A Day in the Life

Today begins the slew of Fasching parties (AKA Carnival, Mardi gras, etc). I still don’t get how this wonderful pagan celebration of the end of winter is celebrated here. It seems that, in Germany, each region has it’s own traditions.

The big day here seems to be the Thursday before Fat Tuesday/Ash Wednesday. They call it Weiberfasching (women’s Fasching) Tonight in town, for example, most of the bars have women-only admission until 11 or so, and then guys are allowed in. If a guy is wearing a tie, it is the custom for the women to cut it off. It is basically a bit girls’ night. in north Germany, Monday is the big druken fest, but not much happens here on Monday.

Since I don’t really do girls’ nights at bars at the moment , I mostly only know what is happening with the kids. The Kindergarten and daycare had a big party today. The kids all wore costumes, and there were games and playing all day. We are hitting up another party in a nearby town with friends tomorrow, and then on Sunday, a local kids rock band, Donikl, is having a Fasching concert in the big hall right next to us.

I think we will be partied out by then (these parties tend to be very chaotic and loud, but the kids love them), but there are still tons of parties for kids all over the place until Wednesday when Lent begins and everyone stops wearing such bright colors until Easter.

So here is a glimpse into our first Fasching day. Since Fasching wasn’t even remotely a part of my childhood, this particular tradition reminds me that I really am a foreigner here!

Here is Princess Lily and Clair the Dragon

After the big party.

Decided we needed some fresh air so we went for a walk after Kindergarten. Lily is doing her ‘thing’ here, which was to stumble behind me whining, “mommy, mommy!!!” she is not really into walking about 50% of the time.

The girls and I were out for a good hour, and we managed to get about a whole 100 meters from the house.

Not really a fan of the sudden snow storm that hit us (not a big fan of rain or wind os sun either – not really my outdoors girls)

Then, suddenly, What is that? The sun??

It is sunny!!

There and Back Again…

03. February 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Holidays, Travels · Tags: Holidays, Life in US, Travels

Not so much a Hobbits tale, but we have been there and back again. I took a bit of an internet hiatus while in the US, but we were definitely there even if I didn’t blog about it! And now, we are certainly back in Germany (the piles of snow is a dead give away).

Slowly, we have gotten back into life at home again. Though, as Clair said the other day, “We miss the sun from grandma and grandpa’s house.” We have been sledding here, though, on a great hill not far from here, and that totally wouldn’t be possible in the Phoenix sunshine.

It was great to spend so much time with my parents and see the rest of the family and friends back home. We spent a week in California and loved watching the kids bond with their ‘California cousins’. My friend Angelo dreamed about the time when we would sit back and watch out kids playing, and it is finally happening. Plus, we all spent New Years camping in Dana Point right on the sand (in a camper because, hey, it was cold!).

All in all, it was a great time. The girls grew a lot and gained a lot of confidence going out on their own here and there in a new environment. The girls and I went home together since Matthias headed home two weeks before us. I imagined all of the ways that trip would be stressful, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well it went! Here is my tip for single parents traveling with small kids – dress one kid up in a neon pink princess dress. I swear, everyone wanted to help us out because of my princess Lily who was hamming up all of the attention.

We came home to piles of snow, which actually made the transition easier. It was a winter wonderland rather than a cold, gray winter. The jet lag passed surprisingly quickly for the girls and I. Clair slept 15 hours on day 3, and after that, she was back on track. Lily and I had a few more early mornings for a little over a week, but we finally got through it too.

So here we are, back home and looking forward into the new year. So many things to do and think about! finding a house, building a business, planning the next vacations, about ten thousand little craft/home DIY projects, blogging (cough, cough)…..

Now, if I can just find some focus to sort all of that out without feeling overwhelmed. Until then, I am starting simple by bringing back more exercise into my life (a big thank you to my friend Micha for helping motivate me to walk a lot this week!). Need to decide on some goals in that direction as well, but I haven’t figured out what that goal is yet.

But I digress. Anyway, we went to America and back again! There are SO many photos from the vacation that I am just putting a slide show here. Enjoy!!!

Winter is here

01. December 2012 · 1 comment · Categories: Daily Life, Holidays

So, I realize I last posted about how great autumn is, but that is SOOO last month. It is December 1st, after all, and the Christmas markets officially confirm the start of the season. Sure, the weather is gray, cloudy, cold and generally, not so nice, but the sun came out for like an hour today, and it felt awesome (it was either the sun or the two cups of spiced wine. I am going with the sun). I try to have some brightly colored winter clothes so I can serve as my own ray of sunshine when needed.

So, we headed out today for the first visit to the Christkindelmarkt in town. This is the main market of the season, and Clair has been seeing the carousel being set up, so we needed to do that. Little miss Lily (AKA the tyrant) refuses to walk OR go in the stroller quite often these days, and if I don’t pick her up, she throws herself on my legs screaming. As Clair often ask, “Why does she scream all the time?” Ugh, two year olds.

We headed straight for the rides to get it out of their system. There were happy to go twice and then see what else was going on.

We ran into Cliff and Sarah and shared a 1/2 meter wurst in a crowded corner of the packed market. I could manage to take any photos with them because my little Lily insisted that she needed to walk around in the throngs of people, so I spent my time chowing down the wurst and trying to prevent her from being trampled.

So, to help us wind down from a bit of a stressful week and just the craziness of wrangling the kids, Matthias and I had a gluewein (literally, ‘glow-wine). It is a hot, spiced wine they serve at the markets. It goes straight to your head and makes your feet warm. Perfect!

Clair was feeling kind of sleepy, so she chilled in the stroller. We let Lily blow of some stream in the meeting place in the square. Eventually, she passed out too while we were grabbing a few groceries.

Since we know better than to waste precious time when both kids are passed out in the stroller, we took advantage of the hour of sunshine and walked over to the Advents market in the Spital Garten (a local beer garden). It is much smaller than the one in town and just has a few local craftspeople with goods, and some nice food. Plus, they have a couple of fires to sit around, which I always like.

We also decided to have Feuerzangebowle, which is another kind of spiced alcohol. No idea what’s in it, but it involves a clump of sugar that is covered in liquor and lit on fire to slowly drip into your hot spiced wine. I don’t drink very much these days, so I was feeling pretty darn happy.

Before we could finish our drinks, the girls were up and hungry, so Matthias showed them some sheep while I searched for food. I found something called a potato-tornado (spiral-cut potato deep fried). They loved it.

We slowly headed home where mommy and daddy needed to lie down because it wasn’t even 4 PM, and we were feeling pretty good! We all cuddled on the floor ‘watching’ a Micky Mouse Christmas special I rented for Clair (I actually took a little nap). a nice strong coffee at 4:30 got me back on a track a bit. Though, still really relaxed.

All in all a great start to our one week of Christmas markets in Germany this year. We head out to Phoenix next week, and then it will be NOTHING like this. The next week is already looking pretty full because of markets, St. Nicolas stuff, etc. Should be a fun week.

Matthias is having fun with his iPhone’s panorama feature. He took a couple of nice ones today. Aside from the two-headed monster that popped up on the stone bridge, they cam out pretty well considering no one was holding still for the photos.

Autumn

29. October 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Daily Life, Holidays · Tags: Holidays, Life in Germany

Autumn is hitting so hard it is turning into winter already! We had our first snow fall over the weekend.

I think fall is my favorite season in general, but this year everything about it makes me feel good – the warm colors, the cozy layers of clothes, the earthy, heavy foods, etc. I have been especially enjoying the foods. Here are some of my favorites from the past weeks. Note that because of supporting and rebuilding my crazy digestive system, all of the dishes are gluten-free and vegan versions

Pumpkin pie

chestnut cream soup

mushroom risotto

butternut squash soup

roasted sweet potato slices

roasted pumpkin seeds

I am going to try a butternut squash pie recipe I found through Epicurious. I hope the kids give me some space to try it tonight (sometimes they go nuts when I try to cook, and we end up eating cold dinners).

Aside from the foods, the colors are also inspiring this year. Here is Clair helping me make some decorations while wearing her cookie monster costume from Grandma.

This is what we were making. She is finally big enough that I can make craft projects with her. She made a big developmental leap recently, and she is really into coloring and cutting. She had no interest in that stuff until recently, but she is starting to enjoy doing things with her hands. She colored all of the leaves and squirrels for our tree, and I cut them out and stuck them up.

We also took part of our GIGANTIC store of chesnuts and used them to help make a home made center piece for the table. It keeps changes as I use the parts of it that is food and if we find some nice new leaf or nut, those get added too. We have some acorns now too.

We are still in the princess phase, but she has decided that Princesses do Yoga so that is a bit easier for me to take. Observe, Princess Yoga

She was trying her hand at ‘make-up’ the other day and managed to use up all of her pink face paint mostly on her neck and forehead. I have not served as a very good example for her to learn how to put on makeup.

Clair is really, really liking her new Kindergarten now. I have thought a lot about getting her ready for that and supporting her in her new schedule. Suddenly, however, I realized that there is a second child around here, and she is not a baby anymore! She is home in the mornings with me two days a week, and I have to start planning stuff to do with her now. Luckily, in winter, the shopping centers have a lot of stuff just randomly set up. For example, the police were visiting the one mall where I get groceries sometimes. Lily LOVED sitting on the motorcycle. The cops even took a photo of the two of us on the bike and printed it for us. They were really nice.

In this past week, it was easy to plan a few things. The Krone circus was in Dultplatz (the big plaza two minutes from our house). We could hear lions roaring and seal lions barking throughout the day. They had a huge number of animals and had a zoo set up for people to visit them while they weren’t performing. Honestly, the zoo part was hard to take. There was a lot of documentation on the good care of the animals (who spend the winter in a larger facility in Munich), but it is hard to see a circus animals face and feel happy for them. Clair assured me that they were happy to see us, so they weren’t that sad.

Micha and her girls came with us to the circus itself, which was a three hour show with some animal performances and many acrobats/tumbling performances. The human parts were the best for me. Lily screamed “Wow, wow, wow!!” when the lights came up and there were like ten lions in the lion cage. She has been growling like a lion since then. Clair and her friend Emma didn’t move for like the first hour of the show because they were mesmerized. Luckily, we were in the back near one set of exit stairs so we could go in and out when the kids needed brakes. I think Clair’s favorite part was the popcorn, hands down.

Here is Micha with the girls after the show and what it looked like as they were setting up to start

Autumnal Traditions

Since we live in Germany, we get a couple of extra holidays in fall. There is a German Thanksgiving day, which, as far as I can tell, they only celebrate in the schools. Then, there is the St. Martin walk. I didn’t even know about this one until I had kids in the daycare system.

I have no idea how a lantern is tied to the story of the miracles of St. Martin, but the thing to do for the holiday is to make a lantern and then walk with a bunch of people on an evening in November holding your lantern and singing songs about St. Martin. The Kindergarten and daycare that we send our kids to does a week on St. Martin too and teaches the kids more about him than I will ever know. It is a Catholic Kindergarten, as you can tell.

So, we headed over to the Kindergarten one afternoon to work on Lily’s lantern. Clair made one on her own in Kindergarten, and it looks amazing. Since she has the skills, she basically decorated Lily’s all on her own. Lily only wanted to play and eat cookies, so that worked out well. When we get together with the kindergarten for the march, Clair is actually going to do her first march without the parents! Lily will hang out with us and destroy her lantern, and Clair gets to walk in the dark holding her lantern.

But, before they girls get to do St. Martins, we have an important ‘holiday’ from America, Halloween!! Micha is hosting a party at her house. It promises to be freezing by not raining, so there will be a bon fire and lots of warm food. Luckily, the girls have some warm costumes planned.

Clair decided to be a dragon this year, so we spent some time on the weekend converting a hand made cookie monster costume into a dragon. Step one in making a dragon costume is to have your mom send her an awesome cookie monster costume that still fits her!

I’ll post the final costume once I can get a photo of her wearing it. Not so easy at the moment.

In preparation for Halloween, we did the obligatory pumpkin carving.

It was Lily’s first time actually being involved in the process, and I think she is not a big fan yet.

Tentatively looking at the slimy goo I am pulling out.

Bravely touching a seed

touching that one seed was about all of the pumpkin she felt like touching

Clair, on the other had, was totally into it.

We also roasted the pumpkin seeds this year, which was a huge hit with everyone.

So far, the fall has been lovely and nurturing for all of us. We are eating warm, happy food and enjoying the holidays and even the weather. It is the earliest I have seen snow here. Our snow man was covered in leaves because there hasn’t been time to clean them up yet. It is properly cold now too. There is a bite in the air that wasn’t there last week. We have also changed the clocks so the sun sets just before five.

;

I do love this time of year, but part of me is also smiling at the idea of flying out to Phoenix and six weeks of sunshine in December! Cold weather is best when there are breaks of sunshine in the middle of winter.

The Fairy and the Frenchman

08. October 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Daily Life, Tammy's fellowship · Tags: Life in Germany, Travels

There is no stopping it. The Princess/fairy/unicorn/jewelry phase is here. Mom sent Clair an entire Cinderella costume for her birthday, and her reaction was “I LOVE!!! it!! I LOVE it!!!” I have never seen her so excited over a present. Even the Barbie she got from Uncle Marky and Auntie Annie was a close second (very close – Barbie has not worn her clothes since the day she came out of the box. What is it with kids stripping Barbie?).

I gave Tante Sandra a heads up on the new phase, so when we got to Karlsruhe over the weekend for a visit, Clair’s birthday present was a winner – this time a PURPLE princess costume with FAIRY WINGS and a WAND! You couldn’t make a four year old girl any happier unless her cousin Maxim would have dressed up with her.

Fortunately, when we all headed out to the down town zoo on Saturday, Maxim was rocking his own awesome look. He has been having some issues with saggy pants lately, so his mama came up with a fantastic solution. His suspenders were awesome! Topped with his little hat, he was the perfect little French gentleman.

I couldn’t stop taking photos of the two of them. Poor Lily was just dressed like a normal toddler, so she was kind of bummed from the lack of attention, I think. The zoo was awesome. We didn’t stay long, but they had a lovely set up with small boats you could ride through the zoo to save on walking. The kids loved it, and it saved us some energy.

The three kids actually played all together really well, and Matthias and I had the rare treat to actually talk with Sandra and Julien for more than 30 seconds at a time. We celebrated with some really good Champagne while watching Wetten Dass (a VERY German show that has been on the air forever).

We had the realization that we do every time we get together – why don’t we do this more often? it is only a 3 hour drive, and there are a ton of things to do with the kids at their place and near us. So, hopefully, we will see them again really soon. They are the closest family we have, and we actually like each other a lot. It doesn’t get much better than that so we should take advantage of it.

Here are a few more photos of the adorable kids…

On the S-bahn with his mama

Waiting for the boats is serious business

It was kind of nice to be on the water though….

Tired fairy and her little sister. It is hard work being a princess fairy ALL DAY!

Changes

08. October 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Inspiration · Tags: blog business

So many things have been changing lately, that I figure it was time for a template change for the blog. Actually, I was inspired by working with WordPress for the Assisi blog, so I started doing some searching for nice simple themes that I could use here.

Once I figure out how to upload my images into the new set up, it will be even better. At the moment, I am struggling to remember how to use a terminal to transfer files on my Mac (as opposed to the GUI I had on my old PC that made me forget basic unix commands). The WordPress software, in theory, has a nice interface that lets you upload new header images directly into the theme, but that isn’t working for some reason. My hacking skills are seriously lacking these days, so it will take me some time to sort it out.

Until then, enjoy the nice ocean image in the header that came from someone’s archives.

If you notice any funky things in the formatting of the blog, let me know, and I will see if I can work around any bugs.

In my mind

29. September 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Travels, Yoga · Tags: Travels, Yoga

It is tough to come back into the world after being on a retreat. During the transition phase, I can imagine I am practicing in St. Giorgio’s church in Assisi.

Here is where I practice in my body

Here is where I practice in my mind

where am I?

24. September 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Inspiration, Travels, Yoga · Tags: Inspiration, Travels, Yoga

I am being unfaithful to my blog at the moment as I am creating a blog of my week in Assisi (that’s where I am, physically, at the moment). If you just can’t live with out my great wisdoms this week, feel free to pop over to the Assisi blog. Once I recover from the trip, I’ll come back with photos of cute babies and more wisdoms…

Colors of Fall

09. September 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Daily Life

The HerbstDult (autumn beer fest) is coming to a close today. We had one more visit yesterday, and I have to say that I just love the color overload of the place right now! It always comes out nicely in photos.

So, Clair has to wait until next year to go again (she does a count down all the time). It is a total money drain, but I am starting to appreciate the local fest.

Here are a few photos to give you a feel for it.

A rare family photo with ALL of us.