Thursday was Father’s Day (Vatertag) in Deutschland. It is tradition for dads to grab a bunch of friends, a wagon of beer, and head out for a hike. A few of the baseball dads (and Jay’s backpack cooler of beer) went out for a wander during baseball practice. Lily and I crashed the party, breaking tradition of no wives or children.
We stumbled across this old hunting shed that was open to party. They had traditional German music blasting, burgers and wursts, and of course beer.
The Fathers Day Crew. One of the dads is a German, and we decided he should have been a professor. He shared his thoughts about German history and culture. And we all shared some good laughs. It was a great time.
This group had a proper wagon, with a speaker and a giant jug full of Apfelwein. Check out the dude’s glass holder necklace. I asked Lily to crochet one for me. I feel like I need one.
This group of dads had matching shirts and hats. Next year the Cricut will be busy. :).
Königstein had its annual Knight Festival this weekend.
Lily and I walked out to the park behind our house on Thursday evening and saw this unexpected renaissance camp. There were campfires everywhere, guitars and singing, knight costumes laying on the ground, lots of hides on wooden chairs (the original bagchair), and ax throwing! Super cool vibe.
Jay, Lily and I took the short walk up the hill to check out the festivities. First stop, the tavern. We could have returned this mug to get our Pfand (deposit) back, but who wants to return that sweet mug?!?!
There were lots of market tents selling all sorts of medieval goodies. Lily brought home an Ocarina – a little necklace flute.
No Knight Tournament is complete without some proper jousting. The competitors captured rings on swords, sliced apples off hanging ropes, chucked axes into giant wooden boards from horseback (I felt sorry for the guys that drew the short straw and had to stand behind the boards to hold them up). There was a battle with bow & arrows, and legit beating on each other’s metal war suits with hammers and axes. It was pretty intense….and awesome.
This dude. I had to snap a photo. And I’m pretty sure I need one of those horn steins.
Lily misbehaved and had to spend 5 minutes in the time-out chair.
We had some friends over between the afternoon and evening show. We grilled burgers and had way too much food, just enough drink, then we went back to the castle for the torchlit night Knight Tournament.
I think Cam preferred playing with the cotton candy over actually eating it. 🙂
The show was basically the same as the noon show, but the fire addition was pretty great. There was fire added to all of the competitions except jousting. It was impressive to see the horses not even flinch a little at the flames.
The schwarz (black) knight won the tournament.
Ty’s baseball organization is large enough for there to be 2 teams. On Sunday, the teams played against each other. Such a great group of boys and coaches. The head coach, Yumi, is Japanese. She calls Ty Ty-san – and now all the boys call him that. It’s kind of cute. 🙂
Lily’s team also played on Sunday, and I love being at the ball field on Mother’s Day – especially when the weather is perfect! For the first time in organization history, Redwings Softball was able to fill a 16U team. And they won their first game!! They played a double header and lost the second game in double overtime. The girls played great!
I wonder who made the hair bows for the girls? 🙂

Not to end on a bummer note, but I am getting ready to catch a flight to Montana. My aunt has been battling lung cancer for over 5 years (a few years longer than they thought she could fight it), and had emergency surgery over the weekend, where they found more cancer in her intestines. She’s such a fighter. When I was younger I wanted to be like Auntie Shell. She is strong, independent but loves hard, hilarious, intelligent, hard working, free spirited, she has travelled all over, loves to spend time in the mountains. She didn’t have any children, but always spoiled me and my siblings as if we were her own. She could use some positive vibes and prayers to come through this latest life hurdle. #cancersucks

Thanks in advance to Jay and our friends here for getting the kids where they need to be this week.