it was telling you to say something, a certain phrase that would bring the display to life! We learned this because as we were standing in front of one a lady came by and started yelling the same thing over and over. All our kids started to stare at her like she's lost her mind, they we looked at the sign and realized she was saying whatever it said. We are smart enough to sound a few things out. :) We after that we would wait until someone would come through the area and say the magical phrase so we could also see the display in action. It was pretty funny, because I think Brennan still thought people had lost it and were just shouting out random gibberish to the statues.

Hazel and Gretel we understood, and the witch was cracking Mason up. She would pop out of the window to try and frighten the children away.
Aladdin and the 40 thieves was also another one that the children got straight away, they enjoyed all the sparkling treasure laying around.
The day was fantastic, and as we were saying we needed to head back to the car the rain started. It rained so hard and we had a 15 minute walk back the car. Mason luckily had a rain coat and Mike threw him on his back so that the speed could be a bit quicker. All of us were soaked to the bone! Our hair was dripping, our clothes needed to be wrung out, it was hilarious. I wish we would have had a camera with us at that point to show just how wet we were. After we got back to the car and caravan we were able to change clothes before getting in the car. Then we started the drive for the ferries.

Driving is fun, driving is great, we love driving--but we were also very anxious to get to the ferry and know that we would not be driving for a few days once home!

Driving through Belgium and had another massive cloud system coming right at us. We weren't sure what this would mean for the ferry, but it turned out that as we were on the ferry we had lightening striking all around us. We hadn't got on the ferry until dark, and so it was pretty incredible seeing all the lightening going on over the sea. Mike knew he wasn't going to make it home after landing in Dover, and we had also told one of our missionaries that we would stop and see him in his new area. We called ahead and booked one last campsite for an extra day on the road.