While H and his parents were in the shop working, I went to Chiroru no Mori (aka The Tirolean Forest) with my sister-in-law's family. It's a kind of German-themed amusement park in the woods between Okaya and Shiojiri (and only 30 minutes from our place). I guess it's more like a regular park than an amusement park, because there are no roller coasters or people dressed in costumes. There are three main areas, the town, the ranch/ activity area and the play area. We started up in the ranch/ activity area with a short lesson on making bread and then butter. (There are pictures of this, just not on my camera. I'll add them when I get a copy.) Then my nieces just had to ride a horse and pet the bunnies.

I told them that when they were older, we could ride real horses in Texas, without someone holding the lead. We had pizza for lunch and picked up our then finished bread creations. Sadly they got eaten before we remembered to take pictures. Mine turned out a bit disappointing, so no big loss there. After some more frolicking (me sitting on bench watching) in the petting zoo area, we made our way back down the hill to the big play ground.

There were fun things to walk across,

fun things to ride on,

and even big see-saws.

I, of course, was having fun sitting on benches and taking pictures. Since the weather was cooperating, I really did enjoy sitting on those benches. After all that excitement, we had ice cream and I bought locally-brewed (as in at the park) German-style beer for H, some sake for my father-in-law and some local wine for everyone else who can drink.

Everyone was pretty pooped after that; my nieces fell asleep in the car on the way home. I spent the rest of the day in the shop mostly doing nothing because the Big Stupid Festival Starts tomorrow and so everyone is busy preparing for that. Oh boy!