Ribbons Undone

Hello!!!

Nope, I’m not dead. I know stating that I’m not a very committed blogger is a huge understatement, but I really did have the best of intentions…

We had an AMAZING summer in America (who knows when you’ll see those posts here- I’m shooting for before this summer). I planned to get the blog going again after the girls were settled back in school, and after Halloween was over (we throw a big Halloween Party every year- keeps me pretty busy on top of everything else).

I started editing photos and was on schedule with everything… until the American Presidential election.

I stayed up all night watching the election on TV in total disbelief. I guess the saying really is true- ANYTHING is possible in America.

Yeah, that kind of knocked me on my ass/ took the wind out of my sails. What’s been happening in America since then has been very hard to watch, and pretty disheartening. I know now that I was naive- I’d assumed certain things could never happen in America. It was a hard lesson to swallow.

This is my absentee ballot that I mailed in before the election. I remember thinking how incredible it was going to be for my girls to see that women were in charge of running both Germany AND America… UGH.

Being an American living abroad isn’t the easiest right now. When you meet someone for the first time and they realize you’re American, the first thing they think of and want to talk about is Trump. To say that Trump is unpopular here is an understatement. Here are just a few pics I’ve taken from around Köln this year…

This was up at Quinnie’s school. The kids were supposed to write things they wish and hope for. This kid wrote that they hope for good grades, world peace, to always be happy, and that Trump doesn’t do anything stupid.

Below is a link you can click to see pics from this year’s Karneval parades from all over Germany- Trump did not fare well…

https://www.thelocal.de/20170227/in-pics-german-carnival-floats-show-trump-no-mercy

Ah, this pic is from back in the good old days 🙂 (Simon took it at the airport in 2015).

Anyways, back to the blog. The main reason it took me so long to get back to it is that Simon changed our operating system from MacOS to Linux Mint when I was in America. I knew he was going to do it, I just didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to find the right photo editing software. We spent MONTHS trying to find the right set-up. There were a few applications that are sort of like iPhoto (which is what I’m used to working with) but they all lacked crucial features. In the end we settled on Darktable which had all the features I wanted but a very different User Interface so the learning curve is steep (for me, at least- I’m still not loving it but hope it will grow on me).

Since the main purpose of this blog is to be a sort of scrapbook of memories for my girls, I’m going to try and catch up on the last 10 months as much as I can. I’m sure you won’t want to read about our Christmas etc., when it’s almost summer, so of course feel free to skip the slew of holiday posts that will be coming up.

So…

when we got back to Germany at the end of the summer we…

…had some awesome postcards waiting for us from all over the world (from wherever the girls’ friends were vacationing). I love this tradition. Now that we know this is what their friends do, we’ll be sending lots to them this summer from America!

We fit in lots of play dates before school started..

rollerblading

Quinnie got to bring some friends to Phantasialand (Amusement Park)

We went on family bike rides..

We went shopping for back to school supplies, including Schultüten (they are traditionally only for first graders, but I’m a sucker, so I always buy them each a small one for the first day of school).

Check out how much parents spend on these backpacks (most of the kids have them here). Yep- you read that right. €240 – that’s about $270. Crazy, right?! Luckily my girls are perfectly happy with their Jansport ones I brought from America!

Their Schultüte this year

First day of school. This is the best pic I could get- it was one of those mornings!

I hope you’ve all been doing well over the past 10 months.

It’s good to be back- I’ve missed having this creative outlet!

It’s finally starting to feel like summer here. It stays light out so late that you can read outside until 10 pm! Of course this makes bedtime with the girls challenging because they don’t understand why they should go to bed when it’s still light out.

We’ve been eating outside more often…

…when it’s not raining (lots of rain lately). The girls and their friends love the puddle jumping though!

Chalk Art on the sidewalk. I was actually nervous about this. A friend told me she got yelled at a few times for letting her kids do this. The neighbors complained that when they walked over it it got on their shoes, and then inside their apartments. Crazy to me that you have to worry about stuff like this. Germans love their rules! I figured since we’d had so much rain it would be erased soon enough anyways.

The kids were thrilled when I got out the bubbles and squirt guns..

Their eyes got really big when I told them about the humongous water guns you can get in America. I have a feeling we’ll be buying a few there this summer!

This strawberry stand pops up in Neumarkt every summer.

The end of the school year is always crazy busy with school trips and performances. Simon brought the girls to their annual 3 day school camping trip in Mandersheid.

Quinnie also went on a 4 day class trip (only students and teachers) to the countryside, where they stayed on a farm. These class trips start in the 3rd Grade here. She LOVED it. She also loved this huge bus that drove them there.

During Gym class Quinnie and her classmates prepared and organized a circus performance for all the parents (invitation above).

yikes- that’s high!

Quinnie and her friend Irma came up with this act all by themselves (Q on the right)

Quinnie and her friends also organized a music recital for this weekend (front of invitation).

(back of invitation)

Oma, Opa, Ruth and Maxim also got invites..

Other big news? Kiera was brave enough to finally let the tooth fairy come visit. Quinnie was a little nervous/ freaked out about having her visit our house, but when she saw (the next morning) that the Tooth Fairy left Kiera a 2 Euro coin and a Kinder Egg, she decided that she also wanted her to visit. Quinnie wrote her a note asking if it would be okay to keep her tooth since it was so special to her. She told the tooth fairy she could keep the drawing though 🙂 . She put her tooth in the wooden Edelweiss box I bought her in Oberammergau, and…

…the Tooth Fairy hooked her up!

What else is going on here? Fußball Fever! The Eurocup is going on now and lots of the stores look like this…

The only time you really see lots of German flags up is when Fußball tournaments are going on.

How awesome is it that this bar is called Beer Donkey?!

The girls in their Fußball shirts. Germany was doing great until this past week 🙁

Well, that’s it for awhile. The girls and I will be in the States for most of the summer and I won’t be blogging from there (my laptop sucks and it’s nice to take a break). Hopefully I will be back to blogging in September after my Deutsch B1 Exam (bummed I have to study for that over summer- I could use a break from that as well!).

I hope you all have an amazing summer!!

Back from Summer (well, 10 months ago…)

Lately