Early Bird Contest....HELP

Each year Girl Scout Councils have a patch design contest for the upcoming year's "Early Bird" patch. This is given to each girl who registers early for the next Girl Scout year. We have recently moved to the Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia Council where I am the Leader for both of my daughters Junior troop (4th and 5th grade). The girls in the Council (126 counties) were asked to submit a drawing for the 2013 Early Bird patch for the theme "Active U." The winning design will be the patch given out to girls in our Council!

My daughter Lauren entered the contest and made it into the top 12. The Council has posted the pictures on FB for voting. My daughter drew a variety of things a girl could do to be active. Her drawing and another are SUPER close in the voting process....it is going to be close! My daughter would be so excited and honored if her design wins!

Please help Lauren by casting a vote!
Voting ends Friday at 7:30 ET
Go to FB HERE and click on drawing #7 and then "like" her picture!

Adventures at Erdbeerland.....

Erdbeerland???.....
AKA as strawberry fields to us English speaking folk!

We headed to the fields to pick some fresh strawberries!

The kids didn't waste any time.....

They were very proud of their picking!
All we had to do was get our berries weighed....
What a deal!!
Over 4 kg (about 9 lbs) for only....
11,25 Euro!!

We will be going back soon!!!

How I got 2 boys to sleep peacefully!

Now I know what it takes to get Jacque and Ian sound asleep!!!

Here are the steps that I used in case you have little ones that keep going and going and going like I do.

1. Go to Wildpark (see details HERE)
2. Stay there for 4 hours and don't carry the little ones or give any stroller rides what so ever!
3. Feed them Hello Kitty popsicles...sugar them right as you are leaving!
4. Buckle them up.....safety first:)
Popsicle stick in mouth probably not so safe!
5. ENJOY the silence in 3 minutes tops as you drive home
6. Maybe even park for a while and enjoy the silence even more before driving all the way home because you will fail as you try very carefully to remove them from their car seats and carry them into the house without waking them up!!

Here is what my peace and quiet looked like yesterday!

Interesting day at the Wildpark!

To say I really enjoy living in Germany would probably be an understatement! We will soon be moving back to the states (less than a month to be more precise) and we visited one of the places that the kids love today.

As it turned out, there was also a Native American event today!
*This is quite strange to me since we live in a country where we are supposed to "blend" in with the locals as much as possible. This is the first event we've been to that had anything to do with the country WE are from.*

Not sure what was going on with this outfit!

There were plenty of animal skins to intrigue the kids....

Horse rides surely made their day.....

This colt didn't leave mom's side!

Archery.....big hit too!

Even fetching the arrows was fun...
Why are toys not as fun to fetch????

We were thirsty and needed a rest after all of this excitement!

We walked around the park and fed the animals!
I love that the kids can be "with" the animals rather than through a fence.

We will miss this place!

Different but oh so beautiful!

We had to make a stop at Basilica De La Sagrada Familia which began construction in 1882.

It is not yet completed but I do know that it will be amazing when it is finished!

The stained glass windows are so bright and vibrant that pictures can not do them justice.

Lauren & Sarah are way out of focus here (sorry) but you can see how the colors from the windows reflect onto the walls really well.

Jacque and Ian were taking a break!
There are lots of plain glass windows (see behind them) that will eventually be stained glass!

Sitges...our home for a week

We took a stroll into Sitges which was the town we stayed in for the week.

It didn't take long for us to find the parish church by the sea...
A guy was creating a sand castle as we made our way down to the beach.