This weekend, two of my most favorite fellow John Deere Expat Wives/Mothers and I packed up our kiddos and headed to Gutshof Kappeler (“Kappeler Estate” or better understood as the “Kappeler Farm”). We decided to have a weekend get-away with the children since our husbands were all attending AGRITECHNICA in Hanover, Germany; AGRITECHNICA is the world’s largest exhibition for agricultural machinery and equipment (including 24 exhibition halls, over 320,000 m² exhibition floor space and more than 2,600 exhibitors).
My friend Kari organized the trip and invited Nicole and I to come along! Initially, I found it a tad amusing that we were going to be visiting and staying the weekend on a farm, considering I had grown up surrounded by farms & agriculture and with my in-laws owning a large farming operation (and us a lot of piggies:), but I knew that visiting farms in Western Europe was very popular and a common European family holiday (a.k.a. vacation). I also knew that my girls would have the time of their lives being able to play with the other children and interact with various farm animals all weekend long…and I was 100% right. Elle even got to ride a horse all by herself for the first time (pictures below)!!
And, I found that staying on the Kappeler Farm was different than staying on Uncle Ryan’s Farm:). The Kappeler farmhouse was built in 1885 and situated in the valley of the Upper Danube River, between the Black Forest, the Schwabian Alps and Lake Constance. The landscape surrounding the farm was very beautiful, peaceful and relaxing, with limestone cliffs and colorful forest slopes (though it was not relaxing to drive through the beautiful cliffs to get to the farm:). All of the kiddos were able to participate in the daily activities on a farm. We stayed in a holiday apartment located in a restored barn, dating back to between the 11th and 13th centuries and still featured the original oak beam from this time.
Thus, as you will see in the pictures below everyone had a lovely weekend. So, now to UNPACK…and PACK for the USA!!!!!! I cannot believe that NEXT WEEK we will be flying back to the USA!! And once again, be surrounded by a lot of farms:)-LOL!!
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| The kiddos getting settled in... |
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| The kiddos having fun playing "musical chairs!!" |
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| Celebrating our friend Ellie's 8th Birthday! |
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| The girls and I Saturday morning...Elle was not interested in taking a picture with Mommy and Britta, but rather, trying to figure out where all the animals were:)!! |
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| Britta saying, "Look Mommy...horsie, horsie!!" |
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| The girls feeding the rabbits |
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| Elle getting some help from Frau Kappeler to feed the horse |
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| Elle LOVED, LOVED brushing the horse |
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| The kids receiving instruction on how to properly/carefully ride the horses. |
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| Since Britta was too young to ride the horses, she cuddled with one of the farm cats...so sweet:) |
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| This is probably one of my favorite pictures ever...Elle was so excited and was laughing SO HARD when the horse started to trot...the look on her face makes me so happy every time I look at it...it was so much fun! |
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| Warming up with some hot cocoa with friends... |
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| Britta running down the trail... |
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| The landscape surrounding the farm |
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| Britta jogging back to the farm with Ellie |
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| The girls throwing some rocks into the river... |
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| All six kiddos! |
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| The girls saying "good-bye" to the rabbits this morning...Elle said, "we will be back rabbits!" |
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