The next day we all slowly woke up and one by one went out on the patio to inhale the views of the black forest.



Once nibbling on the snacks Anna and Andy had procured the night before was no longer enough, we went in search of breakfast and coffee. After the long journey the day before, the girls vehemently protested about getting back into their car seats. I think we may have scarred them for life on that one.
The GPS told us there was a restaurant a mile away but it turns out that was as the crow flies. Ten nail-biting miles later on roads barely wide enough for our van, let alone a passing car, we pulled up to our destination and it was disappointingly closed. We backtracked stopping only to take a picture of why the Black Forest is thus named.

Pretty dark in there, eh?
While the drive was a bit scary, the views all around us were breath-taking!

An hour after we had set out, Andy was driving a van full of famished gals through the “forest” so he was ready to pull over at the first café he saw. This experience taught us that not every little town in Europe is full of quint little cafés.
We eventually did find a cafe to eat in a nearby town in the nick of time. We were approaching nap time and also needed enough time to get ready for the wedding.
Guess what Belén wanted to eat for breakfast?

Andy ordered for us in German and the waitress looked directly at Anna and I to ask us questions (in German) about our order. We awkwardly looked back and forth at one another while Andy jumped in to try and clarify. When the waitress left he said, “I think we are getting coffee, some pastries and an egg.” Perfect! At that point, anything would have been perfect!
The pastries arrived a little bit later and we were so hungry, calories were of no consideration. We piled butter and jam on each piece, sharing with Belén who was equally hungry. The coffee was brought out a little later, each in our own separate little teapot. We started to feel like normal humans again. Mine and Anna’s eggs came out as a single hard boiled egg on a plate with a spoon. We both looked at each other like, “What the hell do we do with this?”
This is what we did with it.

Andy must not have been paying attention until we were already making a huge mess because he said, “Oh, there is an easier way to do that.” This is how he ate his egg.

Apparently, it is quite common to be served an egg like this in Germany so if it happens to you, the key is to tap the shell at the top of the egg and sort of decapitate it and then use the rest of the shell as a makeshift bowl for the egg, sprinkling salt on as needed.
We finished with breakfast and drove back to our abode which was quite quaint, and less scary looking in the daylight.

The right two-thirds of the house is actually the barn. We were staying on half of the top floor.
The girls went down for naps while the rest of us showered and got ready for the wedding.
We woke Belén up just in time to get dressed for the wedding. She was piping hot with a fever of 103 degrees F. Andy and I didn’t know what to do as we had come such a long way to attend our good friend’s wedding and yet our first born had the highest fever of her life. We quickly concluded with Anna that she would stay with Belén and make sure she was alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen to keep the fever down and then Andy, Eloise and I would go to the wedding. I hoped more than anything that Belén’s fever would go away quickly but also that the rest of us, especially Eloise, would not catch whatever it was that she had.

Hesitantly, we drove off without two of our tribe and I immediately began texting medical people back home to see how we should be treating Belén as well as texting Anna to see how she was doing. Her response, “GO HAVE FUN! SHE WILL BE FINE!”
The drive was once again beautiful and it eventually took us to the cutest little old church you have ever seen, located smack dab in the middle of nowhere.



The church was built before the United States was founded.
As much as I hated being away from Belén and not having her with us, my spirits were raising at the thought of seeing Patrik and Claudia married in this absolutely perfect setting.
The only thing the tiny chapel was not good for was storing a car seat. We ended up ditching it in the back row and took a pew mid-church and waited for the ceremony to begin.

Soon, Claudia and Patrik entered the chapel both looking amazing. Claudia’s dress was SO beautiful and it fit her like a glove.

The service brought back memories of the many Catholic masses I attended when I was younger with the minor detail that all of the words were in German and I couldn’t understand anything besides their names. My mind tunes out sermons so well though that I didn’t feel like I missed much.
It was very fun seeing some of the slight differences in a wedding ceremony in Germany versus the US. I loved how Patrik and Claudia walked down the aisle together even at the beginning of the ceremony. Things were definitely more similar than different.

Eloise was a trooper and only started to get fussy once. Luckily, I had pumped some milk for her that morning using my handy dandy hand pump so Andy fed her the milk and that calmed and then she passed out on me.

Before we knew it, Patrik and Claudia were officially husband and wife and we were outside congratulating them!

We lingered only momentarily before driving to the location of the reception which was very conveniently located right next door to the house where we were staying.
We passed the time between wedding and reception checking in on Anna and Belén. B seemed to be doing much better and was quite happy to have an attentive adult playmate at her beck and call. Andy and I decided to leave Eloise at home as well and make a date out of the wedding reception. We promised to bring Anna food from the reception since there was no place nearby to get her something to eat.
The reception was BEAUTIFUL in this neat old farmhouse turned bed and breakfast and it truly couldn’t have been more perfect. Patrik and Claudia had considered every last detail from a very unique guest book where you put your green fingerprints on a tree branch to the most incredible pre-meal cake to the five course dinner followed by champagne, toasts, beer, wine and dancing!











Patrik and Claudia had introduced us to their good friends who have three kids, the younger two of which match the ages of our girls. They were actually the family sharing the upstairs of the farmhouse where we were staying. Their kids were able to attend the wedding so Andy and I were constantly being reminded of our girls because their behavior was so similar. We talked a lot to the parents and came to realize that toddler and baby behavior is not cultural. Even though I couldn’t understand little Jula when she was whining in German, I could tell you exactly what she was saying based on knowing what Belén would be saying at that same moment if she were there.
It was also fun to talk with them about the cultural differences raising kids in the US versus Germany. For example, breastfeeding in public seemed very accepted in Germany. Maternity leaves are OBVIOUSLY longer in Germany and it just seemed like the country had a lot more policy to encourage working, educated parents to have kids than in the US. I also found it interesting that doctors in Germany encouraged babies to start eating solids at four months whereas we can start at four months but many encourage you to wait until six. Minor details but it is always nice to know there are many acceptable ways to do things.

Keeping our promise to Anna probably had a few people suspicious of us crazy Americans. We didn’t have them take Anna’s place setting away (even though she wasn’t there) and so they continued to serve the phantom guest food. Each time a course was served, Andy and I took turns slinking out of the room with the plate and walking it back to the top floor of the farmhouse for Anna to consume. We would then bring back the dirty dish from the previous course. Luckily the wait staff was varied so I don’t know that they caught on. For some reason the exercise conjured up images of taking food to someone in a dungeon. Anna was happy though and we were very grateful to have her there to watch the girls.

We had so much fun and were so thrilled to have been able to attend the joyous occasion.

The next morning, we met Patrik, Claudia and their families for breakfast and gave them the gift we had had made for them. We wished we could have spent more time with them, but we needed to get on the road for our last major stop of the trip, the Swiss Alps.