Sommerferien !!!

Summer vacation and another great road trip crisscrossing Europe. This time we went West.

First stop Basel with a quick jump into the local pool.

Karl and Henri just love hanging out with their cousins (Anna Lynn pictured, Max pushed to the edge due to formatting problems).

Next stop Versailles, where the boys turned into mighty gunslingers showing off with Napoleon's pistols.

Of course we went to the hall of mirrors.

We also took plenty of family pictures with the works of this year's artist in residence Olafur Eliasson.

Great stuff. Although no match for the works of the sun king.

Final destination was Brittany.

Two weeks at the beaches! What's not to be thrilled about.

Even when the weather didn't hold there were great excursions along the coast.

And if nothing else you can always go crabbing (disclosure: we only caught one live crab, it still was fun).

A few days in the British portion of the family joined in. The boys immediately went in to high energy mode (pictured in this wave running competition).

There was always plenty of sand to be cleaned off.

There was even a quidditch competition.

And more crabbing.

Had I mentioned that the loot was slim? But Ivo (Ivo Shivo as he's known) taught the kids how to make Gnocchi.

Yep, this was the general mood out there.

No matter how high the waves.

Dinner was served in style...

...in the end the group grew into a crowd with the arrival of Jasper and Oskar (and Till and Jeanette, not pictured, who actually hooked us up with the great bungalow that belongs to Till's mom).

We sure wanna go back there soon.

And as an added plus the geographical middle between here and there is the great region of Champagne. Where you can overnight like kings and a queen!

Sommerferien!

Summer vacations are here! And Papa's got a brand new toy that we had to try out on the nearby lake.

We'll be off to Brittany by Wednesday. But there's still plenty of fun to be had around here. Like having ice cream with a Kindergarten buddy (Kindergarten! Henri has one more day tomorrow. Than that's it!).

Or a barbecue party around the corner where of course there was some marsh mellowing.

And Karl got to go to a childrens' art/theater/video workshop with Brazilian artists assume vivid astro focus today at the Sammlung Goetz. All happening in the crazy pop art neon colored rooms they installed there. Which he really liked. So did his new buddies he met there.

This is what he got to do - a 3D mixed media painting, graffiti, textile and photo installation. Pretty darn great for a Monday morning.

Big Debut

It was Karl's debut with his theater group today! Great show. The kids had written a play together called "Das verwunschene Dorf" (the enchanted village).

Karl had two major lead roles. First he was the mayor, a scene which even included a very funny (and daring) stunt.

His second role was the magician who saves the village.

After the play there was a game parents could be part of. You had to make each other laugh, the other one trying not to.

And here they are, not tomorrow's, but today's stars of Eastern Munich's theater!

School's On For Henri!

Today was Henri's farewell party at the Kindergarten.

The kids had rehearsed some songs and a pretty elaborate dance performance.

They rocked! (of course)

They have a great tradition, after the performance they swing each kid back and forth and sing a song about releasing them into their school life....

....at the end they're kinda thrown out....

....and get their "Schultüte" (a cone shaped bag they make themselves that gets filled with candy and little gifts on first school day).

Henri was second and got to watch all the other kids getting thrown out.

He sure was proud of his Schultüte.

Damn proud! (now that both our kids are leaving the Catholic daycare system to enter state run schools we can cuss again).

Bye, bye Angelika and Susanne (and Florin, who's gonna go to a different school).

And yes it's fantastic and great, but also a tiny bit sad that this part of childhood is now officially over.

Bar Hopping

It started to rain again. Not some nice summer drizzle, but this weird monsoonish downpour preceded by Texas prairie style cloud formations. Anyway, bars and joints were visited. Like Cafe Cosmos above, where Nick, the guy who started Fred's boxing club, had a show of friends' boxing paintings.

The afternoon Henri got go with dad to the ice cream parlor all by himself, since Karl didn't want ice cream (don't worry , he's not sick, he wanted and got to eat his chocolate).

Dinner? After the art show we were off to have some nachos, quesadillas and tacos at Taco Libre near the train station. What's not to like?!

Rainy Day Weekend

No, no, it wasn't a rainy weekend, it was a rainy day. Preceded by some serious sunshine, always a reason to celebrate, especially, if your national team is playing for entry into the EM quarter finals.

Some take it a bit more relaxed, especially when lounging at the lake (that was Friday afternoon, but sometimes weekends start early in Bavaria).

Saturday started with some new soccer star hair cuts. They boys took cards from their soccer card collection to the barber and told him what to do (Karl wanted to be Thomas Müller, Henri wanted to be Manuel Neuer).

Finally in the evening it started to rain, so the plan to light a campfire in our fire bowl had to be postponed. Again. But a karaoke party with a wide array of James Bond title songs was just as fun.

Sunday's storm forecast was dismal so we decided right away to go to the bowling alley.

Karl took the clear lead in the first series.

Love the focus kids have when bowling...

Henri caught up fast though.

He took the lead in the second series. Now he claims that bowling is his most favorite sport. Followed by soccer (which they got to watch for dinner).