Circus Action - Part 2

OK, back to the circus.

During the intermissio, we enjoyed the Llama and the circus flunkies set up cages for the next big exciting act. TIGERS.

I thought it was very interesting to see a cage full of tigers. I think it was nice how natural the acted, almost as if they had just been brought in from the wild. I can just imagine a bunch of tigers, relaxing in India or Africa, lying under a shady tree, or perhaps leaping through a hoop like this.
Or perhaps begging for some tasty snacks from a passerby dressed in a sparkling red spandex outfit. It is basically how I imagined tigers would behave all the time. Really I am sure that every tiger goes to sleep each night thinking "one day I will eat that freak."
After the tigers, another low light spectacle of acrobatics with a woman in a hoop way up in the air. I think it was probably the same acrobat in a different costume with some different lighting, but what the heck, it looked nice.
Next up was something interesting because it was something I think that I could probably learn to do. Another spangly couple came out and stood on a small platform wearing roller skates. Now, I can skate reasonably well...
The act, again in low lighting, involved them skating in a circle really fast and then doing some acrobatic poses. As far as I could tell, all the dude had to do was skate fast, hold up the girl and not fall over. I could manage that with some practice. However if it is going to become a family act, Claudia better get to work learning those moves.

I will add that Claudia goes to yoga AND she can sew clothes, therefore she can make the costumes and get flipped around. Showbiz, here we come.
Next up was the Elephants. They pretty much just stood on some wee tables and then stood on two legs and the like. Not too fancy, but impressive based on the fact that elephants look cool.
There was one more act of some really greasy looking dudes who did a sort of juggling thing, but none of the photos really turned out that great. I think the oil in their hair made light bend around them.

At the end, all the performers came out and had a bow to the happy crowd. It was a nice show and Liam certainly had a good time. He talked about it for quite a while afterwards. Although I think the petting zoo made a bigger impression on him. After that visit we had about a week where he would only talk about how he was getting his own goat.

Circus Action - Part 1

Recently, the circus was in town and we thought it would be a fun thing to take Liam to.

I think I have only ever been to one circus in my life before this, and I was really so small that I don't remember much of it. I was probably the same age Liam is now, so we have mirrored my own circus going experience.
First order of business was to go buy tickets from the ticket trailer. The circus was just set up in a large field next to Tuebingen.
With our tickets in hand, we walked a short distance to the big tent.
Now once we got inside the tent, I came to a photographic problem. The lighting was very low and "artistic" which made it harder for me to take pictures. So excuse the overall quality of these if they are a touch on the blurry side.

The whole circus took place in this one ring in the centre. The various acts would come and go through the opening in the back. We were a little bit behind a post, but could still see most of the ring pretty clearly.
The first act was this lady in a dress who had horses ride around her in a daring way. The crowd was filled with ooohs and aaaahs, but honestly I think they were being polite. This particular act was not that impressive if you ask me.
Next up was a pretty neat acrobat who was drawn up into the rafters of the tent on these two long scarves. Then up at the highest points, she performed some fancy moves. I was still figuring out how to take some low light photos at this points so sadly I did not manage to capture any moves.
More horses were next on the agenda. A trainer had a number of horses performing, there were a bunch of different horses coming and going but the crowds favorite (and Liam's) was the mob of little ponies running around.
Next up a clown played some music. The lighting was spoooky
There was then a break in the show, while the centre ring was prepared for the next act. During this break, we went back to look at all the animals. In this tent. Liam fed a Camel.
Then Liam Fed a Horse.
Then I took this picture of a Llama that Claudia really likes.
OK, that is all I can get on here today.

I will post the rest of the show in the next one.

Birthday Trip

As luck would have it, Liam's birthday was also on the same day as the open house for the Tuebingen fire department. Liam is in full on fireman mode at the moment and it seemed too good to be true that we would be able to take him to a real live fire hall.

The place was totally packed. Trucks everywhere, firemen doing things, and many many kids running about having a great time. Liam was a little overwhelmed at first, I don't think he really understood how big fire trucks really are.He was running around like a madman, telling us all the name of every truck and what it was for. Liam has an extensive collection of fire truck books and CDs and basically knew more than the rest of us combined.
They had lots to do for the little kids, even a game where they could shoot a fire hose at a target.
There were also other rescue vehicles there to look at. Liam headed into an ambulance that looked just like his playmobil one. I think he was most impressed that he got to stand inside something that looked just like his toys.
The fire dept had set up some smashed cars to show how all the different tools worked, like the jaws of life and the big car cutting saws and the like. Liam was pretty impressed when the firemen in their uniforms were helping with the car accident.
We also had a look inside the firestation, where Liam was pointing out all the various equipment and telling us what it was for. He was quite obsessed with finding a "breathing mask" which took us a little while to find.

The absolute highlight of the day though was that he got to have a ride in a real fire truck. The big truck would take groups of around 10 kids at a time for a ride. It was a good one too, they were gone for about 15 min and did a round of the whole town. He told me all about the tunnels they drove through and all the things he got to see.
The last thing we did was sit Liam at the wheel of the old time fire truck. This was from so long ago that the truck belonged to the "tuebingen police fire service" Now I forget what year it was, but it was old.
All in all it was about the best birthday trip we could have arranged and it all really popped up by accident.

Long overdue Birthday photos

So, Liam's 4th birthday was back in June, but I have been really lazy about making posts recently. I keep thinking I will do better, but so far... I am lame.

Liam woke us up nice and early as usual since he knew it was the day he was getting some gifts. He was a little too keen on getting gifts I must say, but at least he was excited, which is fun to watch.

He is in some slick robot PJs while doing the first round of gifts.
A little later on, after getting dressed, Oma, Opa and Bernhard arrived. Of course they had more gifts. The big exciting surprise was the train shed for his Thomas the Tank Engine. Thomas is still about the most popular thing with Liam, although in the past month or two, firemen are pretty big as well.
Very very soon after opening this, all thoughts of eating were gone and Bernhard was recruited to help build some elaborate new train routes to and from the shed.After the cake and gifts, the big event was on... but that is the next post.

Fraser the Baker makes a Cake

So it was just Claudia's Birthday a week ago and I decided to take on the project of making a cake for the occasion. I have never made a cake before, so it was going to be an adventure. We had a look in the cookbooks for something she would enjoy and settled on "Vanilla Rasberry Cheesecake"

Step 1. Toast some oatmeal. This was pretty easy.

Step 2: As graham crackers are not available in Germany, I smashed up some plain cookies as as substitute. Also, get a whole mess of butter.

Step 3 : melt the butter and mix together the toasted oatmeal and crumbs to make the cake base.

Step 4: Press the base in to the cake form, then chuck it in the fridge to set.

Step 5: Get a bunch of sugar, cream cheese, vanilla and lemon and orange zest/juice. mix them all up in a bowl. Then get some whip cream. whip it and fold into the filling.
Step 6: get the base out of the fridge (it has been in there an hour or so) and then put the filling on top. Put it in the fridge again for at least an hour.
Step 7: mash up a bunch of rasberries and pour them over the top. viola. finished cake.
In the end it looked pretty much like the picture in the book and tasted pretty ok. It was a little on the sweet side, so I may have put too much sugar in the filling, but I think everyone enjoyed it.

There was no actual baking involved, so I am not sure if this counted as baking a cake. I would probably give it another try, but since I don't really like cake all that much, I will probably stick to more main course type cooking in future.

I love this.