Indy's 7th birthday and Neckar River cruise

Indy turned 7 on Saturday! I cannot believe that my sweet, tiny little baby is 7! He's such a big boy! This is him when he was new. Look how little he is! That was a preemie outfit and it swallowed him whole.



Yes, that is a normal size coffee mug. He was super tiny.

Today we got up and had breakfast together then he got to open 1 present (his party is next Sat, so we have to save most of them for the party). He opened the Wii LEGO Indiana Jones video game, which I have to say is awesome. It's the first game we've ever bought for him (he prefers to be outdoors). M and I spent most of the morning playing it with Indy cheering us on. As a result of not owning video games, Indy's not too good at them, which IMO is not a bad thing.

In the afternoon we went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (yay!) and Indy won the costume contest. He came home with a HUGE jar of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. A jar full of sugar. Just what he needs. Later in the evening, we went downtown for a boat ride down the Neckar River. The Warrant Officer's Association sponsored the trip so M was kind of obligated to go. It was so much fun. Every summer, up and down the river they have castle illuminations, which means they light the castles up and simulate the burning of them (apparently most of the castles were burned at some point or other during their history) and put on big fireworks displays. The castles we went to see are just down from Heidelberg in a little town called Neckarsteinach. There are 4 castles on the mountains in various stages of ruin. Actually, one of them is NOT a ruin and is still inhabited.

At the dock in HD.


M and Indy.


My sweet baby.


Waving to one of the many, many other boats out on the river.


Part of the old fortifications of HD.


Heidelberg. Can you believe I live here?


The Alte Brucke (old bridge) and city gate.


Houses across the river. The lady sitting next to me was German and told me that some of these houses are actually fraternity houses from the University. Not bad for Frat houses.



Indy waving to other boats in the lock. He was fascinated by the whole lock system. They packed as many boats as they could into the lock before flooding it to raise us up. It was actually quite cool.


Cruising along.


Several of Indy's friends were on the boat, which made it even better for him.


Hey! There I am.


Scenery.



This is the castle that is still inhabited. It was getting difficult to get good photos as it got darker. Actually, if I knew how to use my fancy schmancy camera, I probably could have gotten some better shots.



This castle is now a ruin. It was built in the 1200's. M and I hike up to it several years ago. It's very cool. You can go up into the towers and look down at the layout of the castle. They were just starting to illuminate them in this photo.


Part of the town along the river. They had a huge festival going on.



I played around with my camera settings and actually got a pretty interesting shot of some of the fireworks.


I hope you enjoyed Indy's birthday cruise as much as we did. Next Sat is the BIG Indiana Jones party. Pray for me.