Adventures in Germany

I have gotten a bit behind in blogging our adventures....but we've been busy!  As of November 1st we have been here for 7 months!  Kind of crazy.  Don't get me wrong, I definitely enjoy being here, but something this weekend (which was a long weekend due to "All Saint's Day" yesterday) made me a little homesick for the US.  Maybe it's the time of year with the holidays around the corner, who knows.  But, I wanted to just curl up in our house in PA with our dog, the fireplace, US tv shows, and eat things I miss.  Oh, and my piano, play my piano.  I can actually spare some time here to play the piano-for me, and the keyboard is just not cutting it.  Anyways, enough of that. On a very positive note I am happy to report that I can comfortably drive our manual car now.  Towards the end of August, friends that live about 40 minutes away invited the kids and I to come play during the day.  However, I had to drive us there on the Autobahn.  So, I practiced and made

In July we spent a weekend near the Bodensee in Southern Germany.  It's a beautiful place with a lot to do in the area.   The lake is bordered by Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.  We only stayed in Germany, but it would be great to go back and explore some other areas. We stayed at a Ferienhof which is a "holiday farm."  They are working farms that offer apartments and/or rooms to rent.  We had a great little apartment complete with a loft, which the kiddos loved!  It had a nice outdoor area with riding toys and chairs to relax in.  The kids loved the animals (and we did too!). After we arrived on Friday we went to visit the Affenburg Salem which is home to over 200 freely roaming monkeys.  This was by far one of our favorite things we have done here yet!  After being given instructions each person gets a handful of popcorn to feed the monkeys.  The walkways are lined with wooden beams which the monkeys sit on.  If they want popcorn they

Unbelievable....August 1st will mark 4 months in Germany.  Our language skills are (slowly) improving and we are continuing to learn and adapt to living in a different place.  After the kids initial time at school Valerie hit a bit of a rough patch with having some anxiety about going.  However, I'm happy to report that I think she has turned the corner and seems to be happy about going again.  Over the summer months they spend a lot (probably the majority of their time there) playing outside if the weather is nice.  They have a large "garten" as they call it with swings, sand, climbing areas, riding toys, all sorts of things.  Sometimes they just bring out art supplies or games and do them outside in the shade with the kids. One thing I am really enjoying about living here is being able to walk/bike everywhere local.  There are bike lanes and sidewalks on nearly every street.  Since we live close to the downtown area it is often easier to walk or bike than to drive and

A few weeks ago we made a visit to the Steiff Teddy Bear Museum , which is not far from where we live.  We visited the Steiff Museum with Valerie when we were here in 2012.  Steiff is known as the "birthplace" of the modern day teddy bear.  There is a fun little tour you can take that tells about the history of Steiff and then there is a large play area complete with life-size stuffed animals.  The kids had a blast playing!  Valerie already has already collected few Steiff stuffed animals, but Ian got to pick his own on this trip since it was his first time there.  Loved watching all the little stuffed animals move on the display  Getting ready for the tour   Valerie in 2012                    Valerie in 2016   Ian with "Froggy" his new Steiff he picked out We also recently visited Ulm, one of the larger cities that is close to us.  The weather wasn't great that day, but we walked along the Danube river and had dinner at a restau