Father’s Day Bike Ride (sorta)

Published on: by Meegan

On Father’s Day we went on a family bike ride with Papa and Opa (Father’s Day in Germany is about a month earlier than in America). The weather was beautiful so we packed a picnic lunch and our Frisbee…

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I love this beautiful, shaded bike bath. Unfortunately this is the only pic of Papa I managed to get on Father’s Day (and you can barely see him- oops!).

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We saw a nest of swan eggs for the first time! The eggs were pretty big!

About 5 minutes later, my back tire went flat (puncture). We were pretty bummed because we were looking forward to spending the day together as a family. I wanted Simon and Opa to enjoy their Father’s day, so I decided to walk the bike home by myself. We were pretty far from our place, so I decided to just take my time and use it as an opportunity to get some photos on the long walk home (one of my favorite things to do)…

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beautiful old trees all along the river path

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Everybody was out enjoying the beautiful weather. I made a detour through the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Park. I didn’t even know that park existed- I love that there’s still so much to discover in this city! That park had such a fun atmosphere.  See all the smoke in these pics? Lots of people brought their own tiny grills for BBQ-ing.

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there were rows of these swing benches

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and a Biergarten, of course!

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I’ve seen quite a few of these bikes adapted with pet carriers

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these guys were driving around the park blaring music and drinking beer

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random pics in the city that I took on the walk home…

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I’ve seen lots of knitted poles and fences around the city

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This big sign was on a Barber Shop door. I think there’s a nicer way to say this, Dude…

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Meanwhile, Simon, Opa and the girls were exploring the Stadtwald..

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Quinnie’s best friend Antonia lives next to the Stadtwald, so they picked her up on the way there.

Unfortunately, this is the last pic of Quinnie with her bike. The next day her bike was stolen (the cut bike lock was on the ground). Simon and I have also had both of our bikes stolen this year. Stolen bikes are serious business here. That’s why we only buy used, inexpensive ones. Quinnie loved her bike and was pretty upset, but didn’t cry (even though she’d already had a rough start to the day- 5 minutes earlier a pigeon pooped on her head!).

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the girls found some interesting plants.. (with yummy Brötchen in the background)

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lots of tree climbing

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can you spot Kiera above?

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Parents and their babies everywhere…

Happy Father’s Day to all of the amazing Fathers out there!!

 

The FP

Published on: by Meegan

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That’s code for Favorite Parent.

We definitely have one of those in our family, and it’s definitely Papa. I don’t take it too personally because I mostly know why. Papa is the parent who is around the least, and when he is around it’s all about having fun. One of the reasons I married Simon was because I knew he would be an amazing father. I’m not sure how I knew that exactly, since I’d never really seen him around kids, but I just knew.  And I was right.

Unfortunately, Papa also doesn’t believe the following things are very important in a child’s life- eating healthy, a reasonable bedtime, doing homework, learning to read, getting to school on time, wearing bike helmets, parent supervision, etc.  So all of that stuff is left for me to handle- making me the annoying parent who makes the girls do all of the boring/ un-fun things in life. Our differing parenting styles are probably the biggest challenge in our marriage. I wish the “responsible” part of parenting wasn’t mostly on me. Hopefully when our girls are older and possibly parents themselves, they’ll realize that even though I wasn’t the FP, what I did for them was also important. One can hope, right?

Having said all of that, just like me, Simon loves our girls more than anything else in the world, and he shows them every day. I am SO thankful for that. The bar is set very high for future partners of our girls!

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how she looks at him!

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playing computer games together

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Most of the pictures drawn are for Papa. The meager few that I get are like gold (to me).

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Kiera saved one of her precious chocolates for Papa (and wrote a K LP on it- Kiera Loves Papa).

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She’s a smart girl- she put it where she knew he’d find it- his laptop!

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typical scene when Papa comes home

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It’s just as easy to spell “Mama” you know…

The other day I overheard Kiera say to Quinnie, “I wish Papa was the boss- then we could eat candy ALL day!” (Simon always tells the girls that I’m the boss). There’s no question that I’m the disciplinarian in the family. Kiera  took a video (below) of Quinnie pretending to poke her with a needle. All it took was the dreaded threat of, “Stop it or I’m going to tell Mama!” to put an end to it.

As an experiment one day, when the girls were being annoying I said, “Stop it or I’m going to tell Papa..” They both paused and looked at me blankly for a few seconds before busting out laughing…

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