MAGC Wiesbaden

Did we have fun? Yes, we did!!!!! lol..
It was great to see everyone up in the Golfcourse Clubhouse on Sunday, Nov 4 and after eating and talking we - of course - went caching :-)

The Audimaniac Tribe, the Hzoi Tribe and us - later joined by the Nasenbär55 Tribe..
Christian and Kelly (hzoi) had really done great work in the weekends before the meet and placed some nice and original caches. He actually did some more work while we were caching - he first gave Juju a ride and later on Isa.. lazy kids.. ha ha
The whole gang had fun and since there were so many of us, we were able to make the trail stroller-friendly.. well, not friendly but doable.. lol..
Kim, our part time dog, had a great time as well, especially when all the kids figured out how nice she is and kept petting her.
Now, if you think that because there were so many of us, we had no problems finding the caches - you´re dead wrong.. ha ha.. but eventually - under the eyes of the cache owners - we found them and made it back to the Golfclub about 15 minutes after darkness fell upon us like bad family.. brr.. darkness brought coldness with him so it was good we were headed home. I don´t think Juju was awake by the time we hit the street - he just collapsed in his car seat :-D

Halloween - I forgot to post the pics :-)

On Halloween we just dashed home from our dayjobs, got the kids changed and rushed up to Dexheim to trick or treat a bit.. the last years we had either done this around here or had huge parties.. grin grin. not this year - but it was fun! Alex scared the living daylights out of some little and some big people and one of his treats was a beer.. lol.. we ended up at the gym there where the local chapel had a small "hallelujah" alternative event to halloween and that was fun as well :-)

Creativ Welt Wiesbaden 07

Good thing Thursday was a holiday in our Bundesland :-) It´s not in Hessen, the next one over the river.. he he.. so the first day of the Creativ Welt in Wiesbaden was not as crowded as it would have been it they had a holiday, too!!!
Alex was home so he had Juju and I took off with Isa really early to do a long list of things.. first off, buying snow tires.. we´ll need them for our winter vacation!
Next, have breakfast together :-)
Then go to Creativ Welt.
Afterwards go to cemeteries to visit my grandparents and other relatives to light candles since it was all saints.
And last, we had to drive to Alzey (if you ever read about Siegried the Dragon Slayer you probably heard of Alzey, a quaint little town about 20 miles from Oppenheim) to visit my colleague Gabi to see if the bunnies liked Isa...
At Creativ Welt, first I dropped Isa off at the free child care (yippeh!) for about 2 hours and ventured on my own - awesome! Didn´t get the book I wanted but didn´t buy fabric, either! Kudooos to me! lool..
Didn´t get the walking foot I wanted either.. but at least I know where to get it now :-)
I did buy a circle cutter, a new cutting board, really beautiful oriental glass beads for Isa and a Marble track called Cugolino pop for Juju though - I had so much fun playing with all the different blocks that I had to get a small starter set for him - well, christmas is around the corner so I went to the basement in the christmas gift box :-)


When I picked up Isa, she tried herself at wood cutting - with my help she cut out a 2-piece star that she painted later and that turned out really nicely - now she wants to do more sawing.. he he.. watch out Opi, here comes work for ya!

Then after enjoying the quilt expo they had, I got Isa and went to play with some games some more, bought a really nice dice game for her, bought some awesome markers and some blopens (finally caved in.. lol) which are for christmas as well! She also found some paper punches and
christmas card decoration stuff that she wanted so pretty much all the shopping went to the kids but I had such a great time looking around - priceless! Here are the pictures of the quilts - the theme was "suitcases from around the world" and had some really awesome quilts with Geysers, Volcanoes, hot-and-cold themes and tons of other things.. I didn´t take pictures of all, just of a couple..
Then there were quilts that incorporated a patch made by children in a village in Afghanistan - those quilts were made by children here... wow!! They were all so gorgeous!!!

And then I saw some that at first glance reminded me of Kristin´s work but.. yeah, her´s are more beautiful :-) I really liked them though!

New Family Members :-)

We have arrivals! Our 2 new family members are Munches and Crunches, two "Zwergwidder" bunnies who needed a new home. One of my colleagues gave them up due to her significant other´s sons asthma so Isa´s begging for months finally worked :-)
So after name searching that went from "Siegfried and Roy" over " Peanutbutter and Jelly" to "Sid and Nancy" we ended up tossing "Dancer and Prancer" and naming them Munches and Crunches.. lol..
Kim has been quite interested in them but I told her that having them with Bacon and Green Beans was out of the question :-)
For now they are outside, I´m sure we´ll build some nice outside and inside area for them so they can roam and have fun!
They are very cute, very gentle and quite friendly - wohoo!

Our first FTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FTF = First to find
Usually, someone beats us to a newly hidden cache.. not so on Oct 22nd..
I logged on to my email and saw - oh, a new cache hidden in Nackenheim, which is about 4.5 miles north of here..
Thought about it for a minute and asked Alex "wanna get off the phone and come with me? There´s caching involved.. "
Amazingly he got off the phone with ????? (one of his friends) :-) and ran downstairs..
Dinner was done so I asked Rafael to feed the kids and we´d be back in about half an hour - grabbed the GPS and the flashlight and off we went.
Of course, the batteries were low and went off RIGHT BEFORE WE PASSED THE CACHE... AAAAAAAHH!!! But we found some more in our old caching bag in the trunk (seeeee - that´s why I don´t clean up back there.. grin) and found the fountain in which is was located. Not in the water, in the back of an old pump.
After we discovered the hidden container we noticed that nobody had logged it before! Yippeh! We finally got an FTF!!! Too bad there were people everywhere and we had to be stealthy so we could not jump around crazily! ha ha ha..
but we did later :-) And took stupid pictures!!
Hooray to us!
Oh, and by the way, Isa had wanted me to put my hair up in pigtails and I figured nobody would see me that evening.. ha ha.. duuuuuuuh.. so go ahead, get a good laugh! :-D

geocaching in Armsheim (where the heck is that??)

Armsheim is a tiny little village close to Alzey in the rhinehessian rolling country..
The main attraction for the kids was this fountain where we had to count the lights embedded in the water flow..

It as a beautiful crisp October day and the sun made playing in the water tolerable - what a nice day!

The pomace looks like giant mole hills :-) Millions of fruit flies (drosophila melanogaster, well known by some of us who took genetics and got to breed them in a glass in their Mom´s kitchen.. hmm.. who took the lid off???) had a feast! Since the new wine had just been harvested, the leftovers (pomace) were dumped onto the fields as a fertilizer.. when the kids got closer a cloud of them rose up and scared them away.. haha.. they are cute little things though!

Isa is 6!!!!

OMG.. how did this happen? lol
She´s is ecstatic because she´s not the only 5 year old in school anymore!!! :-)
We only had a small BBQ, most of her friends from school live 30 minutes from here so we didn´t invite them - next year..

Work In Progress - Heart Quilt

Wow - I think most of the hearts are done, now I need time to sew the top together!!!
My friends helped me at the last craft day and many many many of the Quiltsterne sewed a heart block for me once I asked for them!
The story:
An long time friend of mine whom I´m in touch with only about twice a year, recently kept popping into my mind so when I took a detour due to a large construction on my way home, I just gave her a call.. She was delighted and asked it I wanted to drop by with Juju which we happily said yes to. Then she gave me a quick warning and said - Sid, I have no hair.. I hope you´ll be alright with that, I am going through Chemotherapy....
huh?
She managed to develop a very rare cancer that does not invade any organs but instead covers the peritoneum (which covers your intestines, bladder etc.) with a layer of cancer cells...
Wow.. what bad news! She has always been one of the kindest, happiest and most active people around! Needed help? She´d be there. Had something on your mind? She´d have an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on..
We stayed for a couple of hours (Isa was at Omis) and I could not believe how much my friend had been through in the previous 10 weeks! Since the cancer is inoperable as of now, she went through a strict chemo regimen until she could not endure the sickness anymore.. she was nauseous, dizzy etc..
On my way home I kept thinking what it was I could do that might help her through these tough times other than just being there for her?! And then the idea of a Quilt was born.
The next day I posted a note on the website of my quilting group and asked for "healing heart blocks" from anyone who would like to help me on this project.. and here came the flood! Block after block poured in from all of these wonderful women who don´t know my friend, 99 % of them don´t know me in real life, only from the internet!!! The most wonderful blocks, one prettier than the next..
On the following weekend I had my monthly craft day with my friends and they sewed their hearts out as well!
Just in case you wonder, I have sewn many as well.. lol.. the heart count is 60 blocks right now!!! I´ve laid them all out and wondered how to sew them up so here is a picture.. more will follow as work progresses!

Summer - Westerhaus

just a few pics from a nice weekend with Omi, Opi, Kim and the kids - Gestüt Westerhaus which belongs to the Opel family (Opel as in the cars, also known as Vauxhall in the UK). Everyone had fun with the young horses!!

get naked baby, you don´t need the halter, huh? :-)



Omi´s first Cache :-)

Feeding the one year old horses
Hey, I´m Isa, who are you?