School's out for the summer!

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Hi! It's me, Finn - just thought I would update you on what we are up to these days. We both had our last day in Kindergarten and Zwergelpark (preschool and playschool) on July 29th and now Lily and I will be home with Mama until mid-September. It's great! We are doing lots of fun things, like

painting

making cool animals with iron-on beads

or cutting out pictures, coloring in our coloring books, and of course playing with our toys.

Sometimes we dress up to go out, but we have to plan in a bit more time to get ready because Lily wants to do everything "BY HERSELF"! She is such a big girl (she thinks).



I really like playing with the little lego pieces for big boys now, so Mama had a great idea. She took Lily and me to IKEA where she bought some things and then Papa and I went to work! We built a lego table for me!

I love it!


And Lily got this big wooden table for her playmobil. It is so much nicer than playing on the floor.

Sometimes Lily needs a little snooze during the day, but most days she doesn't nap anymore. I think Mama likes it, because now Lily goes to bed with me and is not up until 10 or 11 at night.

I love staying home with Lily and Mama. I can sleep in and we can all have breakfast without Mama telling me to hurry up all the time.

Most mornings we go to our little bakery after breakfast. Mama buys fresh milk and bread and we ALWAYS ask her to buy us candy. Maybe if we just keep asking she will say yes one day?

The other day we were SOOOO hungry after that LOOOONG walk ALL the way to the bakery, so we HAD to have a snack. Lily picked a wiener and I asked the lady for a bun with salami. She put LOTS of slices on, yummy!

If the weather is nice we spend a lot of time outside. We love our little sandbox!

Sometimes I help Mama with the laundry, she really likes that.

One of our favorite treats: popsicles!

Lily still loves her tricycle.

And I often help Papa spread out that leaf pile with my tractor. :)

We've had quite a bit of rain and cool weather lately, and even Mama refusing to fill up the pool for us can't stop us from going for a swim! Who says you can't have fun in a rainwater puddle?

Gruezi! *

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* Hi!

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So we took a trip last weekend, from Friday morning to Sunday night. Some of us preferred to travel in disguise. You just can't ever be careful enough.

And where did we go you wonder? I'll give you a hint. Small country, lots of mountains, and tourists are required to wear funny hats (see picture).

Right! We went to Zurich/Switzerland for a long overdue visit with Auntie Ulli!

Neil brought his tools so we could help Ulli take apart some furniture, and I brought my bike to do a little sprint triathlon (500m/20k/5k) on Saturday morning. We had a great time in Zurich! We especially loved the BBQ with ANnika and ThOrsteN, who not only threw their genes but also their names together, the result being an adorable little boy named Anton. Playing with him and his toys was definitely the highlight of Finn's and Lily's trip. I secretly think the food that night was the highlight of Neil's trip. :) D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S.

And aside from meeting with old friends from "back home", we also made new friends! It was a lot of fun doing the triathlon with Keri and Will from Ulli's church. You guys rocked the show! What great finishing times for your first triathlons! Maybe some day I will be as fast as you, Keri. :)

As for me, the Zurich triathlon was a learning experience. I learned that no matter how hot it has been, always ALWAYS bring a jacket. I couldn't believe how cold it was Saturday morning, and that icy rain certainly didn't help. None of us was equipped for that kind of weather, and now poor Lily has a major cold. I went out Saturday afternoon to buy them jeans and sweaters.

I also learned that it's not good to not eat enough before a race in the freezing rain. I had to get up so early that I didn't feel like eating at Ulli's, and I forgot my protein bar, so all I had was a carb bar an hour or so before the race. By the time we finally started our swim I was chilled to the bone, and struggled through the whole thing. My muscles just were not working right. I had hoped for a 12 min or so swim time, but when I hopped on my bike 18 (!) min had passed from the swim start.

I had actually looked forward to the bike ride. Thanks to a generous gift (from a Swiss bank account, he he) I now own a road bike. I had only ridden it maybe 4 times before the race, and am still not all that comfortable on it. I was happy the weather forecast didn't predict any rain. But of course it DID rain on Saturday (plenty), and the bike course wasn't all that great either. Four very narrow 180° turns that scared the dickens out of me, bumpy asphalt and last not least the Zurich buses were still going on the race course! What the heck? During the bike ride I was getting colder by the minute and could feel my body going in starvation mode. I had a sports drink in my bottle but didn't dare drink some while doing almost 30kph on slippery asphalt.

The second transition (bike to run) took me a while because my fingers were so cold and stiff that it took a few tries to get my bike shoes off and my running shoes on. It took me even longer to tie my shoe laces. I also drank something, but soon wished I hadn't because I had terrible stomach cramps the first 2k. Luckily the run was short! I couldn't wait for that finish line to come. And I was so happy to see Keri and Will waiting for me! :) I had secretely hoped to finish in under 1:20h, but all things considered I can be very happy with my 1:24:00 (38th place out of 60 in my age group). It took me a long time to warm up after the race, but a nice hot bath, strong coffee and a nap at Ulli's place did revive me in the end.

The official race pictures are not online yet, but here are some that Neil took:

The swim was odd. We had to get out of the water, cross an island and get back in the water to swim to shore.

Meanwhile on (not so dry) land:

Biking


Meanwhile under a big tree, the driest spot around:

Almost there.

I'm pretty sure that this is it for triathlons this season. I want to work on my swimming and biking over the winter months and am looking forward to doing a few more races next year!

Out of their mouths

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Here are some recent cute sayings from Finn and Lily!

"Mama, you're lovely like a princess." Aaah, just what I needed to hear! And it wasn't even when I was all dressed up for Claus' wedding celebration, it was when I was just being my VERY casually dressed, not made-up, Lily-lost-my-hairbrush-again-but-who-cares self!
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Neil pushed Finn on the swing higher and higher and suddenly Finn said:
"Ha ha, Jesus is tickling me inside, Papa!" (We have told him that Jesus wants to come live in his heart, so naturally if it tickles inside it must be Jesus, right? Out of the mouth of babes...)
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We were walking and Lily wanted me to hold her hand, so of course I did. Lily (3 going on 13):
"That's totally nice of you, mom." Um, you're welcome.
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Neil read Finn a story from the Bible about Jonathan and his armour bearer defeating the Philistine army. When Neil was done Finn asked:
"Papa, was Jonathan's armour bear a REAL bear!?" (I guess Finn was thinking more Narnia than Old Testament here.)
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Finn made a birthday wish list to send to Oma, basically a huge piece of paper with half the Playmobil catalog cut out and glued onto. I told him I needed to find a big envelope so we could mail it to Oma. A few hours later he asks me if I can give him the gazelle now. Huh? Gazelle? "You know, to send it to Oma!" Then it clicked. I guess he didn't know what an envelope was so he thought we needed an ANTELOPE to get his letter to Oma, which is pretty close to a gazelle anyway. :)
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At the dinner table Finn said he was happy we have so much food and live in such a nice house. Lily:
"We're lucky ducks, eh?"
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We sure are, we sure are.

Good night. :)

Bye bye Karl!

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Last Sunday we had to take Karl back to the airport. We miss you! Can't wait to see you again some time next year!

Special days call for special breakfast - like ice cream.

Finn and Lily thought they would make things a bit more interesting for the out-of-my-way-I'm-already-late travellers by constructing a neat little maze. - Ha! See if you can get to those security doors NOW!

Bye bye

And, good to hear you got safely back to the prairies, Brüderchen (and Onkelchen)! But come on, you only got to ride on 4 airplanes? Tell ya, you just don't get your money's worth anymore these days...

Wedding Celebration at Lake Constance (Bodensee)

Claus and Julia chose Montfort Castle at Lake Constance to celebrate their wedding - a gorgeous location! Claus was Karl's Highschool Exchange Partner many years ago, and has been a family friend ever since.

Finn and Lily inspecting the dining rooms.


We climbed that tower later that night.



Princess Lily :)

Trying to keep cool by drinking bubbly mineral water, it was a hot day. I felt like jumping in the lake more than once.

From the patio we had a gorgeous view of the lake (which is shared by Germany, Austria and Switzerland) and the mountains on the other side.

It took the hair stylist 1.5 hours and almost a whole spray can of hair spray to make my hair look like this. I really liked how it turned out.

Sharing a romantic moment, until reality kicks in: "More juice, MAMA!"

Julia and Claus

The brothers with Finn and Lily

The food was simply amazing. Karl and I liked the desserts best, all six of them. :)

Baby snoozing in the breeze.

Finn and Lily did very well. They ran around with the other kids, colored, ate, enjoyed the view of the lake and did some crafts with the two hired babysitters.

Finn making a new friend.

Daddy and daughter dancing.

When it was dark (some time past 11pm) we asked one of the staff if we could climb the tower, something that Finn really REALLY REAAAALLLYYY wanted to do. So the friendly gentleman unlocked a door for us and we were on our way. It was dark and a narrow wooden staircase, but the kids were very brave. Here they are blinded by the flash, I took this picture in almost total darkness.

View of the patio and the lake (well, it's black) from the tower.

We left the party around midnight (minus Karl, who stayed until early in the morning). We met Claus and Julia and a lot of the other wedding guests for brunch at a lakeside hotel at 11:30am. Of course Lily had been up since 7, and so had I. :)

Busy summer days and dear visitors!

No update in almost a month! Between the hot weather (pool, pooool, POOOL!) and dear company we're keeping pretty busy here. Karl, Neil's brother came to Germany to attend the wedding celebration of his good friend Claus (more on that later). So Uncle Karl travelled around Germany a bit and brought dear friends from Bad Tölz to our house when he came to stay with us.

We spent a very nice weekend with Uschi and Christoph, and of course Finn and Lily were happy to play with Anastasia and Kilian. Even though Bad Tölz is not really all that far away we hadn't seen each other in almost 3 years!

Since Finn and Lily are usually up early we offered to watch all the kids in the morning while Uschi and Christoph slept in. An offer that wasn't refused. :)

After a day spent at the outdoor pool with her family and friends even some strawberry ice cream could revive Lily only to a certain extent

Finally, some alone time with Uncle Karl!

And, last not least, some Lily cuteness: