Tree House Day

Since last evening we got chased off by mosquitos, we had promised to come back to their favorite playground today.. it´s a playground without swings, slides, anything like that - it´s called a "close to nature" playground and located just about a mile from here :-D

The plan was to picknick and build a tree house - and that they did.
Accompanied by our neighbor's daughter we grabbed some fruits, drinks and blanket and headed for the area. It is really big but we have a favorite place pretty much smack dab in the middle.
The girls and Juju managed to build a nice little tree platform and even used one of the ropes to make a swing - no help from me at all!
It actually worked and they had an awesome time!!!!!
Yippeh!

Isa was NOT in the mood to leave this place after hours of playtime.. lol

Nutty Ice Cream

what do you get when you mix a late evening bicycle trip to a playground that turns into a feast for mosquitos and forces us to go elsewhere? A ride down the river to our favorite ice cream parlor.. they were a bit amazed to see us riding up - we were about the last customers - but nevertheless happy to see us and give us extra large ice cream portions with nuts and stuff.. hmm.. krokant becher.. sluuurp.. GELATO is the best stuff! Especially on a hot late summers evening after a ride down the riverside
The nut in the titel has go to be Alex though, who figured we´d just play on the little playground behind the parlor instead of the mosquito infested one:

Yeah.. he keeps reminding us that he´s a MAN now and will turn 19 soon..
no further comment
he he he

Preparations

This should have been my first post today - the preparations to the big day!
After an exciting day for Juju at Kindergarten, we had to put the finishing touches on Isa´s Schultüte..
Only minor casualties are to be reported... :-D

but then - what is happening? After a loooong bath, the 2 of them fell into a deep coma - before 21:00! It is unheard of !!! lol
Love that sight...grin

Juju´s first day in preschool (german Kindergarten) - 20 August

on his way to the first day in Kindergarten... must have been adventurous through all the construction going on in this area to renew the water lines.. lol


Incidentally, this week all new things are happening.. Juju´s first day in german Kindergarten - big sister came along to show him around.. lol. yeah, like he needed that! He´s been accompanying Isa to KG for a long time and feels right at home there alreadys. He´ll be in the same group which I am very pleased with because the teachers are really great and that way the quilting project that´s been in my head for too long (a Kuscheldecke for the group with their mascot - cats) still has to be done.. grin.. no excuses!
The parents were supposed to stay there but stay in the background so I just took some pics and enjoyed..

Isa´s first day of school - 21 August

I know this question is redundant.. why do they grow up????
Isa had her school start ceremony on Tuesday - big deal over here with their "Schultüte" (the big pink thing, preferrably home made) and their "Schulranzen" the special school bag on their back and a mass (non-denominational),
a show by the older kids and whatsnot..
the boy in the green t-shirt was her 3rd grade "buddy".. all the kids got assigned one to take them to their room and help them the first days - great idea!
The taller ones are all 3rd graders, most of them her height.. lol.
It´s really strange - she´s the youngest kid in school and among the tallest 1st Graders! Weird combination.. lol.. but she would not be our child if weird wasn´t involved, right?

FYI, I DIDN'T cry the whole time.. grin.. good thing I was too busy chasing Juju - although Rafael was chasing him most of the time..

So far, I really like her teacher, she seems extra nice, plays guitar and seems quite motivated - wohoo! She really needs that in a school with over 30 nations present and 80 % non-germans.. what a mix!

Hmm.. someone was being a butt.. lol..
Juju raiding his own little Schultüte - a "Geschwistertüte", a smaller version for the younger siblings.. hmm. caaaandy!
While Isa had her first hour of school, Juju was mingling with the big kids, trying to make it down the big rope without busting his behind :-D

Kyll River - Geocaching

About 2 weeks ago, the monsters and I got a really nice coin out of a cache in the middle of nowhere (well, on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere to be exact.. lol.. I´m afraid I had forgotten to post pictures, so here is one (- eh, are two?):

Anyways, this F14 Tomcat Coin had a mission, it wanted to go to US bases and fly on some missions. As the only place left here with fighter jets is Spangdahlem and we were in the Eifel anyways, we had made it our mission to place the coin close to there.

So off we went close to Bitburg on a 2.5 hour hike (because we got lost twice and I had to carry Juju part of the way.. lol) along and over the beautiful Kyll river to a cool cache that even had a travel bug inside.
We had to take Lt. Uhura with us but have not found a new cache for her to travel on yet :-D
Our next mission.

Bodenbacher Drees - Geocaching

A nice little walk to a natural spring that is embedded in volcanic rock and tastes quite salty due to it´s mineral content. There are CO2 bubbles coming up constantly which of course is fascinating for the monsters.. lol..






In this part of the country, alot of natural springs are being used commercialy - all of different mineral content and taste. One of my favorites is the Nürburg Quelle which is especially high in Magnesium.
A quick and easy to find cache brought us here while it was pouring rain - the first real chance to find out if our new rain jackets were worth the money that the outdoor store wanted.. lol. yup, they were all worth it!




Some wonderful puddles along the way and a herd of cows that seemed amused by these crazy 2-legged creatures jumping around in the rain made this a perfect caching hike!


































Mom, are you coming, this is fun!!! :-D

Höllenschlund - Geocaching

What an awesome place!!!! Roughly translated it is called "hell´s gorge"..
Millions (about 21 I think) of years ago, a volcano was formed here... a couple of hundred years ago they started getting the basalt for building purposes.. and this crater was left. You have to walk through a short tunnel and the entrance has a warning sign that you need to wear a helmet (oops, forgot those) to enter. The kids called walking through there "spookable" - a new word creation. It is indeed quite gloomy! But the reward is just on the other side (and you DO see the light at the end of the tunnel at all times :-D) - an awesome view of this impressive place!

Of course, we were here to find a geocache and it took us forever - all those rocks just look the same! lol

Juju and Isa got some bruises because they insisted on climbing around in the rocks but they had such a great time discovering flowers growing out of rocks, small lizards in cracks, a little mouse that we disturbed when we lifted a rock in search of the cache. We almost gave up on our hunt but then enlightenment struck and we found it at last!
Unfortunately after logging and getting out a travel bug, we just had enough time to put it back in it´s hide out before Muggles came around - good thing these crater walls have great acoustics so we heard them a minute before they saw us!

On this wall pretty much in the middle of the crater you can still see the volcanic structure.. I would have loved to climb up here but then I bet I would have had some monkey trying the same.. lol

The little chapel was once on top of the extinct volcano but had to be moved for the strip mining. Until just a few years back the local farmers had a yearly procession to St. Arnulphus, the saint to which this chapel is dedicated, so that he´d protect the pets and farmanimals.
Although I thought the little ones would be exhausted after all the climbing - the playground at the end of the hike was really cool and a we played for about an hour (until it started to rain heavier again). Oh yeah, we had breaks in the rain on this day - wohoo! Still, the basalt is quite slippery when wet and Juju still has some bruises from that day.

Eifel Vacation

aaah.. the feeling of having a whole 3 weeks leave is a good one :-D
The only question was, did I really want to go camping to the Eifel while it was pouring rain the whole time? Easy answer.. NO!
So I searched and found the Dorint Eifel Resort in Daun, which luckily messed up my reservation a bit and upgraded me to their biggest cottage with 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, a huge living room, kitchen, dining area, 2 tvs, a stereo, patio and all that just for the 2 little ones and me.. awesome! Especially since the kids were free...
The cottages are totally 70´s and slightly on the rustic side but really nice!

On the way up to this volcanic area we refrained from geocaching along the way because we would have gotten soaked and I didn´t want to kids to sit in the car like that. Same thing when we got there we - we just explored this really big resort and settled in, went to the pool for a couple of hours and testdrove the restaurant. I had booked half-board since I didn´t really want to cook and the kids were free here, too. After that they pretty much fell into a deep coma until the next morning, hugging their new bears that all kids seem to get when checking in.
The next few days were pretty much all on the same schedule: sleep in a bit, have a great breakfast buffet with EVERYTHING you would ever want for breakfast, go geocaching in the rain (yeah - go new rainjackets from the outdoor store!! lol.. and thank you Marmot for being waterproof :-)), come back to go swimming for 2 hours, eat another awesome buffet (each day has a different theme, Schnitzelbuffet, Pizzabuffet, Italian Buffet, Salad Buffet.. wow), play in the living room for a bit and fall back into that coma. We met some really nice people, and Isa sort of has a boyfriend now.. lol.. they swapped addresses so I expect some letter writing here soon - after all, he´s starting 2nd grade and she´s going to 1st next week. he he..
Oh, and another thing happened.. Isa cleaned up the play area in the restaurant.. lol..

Embracing Trees and Gnomes

Mannheim - only half an hour away but somehow neglected by us, no idea why!



We went geocaching at a really nice area with different enclosures with indigenous animals such as wild boar (they had babies, too!!) and deer. A bit drizzle here and there but overall a great walk. We started out calculating the first set of coordinates and guess what? I made a mistake that sent us about a whole kilometer out towards the opposite direction.. lol.. BUT another cache was along that route and the kids got to see the young boars and deer before we found the first cache. And who found it? Naaah.. not Alex our usual sniffer outer - meeeeee.. he he he.. he was a bit disappointed I´m afraid.. lol
So we continued to walk through the woods and corrected our miscalculation - oops, MY miscalculation and met some of the nicest dogs and people along the way. And then we started pine cone wars.. oh boy.. lol
And Isa had the "fallsies" - she NEVER falls but today she did.. 4 times! (counting walking into a tree.. lol).. here a picture taken by her bad mother the second after she hit the ground.. ha ha

After a nice long walk around a big pond and more calculating coordinates we finally found embracing trees... oops, again, I found it.. he he.. sorry Alex!

There were countless opportunities for climbing and playing along the whole route so we all had plenty of fun.
Gnome Pictures:







Right before we came back to our starting point it started drizzling harder and Alex said lightly "too bad it´s not a torrential downpour".. Thanks Alex! Guess what? Yup. loool...


So we got soaked and still had fun! While everyone dashed for shelter my kids were jumping around in the deepest puddles while getting drenched from all sides.. excellent.. lol
Small plus of that: Juju fell asleep on the way home and didn´t wake up until 7 the next morning.. lol