Mit Martje und Lina

Last night Anna had a sleepover with Martje and Lina. This morning they woke up early and came out to watch cartoons. Patrick, Sabine and I took advantage of the opportunity to sleep in a bit. It was nice to have a slower start since we have been getting up early to eat and get on the road so that we can see everything we want to.

Today we went to the zoo in Osnabrück. It is about one hour south of Delmenhorst. As we came into the zoo, we saw flamingos. Sabine was thrilled and went straight over to watch them. There are also photographers at the entrance so we had a group photo with all 8 of us. It was hard to get Sabine to look at the photographer. She was much more interested in the flamingos.

Anna had a great time running around from animal to animal with Martje and Lina. We didn’t get very far before the girls found a playground. We stopped to play and eat. When it was time to get going again, Meike convinced Sabine to ride in the wagon. She thought that was great and then Lina got in with her and that was even better. We walked for a bit looking at animals and to find another playground. At the second playground, Anna and Lina went down the big slide together several times. Apparently Lina has never been brave enough to go before but Anna inspired her. Sabine went off to explore with Meike. 

We walked through the zoo stopping fairly often so one or more girls could eat snacks.  At one of those pauses, we found some birds that had babies.  Sabine was thrilled to see the babies and also to see one of the birds sitting on her nest to hatch eggs.  Sabine wanted to stay and wait to see the little birds come out of the eggs.  We didn’t.  We also walked right past the rhinos.  They were so close you could touch them and everyone was.  Anna even petted one.

Sabine spent the last part of our visit in the front pack.  She said she wanted to sleep so we put up the little hood but she didn’t actually go to sleep.  There was far too much going on.  By the end, we were all really tired and done.  We walked out to the front of the zoo to pick up our pictures and stopped for ice.  The girls all had slushies.  They were similar to icees except they had multiple colors.  They had fun eating them and comparing tongue colors.  Sabine wanted to know where we were going when we were done with our snack.  She wanted to make sure we were going home with Martje and Lina since she still had two things she wanted to do with them.  She was thrilled to find out we were going back with them. 

We had to stop for gas and then for diapers so Martje and Lina beat us home.  Sabine was very excited to see them out front drawing with chalk.  She went out to help them and had a great time.  Meanwhile, Anna came in to write in her journal and draw pictures.  She is taking her homework very seriously and doesn’t want to miss anything.