German day for the Irish

The funeral for Aunt Helen was in New Ulm, so my parents, brother and I had a mini adventure day in southern Minnesota last Friday. We started off the day hitting up Emma Krumbees off 169 in Belle Plaine. Along the way my mom had several conversations with her siblings as we all struggled to located the church on a map. I had a GPS, but that only works when the end location can be found. We ultimately found the church because my aunt and uncle were standing next to the road waving their arms as if they were waiting for a plane to rescue them from a deserted island.

This was the church surrounded by trees set just off the road. Easy to keep on driving.

There was something about the quaintness of the church and the town that I had to take photos. It sort of made me want to explore small towns and photograph them. Maybe someday when I have some time... (laughing on the inside at the notion of having time to spare).

We headed to "downtown" New Ulm after the service to find some food that didn't smell like church basement. The church didn't have a basement, but it had the smell of one. Some women were walking around with pitchers of refreshments. As they came near, I though, ohh lemonade, yum. She came up to me and asked "would you like some water?". Oh. It's yellow water, hmm, no thanks. My mom's younger brother Tim told us about the glockenspiel (which I am shocked that I just spelled it correctly).

We found it, but when we got there we were told it would play in another hour if we wanted to come back. We were on route to the Schell's Brewery for a tour, so we didn't' think we would be able to see it. The tour was sold out, so we were able to make it back for the bell ringing.
I thought my parents were cute sitting on the bench watching the figurines move around, so I snapped this photo.

We weren't able to tour the German brewery, but we did get to see Hermann the German statue. 
There is a spiral staircase to the top and for the small fee of only $1.50 you can enter. 

Semi-family photo, missing my sister.

Me, brother: Shawn, Dad, Mom (in the shadow)

I am predominately French (dad's side) and Irish (mom's side), but let's face it, at this point I'm mostly a slathering of Western European origin, but the one thing I am not is German. It was a rather random day for us to spend wandering around this little German town because our Swedish aunt lived there and we wanted to pay our respects.