Winter Fun

We have had some very wintery weather recently, snow and cold temperatures so we decided we'd better make sure our kids like winter sports. We went sledding last Monday which everyone really enjoyed except my feet were popsicles after about an hour and of course the kids were not nearly ready to stop. Then yesterday we all went ice skating. It has been several, if not many years since I have ice skated so I wasn't sure what to expect. Well it sort of comes back to you although I think balance may be one of those things that gets worse with age! Frankfurt has a great rink, both indoor and outdoor spaces to skate. Kids loved it and are itching to go back. The pictures tell the whole story!

Sophie's Birthday

doing the string maze

playing pass the parcel

getting ready to blow out the candles

Sophie celebrated her 9th birthday on Friday the 21st. Originally the party (an overnight) was planned for the 14th/15th but poor Sophie got the stomach bug so we had to delay it a week. She was very disappointed at the time but recovered when she realized it would prolong the celebrating of her birthday for a week! So she spent her actual birthday sick but had lots of fun when she finally had her party! Like last year we had "Happy birthday" sung in several languages- German, Italian and English. I can't believe she is nine!!

At last!

Although this could be my sentiment about the recent election results it is not. It is about an event much more important in the daily life of at least one resident of our house. Noah finally lost his first tooth! It has been wiggly for awhile and he was becoming discouraged that it would never come out. Tonight it did! He is very happy. I, on the other hand have mixed feelings. First of all I have to find out, for the tooth fairy of course, how much a tooth is worth in Euros. Secondly his cute little face is going to start to look older if all his little bitty teeth fall out and are replaced by big grown up ones.

Apple Baseball

So with the World Series over the Flott's decided to keep baseball alive a little longer. We invented a game called Apple Baseball. Just like stick ball but your hit is rated by how many little pieces the apple goes into when you smash it with the stick. If one little piece breaks off it's a single, two pieces a double and so on. If you smash it to smithereens it is called making applesauce and it is a home run. Lots of fun. Each base is made out of a pile of apples and the pitcher has a duffle bags with apples to pitch. (For those of you worried that we are wasting perfectly good apples, we have made over 100 liters of applesauce, apple bread, apple muffins and have a huge bin of them in our cellar to eat. It is a large tree!) We have collected a huge bag filled with apples to save in the garage so the kids can teach Jimmy and Ally how to play when they come see us at Christmas.
Who knew dogs liked apples? Peabody kept eating the ones that made up home plate. Gives new meaning to stealing home. Thomas "making applesauce!"
Noah ready to take a swing. He kept calling for larger apples.

Sophie ready to bat at what is left of home plate!

Heidelberg

On Sunday we decided we would drive down to Heidelberg and put the last few necessary miles on Jon's company car. Kids didn't remember much about being there from the last time we were here. We had lunch at Vetter's. We have been there several times first with Mark and Judy! We walked around the town some and took a few pictures. We didn't walk up the hill to the castle this time. A few photos (found the pin for my phone so all is working again!)

Trip to France

For the children's October break from school we drove to the Provence region of France and spent a charming week in a little cottage in a tiny Hamlet "Hamlet des Crottes". Because we did not have internet access for the week we were there (!) I kept notes the old fashioned way and am finally getting around to post them.

October 4th

We got up early and were on the road by 7:30 for the 9 hour drive from Frankfurt to "Le Pigeonnier", the name of the house we had rented for the week. The trip was uneventful and the kids basically ate their way through the trip. We did have a couple of rousing rounds of "Find the Vehicle" Each kid got a type of vehicle to look for and then had to search for 10 minutes Whoever found the most got M&M's. Thomas claimed it wasn't fair that he had to find purple campers being towed behind orange cars while Noah had black sedans. Every group needs a whiner!

The house was fantastic, three bedrooms and two full bathrooms. A kitchen with a wood burning stove which came in handy drying out clothes (more on that later), a living room with a fireplace and a little patio/balcony with a table. It had it's own wooden archway as an entrance. (You will note the absence of photos-more on that later as well). Above the arch was a brick with the date 1775 carved into it! Very old! Everyone happily found a bed and we had dinner! Peabody explored the back yard and made friends with the old basset hound that lived next door.

October 5

We went to the Gorges of Ardeche. A huge stone bridge over the river D'Ardeche. We let the kids play by the river for a while and climb over the rocks. Noah was quite anxious to go rock climbing and this seemed the safest way to give him that experience. We then drove through the town of Pont Vallon D'Arc scouting out places that were open in the off season so we could go canoeing later in the week. We went to the Aven d"Orgnac (huge cave) and went on the official tour. It of course was in French so Jon and I translated the best we could for the kids. We walked down through the caves and then had an elevator ride up and out! Noah was disappointed that there weren't any bats. We were all impressed with the stalagmites! We had a picnic lunch.

Now is a good time to explain about the picture situation. The deal with the lack of pictures is that our digital camera is broken, it finally succumbed to being dropped one too many times. We weren't that concerned because my phone has a nice camera on it. While we were eating lunch Thomas was taking a picture when an insect landed on him. I claim it was a fly he claims bee, regardless it caused him to fling my phone up into the air landing with a crash, battery and sim card flying. I collected the bits and reassembled it. It still worked although asked me for my PIN. I had no idea what the PIN was so no more camera and that is why there are only three pictures for the week! So here they are!

The other bummer about the caves was that Thomas lost his Ipod. WE think it may have been stolen out of the car. He left it on his seat and when we came back from the caves it was gone.

Monday October 6th

Today we drove down to Orange to visit the Theatre Antique D'Orange. Very interesting. We all got an audio tour guide in English so we could all walk through and learn about what we were seeing. We had lunch at a nice little pizzeria and desert at a bakery of course. We saw the Arc de Triomphe. I guess all French cities have one! On the way home we stopped at the Fortress of Mornas. It was a fortress at the top of a huge hill. I struggled to walk up and Noah and Sophie literally ran up! The hit of the fortress was the torture chamber. Thomas got to spend some time on the rack!

October 7th

It was a bit cloudy but the kids were extremely anxious to go canoeing today and very reluctant to do two days of sightseeing in a row so we headed off to find a canoe. We found a place that we had driven past the other day that we knew would be open. We went in and asked for two canoes. Jon took Sophie and Noah in one and Thomas and I would go in the other. I guess my first warning should have been was that they provided us with wet suits. We walked our canoes down to the rivers edge. They were actually more like a cross between a canoe and a kayak. Not the most stable boat I have ever been in! This was proved further a little later on when Thomas and I hit a rock and both got spilled out of the canoe. Luckily the water was not freezing and only shin deep. We got back into the canoe/kayak and decided since we were wet already we should continue (never mind the fact that we were several miles into the trip at this point and had to continue if we wanted to meet the bus at the pick up point! Jon and the two little guys seemed to fair a little better until they also got caught on some rocks. They didn't spill out but Jon had to get out of the boat to dislodge it. The water suddenly got deep so Jon ended up swimming for awhile with the boat. Noah and Sophie thought this was great. We returned to the house wet and happy that there was a wood burning stove to help with the drying out process!

October 8th

Lots of rain today but we braved Avignon anyway. It was raining so hard when we arrived we drove through the old town and past the famous bridge. It is really only half a bridge. We parked and walked up into the old town for lunch. By the time we found a restaurant we were soaked to the bone. We could not have been wetter if we had gone swimming in our clothes. We had a nice lunch (Thomas tried duck liver pate-he didn't know what it was at the time). We then went on the the Palais du Pope. I didn't know that the Pope lived in France but he did for several hundred years and had quite the house! We did a little wine tasting on the way home!

October 9th

Today we drove through several little medieval towns doing some wine tasting and visiting the Gummi Bear Museum! We stopped at a potters workshop and he showed the kid how he makes his pottery. We were going to drive by the Pont du Gard and just take a look without doing the full blown tour but incredibly you can not see it unless you pay to park and walk through the grounds. We opted not too and did more wine tasting instead!

October 10th

Today was our last day and everybody voted to do outside activities instead of sightseeing so hiking it was. We were staying up on the ridge of a high valley. We thought we might try to walk down to the river. After following a trail for about 45 minutes we were about half way down. I made the executive decision that it was too far given how difficult the way back up would be. Noah was very disappointed! The excitment of the day was when we returned home and were cleaning up to go home and I found what I think was a scorpion in the bathroom. Jon gallantly disposed of it! Anybody have any idea if there are scorpions in Southern France?

Great vacation!

Finally an update

So, I am horrified that it was February that I last posted on our blog. Shame on me!!! So much has happend. In brief (as many of you readers know) we have moved from Shanghai to Germany. Jon took a position with the German office so we continue our adventures overseas in Europe. We were all very sad to leave China. None of us felt that we had "finished" our time in China yet but we hope we can return!

Germany is wonderful. It is really great to be back here. We have reconnected with some old friends that are still here. We are currently living in temporary housing until our house is ready (Aug. 1st). This is a bit of a drag and the kids are all quite bored and very much looking foward to our trip to the US. We leave tomorrow!

Peabody made the trip in fine form. Very complicated to ship a dog from China to any EU country. So he went around the world, spending a week in NYC before coming to Germany. He has to be one of the worlds best traveled pets. He is most happy to be back in a country that loves dogs! He spends several hours each day wandering through the grape vineyards we are living near and chasing rabbits and other small rodents! Thankfully he is quite slow and hasn't caught anything yet.

The kids will all attend an international school here. We considered public school for them but for a variety of reasons decided intenational was the way to go. It will be very interesting to see if Sophie regains any of her German. They are watching much TV in German these days. I hope hearing German will help jump start the process.

Now that we are living in a country that I can actually see my blog (and yours!) hopefully the motivation will be greater to be better about posting updates! I hope there are still a few folks interested in reading!

Thomas's new hair

Before
After
So after several months of not being able to see Thomas's face and having people usher him towards the ladies room his father and I decided it was time for the dreaded hair cut. His parents are pleased with the results (although the hair could hardly be called short), Thomas is not. So the growing begins again.....

Winter swimming and St. Sophia's Church

After the tiger reserve we had lunch and then were on our way to St. Sophia's church. On the way the guide asked us if we were interested in seeing the winter swim. We were going to passing by just as it was going to be taking place. We were game! We made a brief detour to the river where a large swimming pool size hole had been cut out of the river. Just as we walked up to the railing the swimmers started coming out of a warming hut. Remember the air temperature is in the single digits (F). They all took their turn jumping in and swimming a lap and getting out. There was one woman who stayd in at least 5 minutes! The swimmers were both Chinese and Russian. I wonder if winter swimming in Harbin pays well......?



St. Sophia's Church is a Russian Orthodox Church built in the 20's when the Russian's were extending the Trans-Siberan railway through China to Vladivostok. It is now a museum of Harbin's history. The church survived the cultural revolution because it was used as a warehouse but it was largely gutted and stripped of all it's religous artifacts. It still is. There was very little attention paid to the true nature of the building. All the religious artifacts that remain are displayed in the back hallway where the priest would have put their robes on. Very interesting!


We were then onto the walking street in Harbin, a 3km long cobblestone pedestrian walkway with shops lining the road. Lots of Russian Commodity shops selling nesting dolls and Russian vodka. We were beat at this point and headed back to the hotel to have a drink in the Ice bar!







We really enjoyed our time in Harbin and would recommend a visit!

Polar Land and Siberan Tiger Reserve

After we had our fill of the snow sculptures we were off the Polar Land. It is an aquarium with largely polar animals. We found it a little depressing and didn't spend too much time. The fish exhibits were interesting but the mammals didn't have enough space or anyway to be outside. Most of them were circling in their small cages. There were two polar bears swimming in a very small tank. They just bearly had enough room to turn around. We enjoyed the fish and Noah liked the sharks and we went on our way. The thing I found most depressing it is a new aquarium, only built in 2006 so clearly the American view on trying to give animals in captivity an environment close to what they have in the wild doesn't hold here!

We were then onto the Siberan tiger reserve. Quite an experience! You get on a small bus and ride out into a large field (990,000 square meters) that in fenced off into different sections. The tigers are just roaming around and don't pay too much attention to the bus. There are only about 50-60 siberan tigers left in the wild but there are over 700 at the reserve! As far as I can tell they aren't doing anything to reintroduce them to the wild. Nobody could answer that question for me! Anyhow you are given the option to buy a live chicken for 40 yuan (about 6 dollars). We did and before we knew it a jeep type vehicle came into the section we were in. It was enclosed in a metal cage. It pulled up in front of our bus. The tigers swarmed the car-definitely knew it meant lunch. The driver opend his door and threw a chicken onto the roof of the car. Instantly a tiger jumped up on top of the car and grabbed the chicken. He ran off away from the group to defeather and eat his lunch. It all happened so fast and with no struggle on the chicken's part. It was much less disturbing than I feared it would be! At the ticket counter their had been a menu of all the animals you could purchase, ranging from a chicken to a sheep to a cow! Thomas was all for buying a cow but at 250 dollars and the potential for being very disturbing we declined! Only in China!

Lunch!

Sun Island and snow sculptures

Day 4, February 7th

We packed a lot into this day! We started very early at Sun Island, a Central Park type park although an island in the middle of the river (the Songhua-sp?) that runs through Harbin. We opened the park and had it largely to ourselves- an unusual experience in China! The Chinese Government had collaborated with France this year designing and making the sculptures so there was a interesting mix of Chinese and French design. Some of them where absolutely huge! We walked around looking at the sculptures and there were plenty of more opportunities to slip and slide as well. Sophie and I even rode on a dog sled pulled by two very bored looking huskies!

New Year's Eve

At the top! It was truly as cold as I have ever felt!




Warming up with some hot pot lunch.


Enjoying cooking their own food.

Day 3 Wednesday, February 6th

After our night in the seriously mediocre hotel we quickly packed up and hit the road back to Harbin. Before we left the resort our guide suggested we try the "slide-away". Curious what it was we agreed. It was an alpine slide. The kids remembered the one they had done in Stow and were anxious to try this one. We got in line for the chairlift up to the top of the mountain. The equipment made me a little nervous. It looked like hand-me downs that had definitely seen better days. We had to wait for 7 or 8 chairs to go by to wait for one that had an unbroken seat! I climbed on with Noah hoping I wasn't going to regret it! The state of the chair lift didn't make Noah nervous but the cold did! It was very windy. I don't have any proof but I have to say it was at least -35. Not a pleasant ride up! The ride down was great however. Very long and windy track with decent equipement. Brakes worked well! Thomas was game for another run but the rest of us couldn't brave another ride up!

We drove back to Harbin and went to a Hot Pot restaurant. Hot Pot style involves everyone getting a little pot of boiling liquid, either spicy or mild. You order a variety of thing to cook in the pot, thinly sliced beef, vegetables and we got shrimp, which arrived at the table still alive! Our guide proclaimed, "Very fresh!" It was delicious and the kids had a good time cooking their own food.

It was New Year's Eve. We were told we should go to a large square and watch the fire works. We had a swim in the hotel pool and hot tub instead. We could hear the fireworks from out room. Nobody seemed that interested in putting on the layers necessary to brave the cold again. Beside, standing in a large public square, freezing, with thousands of other people watching fireworks that may or may not be safely ignited with my three children just didn't appeal. So we ate dumplings, traditional New Year's food, and went to bed!