The Devil's in the...Wait, what did you just say?

Sarah's folks were just here. They arrived on Thursday and left again on Monday. They will be back in about a week to visit with us some more. We didn't do too much while they were here. I had to work at first, and we stuck around Karlsruhe to see some of the local sites.



Popop immediately got on the zipline at the park down the road.



Momma even got in on the fun.



Here we are at the local tennis club's Italian restaurant. They have awesome pizza and calzones. And really good hefeweizen.



We finally went to the top of the Durlach Turmberg. It's an old watch tower up on a big hill. We've lived here almost two years in total, and this is the first time we managed to do this. It is a couple of stops past a restaurant we like. It only costs a few bucks to ride up. There are steps. You can even ride you bike up there, if you are a masochist. Yep, we suck.



Here we are in front of the "most unimpressive castle ever" as Sarah puts it. The children are in there usual poses. We call it grubbing around.

One last little cultural update. The Germans don't say that the Devil is in the details. They say that the Devil is in the squirrels. Now I know why squirrels freak me out.

A few quick notes

I don't have much time, but I want to post these little bits before I forget.

I got some new boxer shorts for my birthday. One pair has sock monkeys on it. They look like they are celebrating New Year's or something. One of them has a top hat and cane and is holding a glass of champagne. B pointed to him and asked me why he was a politician. OK, she said "ol-itician", but it was close.

A couple of days later, Sarah was holding her in the kitchen, and I was acting like I was going to scold Sarah for not giving the kids a treat. Briana holds out her hand to me and says, "Daddy, let me handle this." Then she proceeded to scold Sarah, and how.

Aiden went on his first big bike ride without his training wheels. We rode to this really cool park that is viking themed. It has a big, carved viking guarding the entrance and the main piece of playground equipment is a viking ship. He did pretty good. He is a little sketchy, and he believes that anything on the side of the walk (say a lamp post) is dangerous. This on German sidewalks that are 6 to 8 feet wide. But he made it. I had predicted some potential drama, so I brought along his tag along bar. I hooked him up to my bike for the ride home. He loved it. I will upload some pictures soon. Yeah, we forgot to take the camera with us. Which is too bad, because I saw an Audi R8 by the park. It's like a TT that is a little bit longer and meaner looking with a V8 jammed into the back. Sweet.

On a final note. I went on a ride this weekend. I did my first metric century (100 km). Which is a good start for getting me to a normal century (161 km). We did a hell of a lot of climbing, though. I am pretty sure that I could knock out a good 20 or 30 km more if it was flat. I have a picture of the altitude profile from the ride. I had to quit 14 km before the we got back home. My left knee couldn't take the abuse of constantly going uphill. I had to stop at a train station in Ettlingen to catch a tram back. We started out from Neureut and headed across Karlsruhe to Durlach. Then we headed up into Waldbronn. From there I think we went through Karlsbad to Spielberg. We picked up a friend there and headed up to Dobel. That was a massive climb. We dropped down a massive hill into Bad Herrenalb and then climbed up towards Loffenau. But before we got to Loffenau, we took a little left. And climbed straight up for 5 km. It was unreal. After an age of just staring at my front tire and trying to turn my cranks and walking a little bit and then riding some more, I reached Teufelsmühle. It was insane. Then we turned around and headed back to Bad Herrenalb and along the Alb through Ettlingen to Karlsruhe (or in my case to Ettlingen). It was pretty fun.