We are having a staycation. Our summer is short this year, and with Dave’s retirement looming on October 1st, we are pinching pennies. Luckily we are beyond blessed to live in a simply beautiful part of the world. Our house is in a small village, surrounded by the Black Forest. How much more fairy tale can you get?

It’s not really a mountain, more of a hill on a mountain?

Yesterday Dane & I traveled down the mountain to our neighboring village of Bad Liebenzell for an early evening swim. It’s tourist season and during the day the pool is wall-to-wall people. Early evening everyone goes to eat and we go to swim. We had the pool almost to ourselves, a couple of other families, a handful of lone swimmers. It was perfect.

Dane’s favorite activity, after the slide, is climbing up on the metal mushroom in the middle of the pool. He can usually manage it once or twice by himself but then his muscles get tired and he needs me. I’m happy to give him a little boost. Another child, a girl maybe a year or two younger than Dane, joined us after 5 minutes. Since I can mind-read I asked her if she wanted a boost up… in German. Silence. In Dutch. Silence. In English….

“Yes please!” Score! English! I happily boosted the two of them up, one after the other, again and again for the next half hour.

An old photo of the Bad Liebenzell pool… you can see how tiny Tess still is!

After I was rewarded with smiles and a little chat from her parents, in English! I also bonded with another mom playing with her daughter, from Holland. My people! It’s the little things in life, a quiet pool, one-on-one time with Dane, speaking in my native tongue (or English), that brighten my day. As the last families left, Dane and I moved into the lap pool to get a little exercise (me) and strengthen our swimming skills (Dane).

He resisted a little, actual swimming is apparently not the point of going to the pool, but with the promise of TWO scoops of ice cream he happily complied. My parenting style includes the bribe…especially when the bribe is something I want too!

An old photo of Dane and a German-size ice cream scoop! Two is okay LOL!

We toweled off and I drove two blocks to park outside our favorite eiscafe (ice cream parlor). My mouth was drooling at the thought of my favorite whiskey ice cream. Sadly, they were out of whiskey ice cream. I picked yogurt + fig instead, because it looked just like the whiskey ice cream, and it was not only healthier but incredibly delicious as well. Wooooooohooooooooo! Dane choose butterkeks (a chocolate covered cookie ice cream) and chocolate for  his double scoop. We walked out happily licking ice cream intending to sit in the park and listen to the band play in the cupola.

Instead we ran into the mom of one his classmates. Nicole was trying to find her hubby and two kids. They had ridden their bikes down to Pforzheim (25+ km away) and couldn’t get back up the hill. I knew their car. There was no way she was fitting 3 bikes in and I had my trusty bus/van/Veronica with me. I offered to help cart people and bikes home.

My mom + Veronica (from when I got lost in the Schwarzwald, literally lost).

We happily hung out, had some more ice cream, and then hopped + skipped to the van (okay, that was just Dane). My van may be old and worn, but it is very impressive to little kids who were amazed that you could spin seats backwards, lay the back flat, and stack in the bikes. We drove the short way home, up the steep mountain (hill?) that gives a fantabulous view of Bad Liebenzell below and the burg across the valley.

Bad Liebenzell burg taken 2-3 years ago in early Fall.

Kloster Hirsau, we drive by here on the long way home from the pool. Taken earlier this year.

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