Sunday Walk

The cold weather with temperatures below freezing even during the day finally has stopped. So we thought we use the milder temperatures for a little Sunday walk starting in the hills above Heidelberg at a farm that has a nice beer garden during the summer.

Then it went down towards Kirchheim which is in the south of Heidelberg

There is a nice playground with some climbing rocks at a school yard that Mia likes

We also stopped at a colleagues place to exchange same stickers with his son who is also in second grade

Frozen

After more than a week of really cold weather the river Neclar starts to freeze over.

Unfortunately the ice ice not thick enough for skating and only holds sticks or ducks right niw

Karlsruhe

After visiting an old friend in Karlsruhe - a city 50 km south of Heidelberg - we decided to check out the ice skating rink in front of the castle there. It's one of the biggest in south west Germany and is run by the city so it offers reasonable ticket prices

It was a nice size and not too crowded. We even had some snow flurries in between

The main shopping street was only a few steps away and Mia picked a shirt with the picture of a cat on it as her reward for getting the sea horse badge a week earlier

First snow

It turned cold on in the first days of the new year and we even got some snow.

 
Mia and a friend built a first snowman in the backyard

The cold weather was also good fro ice skating

 Mia found another girl to talkwith

 

 We stayed until it turned dark

On Sunday morning there was even a bit more snow

Instead of going up the mountains for sledding like thousands others we just went to a little hill at the river which we had for our self's

There was also enough snow for a  another snowman

We walked back along the river

In the evening some friends from DC that just moved back came over

The Seahorse

Mia can swim for many years now but her style needs some refinement and so we signed her up for lessons in the city pool. Its close by and the water is really warm with 30 C and the teacher was very nice. Only one other child in her class passed the test for the sea horse badge at the end

Luckily Mia will have the same teacher for the follow on class - and the sea horse badge will be stitched to her swimsuit.