Fall Garden Fun

We recently revived the garden that was covered in no less than a foot of grass and weeds. It took three days to complete the task, with everyone pitching in  .... very be grudgingly of course.  Now that things are growing the kids can more clearly see what their work has produced. Tiny green sprouts emerging from every seed they placed in the ground. I was raised by parents that grew by all standards a huge family garden (it could feed a small village) and I am not going to lie .... I hated it. I hated picking the purple hull peas... I hated picking the green beans.... I hated the bugs and the muggy hot mornings when you had to wake up much to early to work!  It's almost comical that I would plant one myself and then force my kids to do what I hated. When I was a child it looked like torture and now it looks beautiful. Every time I walk out and piddle in the dirt, water, weed etc. It brings a since of joy and accomplishment. I think I love the fall garden even more because you get to enjoy a nice growing season without the Texas summer heat beating you down. I look forward every day to seeing what has grown and changed.
     It took me sometime, being new to the area, to find a store that sold bulk seed not to mention plants that were not overpriced, but what fun when I did. We planted: mustard greens, radish, carrots, spinach, kale, red and green cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, peas, onions, and strawberries..... now all I have to do is keep our pet rabbit cheeto from reeking havoc.

                                                                    

Everyone hanging out before

 

Cheeto trying to get in

We Bought A Farm

      So lets see Michael and I have know each other for 16 years! In that time we have lived in ... multiple apartments, a trailer, in one room over an antique store, hotels, a house we built ourselves, Germany, and in 6 other houses we have bought and sold... In town, in the city, and somewhere in between we have tried a little bit of everything and a few months ago when we returned from Germany we found what we had been looking for, for a very long time and so .......we bought a farm!
     We are now the proud owners of a 21 acre homestead. It came complete with a nice little house, 3 barns, a large shop, and as an added bonus ... a swimming pool Hooray!
   Now comes the fun part turning this place into our home. I have to admit I have some big dreams that include..... working sheep, lavender fields, espalier orchards, and a large vegetable garden with lots of European influence.
   If I am the dreamer in the family then Michael is the cool dose of reality. He is always keeping us in check and along with his full time career he now has the joy of a homestead to care for. Thankfully along with keeping me some what in  reality he is also an incredibly hard worker. It makes him pretty handy to have around.  Which is good because our fall garden is already in the ground and we should have a few baby chicks hatching soon....

 

 

So on to our next great adventure....

Dinner in the Dark

For my 32nd Birthday Michael told me to get a baby sitter he had a surprise for me. Michael is horrible at keeping secrets and he asked me about 20 times if he should just go ahead and tell me what the surprise was.... amazingly enough we both held out. So on the evening of my birthday I started getting ready, Stella insisted that I get dressed up. I kept asking Michael what I should wear and he just kept telling me it really didn't matter, but Stella persisted so I even put on heels. We dropped the kids off at a friends house(thanks friend) and headed to Koln. Still having no idea where we were going we walked up to a tiny sign that said Dinner In the Dark! Agh we had just watched a TV show that was making fun of a similar place and by the way I am slightly afraid of the dark! Michael could have emphasized that it Really didn't matter what I was wearing, because no one would see it!
   We walked in and were seated with champagne and then waited at our table with only a few small candles burning down until all the guest were seated. The last table to arrive was a group of 18 Italians, and with that the lights went out....
   So let me paint you a picture a very black picture... there was not even the smallest glimmer of light in the room if your eyes were open or shut it did not matter either way you saw the same thing, pitch black. Did I mention that you did not know what was on the menu... surprise
   So here we are in the dark with a German speaking waiter next to a table full of Italians groping in the dark for our food. They set the first course in front of us, and with one bite I spit out something slimy ... Michael took a bite and said "don't eat that".... if Michael says don't eat something you know! not to eat it. We never saw the plate but we believe it was a salad with Octopus or some other sea creature on it. We stabbed around eating bits of lettuce and tomato and avoiding the parts we were not sure of. Next up thankfully was a bowl of soup the waiter placed the bowl in front of us and then set out hands directly on it .... I guess so we would not spill it all over ourselves. Our main course arrived, a couscous and beef stewish combination (very different flavors than anything in an American restaurant.) and for desert even though I was holding out hope for a big slice of chocolate cake it was some banana parfait blah! The meal took 2 hours it was an interesting experience but not one I wish to repeat any time soon. My hearing was on overdrive taking it all the Italian next to us and trying to understand our waiter, it gave me a little bit of a headache.
It does help to give a little perspective because all the waiters are really blind I only spent 2 hours in a world they spend their whole lives in. When we picked up the kids later that evening our friend had helped them make chocolate cupcakes for my Birthday YAY! I got chocolate cake after all.

WE LOVE HOCKEY.... if it's free

     Michael won tickets to a Hockey game at the Lanxess arena last week through work. He won by answering this difficult question ...Who is the mascot of the Koln Hockey team. Thankfully he knew it was sharky the shark. Apparently the Koln team names their mascots just like our children name their pets, simply take the kind of animal and add a Y, it works for every animal.
   We picked up our free tickets at the box office and found our seats right next to the glass... Now I have only been to one other hockey game in my life and it was the Mudbugs in Monroe Louisiana, I remember it being less than exciting. This game between the Koln Sharks and the Hamburg Freezers was better than expected with a score of 3-2 Koln. The boys enjoyed every minute but by far Oliver's favorite part was when Sharky the mascot came out and danced on the ice to Lady GaGa's Applause. I mean who doesn't enjoy the occasional break dancing shark!! You aren't human if you don't..
   On our way out the boys decided they wanted to take up Ice skating... all I can say is good luck with that in Texas...

Exploring an old Steel Mill

Right down the road from our home is a lovely park that just happens to be the remains of an old steel mill. We finally journeyed down to it last weekend to see just what it had to offer. The kids brought along their skateboards and scooters to zip around the rather large park. All I can say is if your looking for a place to take senior pictures (we are not but...) it's the perfect place to do just that. OK me and Michael took a few senior pictures to make up for the horrible ones we took in our youth.
   If only we were certified scuba divers we could have dove into a giant holding tank that has now been turned into a divers paradise. Or if we were excellent mountain climbers we could have climbed the sides of giant concrete structures  that once did something or another inside the plant. OR if it had been open we could have zip lined from one metal remnant to another. But we did not do any of those spectacular things and we still had a good time. There was a giant slide that would surely lead to a lawsuit in American that both the kids and Michael came shooting out of, along with numerous other terrified children. The kids played on several playgrounds and ran in and out of gardens and over walls  Then we topped it off with some currywurst and pomes to end the evening. Overall it was a lovely day at the old steel mill.

Hard Hat Chandelier

the slide ... this is only about 1/2

Our Senior Pictures ... I would have worn makeup if I knew it was picture day

Nailed it

Normandy

We headed to Normandy Sunday morning, it was rainy and icky outside. So we went to the beach?... I can't say enough about how beautiful it was in that part of France; the coast was amazing and the architecture was beautiful. Truly a place worth visiting. Our first stop was Arromanches beach, looking out over the water you can see the debris that were purposefully sunk to create a harbor for in coming boats. Up the road at our next stop was the remnants of a German battery on the edge of a cliff over looking the shores at Longues-sur-Mer. The guns and their bunkers remain partially intact and one of the best parts about Europe... nothing was roped off. You are free to climb in and around and touch what you please. The kids picked black berries beside a giant concrete Bunker that once housed the Nazi army and their guns. Surrounded by farms of wheat it was both beautiful and sad. Down the road a little farther was the Omaha Beach American war cemetery and museum. We did not know what to expect but the museum is wonderfully done and the cemetery it's self brought both me and Michael to tears. It's hard to explain seeing the mass graveyard of those that died so that we and our children could live freely. All I could think was how many tears were shed by the families of the men laid to rest there. They were all someone's son, brother, friend. It is overwhelming, and it made us feel truly thankful for what they gave, which was everything. The last stop was Pointe Du Hoc. This is where the Germans set up base it was also on a cliff overlooking the English channel with far sweeping views and numerous underground concrete bunkers. We were struck with the shear volume of concrete used to build these well thought out structures and the amount of time it would take to build them in what seems like such a rural part of the country. The bunkers were vast, but the most amazing thing to me was the size of the holes in the ground left by the bombings. The kids enjoyed playing in the bunkers and holes not fully appreciating how it came to be that way. Both me and Michael had great uncles that fought on those beaches and lived, it was a moving revelation to see our own children play on the same beaches where so many men had died, but God gave us the world to enjoy and those men who lost there lives gave that beach and so much more back to the world on June 6th 1944.

Remnants of the artificial harbor

Oliver on US Army Truck in a French Village

German Gun 

Michael dropping the kids into a treacherous  underground bunker

Safety First

Giant Bunker overlooking the coast

A snail for good measure 

Wheat fields beside the coast

American Cemetery with 9,387 graves

Omaha Beach

bomb craters

Inside the underground bunker near craters, it was dark inside you could only see with the camera flashs

Gardens of Versailles

    We spent Saturday taking a nice train ride to Versailles ... of course when we got there we had to wait in line another hour and half just to get tickets to go inside and then you had to get in another line to actually get in blah! but despite the line delays we decided to start off at the gardens. When I visited Versailles as a teenager we did not get to spend any time in the gardens.  I really only got to peer at them through the windows, so I wanted to really walk around them this time around. The gardens are acres and acres of manicured hedges and large fountains. It felt a little like being in Alice and Wonderland, the queen would be playing croquet just around the corner. There was a little outdoor café towards the front and we stopped there for lunch where we ate what else but baguette sandwiches and pizza. The idea that all the grubby commoners are eating sandwiches and drinking cokes in shorts and tennis shoes where kings and queens used to ramble around with their fellow upper classmen seems almost comical. Can you imagine if they could see it now filled to the brim with "common tourist"?.... the nerve. We walked and walked through mazes with classical music playing in the background, it was delightful.
   After getting our fill of the grounds we went into the palace, I remember it being beautiful and worth the trip but, on this visit it was so crowded you could scarcely see the rooms themselves mostly the only view you had was of the person squished up in front of you....lesson learned do not visit Versailles Palace on a Saturday in August!
    The train ride back into Paris was just about like the inside of Versailles , no room. We wanted to see just one more thing before the day was done so we choose the Moulin Rouge. Mostly just because I loved the movie so much. It is hardly a site to see however , there was a giant grate in front blowing air that provided the kids with a good deal of entertainment for the night.

 

 

The little dots out in the water are people in row boats ... amazing

The Commoners

pretending that we are not commoners

So flat it seemed fake

and the winner is

Guess what's being said in this picture.... if you travel with kids you already know

this never got old