Toots and the Maytals

After she was born, Victoria had a tough time with the colic. So for her first three months we tried many different things to calm her down in the evenings.
One of her favorite things was dancing with Mommy in the living room to Toots and the Maytals. In this picture she is not quite two months old, but she is already digging the reggae. On occassion Daddy would make up his own reggae songs and play them so they could keep on dancing.

Aunt Patty!

Patty came for a visit over Easter and let me tell you - I'm not sure who had more fun, Aunt Patty or Victoria! They really hit it off.

It was a great visit and I'm very happy she could make it.

This first picture is no small feat. Victoria does not let ANYONE hold her except myself or Simone. She is quite vocal about that. This picture tells you just how much Victoria likes Aunt Patty and enjoyed the visit.

Ready, Set, and...

Crawl. Yup, baby Victoria is now crawling all over the place. She's actually been crawling now for a few weeks. Backwards. She was stuck in reverse but she just found first gear. So we're keeping busy keeping up with lil' Peppa as she scoots around the place.
Oh, and when she lays on her stomach she likes to roar like a lion every so often. Very ,very sweet.

Bad Wimpfen

Bad Wimpfen is a small town about 2 minutes from our home. It was far away from Heilbronn that it didn't get bombed out during either of the World Wars, so all of the medieval town is still (mostly) there.
Simone took me here as one of the first places for me to see. It remains one of my favorite towns to go to and we drive through at least once a week.
The town's medieval structures date back to 1200 or just before. There is a map drawn up so you can see how the walls around the towers and fortress and church/courtyards looked during that time, with an explanation of all of the remaining structures. This first picture is of the 'Blaues Turm', or 'Blue Tower/Castle'.

This is a picture taken outside the grounds the current church. Whenever I walk by this place it weirds me out something nasty. All of the faces on the statues are either missing or worn away in a very disfigured way. Just creeps me out, that's all.

This next photo Pops took while they were here visiting. I think he liked the houses in the background with the Smart car in front of them. And yes, Smarts are very common here. SUV's not so much. If you saw some of the roads in Bad Wimpfen you'd understand.

In the back here was part of the original wall around the Altstadt (Old Town).

The picture below was taken from the other end of where the Altstadt's grounds began. The Blue Tower is in the background showing where the protective wall would have extended to. The grass here shows part of what would have been part of the courtyard. The stone on the right is the tower overlooking the valley and Neckar River it was built above.

The picture below shows modern houses that would have fallen outside the Altstadt wall.

Above is a jewelry shop Mom and I ate our ice cream in front of. It is in the modern part of town.

At Christmas Bad Wimpfen holds one of the more famous Weihnachtsmarkts (Christmas Markets) in Germany. The entire town is turned into a Medieval Christmas Festival. This town is the perfect setting for such events. I will post pictures after this Christmas.