Garmisch-Edelweiss Lodge & Resort

For another big trip with my parents, we decided to take them a few hours south to a great German town known as Garmisch. It’s amongst the Alps and is very close to 3 of the most famous castles of King Ludwig (more on that later).  When deciding where to stay, we searched all over the place, discounting the Army’s “Edelweiss Lodge & Resort,” thinking that it was probably an old run down place (even though in my head I knew it had been rebuilt… just didn’t put two and two together) and more expensive for what it was worth.
As Brian looked at the prices again, he found a Junior Suite, plenty of room for all of us.  Imagine our surprise when we showed up and found this beautiful place. 




It was modern, state of the art, and had everything an American could want.  haha.  Which is an amazing buffet, a Sports Bar with ice and refillable drinks, as well as souvenir shops, a swimming pool, a movie area with tiny chairs for the little kids, a nice gym and a playground out back.  There was something for everyone.  What I had forgotten was that this new ski resort was recently rebuilt and very popular.  It must have been off season.  I’ve heard of many friends staying here but no one told me the extent of how beautiful it was. 






Such a cute picture of Spencer.  He was so excited.  Guess why?  Look in the picture below what was right outside our sliding back door.



Surprisingly, Spencer wasn’t fond of this merry go round but I wanted a picture of it.  haha.

We showed up on Halloween night because the Army base celebrated on Saturday night.  Well, I guess THIS Army base in Garmisch celebrated on Sunday night.  Had we known, the girls could have gone trick or treating again.  They surprisingly weren’t that interested.  How fun is this pumpkin contest they had outside when we arrived.  And remember, we arrived at night so all these were lighting up the front entryway to go into the hotel.




These were my dad’s favorite pumpkins.



Umm…ya… those are the Alps behind the hotel.  I’m only sad I didn’t get the beautiful wall murals of German life painted on each side of the entrance.

Dinner Pictures w/ Grammy & Grandpa

I forgot to post pictures of  our dinner with my mom and dad on Halloween night when the girls went trick-or-treating.  The pictures are great so of course they can’t be ignored.

HALLOWEEN 2010

Characters
Xoe-Athena the Greek Goddess (from Percy Jackson books)
Xanthe- Girl Satyr, half goat, half girl from Camp Half-blood (again… Percy Jackson)
Spencer-Monkey
Christy-20’s Flapper Girl
Brian- Brian (in all fairness, he did dress up for our Murder Mystery Party as a banker.  He looked pretty amazing. I’ll post pictures soon.)


***There were many  highlights of this day.  I’ll just name a few throughout the post.  The first?  Grammy and Grandpa were able to be there with us.

All of these pictures were taken at our Ward Halloween Party on Saturday.  (Sorry for the random food table background. That was the best there was at that time).

***See if you can spot G&G doing what they do best!

***Know that at this point I’m going to pat myself on the back.  I whipped up some pretty amazing “goat pants” the day of. the party… as in a few HOURS before the party  I had never made pants before and balked at my mom when she laughed that I thought they were so easy.  They actually are easy… if you know how to cut them with the right measurements. But for awhile I just sat there double checking all my thoughts, and even made a pair of pants out of paper to make sure everything was right before I cut. 


How amazing are they, though, if I do say so myself.  I DID have to tell Xanthe that she may not be able to sit down for fear of them ripping out.  But all was well.  My serger worked wonders for keeping it together.


(And what is that belt around Xanthe’s waist.  She had to make sure she was true to the satyr’s costume and have reed pipes… something a satyr would use as its defense.  haha.  Do you see a little pouch on her left side?  Those are the reed pipes she made).

 Oh, and a guy named “Jimmy Rig” helped me figure out how to make the hooves. I whipped these babies out from who-knows-where.  They turned out pretty amazing though, huh?  I was sewing her into them 15 minutes before we needed to leave.

*

** I have to give Grammy all the credit for these costumes.  She searched far and wide throughout California for the perfect Athena dress for Xoe that would have “some sort of cape that would attach to my arm” (Xoe’s instructions) and some furry brown material for Xanthe’s goat pants.  She also bought jewelry for Xoe to go around her head and helped pin her into the costume because all we could find was an adult size dress.  It's a good thing all the Halloween festivities were on the same day otherwise getting in and out of their costumes would have been a fun adventure.  She also knew I had nothing for Spencer so she went on a search for a great costume for him.

She was amazing. I don’t know what I would have done without her.  She was putting curlers in the girls’ hair an hour before we left, helped Xanthe make her horns and some sort of “Camp t-shirt” and was making us all a hot lunch and doing the dishes before we headed out the door.  She saved my arse!  (Let me just caveat all your judgments of why I left it il the last minute with this… It just so happens things were rushed cuz she and I were in London til the night before.  So sad for us, though, right?)

I can’t help but post multiple pictures of these girls.  How beautiful are they!  Serious beauties! 

 And our little monkey.  I’m in love with this costume.  Need I say more?

Trick or Treat time!

This was the Trick or Treat we had with the church.  We don’t have many options here in our community to hold the “trunk or treat” in a large parking lots so we all just set up outside in a fun little courtyard to have the kids come get candy.

Did you think Spencer was being a good little helper handing out candy?  Well, he wasn’t.  He was digging around trying to find suckers for Brian to open… but wouldn’t eat them. I think Brian opened five suckers before finally nixing Spencer’s objective.

This is Xoe with our Bishop.  Bishop Shumway.  Totally love him.
….and here they are! Grammy and Grandpa.  I was wondering where they were while we were all trick or treating and true to form, they were downstairs helping clean up a church party that wasn’t even their own.  Gotta love ‘em.

One of the funniest highlights of this day was when Spencer was kind of “losing it.” He was tired and hungry and “ready to go.”  Brian was out helping with trick or treating, and I had to go help downstairs.  So many other people tried comforting him but he just pushed them away.  Spencer saw Grandpa and held up his arms for my dad to hold him.  He had never bonded with my dad before so it was quite funny, and endearing, when he laid his head on my dad’s shoulder, and no kidding stayed there for the next 20 minutes without moving.  I tried holding him, Brian tried too.  Nothing worked. He just stayed there on my dad’s shoulder.  Not sure what changed to make him love my dad so much.  My dad IS pretty cool, I must say.  Maybe their spirits know each other.  Or maybe it’s cuz my dad introduced him to the joy of Raisinets the day before (that ended up all over Spencer’s face, hair, hands and clothes).

He’s still there…

Afterward, we drove around our downtown area to show them where we live.  At 5:00 p.m., the girls met up with some friends who’s mom offered to take them and a bunch of other girls all trick or treating around the base housing (since the German neighborhoods weren't doing trick or treating... remember? Halloween isn't a German holiday...).  She then took them to a Halloween party at the Bowling Center, then a party at her friend’s house and then all of the girls over for a sleepover.   What did we adults do?  We went out to dinner, of course… for some authentic German food.

Well, it’s getting late here so I’ll end this post.  I’ll post pictures from dinner tomorrow.