Back to Almost Normal

Here's a Kreye Brothers classic - Karl has drafted Fred into reading to him while Henri is kickin' a soccer styled balloon across the room. Funny how personalities form early. So it'll be something brainy for Karl, sports scholarship for Henri.



Things are almost back to normal. At least all temperatures are. Moods are slowly rising. Although when Karl asked just before lights out when he gets to go to the Kindergarten again and I said "you just have to sleep four more times and then...." I kinda thought "four times?!'. Yup. These were the longest Christmas vacations ever. I think when I have shipped both boys to there respective daytime entertainment centers on Monday morning I will briefly return home and Fred and I can light some of those new years' fireworks we completely overslept. Yadayadayada, of course they're both awfully cute and incredibly charming. Afternoon was fun too. While Fred took Henri down to the riverbanks so he gets to fall asleep in fresh air (which he did for like only half of the alotted fresh air time) I took Karl to the Botanical Gardens where they're having a tropical butterfly exhibit. First we had to stop at the Nymphenburg Castle Canal, which in winter is Munich's curling central. Karl got a kick out of watching all those heavily Bavarian characters sliding their curling irons across the ice. He tried to wrap his head around the fact that the body of water where he normally feeds water fowl was now under our feet. Karl loves the tropical green houses at the Botanical Garden. He kinda enjoyed the butterfly exhibit, although I have to admit it was a bit underwhelming having just a few dozen tropical insects fluttering about in one of the ten green houses. He did get a real kick out of the display of carnivorous plants though. They do look pretty mean and very obvious what they're up to. You have be some dimwit insect to fall for them. Unfortunately we didn't see them in action, although Karl suggested taking the butterflies into the special carnivorous herbarium to get our full money's worth. I guess cynicism starts early. Or irony boot camp finally paid off. Still his favorite place there - the Mexico House with the authentic cowboy setting.