Preserving the Assets

My friend's husband is a microlender who often uses the phrase "preserve the asset" to mean that he wants her to take care of herself. My parents are both having foot problems, the boys are both having ear problems, and Maddie has bronchitis as we found out from our visit to a cross-eyed doctor on Thursday. So we are very into preserving our assets right now (what's left of them!). On Wednesday, Grandma Shumway and I went up to the neighborhood palace, Charlottenburg, and walked around the grounds. It was a beautiful and unusually warm day and I was trying to get used to our camera again. There is a small French garden just behind the palace, but most of the rest of it is wild, or an English garden with rivers and bridges.
Then my parents rented a nice Volvo and Rob and I drove them down to Potsdam. This is a picture of the Jagdschloss Glienicke or the hunting palace Glienicke. Another gorgeous day.
This is the neo-Gothic Schloss Babelsberg which was designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (did the man never sleep? He did everything in Berlin!). This one is currently under renovation, and it needs it. It will be a gem someday.

Then we drove through Sans Souci park, stopping and getting out for the palaces. We told my parents that we'd cheated them of the great ascent up to this one, but they said it was worth it to save their feet. It was the most empty I've seen this palace -- even the cover of our travel guide has swarms of people walking around it.

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