Liam’s Birthday

We had Liam’s 7th birthday party a couple of weeks ago.  This year we decided to have it up in the park/wildgehege mainly so that we would not have to have a bunch of wild savage children going berserk in the house.  Fortunately for everyone, we had a great sunny warm day for the party.   This is a part of the enormous national park that is right next to our house.  There is a playground area with some picnic benches as well as close proximity to some animals.  The picnic part is right between the wild pigs and deer.  On this very warm day, the pigs had retreated out of sight to lie in the shade, but we did get a nice look at a deer on the hill.

 

 

A deer eating grass can hold the attention of a pack of children for about 10 min, but after that they rocketed off in to the woods to go berserk.

 

 

Claudia and I had spent any evenings though the week planning some games to play with the kids and had asked Liam about what he would like to do.  He had given us all kinds of information about games he wanted to play and things to do, but in the end the kids had pretty much zero interest in any sort of direction and spontaneously decided to play hide and seek in the forest, a game that was not on the list at all.  oh well, their party.

 

 

After some tiring out in the forest, we went down to the picnic area for cake and presents.  Lots of Lego, lots of Star Wars and a happy birthday boy. 

 

 

We also did a BBQ where the kids cooked their own sausages stuck on long poles, followed by toasting marshmallows for dessert.    Of course kids like fire and after the meal I think they were having as much fun poking it with the sticks. 

 

 

A forest full of sticks and some Star Wars books also kicks off some light saber battles.  Here is Emil as Darth Maul battling Liam Skywalker.

 

 

All in all a fun and tiring birthday party.  I think the kids had a nice time and Claudia and I were pooped by the end of it.  Kids birthday parties are fun, but it makes me understand why lots of people pay a third party to entertain the children, probably a very good investment.

Wedding fun

This past weekend we went to the wedding of Claudia’s cousin.  Weddings are usually a pretty fun time and this was the second one we have been to with the boys (the other was a colleague of Claudia’s)

Claudia has a pretty big extended family, her father is one of nine children, and most of them have a couple of kids of their own, who are mostly married with children.  This made the wedding quite a large affair, just under two hundred people were there, which for me is a big one.  The wedding was also in a pretty small place between Augsburg and Munich, and there were a lot of folks in traditional German clothing.  Lederhosen and Dirndl wherever you looked.  Sadly I took far too few photos of this, but here are a couple for a taste.

This cute little girl is one of the daughters of Claudia’s cousin (not the one getting married, there are lots)   Her and her sister were in nice little matching outfits.  When I saw them it made me sad that we have not already got traditional costumes for our boys.  They even get to chose between lederhosen and kilts.



You can see it was not just the kids, but the parents were also nicely dressed in their finest trachten. I am really sad I did not make a better effort to get better photos…



Look at the excellent lederhosen on the gentleman next to Liam.  I should have worn my kilt, I love wearing my stuff as well, but I don’t like to do it without the knowledge and blessing of the hosts, I don’t want to do anything to distract any attention from the bridal pair and me in a kilt can be a distraction.



Henrik of course was the life of the garden party and was rolling, crawling and shuffling around like a madman, getting attention from everyone possible.  Here he is enjoying a rice cake with Vroni while Bernhard and Liam look on.

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After dinner, Liam perfected his superb dance moves with Oma (and all the other ladies he could grab)

Clearly my next trip to Canada should involve bringing Liam to the Dance Cave for a dance off against Robert.

Henrik’s new word

Well, it looks like even Henrik is caught up in Fußball fever.   Sometime in the first round, he learned to say TOR! (Goal in German) and he has been saying it quite a lot since then.  I am not sure if someone at the daycare taught it to him or if he picked it up hearing so many people use it.  The first time I heard him say it was the morning after the Germany-Holland game.

Here is is giving it his best shot while wearing some sweet soccer duds:

As cute as this is, we went to a wedding last Saturday, and Henrik shouting TOR! is slightly less cute in the middle of a church during the wedding mass.

More Beach fun.

As shown in the last post’s video, the boys played quite nicely together on the beach.  There seems to be something special about shovels and digging for our boys.  I know Liam was the biggest fan of construction vehicles, digging, sand and dirt for a very long long time and now Henrik is following in his footsteps.  The only minor conflict is that Liam is all about building things with the sand and Henrik is all about smashing things in the sand.  So most of the time Liam would be working on some project, such as a castle while trying to fend off the smashing attacks of his brother.



At some point, Liam came up with an unsmashable project, a Henrik hole.



Henrik also liked the sandy environment for his mobility.  I think the nice malleable surface was extra comfy for him to practice his “bum shuffling” and crawling.

Check out this sweet crawling adventure.

So, despite not being a huge beach holiday fan myself (I’m more of a mountain man) I think seeing the enjoyment the boys both have on the beach has sold me that it is an ideal location to take them at this age.  As much as I enjoyed our Borkum holiday last year, I thought it was even more fun this time.

A trip to the beach–Part 1

Part of the appeal of Borkum is the giant sandy beaches.  Not so much for bathing, as the North Sea is rather cold and dangerous with heavy currents, but sitting on the beach and maybe splashing around a little is a nice way to pass the time.  We had a couple of beach days on our trip… and Henrik was fully suited up in his sun hat and UV outfit ready to enjoy it.


The weather was great for a beach day.  Not a cloud to be seen and about 25 degrees.  Even with a cool breeze, 25 felt a lot warmer than I thought it would and it was absolutely hot out there on the sand.   The beaches were full but not packed and we had no trouble in renting our own beach basket as a base of operations and place to leave our wagon filled with supplies.



Henrik, happy as usual got right in to the spirit of things with his shovel and bucket.  As a super social man, he of course wanted to share the bucket fun with anyone who came by.  Here he is offering me some sand, thanks dude.



Liam and Henrik played quite nicely together in the sand.  Both of them are pretty handy with a shovel.  I am always so happy that the boys get along so well despite the difference in age.  Here is a nice film of them enjoying the sand in the way that little boys do…

Fire Fest

Over the weekend was the Entringen Fire Dept open house.  (Feuerwehr Fest)

I took Liam and Emil down to check it out and they were pretty impressed with the demonstration of firemen putting out a burning apartment.

They built a fake apartment living room with couch, tv, book case and Christmas tree, then set the whole thing alight.  It was pretty amazing how the wall of heat blasted the crowd when it really got going.  The TV set explodes at one point which is also pretty cool

I think by the end of this there were about 50 little future firemen in the crowd.... When we got home, I had to get all Liam's old fire trucks down from the attic so they could recreate the event in Playmobil form.

Around Borkum

Some more holiday photos today.  Our first full day in Borkum was another super day from a weather perspective.  It was around 25 degrees, but it felt much hotter, despite the nice breeze from the ocean.  We planned for a day at the beach, but that was for after lunch.  In the morning we had a nice walk around the island, first stopping by the new lighthouse in the center of town.

 

Right across the walk from the lighthouse was a fast food stand.  This place had giant cartoonish food bits out in front which Liam took an immediate liking to.  He insisted on posing with these giant fries.

 

 

There was also a giant Pizza slice and giant Ice Cream cone which doubled as a garbage bin.  Those lacked anthropomorphism though.

 

 

While at the sea, we tend to eat more fish since the freshness and quality is considerably better than what you get in the Black Forest (go figure)  Liam also discovered that he really liked North Sea Shrimp and constantly wanted to eat Krabbenbrötchen (shrimp on a bun.)  Based on this very compelling self promotion that they were the best Fisch in town, we bought some lunch sandwiches here.  It was pretty good.

 

 

After our Krabbenbrötchen, we walked back along the seaside to our place to get ready for a beach afternoon.  The weather really was amazing and Borkum reminded us what a great place it was for a holiday.

 

Happy Birthday to Liam

Liam turns seven today and I wish him the happiest of birthdays.

 

His big gift this year was a new bike, and as you can see, he is very proud of it.  His big wish was for a bike with gears.

 

 

After a big of looking around and test rides, we settled on this Pegasus one.  It seems to have all the things a little adventurer will need.

 

 

He and his friend Emil immediately tested the “all terrain” nature of the bike, going out on to the hill across the road.

 

 

And they built a “cool ramp” out of some of the local building scrap.

 

 

Then they rode off to more adventures.  Happy birthday again to my little man.

 

Diggin on the beach

For all the fancy toys that exist and are marketed at us, I still think that I see most are happiest with a shovel, a beach and a mission.

 

First up, we walked past the “dog beach.” Dogs are forbidden on the the regular stretches of beach that the humans are enjoying, but do have specially designated areas where they can also enjoy beach time.  There are also specifically zoned “kite beaches” where you can enjoy the pleasures of kite flying without annoying the beach tourists.  I think this is a very orderly and German approach to things, it seemed to make some good sense.  Our digging mission was rather later in the evening, so there were no dogs around the beach when we were there.

 

 

Like I said though, give the boy a shovel and his day is made.  I am not sure what is so fun or satisfying about digging a hole, but I also had a little shovel to dig along with him and I have to admit it was a lot of fun.  We dig wholes, made mountains, castles, moats, caves to hide in.  The beach offers a lot of variety to the shovel bearer.

 

 

Of course, there was a moment when Liam found a hill to claim for his own.  Shortly after this photo was taken, this hill had a brand new hole on top.

 

 

At the end of a long tough evening of digging, we took a nice stroll back to the flat.  I quite liked the look of this photo, nice warm colours and big shadows make me happy.

 

First Evening in Borkum 2012

Well, we went back to the North Sea island of Borkum for the spring holidays this year.  It was such a nice visit last year and the boys seemed to really enjoy it, so we gave it another try. 

 

After a long drive and ferry ride, we settled in to our holiday apartment, went and purchased food supplies then prepared for our first visit to the beach.  It was getting into the evening now and was a little on the cool and breezy side at this hour, but still sunny and clear.

 

The flat included some useful things such as this “bollerwagen” for transporting stuff to the beach.  Henrik discovered the pleasure of being pulled around by Liam, he was having a great time back there.  Liam wanted to just pull the wagon all over town.

 

 

Once we got to the beach, the wagon proved to be an ideal way to transport Henrik over the sand.  It certainly rolled much better than his pram would.  I think he looks a bit like a little moon explorer here.

 

 

Claudia always wanted to get a nice picture of one of these little wagons as well, but last time there were non around our beach.  As luck would have it we had one very handy, even with some nice weather and light to take a photo of Liam and his shovel.

 

 

Another photo wish was to be sitting in a “strandkorb” and there was an open one on the beach to take advantage of.

 

 

Finally, here is a family portrait of us seen as shadows on the beach.  I think it is still pretty easy to pick out the who’s who in this one.

 

 

Day one of Borkum trip – success.

Bobby Car Driver

Henrik recently made a pretty big development leap.  He still can not crawl or stand, but he has managed to conquer bobby car driving.  I was pretty surprised to see that he knew what to do at all on the car.  We talked to the daycare and he had never ridden the car there at all, so he must have just known what to do from watching the other kids.

He was a little wobbly at first, but he got the hang of it fast as far as driving in a straight line.  Steering remains a problem though, he just drives into a table or something and waits for us to turn him around, or he scoots right out on to the lawn where he is unable to make further progress.  I am proud of his achievement though!


Despite being stuck out on the grass, you can see that Henrik is still his usual jolly self.



Always happy to post for a photo.  He is definitely a natural in front of the camera



and finally, a nice little film of the next Formula 1 racer.

The Boys

I am still getting my holiday photos sorted out, so I will just post this nice picture of Liam and Henrik riding home from Borkum on the ferry.  All in all a very enjoyable trip, with some beach, some biking and some raining.  I think everyone had a good time even though we did not see as many seals as we hoped for.

 

Pringles Flavours

My last trip to the local grocery story took me down the chips aisle (as usual) and I walked past this exciting display of new Pringles flavours.  I am a sucker for bizarre new flavours of things and I swear if I saw “NEW PRINGLES ELEPHANT EAR ON A BUN” flavour I would have it in my cart immediately.

 

In a testament to my own willpower, I did not buy either of these exciting new flavours…. yet.

 

First up is “Burger” flavour.   This one is pretty intriguing, since a burger can have so many different flavours… cheesburger or not?  Which condiments?  will it be just the patty or will they somehow incorporate the bun as well?  I am very very likely to get this one to satisfy my curiosity.

 

 

Right next to that one, we have “Pizza Margherita” flavour.  This one sounds much more conventional to be honest.  I expect it will be cheese, tomato and some pizza sauce type spices.  Probably tasty, but far less interesting than something innovative and new like the Burger ones.

 

 

I am kidding myself if I think that I will not be buying both of these while they are still available.  I actually wish now that I had saved all the bizarre Pringle cans I have tried over the years, I am certain I have photos of most of them, but being able to assemble some monstrous wall of cans has its own appeal.  Perhaps I just thought of an interesting new project….