Here We Are !

The trip was smooth and uneventful, except of course at the very beginning when I realized we'd forgotten the big carry-on bag with the book, snacks, and needlework.  Thank goodness for good people - we recovered it all and recovered our composure in time to say our goodbyes.

There were no tears, but perhaps a butterfly or two.

Hannah collapsed about 2 hours before landing.  Kenley kinda dozed here and there.  Hunter, naturally, never closed his eyes on the plane.

There was a boring and long layover in Frankfurt, then in Bremen we had to wait a bit for a taxi big enough for the five of us and all our bags.  What did the kids do?  Get ice cream, and ordered it all by themselves!  I think whatever German they've learned before is going to be on their tongues before they know it.  Kenley already says Danke and Bitte like a champ.

After showers and shopping and pizza, I read the first bit of our summer book.  Hunter was asleep after the first paragraph.  Though the girls thought he was faking, he was NOT! 

Now they are all fast asleep and I am soon to follow.  More adventures tomorrow.

 

Ready

Not "Ready or Not"  because we are ready for you guys!  Look:  we even have the table set.

You know we do "green" - we like to recycle and we like to save energy and time and so on and so forth.  And of  course we like to eat "civilized."  How to do that all at once at the same time together?  Easy.

I made a tablecloth.  And I made some napkins.  And Werner made some napkin rings.  Each day we will eat civilized with tablecloth and napkins (and please, don't forget the candles!!!) but of course, since we are being "green" we can't just toss the napkins into the wash every time.  We'll reuse.  And it will be nicer because we will each have our own napkin ring.  Hunter is blue, Hannah is red, Kenley is pink.

I've decorated my napkin ring a bit, and so has Werner.  You guys can decorate your own napkin rings, and quite frankly, I think the napkins and even the tablecloth could use a bit of color.  Would you like to paint them, too????

New Bikes

Hey Hunter and Hannah!  Here are your "new" bikes!  You know the ones you had before got too small since you got bigger, so we got "new" ones.

Good grief!  What is Werner doing?  Does he know what he's doing?  We sure hope so!  Actually, you two are going to have the cleanest and smoothest running bikes in Bremen, I think!

Kenley is safe since we're borrowing a bike from our friend for Kenley.  Werner isn't allowed to take that one apart!

Heligoland

It's an island. Yes, it is.  Helgoland in German, Heligoland in English.  It's up in the North Sea.

It belongs to Germany, but it has some roots in the Scandinavian countries, too.  It's very small and only takes a couple of hours to walk around the whole place.  That means it takes longer to get there and back than it does to see it all!

There are some pretty neat things to see - probably the most famous is Long Anna - maybe she should be called LongTall Anna.  It's a stone formation off one end of the island and they seem to forever worry that it won't stand after the next storm.  But it does.  And there are some beaches where you can swim and lots of folks go and camp there in the summer.

Quite frankly, I can't imagine staying there so very long.  I think I would get Island Fever.  If you don't know what that is, look it up!  

Do you think it's worth a trip? 

Paris Sights

Here's something you might see in Paris at the Louvre, but then again you may not!

Click Here

Kraxelmaxel

Huh?  Well, if you live in Bavaria, it's Kraxel, but if you live in Bremen, it's Klettern.  I know Klettern:  it means "to climb."

Remember that picture of Werner swinging from the trees?  There's a Climbing Park like that near Oldenburg where they have all kinds of things strung between trees and you can climb and swing and walk way over the ground.  Kids from age 6 are allowed to do it, so you all qualify.  I suppose even old geezers like us can do it.  

Looks cool to me.   Are you interested??

Strawberry Fields

It seems there's a strawberry lover (or more) in the group.  And wouldn't you know, it'll be strawberry season when you're here!


I know that you can get strawberries almost the whole year there in Florida, but not here in Germany.  We have to wait for Mother Nature to warm things up before we get fresh - and good - strawberries.

These are strawberries we bought at the market yesterday.  They're from south Germany.  And I have to say they tasted really really good on the French toast this morning.


We can Erdbeeren selbst pflucken bei Asendorfs (pick your own strawberries at Asendorf's) (German looks very strange sometimes, doesn't it?).  It's a big farm near here where they grow them and it's not too far to bike. There's a cool store at the farm too where you can buy their own sausages and cheese and butter and such.  Even look at the animals. 

And if we get tired of picking, we can just buy some at the strawberry stand.  Either way they taste really good.