Road Trip Destination: Prague

February 14

In honor of Charity's visit out here, we wanted to do one BIG trip. We let her pick-- and she chose Prague. I'm so glad she did, as it wasn't a city that was really on our radar as a place we 'must' visit.... and it's a dang cool city: not complicated, easily navigated, 90% of the people we met spoke English (BONUS!), and... the sidewalks are fancy (documentation available below).

Cameron was beside himself in anticipation.

*smile* I love this kid. He keeps me on my toes.... I just never know what he'll do when I bust out the camera.

Angel boy checking out his new Valentine's pen.

Our nobel driver.

A rare sighting of yours truly. *I was playing with the flip screen on my camera. :)

Charity-- even looks good on a road trip trapped in the backseat with 3 toddlers. Darn her.

SNOW. I *heart* snow. The woods along the drive were beautiful. Seriously, readers. Come to Europe. It's so. Beautiful.

We were stopped in traffic and so I rolled down the window, put on my new lens (*giddy!* I have the best husband who gives the best Valentine's day surprises!), and was just taking some shots of the trees for fun. I think I ended up looking like a goofball because...

This semi-truck-driving-dude honked, waved, and told me to take his picture. Too bad I missed the focus. ;)

Nathaniel found an awesome deal for our hotel. From it, we were able to walk to everything we wanted to see (which was a must when we're pushing around our posse on the BOB). We arrived in the evening, and this was the view from our room. :)

COOL sidewalks! These are the norm here, though they differ by block. Makes every other city in the world look so... lame.

A better shot of the church outside our hotel. Charity graciously offered to stay the first night in with our boys so Nathaniel and I could go out for dinner (she slept with all 3 boys in her room for our entire stay.. can you say HERO?).

My handsome navigator. :)

Downtown. I was loving the snow! We ended up finding a TGI Friday's. I know-- unauthentic, but it was so fun for us. It was like we were in America and Czech Republic at the same time. :)

By contrast, here is what the same downtown looked at the next night:

Nanstein

I have visited this Castle three times before this trip-- and hadn't yet been inside. We went on a quick down to visit this castle and the US base not far from it with Charity and with the boys' favorite teacher from school (also, my sweet friend).

Why is it so cute when babies yell "noooo" for 'snow'? :)

Andrew and Nathaniel-- totally pumped.

This castle-- is old. I'm slacking on my gathering history on these places. It was really amazing though!

Have I mentioned how COLD it was the entire time Charity was here? We walked around a bend and ^this^ was the sight in front of us. We couldn't, for the life of us, figure out how they came to be there. There were minimal icicles on the ceiling, and the shape doesn't match if they'd come from top drips anyway.... so we're baffled as to how they seemed to rise out of the ground.

Andrew is hilarious. The child is positively *giddy* when he is let out of his carseat after a long drive and let loose!

Charity and Nadja. Two of the sweetest people ever.

Kitchen cupboard. :)

My artsy shot. ;)

Must have been a monster in that (child deep) cave for them both to make the same face running out of it. ;)

What fascinates me most about this schloss (castle) is how it seems to rise out of the red rock. It's really amazing.

Moab meets German castle.

I've been posting a lot of running shots lately... I expect this trend to continue for years and years... these boys never stop. :)

Heidelberg

Feb 10: Kept the boys out of school for this trip. :)

I've visited this castle at least 6 or 7 times, but it never gets old. It's awe inspiring each time. I'm not a rock-star tour guide, but I could't let Charity leave Germany without visiting here. Unfortunately, we were too cold to visit the amazing extensive grounds. Guess she'll have to come out again. Darn.

Cameron was very enthusiastic. :)

Andrew... not so much. I think he resented being the only one strapped in the stroller. We let him out to play later in the deserted courtyard (which is the #ONE perk to traveling in the off season).

Isn't she gorgeous? I shamelessly made her be my model in the great light. :)

Elizabeth's gate. The legend is that one of the Lords of the castle brought his new bride home to the castle and over her first night there he had this gate built for her. It's lovely-- and we had fun taking pics of the boys on it.

Safety first! ;) Looking down into this old stairwell:

I'd say it's a fixer-upper.

Free to ROAM. These boys were in heaven running around.

Run,

run,

... fast as you can!

I *melt*. She's gorgeous.

The mother in me was kinda freaking out that she was sitting on this banister above a 3-story drop.

Monkeys in Elizabeth's gate. :) We toyed with the idea of stacking William in the spot above Cameron.... but decided against it... for now.

1.

2.

3 little monkeys sitting in a tree. Or... gate.

This was an opportunity fail. I should have taken a shot without her there so then I could work some photoshop magic and make her look like a

The wine vat! Again to the season thing-- in the summer this room alone would have about 150 people in it. And... it's a very small room.

Kids can be so weird. What goes on in their little heads to just suddenly lay down somewhere?! haha!

Another very cold day. See that barge in the water? It was making circles to break up the ice to keep it from getting too thick to melt when the temps finally went back up.

Famous bridge. That's all I know about it. Fabulous, eh?

Had the place to ourselves. That's the ideal way to travel!

Bus ride down the mountain. :)