Schloss Hohentübingen or The Pictures I Don't Put In

So it turns out that you can only watch Curse of the Were-Rabbit so many times before you do, in fact, go crazy and want to get out of the house. This is fortunate for us, because we're living in a gorgeous, quaint little town. We scraped the kids up off the floor and pulled them down the stairs and under a tunnel and over two bridges.

They responded by knocking each other around a lot. So as promised, here are some time out pictures.

We make them count in German (or Mandarin in Sebi's case). It certainly gets the Germans' attention.

We made it a little further up the hill . . .

. . . then had to stop for another time out.

Check out that sign by Maddie. It says "Dohoggeddiadiaemmerdohogged" which means something like 'get a seat wherever you can find one'.

Managed to get to the first gate of the castle.

That guy over the gate looks like he could ward off evil spirits, vampires, bats, the plague, and most visitors. He didn't scare the devils out of our kids, though.

That's a pretty typical picture.

Thankfully the castle was shot through with secret passages perfect for running and squealing in. And great for Mama to work on her deep breathing under the tiny tiny low ceilings again.

"You're so ambitious! So much fun! I can't believe how much you people go see!" Um, yeah. When one is in a particularly foul humor, Maddie calls it "wearing the horcrux".

We're hot, sweaty and we take turns wearing the horcrux. Except when we don't and we're all crabby at once.

We took a stop to jump a fence and pick blackberries, because that is pretty much the highlight of the summer for the kids. Next summer I'm going to look for internships for them in Salinas and Castroville picking artichokes and strawberries and lettuce mix.

On the steps at the top of the schloss courtyard after they were done counting the lizards sunning themselves up there. Another potential Christmas shot nixed by its subjects.

Now THIS is what our summer has really looked like!

And this. A lot of this. They're just tired and flopsy here. If this were a time out picture, their noses would be on the wall.

Also plenty of this: three kids waiting around while the adults try to coax Joss into reasonable behavior.

We finally stopped at a bakery which restored everyone's good spirits (why were we leaving the house just before lunch anyway?). They had a tiny play table where Joss happily sorted wooden blocks and played on an abacus. Yes, it's true. Our child is so desperate for toys that he actually played with an abacus.

A croissant, pizza, or quiche and giant juice boxes -- magic formula.

We walked down to find the ice cream place and check on the evening's reservation, and decided we'd better sample the offerings.

Bad parenting moment #36. Sebastian orders something called "Angel Blue" ice cream and after eating about half of it, he declares it to be inedible. Rob tries it and agrees with him, at which point he fishes out some more change and lets Sebi order another ice cream cone. What sort of precedent are we setting here?! Will finishes off the nasty blue cone.

We did actually go home and have dinner before we returned and met the students and ordered even more gelato. Rob decided to let them splurge on the really preposterous stuff with lots of exotic fruits and wild names. The gelato shaped like spaghetti and the one that looks like lasagne and the one like angel hair pasta . . .

It was a party.