Our stay at the Edelweiss military resort
Hellllo! Welcome to another chapter of “Kasey’s long overdue posts about less-than-recent trips.” It’s become a bit of a tradition, no? Anyway, we spent a week around Thanksgiving in Bavaria and Austria with our kiddos, and two important things happened: 1) the kids got to make a snowman and 2) CHRIS AND I GOT TO MEET AN IU BASKETBALL PLAYER WE ADORED WHEN WE WERE IN COLLEGE.
I was not chill about it.
Backing up: we decided way back around the time Lochlan was born (NINE MONTHS AGO) that we wanted to go to Edelweiss Resort and Lodge in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. This place, which is specifically for military and DOD people living overseas, is extremely popular with people in Sigonella so we’ve been hearing about it since we arrived. We ended up making plans for my in-laws, Gail and David, to meet up with us there, and then it turned out that a tons of our friends had the same idea for celebrating Thanksgiving. The end result was that four of the families we are closest to ended up being there at the same stretch — and even on the same plane — as us! It. Was. Awesome!
In the interest of, you know, actually finishing, this will be a photo-heavy post. Which is appropriate given that just today I got back some of the family photos we took while we were at the resort. LOOK AT THIS COLOR COORDINATION, GUYS. It only took about two months of anxiety and obsessing to decide on these clothes, so no big deal.
We arrived in Munich on the Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving, got a (hilariously large) rental car and drove the roughly two hours to Garmisch. Straight off the bat, look how gorgeous our surroundings were!
Our first day in Garmisch, we kept things pretty chill: we ate lunch in town (Shaka Burgerhouse was AMAZING!), hung out with friends for a while and relaxed. And by “relaxed,” I mean tried to figure out how to get all our kids to sleep at the same time in a hotel room with only two queen beds and a crib the baby wouldn’t sleep in.
Thanksgiving Day in Bavaria — Neuschwanstein Castle and our celebrity run-in
Thanksgiving Day this year happened to be Chris’ birthday as well (he was actually born on Thanksgiving Day too!), and to celebrate we opted to take a tour offered by the resort to Neuschwanstein Castle. It was an all-day affair, including stops at a woodworking shop and a church, but the best part was standing on this bridge and gazing at Mad King Ludwig’s fantasy castle.
It also took us back a little bit, as Chris and I visited here in 2010 on our honeymoon as well. It was cool to share it with our kiddos nine years later, who — as you can see — were deeply appreciative of this opportunity. 
Our friends Megan and Dave and Angie and Rey (and their combined four children) also joined us on the tour, so it was super fun for the kids to get to play together during stops. Afterward, we got home just in time for our Thanksgiving dinner at Edelweiss, which was FANTASTIC and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND.
But what I really need to talk about is who we ran into while walking up to the castle!
So to set the scene, I’m standing there trying to get us to take a picture with a pretty background when a woman walks up to Chris and, apparently, offers to take the picture for us. I didn’t hear her say this and instead saw that she was wearing an Indiana University (our alma mater!) shirt so I excitedly asked if they were from there. (Ok, to be totally honest, I first awkwardly said “Hoo Hoo HOOSIERS”). They were! We got to talking and the woman introduced some of the people who were around her, when a younger dude stretched out his hand to Chris to introduce himself …
And Chris blurts out “AND YOU ARE JORDAN HULLS.”
Jordan Hulls is a Bloomington native who was extremely well known because he was Mr. Indiana Basketball and chose to stay local to play for IU and because he was awesome. He played from 2009-2013 and was a HUGE reason why they were really good at that time. We basically watched him start every game for four years. He’s now playing in Germany and apparently doing very, very well.
SO, having completely missed that Chris was trying to subtly tell me who this was beforehand, I basically did a cartoonish spittake and blurted out such things as “OMG I USED TO WATCH YOU ON TV.” Which is a particularly weird thing to say, because we watched him many times in real life as well …? I guess somehow my brain thought “watching on TV” was more impressive? I DON’T KNOW.
Having thoroughly embarrassed myself, I ultimately decided the best thing to do was to ignore him and chat with his wife about their kiddos (one of whom was almost the exact same age as Lochlan) and living abroad. She was extremely nice.
And we spent the rest of the trip randomly looking at each other and going REMEMBER THAT ONE TIME WE MET JORDAN HULLS AT A FREAKING CASTLE?
Day Two: it’s hot tub time, baby.
Our original plan for Friday involved putting the big kids in ski school, taking the baby to the childcare center at the base next to Edelweiss and then marveling at our freedom. Regrettably, however, ski school was not available until December. Partially because there was no snow at that time (lame!). Instead, we took the baby to childcare and headed to the pool with the big kids. Or, more accurately, to the HOT TUB.
This was legitimately the thing I was most excited about at the resort and it totally lived up to my dreams.
Frosty air plus hot bubbly water = amazing. We stayed for ages. I want to go back right now, please. 
After that, we opted to check out the Garmisch Christmas market with Gail and David and get some lunch out in town. The Christmas market was cute, but of course didn’t really live up to some of the other ones we’ve been to (or to Innsbruck, where we went the next day).
Day Three: Snow and Innsbruck
Waking up to snow on Saturday was probably the biggest relief of the trip. Why? Ehhhh we had kind of assumed that there would be snow in Germany in the freaking mountains by almost-December, so we’d talked up the snow A LOT in the run up to the trip. Arriving to find no snow made for a very disappointed pair of kiddos for the first couple of days, both of whom seemed to think they’d been deliberately duped.
(I was also relieved because we had to pay extra for a large enough suitcase to bring all the snowpants and boots and things, so I would have been pretty pissed if we didn’t get to use them.)
Snow was the backdrop for our early-morning photo shoot with the resort’s photographer, Toby. I assure you, everyone was super psyched to get out of bed to go outside and stop-touching-the-snow! and smile-right-now-dammit! first thing in the morning.
As soon as we got back from the photo session though, it was off to play in the snow! I can honestly say this was the highlight of the kiddos’ trip.
So many other kids were out playing in the snow that morning, there was basically a forest of snowmen on the front lawn. So cute! Sadly, the snow didn’t last too much past Saturday morning.
After that, it was off to Innsbruck for a Christmas market! I don’t know what I was expecting specifically from Innsbruck, an Austrian town about an hour from Garmisch, but I ended up being blown away. It was gorgeous!
Finding parking was a bit harrowing because we’d been given the world’s biggest rental car, but the Christmas markets were beautiful. And the food! Can’t beat a Christmas market for food.
I seriously don’t think I’d ever given much thought to Innsbruck and I certainly hadn’t done much research before getting in the car to go, so this town was a lovely surprise. If you are in Garmisch, it is definitely worth a day trip!
Sunday we strongly considered going up to Zugsprite, the tallest peak in Germany, and part of me is a little sad that we didn’t since our friends spoke highly of it. However, it was fairly expensive and seemed like a lot of work, so we ended up opting to take the kids swimming and to the hot tub once more instead. But, it will absolutely be on our list next time!
We spent the next couple of days in Salzburg, Austria, but that will be a post for a different day. Spoiler alert: no celebrity sightings there, but still a nice time.
And now to wrap up with some gratuitous cute kid pictures from the Edelweiss lobby because I was OBSESSED with taking photos in there, apparently.
