FLASHBACK: Sunday, October 3

On Sunday, we decided to check out the Wild und Freizeitpark about a half hour from here. I know JB was a little leery but he gave it a fair shot, and I am so glad he did! He doesn't like crowds or amusement parks that much, and we had no idea what to expect. But this park was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!! For $12 per adult (the kids were free), take a look at everything we got to do. And ... the weather was the best weather we had yet. A perfect 70 degrees with just-right sunshine. We had a delightful day.

Prior to figuring out how to work the food machine for the goats, Elijah decided to find his own food for the goats. Leaves from a nearby tree. Seriously, this kid has something "ingrained" when it comes to animals and nature as you'll see from the pictures to follow.

Here we are after figuring out how to get the food out of the machine!

Feeding the goats. The boys loved this (and so did I!)

Elijah could have done this all day.

Isaac, ever a bit on the cautious side. While Elijah jumps in without any regard for safety, Isaac is still "Mr. Deliberate." He loved it as well, but moves at a much more cautious speed.

So you'll see what I mean about Elijah and nature from these pictures below. Here he is, just staring out into the field. He then starts "calling" the deer. Literally, just yelling at it.

And the deer comes!

Gives him a good sniff ... discovers he doesn't have any food.

And says good bye. How sweet is that?

John loves this photo of the ram and Isaac waiting for me to give out some food. This ram was definitely in charge -- we had to work hard to get food to anyone but him!

Trying to teach them how to put food in their fist and then open it when they got near the animals was quite a challenge.

Elijah making more friends while Isaac is still trying to get the food in his hand the right way. He was so cute trying to balance it just right.

How sweet!

We have a lot of pictures of the back of Elijah's head.

We came up on the wild boars, and Isaac immediately took a second look. "What the heck are THESE things?"

Isaac's new smile is just opening his mouth.

Love this one of me with the boys. You can just make out a castle over Isaac's head.

A closer look at one of the castles. These are everywhere! It's not at all unusual anymore to just see them around every curve.

They had an area where you could just roam free with the deer. It was so cool. There is a definite different "feel" to a park like this in Germany. They didn't have all the "worries" that a park in the States would. People brought their dogs to the park, they let us roam, it was just a freeing feeling.

Elijah was trying to catch a deer to pet the whole time. He couldn't understand why they kept running from him.

Maybe this is why they kept running from him!

I brought some food out. What a fun time. The only thing was, I couldn't transfer the food from my hands to the boys' before the deer would snag it.

Elijah in heaven.

Having a conversation with the deer.

So cool.

They also had this fantastic play area on the other side of the park as you can see from the picture above. We just figured they'd charge for every ride, but they didn't. It's very different from the States where a trip to a park includes being milked for all you are worth. Here, food at the park is really good and not much more expensive than outside the park. They let you bring picnic food inside without a second thought. People bring their dogs. Seriously! And there aren't a bunch of "rules" on all the rides. They sort of trust people to do what people should do. It was a wonderful feeling. Here's the alpine slide. The boys loved it! They also rode these cool horses that rode around on a track, big swings, and jumped on this cool trampoline shown below:



And here is a video of us feeding the deer: