a weekend at Casa Schnorres

As soon as I landed in Salzburg, I found out that my friends were all going away for the weekend haha. (That's what you get for trying hard to get in touch and plan ahead but no-one answers their phone!)
It was a quick decision to get on board and make the 5 hour drive to a tiny place near Karlsruhe.
First off another 30th birthday to celebrate - it is the year of plenty, happy birthday Tommy!

The next two days were spent hanging at Casa Schnorres... still impressed with their kayak storage solution haha

Special mention goes out to Simon for not giving up on the way there! It is a 2.5hours drive from his place and as we hardly ever see him these days I told him to come up. Poor guy was stuck in traffic and it took him 6!!! hours to get to us (we received the funniest pics of the traffic jam, his camping chair next to the car on the Autobahn, etc haha). I hope the barbecue and company made up for it.

That's what's summer is all about: amazing friends, time to hang, a garden to lounge in, chicken to gush about :), good food and celebrating life!

chicken

Before I will tell you all about our weekend at Casa Schnorres, I have to share some photos of their adorable chicken and their five freshly hatched chicks.
After they moved into their house, the four boys sharing it decided to clean out the chicken coop and get some chicken.
When asked why in the world four guys would get 10 chicken, they will tell you that the place that sold them the chicken had an offer: buy ten chicken and they throw in a rooster for free haha. Now they're in the egg selling business and as they let one of the hens breed they had four little chicks and one on the way when we came to visit. They're the proudest parents in the area :)

Tobi with his chicken

funniest moment ever... Jetty and Simon trying to get all the chicken in the den

Until they are big enough these chicks own the guest room... hilarious!

This little guy hatched Saturday night while we were barbecuing it up. 

a wedding to kick off summer

My lovely physio therapist tied the knot early this month. It's not like she is just anybody but my sister in law's best friend and maid of honour, plus the groom was my brother's best man, so they're basically family :) It was a lovely wedding, a gorgeous garden setting and hot hot heat.

only picture I got of the happy couple and you can't even properly see the groom haha

What follows is a bit of sibling nonsense, as we thought it'd be nice to have a new version of this photo... it's been almost a year after all. Our friend Mike took the camera and snapped about 15 photos, I never got the info that we were not doing silly faces! Anyway here goes. Happy days x

early harvest

My friends the Bs have a patch in a community field, where they grow veg and pretty flowers. (Seriously it is too easy to plant things and do a bit for our environment by growing your own!)
After our afternoon hangout two weeks ago, Claudia and I went to water the plants, free it off some weeds, thin out some tomato plants and harvest some goodies.

 zucchini

 pumpkin

 chard

 Claudia's bike with harvest goodies

my beautiful friend! Time spent with her is always precious :)

I ended up making a chard strudel with the things she gave me... it was delicious! 

stunning train journey

image via The Selby

Has anyone seen the collaboration the Selby did with Louis Vuitton?
He went on a train journey from Paris to Shanghai! Go and feast your eyes here and here. Gorgeous, stunning, breathtaking,... can't find the right words. Love his illustrations as well.
Suddenly feel like going for a long train journey to far away exotic places :)

hanging with the B and S families

Always a pleasure hanging with these lovely people.
We went for a walk to get ice cream and on our way back we stopped at a playground/skate park, the boys played around, Miss K was loving her mini paddling pool and bubbles and Claudia and I enjoyed the sun and taking turns of cooling our feet in the kiddy pool haha Perfection!
On our way home we stopped at Romy & Paul's place to say hi to her and her friend, funniest thing chatting with the two of them in their window set in the orange wall :) You can see the picture she took of us standing down there here.
Loving summer this year :)

balcony goodness

Since I don't have a garden or access to a garden, I planted tomatoes on the balcony. They used to be beautiful little things, like the photo above, but all of a sudden they look like this:

A storm tried to take them down and basically snapped one of the plants off, but nothing can hinder these guys.

Looks like the harvest might be plentiful :)

bike rides to refresh the soul

Who knew that cycling from the city to my parents house would be so pretty...
Hard to think that it takes just over an hour, which makes taking the train only 20 mins faster. Crazy right.
Here's what I love about riding your bike: it clears your head, you save money and the planet, you actually acknowledge your surroundings and if that weren't enough, you get fit.
And one last bit of information, when cycling uphill and you think that you can't do it cause your legs will give in, belt out Survivor by Destiny's Child. People may look perplexed but it helps :)