Wonnemar

I need to put this in before a whole year has gone by.  I am playing catch up with pictures from last year in preparation to upload the blog and print the book for 2011, now that it's halfway into 2012.  There are several events that got skipped over for lack of time in the midst of moving between countries (twice).  I'll put them in here for a few days before moving them to their proper chronological spots.

Our time in Ingolstadt was unique.  We had no playdates (with one exception).  We had no scouts, dance, soccer, piano lessons, activity days, mutual or anything.  (Isaac did do one service project with the other two young men.)  We had serious family time.  We traveled quite a bit on Matt's days off, but after school was done for the day we often got restless in our tiny apartment.  We went to parks when it wasn't raining.  We walked to bakeries.  And every Thursday we went to Wonnemar, the wonderful indoor pool for two hours when Matt got home from work.  We LOVED Thursdays.  We started making it our Döner day for lunch as well to try and keep from starving while swimming and playing hard later.  Even with a big lunch, we almost always were still ravenous afterwards and would often pick up a couple amazing pizzas to take home.  I only took my camera the last week, not wanting to ruin it.  But it was such an important part of our Germany time, I had to document it.

The weather in Germany encourages indoor pools and they always seem to do them up well.  There are lap pools of course, but so much more.  This one had 6 slides, a wave pool, and heated outdoor section.

Standing in front of the wave pool.  It would start every 15 minutes.  The kids are looking in the direction of the lap pool.  Matt and I would swim laps first while they went on as many slides as they could.  We built up our stamina week after week.  One of the last times we went, Matt dropped us off early because of a late work meeting and met us there later.  Because we had extra time, I decided to see if I was capable of completing the swimming part of an ironman.  It took me 2 hours, but I swam 2.5 miles. 

Also not pictured is the awesome outdoor pool.  It is much bigger area than the Azur in Ramstein.  There is a small lap area and different water features that take turns going off and on--big shower sprayers, spitting fountains, and best of all the whirlpool.  There are super powered jets that really PUSH the water and you around a big circle.  We loved to all go out there and play when it was running.  The kids loved trying to hold onto the edge for as long as they could before being swept away and then grab onto Matt.  He would circle with them and then help push them to the edge.

Jess is bursting with happiness.  She loves the pool.

We spent the most time on the tube slide.  The tubes are a little heavy and you sure get a work out carrying them up all those flights of stairs over and over and over.  A great thing about German pools is their lack of life guards dictating on the slides.  There were green and red lights at the tops of the other slides so you know when to start, but the tube slide was a free for all. 

Here they are coming out of the back hole slide.  

This is the long fast slide.  We all tried it many, many times.  There is another yellow fast slide, shorter and steeper, but I don't have a picture of it.  

 

Makenna could regularly body surf all the way to the edge.  

Makenna catching a wave.  

It's a short, simple slide, but has great scope for imagination.  The only rule is "no standing".  Almost anything else goes.  The kids had loads of fun making up different ways of going down.  Backwards, sideways, belly, back, spinning, three in a row, three in a chain. . . .  

And this is what our hands look like when it's time to leave.