Until the Cows Came Home

Our week in the mountains in southern Germany turned out to be a bit of a dud, partly because the weather was drizzly five out of seven days, partly because our plan to offload the kids over the day and go hiking backfired once we realized the baby childcare was only 9am - 12pm everyday. That pretty much cramped any plans to go for longer hikes (rain's not enough of a deterrent), which sort of turned this into a passive beach vacation -except there was no beach, no sun, and no umbrella drinks. The hotel itself was nice enough and had a lot of fun things for the kids, we just wished it worked as well as the other places we'd visited in the past.






Pig enjoyed the menagerie on site. He also enjoyed hamming it up in the two shows they put on. In the first revue he was a frog.

Later in the week the kids had the opportunity to dress up as Bavarian princes and princesses. Instead of a feathered tricorn hat Pig went for the glam instead.
The one stroke of luck we had was this week coincided with the local annual return of the cows from the alpine pastures down into the valley, before the onset of winter. The sound of hundreds and thousands of cows and cowbells was most impressive.

So were the super short lederhosen hotpants, which I suppose is sensible wear given the amount of cow doo-doo the cowherds trample through....




And of course, where would we be without the beer tent?


Ponchi making friends with a native.


Loden hats bought at the fair, destined to become part of our Karneval repetoire.


And, last but not least, we did manage some modest hikes, despite the elements working against us. Sure the pictures don't look too bad, but we weren't exactly whipping out the camera in the rain, either.






Did I mention Monchi is significantly heavier than when she first rode in the backpack at the beginning of summer? We're seriously worried that we'll manage to hoist her for any extended period of time next summer!