Shooting Stars

There's a whole new set of dangers Andrian has to live with now that he doesn't need to wait in traffic for 40 minutes every day after work.

Home!

We're home!

Brief insecurities about how the boys will take their uprooting vanished quickly, since they sure made the place their own fast. First they gave a show in Karl's room.

Later on the sundeck was initiated as a social space by inviting the neighbor's dog Luna over for some ice-cream (some to be licked off hands, feet and deck). And because there is a heat wave, an ipad-screening of Donald Duck shorts in Henri's minty-cool room was very much appreciated.

So much and briefly for now. Braggy wide-angle shots of the premises done with a real camera to follow. All contacts but the mailing address are still the same. New mailing address upon request or soon in seperate mails and letters (whenever those mountains of boxes are cleared, so it could be that our change of address letters will be combined with Christmas cards).

Home Stretch

It might not be the gloves that are off, but the scaffolding is and that does feel a bit the same. We mean business now! To be concurrent with the Moore's law of renovating and moving (every week the chores and things to do double) there was some last minute digger job to be done last Monday. Karl was probably the proudest boy this side of the Atlantic, when Mr. Ruhrdorfer let him actually operate heavy machinery.

Annoying side effect of the job - Mr. Ruhrdorfer found out that our two pit drainages were full of thick roots, so we needed two new ones, which led to the appearance of this piece of equipment and molded pieces of concrete to be installed a mere eight days before moving day:

They actually finished the job in a day, while the carpenter installed a deck in the back and there were some last finishing touches to the interior (Fred has some serious streetwise lingo down, something between South Brooklyn jive talk and Baghdad style shock and awe that gets the armies of contractors currently swarming our grounds going like the allied forces storming Omaha Beach). Back at Muellerstrasse we are slowly finding out that our worldly possessions about tripled since we crossed the Atlantic. Well, our numbers doubled, so that seems fair. Lots of boxes of course means - serious castle building.

Also - some last rounds to the neighborhood playgrounds. Fadeout shot for today - brothers baking cake.

Saturday at the Barber

This is Herni serving up imaginary ice cream at the playground. You can pick your flavors, but you do have to at least pretend to taste the little handful of sand, so not to hurt his hospitable feelings.

Boys day out. Since

the upcoming move will fill our days with myriads of activities and chores, we took advantage of the breezy Saturday to stroll over to Francesco, our favorite barber. Henri fell fast asleep onthe way, so it was Karl and me first,

Karl enjoying a reading of "Asterix, the Gladiator". Enjoying it so much in fact, that he didn't even notice that Francesco could sneak a healthy dose of gel onto his new cut, which Karl abhors, like all other sticky stuffs to be applied to hair or skin. When he saw that this made him look like his other favorite comic book character Tintin he was actually quite excited. Henri on the other hand didn't forgive the betrayal that easily. When he woke up it was off to the ice cream parlor first. When we returned to pick up the stroller, we just sat down and while I fed him some gummy bears, Francesco just started to snip away. Henri didn't resist, but retreated into a deeply gloomy sneer of disaproval, which he kept for a few hours.

Well, neither the gloom nor the gel lasted for too long. At the playground Karl fast turned his spiffy new style into the more rugged look of the California gold rush ca. 1852.

Henri in the meantime put on his favorite hat and impressed fellow kids and dads with his climbing skills. This jungle gym goes up about 12 feet, where there's a landing for a great slide. Henri's rather proud that he can follow his big brother up there since a few weeks. Staying up there - different story. He took a nosedive and bounced down between the ropes. I caught him halfway down. Big tears, but only small scratches. When asked, if he wants to try again, he just said, "but you go with me". And climbed up again right away. Trooper.

Preppies

T minus two weeks! Tons of prep work for the big move from urban bohemian renting to leafy neighborhood home owning. While Fred was out doing some real work (i.e. uprooting some trees that would severely get in the way of our Corona-BBQ-style deck) I took the boys out to Grandpa "Opa Paul" who will be in charge of entertainment when lift-off is up. All went smoothly. Karl and Henri got to take out some old toy sailboats of mine to the lake (not pictured - the disintegration of parts of the rigging, since ropes and sails don't take a few decades of storage that well).

Karl of course bolted to the room with all the comic books again, which happens to be the shadiest Northern room in Opa Paul's house. Took some elaborate hammock story to get him outta there (it's a real jungle hammock made of parachute silk, the type Uncle Rich uses when he ventures out into unknown lands for birding).

The sailboats were a strong lure though. So even when they disintegrated the water games were on. Pictured here - the classic sport of splashing adult.

Fine coda of the day - ice cream. No worries about the smooth transition in the grandfatherly care of Opa Paul.

Flea Market Summer

It was the annual neighborhood backyard flea market, definitely one of the highlights in our are, when you get to put some old stuff on the table, hang with the neighbors, sip lemonade, dot around the corner for some ice cream and some finds, just to return to some relaxing bargaining session.... honest to God, we didn't teach Karl those slightly off-kilter pop culture references (Danish fishing cap plus Oxford shirt plus Mr. T style gold chain = nerdy by nature?) 

This combination of course was a bit more together, culturally speaking.

Both of the boys got 2,50 Euros to spend. Henri got himself a green car he really liked that cost him 1,50.

Karl scored, when he first found enough parts in a big box of Playmobil to assemble a pirate for 20 cents (the young lady there is Ophelia from Kindergarten we ran into who got to get a pair of very nice summer shoes), a brand new merchant marine for 90 cents and later a big box of Playmobil figures, parts and weapons that he talked our neighbor Theresa into giving him for a cute smile and a wink. Definitely enough money left for ice cream. Later on it was time to hide behind mom's selling table and sort out the loot. Well, it's time again for lasts and first. This was our last neighborhood flea market. We'll be invited to partake next years, but we'll we guests from the other side of town by then. Tons of fantastic firsts these days though (see below).