February 2009 - Ant Hill / Memorial

On the week of Karneval, the kids had a school holiday. They mostly enjoyed the time off relaxing at home, but they went to an indoor water park and did a few other things. The weather started to get nice - not warm, but comfortably cool enough they could go outside and play. On Friday of that week, Heidi left on a two day shopping trip with some friends - to an area about 2 hours south of here. I worked until noon that day, then came home to be with the kids. That Saturday we all went out for a bike ride. As we were going through one of the forests we stopped for a while to let the boys run around a bit (Mallory had fallen asleep in the bike trailer at this point). Luke found a large mound in the forest, and when we went up to it, we found out that it was a huge ant hill - made out of dirt and pine needles. Ants were swarming around that place. We were all pretty surprised to see it there.

One of the boys got the great idea to present the ants with an offering - a portion of one of the cookies we had brought along with us in the trailer for a snack (Mallory never lets us leave home without a snack and a bottle of water). So, Grant crept up and put half a cookie at the entrance to the ant hill.

The ants loved it.

Ants were crawling up the boys shoes and pant legs, and they each claim they got bit a few times, so they kept marching in place to try to keep them off.

We then continued on our way to find the thing we had set out to see -- I had noticed a stone, round, theater-looking thing a ways off one of the roads around here. It turned out to be a memorial to people from the villages around here who died in WWI and WWII.

The kids had a good time climbing around the hills in the forest.

23 February 2009 - Karneval in Bonn

Monday, 23 February, is a holiday in this area of Germany (I heard somewhere that it is not a nation-wide holiday). We went to the Karneval parade with some friends from the school. We met in Bad Godesberg and took the tram into Bonn to avoid a parking nightmare, and we got there early enough to get a decent spot for our group. It is really quite entertaining to see all of the adults dressed up in their costumes -- and I'm talking about the spectators, not the people in the parades. In fact, most of the crowd were adults - I don't remember seeing too many kids.

We got there about an hour before it started to make sure we'd have plenty of room for our group.

This was one of the first groups in the parade - all dressed up like French soldiers (from what I hear, the Germans in this area use Karneval partly to celebrate the fact that they kicked out the French, who occupied this area at one point in history). Notice the wooden spoon in that guy's hat? They all had wooden spoons - I'm sure that has some significance, but I'm not sure what....

Grant and Luke - both going on their 3rd costumes.

We were shocked to see one of the groups in the parade come down the street wearing the exact same costume as Nash.

??????

Confetti cannon!

21 February 2009 - Karneval in Merl

The big Karneval parades are on Monday, but several other villages do smaller parades, so we went to one on Saturday in Merl, which is about 5 minutes away from us.

Yes, there were few costume changes.

During the parade, we found out that they throw out more than just candy. Luke got a sponge.

Nash got some lovely yellow candles.

Grant and his friend Austin.

One of the floats in the parade was throwing out potted plants.

And a few of the locals waiting for the parade to start.

18/19/20 February 2009 - Karneval at school / basketball game

Karneval was the weekend of February 19 through the next Tuesday, February 24. We didn't know quite what to expect. We found out that it is a really big deal around here -- Cologne has one of the biggest parades in Germany. A lot of the other towns and villages do parades, as well. It starts on Thursday at 11:11 AM (that day is called Weiberfasnacht, I believe, -- Carneval for women). Several women at work brought in pastries / donuts, and a handful of people at work were dressed up in costumes. On Thursday, the primary school had all of the kids dress up in costumes, and then they paraded around the halls of the school a bit. Heidi went in and took a few photos. That night she got together with several of her friends at one of their homes for.....exactly what I couldn't tell you. I think they had fun.

Grant is a basketball player (obvious), Mallory wasn't in her costume yet, but likes to pose, and Luke was a .... guy with a bowler hat and an umbrella.

Here's Mallory, finally dressed in her Little Red Riding Hood costume. Heidi can't stand Halloween because of the lead up to Halloween and all of the indecision about what each of the kids wants to do for a costume. Despite asking them weeks in advance what they want to be, there is always a last minute change from at least one of them, and a frantic scramble to find a new costume. Now we have 2 holidays per year where we get to do that. Maybe the kids will get better at deciding on a costume and sticking with it.

On Friday the secondary school dressed up in their costumes. They didn't do a parade. Nash had a cape to go with this, but I think it was in his backpack. He wanted to put a bunch of tortilla chips on the brim of his sombraro and walk around with a jar of salsa. We talked him out of it.

On Saturday night, Luke and I went to a basketball game to see the Telekom Bonn Baskets play another professional team from Germany. Yes, there is a professional basketball league here in Germany (half or more of the players on both teams were American). Luke and I had a great time. A large portion of the audience were dressed up in their costumes and in the Karneval festive spirit.

Photos: 1 March 2009 - Cookies & the Flotilla

Mallory and Nash baking some cookies with new equipment from Grandma.

Grant and Luke made some paper boats one Sunday afternoon, then filled up the bathtub for a naval battle. By the time they were done, they were both soaking wet, the paper boats had disintegrated in the water, and water was splashed all over the bathroom.