Herbstferien- Woche 2

Our second week of Adeline's vacation consisted of more shopping and fun outings. This time our shopping trips were more adventures as we were searching for Halloween costume supplies.

Monday morning was our first stop to the children's thrift store. We were able to find a sweatsuit outfit to start Emmie's elephant costume along with a few new puzzles for the girls to enjoy. The elderly lady who waited on us informed me of the great bargain I was getting for my very nice purchases. I could not tell her we were going to use the clothes as costumes. We then continued to Aldi's for groceries and found black clothing items for Adeline's spider costume.  Monday afternoon, the girls were anxious to start making the spider legs by stuffing the socks with crumbled newspaper.

Tuesday morning, Adeline and I went to the mall looking for material for the elephant. After searching through the department stores, we finally discovered in the rear back corner of a store a mini Jo-Ann Fabrics. With limited selection of pink material, we initially picked out one type and then found a remnant of a silkier type. I think between the white felt  and the pink material, I spent more on this then the clothes for the costume. We then then went back to the thrift store to get the other sweatshirt for the elephant's ears and trunk as this was cheaper than buying fabric by the yard. These past days of shopping wore Adeline out as she fell asleep at 6:30pm on the couch and did not wake till the next morning at 7am.

On Wednesday, we relaxed and took it easy as the weather was raining and has turned cold. I had to scrap the car windows on Tuesday morning, so we decided to stay indoors, read books in the morning, and play games in the afternoon.

Thursday was an unplanned eventful day. The morning started with us accompanying Brigitte, our neighbor, to the Chinon Center. It is the new mall here in downtown Hofheim which has a few clothing stores, drug stores, and a cafe. It is about the size of a Meijer's store, but with a partial second level. Once again, we joined in the celebration with champagne and juice, acquiring flowers and balloons, and even getting large shopping bags with a purchase. Adeline enjoyed an apple with a company's logo stamped on it. Brigitte fought her way through the adults to get Adeline the large C&A helium balloon as they were handing them out in limited quantities. On the way out, Lidl was selling large buckets of fruit for only five Euro. I bought one as this was a great deal for a fruit salad and a bucket.

After returning home with our goodies, we went on our luncheon trip to McDonalds. I had to drive back to the MTZ mall for the closest restaurant. It felt weird to order half of the items in English, knowing the conversation would all be in German. I managed though and the girls chose a booth in the upper level to eat their lunch at. They enjoyed their chicken nuggets, french fries, and Fanta. I also had a Happy Meal with them, but I opted for the cheeseburger instead. The girls were very excited about their Happy Meal toy, a Tom and Jerry popsicle maker.  I had to stop one worker from taking our Happy Meal boxes as apparently nobody takes them home here. On the way out, the girls were able to pick out a McDonald's flag and balloon. I was happy we were leaving as the ordering lines were almost out the door when we left.

In the afternoon, we joined Melanie and her girls on their first visit to the Chinon Center. This time, the girls got a ball to play with in the yard. Melanie also fought her way through the adults to get a balloon for Hanna.

Friday afternoon we were planning on going to the chocolate shop when Eric called us. There was a medical emergency on the train and it was not going to be making it to Hofheim, so we went and picked him up at the last station it was going to. We then took a quick detour to the chocolate shop and showed Eric the new mall before heading home. Early in the evening, we went to the Rhein Main Therme. The pool was busy, but felt so nice and tropical since it the temperatures are cooler and it is getting darker earlier.

Soggy Weekend

The weather took a quick change from during the week and we are thankful it did not interrupt our weekend plans. Saturday was an easy going day which was good for numerous reasons. First, it rained all day from sprinkles to downpours.  Secondly, Eric ran his longest run in his training schedule for the   Frankfurt marathon in a few weeks. His goal was to do it in under three hours and he did it in two hours and 45 minutes. Thirdly, the girls really wanted to watch Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses movie. This was airing on a German children's station at lunchtime. Lastly, it was the GallusMarkt here in Hofheim.

We ventured down to the city later in the afternoon with our umbrellas. We were able to easily maneuver through the crafters as the cold and rain kept many people indoorsSome vendors were selling Gluhwein, the drink during the Christmas markets, but we stopped at the Chocolate shop for some hot chocolate to keep us warm. The girls found a few rides to go on again and cotton candy to snack on. ERic and I treated ourselves to these huge flavored-like looking marshmallow treats covered in chocolate. They are tasty and not as sticky as marshmallows. When we began our journey home, is when the rain started to pick-up, so we quickly hurried home and watched the downpour and winds send the rain sideways.

We attended Marie's baptism on Sunday morning at the same quaint church Melanie and Thorsten were married in a few years ago. The girls were invited to participate in her baptism as well. The girls went right up to the front with Melanie and Thorsten when they were initially invited and this is where we learned it was okay for them to be part of it. Adeline helped the Pastor poor the water into the bowl and light the candle for the ceremony. Afterwards, we celebrated with the Wendel family at a local restaurant. The food was delicious and the meal ended with scrumptious cakes for dessert.

Adeline has one more week off from school. This week we plan to venture out in search for costume supplies for Halloween as I do not have a Joann's or Meijer's to get my stuff from. Adeline wants to be a spider and Emmie wants to be an elephant.

Herbstferien- Woche 1

For us being on break from school, we have kept busy. In the mornings, we drop Emmie off at kindergarten. Emmie says she does not want to come shopping with us, so this is a good reason for her to attend school. Adeline and I then take care of business before Emmie is out school, so we can play in the afternoons.

A unique interior decorating store at the mall reopened their doors Monday morning from being closed all summer. Melanie invited us to join her in her journey to the store, so we accepted her invitation. This was quite the event as the little girls received orange juice, balloons, and a silk flower upon entering the store, while us big girls were treated to a glass of champagne. Much of the inventory consisted of Christmas decorations, so I just browsed as I first need to get through Halloween. Afterwards, we strolled through the mall. Melanie found some decorations, plus some little treats for the girls to enjoy. In the afternoon, we walked over to the park to enjoy the sunshine.

Tuesday morning, we made a breakfast date with Melanie at Ikea. This was our first trip to Ikea, so I was excited. We had breakfast and then ventured our way through the store. Adeline found new bedding for their beds, so this was a positive trip for us. With time to spare before picking up Emmie, we  made it to Toys R Us. Adeline had fun walking through the aisles, looking at items for her Christmas list.  In the sunny afternoon, we walked over to the farm for some fresh cider. Since the new comforter covers were still drying, this was a great opportunity for a slumber party. The girls had fun in their sleeping bags with their flashlights.

Wednesday afternoon, we strolled downtown to do some errands.  It was also a pleasant fall day, so we enjoyed a scoop of ice cream after our errands. The girls also picked out the festival rides they were going to ride this weekend as the workers were beginning to set them up. While in Hofheim, we ran into Melanie's dad at one store, her mom on the sidewalk, and then we saw Melanie driving as we were walking back. The girls thought this was so great we saw so many people during our trip. 

On Thursday morning, Henrick joined us on our walk to kindergarten. The kids joined hands and sang as they walked down the sidewalk towards school. It was a precious sight. Adeline and I made a trip to Aldi's for their new weekly specials.  I managed to find a few cold weather items and Adeline did a good job restocking the sweets and treats cupboard. 

In the afternoon, Karolin navigated our way to Hof Gimbach. It is a local farm, apple orchard, and restaurant in Kelkheim, a city on the other side of the hill from us. The kids had fun playing on the playground and petting the horses.

Adeline is excited to still not have school, but is even happier when Eric strolls in on Friday morning from work. As I get my errand list ready, she says she will stay with Eric, but as I get my coat on, she decides to come with me. We have fun with our store visits and pick out some treats to keep us energized around town. 

Friday afternoon, Emmie has a birthday party for Stella, a fellow classmate who is turning six. Prior to the party, Emmie informs me how she wants me to leave as she will be okay, since she is a big girl now. I take her up on her offer when I drop her off at Stella's apartment as I see they have invited about 12 children. In addition, we have been invited to Alex's birthday party at his apartment. (Alex is our landlord that lives two floors above us). I watch for Emmie from Alex's apartment as Stella's dad is dropping her off. Emmie is excited to tell me about her party and its' festivities when I greet her and then happy to go to another party. The party is relaxing as we mingle with some neighbors, meet new people, and enjoy the food and beverages Alex has provided into the evening.

Even though we do not have schoolwork this week, I have been teaching "English" school. Adeline  found some Disney princess workbooks I brought with us early in the week. Since her discovery, she has been working through the appropriate level math and spelling books. Emmie likes the different pages of her "Big" Preschool workbook. She will do a few pages in one section and then move onto to another. Her favorite section right now is the mazes section. One afternoon we sat for over an hour doing worksheets. The girls are very happy when they get a star and/or smiley face on their completed worksheets.

Golden October

This fall weekend was picture perfect with the sun shining and temperatures enjoyable to be outdoors. Saturday morning's market shopping trip was successful as we filled our bags to the brim and our hands were carefully balancing the delicate purchases. This week Eric found wild boar brats to be grilled for dinner. The girls had their entire lunch with the little items the vendors gave them along the way: little pretzel rolls, slice of lunchmeat, carrot, tangerine, and a piece of chocolate for dessert.

We drove up to the forest to get some fall pictures of the girls playing in the leaves after lunch. Unfortunately, the leaves have not fallen a great deal in the woods yet, but we did find a pretty pear orchard for our photo session. 

The rows of trees had beautiful colored leaves, so this was our backdrop for the photos. Emmie found a pear still on one of the trees, so from then on the pear became a prop in the pictures. We did manage to get a few nice shots out of 200 plus that Eric took between goofing around and half smiling or one smiling and the other one not.  We then went to the playground to make the most of the beautiful fall day.

In the late afternoon, we hiked up to the meisterturm in the forest with the Wendel family. It was a nice walk with great conversation along the way. The children played while we relaxed enjoying the fall air before we returned home for the evening.

This month on Sunday mornings, Pastor Carsten is incorporating a little bit of every country or region which is represented at ICF in each service. This weekend it was the Americas. To start the morning service, we sang a traditional hymn with the organ and to end the praise portion, we sang, "I'll Fly Away" and "When the Saints Go Marching In". The girls loved dancing to the final songs as the instruments did a fantastic job playing the songs' tunes.

Sunday afternoon, we drove to Hochheim's playground. It is a large playground for the young and old. The tower structure is built on a hill, so the entire play stucture appears even higher in the air as you approach it. Eric went with the girls on the large climbing bridges and tunnels up to the large tower. Once they got in the tower, there was a fast and steep slide. Initially, Adeline did not want to do it anymore, but after she wiped away the tears, she did the slide 4 more times. Emmie did it once and that was enough for her. She enjoyed the long zip line. After monkeying around, the girls went for a bike ride as Eric and I strolled along the surrounding bike paths.

Fruity week

Monday brought about a new situation for us. Adeline came home with one less folder and thought she had forgotten it at school. We trekked back to school and luckily her teacher was still there. She let us in the classroom this time, but informed me once the school room is locked for the day, she cannot to let us back in. We searched the classroom, but could not find it. Adeline's teacher informed me, it was not a big issue and she could make up the homework that was contained within it later. I received an apologetic phone call later in the evening from the mother of the student who sits next to Adeline, telling me her son had it and she would drive it over. I informed her the teacher knew of the situation, so she so kindly did not have to drive it over since it was almost 9pm and there was no need to call the teacher either. Adeline received her folder back on Tuesday, which meant a little more homework in the afternoon.

Wednesday afternoon, Clare came over to play with Adeline. All of the girls had a fun time playing together. Clare enjoyed playing dress-up with the princess accessories we have. They even put on a dance recital for me.

On Thursday afternoon, Rebecca came over to play with Adeline. This time the girls had fun doing art and craft projects and playing games. We played Zingo, a game similar to Bingo but with object tiles. Emmie and I spoke English while Rebecca and Adeline spoke German when we were calling out the tiles we needed for our card. We had Rebecca anxiously waiting for the next tile to be displayed in our second game.

All week long, Adeline's class has been learning about apple parts. On Friday, they would be having fruit salad as a class treat. Adeline chose to bring in bananas for the salad and also had to bring in  her own bowl, fork, spoon, paring knife, and cutting board.

Friday morning, I helped out in Adeline's class with a few other mothers to make their fruit salad. Intially, I thought us moms would be cutting the fruit up, but we just oversaw the kids to make sure they did not cut their fingers. I helped show the kids how to hold their knife properly and then cut the fruit. I also let them decide on big pieces or small pieces within reason. Her teacher though thought the bigger pieces should be a little smaller, so the boys ended up cutting some fruit into pieces about the size of a pea. With the guidance of Clare in helping me understand what the teacher was talking about, Adeline's group made a delicious fruit salad with nuts to top it off. The kids ended the fruit salad project with a few songs they have been learning the past few weeks, before us moms were dismissed from class.

Adeline now has a two week vacation, so she is looking forward to sleeping in and going on some outings. Emmie still has kindergarten, so we have to work around her schedule, but it will be a nice break from the school homework.

Munich

Strolling through the streets of Munich is how we passed the time on Sunday. After checking out of the hotel, we caught the bus and then tram to the Hauptbahnhof to store our luggage for the day since our train back to Frankfurt did not leave till early evening. 

The storage area was chaotic with people trying to find an empty locker. When Eric decided he had looked through enough occupied locker bays and we were just going to take our luggage with us, I took one stroll down a bay and with perfect timing, a young guy offered me his locker that he was getting ready to empty. We stored our luggage and to the city center we went. 

The girls found it neat to pass under the brick archways and see the old buildings and their details. We window shopped, stopped for a bite to eat, visited the church, and let the girls run around a park. There was a variety of street entertainment which were good breaks as we strolled along the streets. 

We also came across a gourmet dessert cafe which simply could not be refused the second time around. The girls chose a raspberry chocolate mousse torte, Eric selected a raspberry torte with liqueur flavored filling, and I selected the Maelu Exclusive, a chocolate mousse filling with a chocolate crunch surprise inside covered by handmade chocolate. The dessert tasting event went quickly at our table with all of us sampling the tortes. I must note the Maelu Exclusive torte ranks high with the Belgium Neuhaus truffles I truly savor. 

After our afternoon treats, we headed back to the train station. Emmie fell asleep in the stroller and we still had time to spare before our train, so we headed to another park. At this park, we discovered an enjoyable biergarten to rest and have some food and beverages before we boarded the train. 

Upon getting our luggage out and making our way to the platform, Eric thought we were too early. However, our car was the very first car at the other end of the platform, so we had to walk to the end of the platform. By the time we reached the car, it was boarding time. We were the first ones on, but it worked out so the girls could get settled in their seats. They enjoyed riding backwards on this car. I noticed on the way back that many of the Audi cars that had been stacked up on the car transporter trains were now gone in. When we initially passed this one town on Friday afternoon, it looked like one of the Big 3 parking lots at the factories with all of the new cars. 

Our train was eight minutes late arriving into Frankfurt. Luckily, our car was the closest to Frankfurt's main station, so we did not have a long walk to catch the train to Hofheim and the elevator to our next train was just arriving as we were approaching it.  We made it to the platform for our train to Hofheim with two minutes to spare. 

Since the night air was warm, I though it would be nice to walk back home. Emmie sat on top of the suitcase in the stroller and the girls had fun with the flashlights leading the way. This was all great till the last hill to our apartment. We should have then got a taxi as the exhaustion and tiredness set in quickly. We made it home safely after our weekend adventure and all had a good nights sleep.

Oktoberfest

At 9:30am, the train was already filled with everyone in their lederhosen and drindl outfits.  We thought we started our day early in catching one of the first morning trains to Oktoberfest as it opened at 10am, but apparently not. The crowd led the way out of the station, through the neighborhood, and to the large festival.

We entered the festival by all of the large rides, so the girls were very excited about the day's activities. In the morning, we walked around to enjoy the festival atmosphere before it became too crowded. By 10:20am, we saw signs posted on the tents they were already at maximum occupancy and heard the loud noise all around, despite the doors being closed. The girls took a mini-roller coaster ride before I found the sweets tent, where we took a chocolate truffeltorte and donut break from walking. Our trek around the festival led us to the Historical Oktoberfest.

This year marked the 200th Anniversary of Oktoberfest. They had an area specifically set-up with many antique items on display from past festivals along with a timeline. The area also included traditional decoration and food, plus entertainment from older Oktoberfests as this was a quieter and child-friendly environment, representing how the festival initially was. The girls enjoyed riding the ponies and seeing the horses decorated for a show in the arena. We took a break in the children's biergarten with little picnic tables.

This picture was taken at 1:30pm.

Our journey continued to the vintage ferris wheel. While we were waiting in line, the girls took a short nap as Eric and I were being herded like cattle into the boarding area of the car. Germans do not believe in order when boarding rides, so it is a rush to be first in line as it is just a large area in front of the rides and whoever physically gets nearest the ride, gets to take a ride. Once boarded, we all enjoyed the view from above Oktoberfest. It was incredible for how early in the day the festival was packed with visitors.

After our family ride, the girls selected the couple of rides they wanted to go on. Adeline chose the swings, while Emmie picked a bug she could control to fly up and down as it spun around. We all went on the bumper cars. Emmie was tossed around in the seat, but she loved it when we crashed into Eric and Adeline. At the last minute, Adeline choose the tall slide over the roller coaster. Eric took both girls on it and managed to get a little airborne with Adeline.

Before leaving in the early afternoon, we picked out our souvenirs. The girls choose the traditional gingerbread heart shaped cookie. I  saw some small beer mugs I liked when we initially walked into the festival, but obtaining a pair on our way out turned out to be a race around the park. We found the first one on one of the stand's shelves, but it was the last one at that stand, so we went to look for others. After searching four other stands nearby, we raced back to get that one. As we worked our way through the crowd and out of the festival, we were unsuccessful in finding one more until the stand at the entrance. Eric saw it in the window display and started to reach for it, when the stand operator questioned what he was doing. I believe we got the last two mugs.

We boarded the subway and headed to the University area for a quiet early dinner where we could enjoy our Bavarian meal and beers. Oktoberfest was a great experience and we had a fun family day at the festival.