Grandma Day

Since we couldn't attend my Grandma's funeral, we decided to have a family day in her honor. Andy was able to take off work yesterday, so we got on the train and headed to the Rhine Falls and Stein am Rhine. Carsten and I have been to both destinations twice before, once with my family and once with Jeff and Amanda, but Andy was not able to go either time. We went to the falls first, and Andy was amazed at how big they were. He said they were by far the biggest waterfalls he had ever seen :). Carsten spent the entire time going 'ooo ooo ooo', which is his excited noise. It was really fun to go back there with Andy and the weather was just perfect with sun and temperatures in the low 70s. We elected to leave the stroller at home since the Rhine Falls aren't particularly stroller friendly and instead Carsten spent a lot of the day in his hiking backpack. Here are some photos:

Our family at the Rhine Falls.

Carsten did great in his backpack!

Traditional Huisman self-portrait.

Rainbow!

We had lunch at the cafeteria and since Carsten is now one and is mostly eating what we are eating, he shared my chicken nuggets and fries - what a lucky guy :). He fell asleep in his backpack on the train ride to Stein am Rhine and took an extremely valuable 45 min power nap. I should add that this nap that started at 12:30 pm was the only nap he took all day and considering this fact, he did amazingly well. For reference, he normally takes two naps at home at 9 am and 1 pm for a total of 2+ hours of naps each day. Here's a photo of our sleeping baby:

Sleeping baby :)

Carsten woke up as we arrived at Stein am Rhine, which is a very cute Swiss town. We walked down to the Old Town area and then let him walk around the street for a while so he could get some exercise. He was interested in everything: shopping bins with shoes, chairs, and even other ladies' purses :). We also stopped to get gelato and both of us would say it was by far the best gelato we'd ever had. Carsten got to taste our delicious strawberry gelato, which marked his first taste of strawberries and ice cream. He seemed to be just ok with it, so we let him run around while we finished :). Here are some photos of Stein am Rhine:

Walking around the street of Stein am Rhine.

Carsten and I :). He's so happy to be exploring!

First taste of strawberry gelato. He's very unsure...

We had a bit of time before our train back home, so we went in search of a park. We found a lovely park with a lot of fun things to do, and Carsten's favorite thing was to shake the rope that went with a balance beam. Here's some photos of our time at the park:

Balance beam plus rope to shake = FUN! 

'Mommy, I could stay here all day!'

Walking around the sand pit. He looks like he's doing River Dance to me :).

Swinging on the swings. 

One last time on the balance beam before we head home. I LOVE this photo :).

Carsten trying to eat the rope.

We realized that we've done most of our traveling with other people, so it was fun to try out a trip with just us. Hopefully, we'll be making a few more day trips this fall! Carsten did really well on the train trip home. He was a little antsy and wanted to move around, but fortunately, the trains allow for some wiggling. We had a wonderful family day in honor of my Grandma.