Heidelberg

On Saturday, we went to Heidelberg with the Turner's. It was a bit chilly but nothing could slow down our adventurous spirits and desire for fun, not even temperatures in the 40's. We started off the day by going to the zoo. Once again, animals were the second attraction, the playgrounds were the biggest hit. The kids could have just played at the playgrounds the whole time; we had to force them to see some of the animals. They loved feeding the goats, even Colton fed them this time. He had a run in with a goat about 4 years ago and is still tramatized by the experience. He suffers from Post Tramatic Goat Disorder.


If there was something to climb IN or climb ON, my kids are all over it.




My favorite part was seeing the lions. There were about four female lions with one male. Nice odds. They weren't very far away and they were wide awake and active. It was so cool to see them just staring at us, like we were their own personal Happy Meals just a little too far out of their reach.


There was a place to see how far you could jump, and compare the length of your jump to the length of an animal's jump. Ella and Colton can jump as far as a frog, Mason jumped as far as a flea.


Then we were off to the Heidelberg castle. We finally were going somewhere that peaked Jaxon's interest. He LOVES military history, castles, battle, strategy, and anything weapon related. He was born in the wrong century. He found some amazing replicas of weapons in a gift shop but was smart and decided to save all his money for his new computer, instead of a cool weapon that most likely I would have to confiscate within minutes of bringing into our house. Here we are in front of the castle:


It had started to drizzle a bit by now, but we didn't care. We were having fun!!! We found a huge pile of leaves for the kids to throw around and play in:




Then I tried to take a good picture of Mason to count for his official three year old photo, but I didn't get a perfect shot. Good ones, but not a perfect one:




The colors of all the leaves were gorgeous around the castle grounds so I had to take a picture of the kids in front of some cool leaves (even though Mason protested the picture taking):


There was, of course, play sword fighting on the castle grounds:

As we left, we found a great wall that the kids felt necessary to attempt to scale. Perhaps all the talk of knights storming castle walls and attacking the castle inspired them to try to recreate an ancient attempt at overtaking the castle:



And here's one last picture of Mason. Ain't he a cutie?