Life's Milestones

There have been many milestones in our lives the last few years. We have been counting the kids milestones for so long, Cassidy's first day of school, Zachary's first tooth, and Thomas' first words. I can now say I reached a milestone the last few weeks. I bought my first purse last week, I have not used one for the last 7 years. I gave up the diaper bag. I did buy a purse big enough to fit a diaper and wipes in it, we have not reached the diaper free stage yet. But I no longer need the extra clothes, toys or snacks with me at all times.

What brought about this change? Well Zachary is getting older, but I figure since I am teaching High School kids, I probably don't need to show up with a diaper bag. OK, so I am not really teaching, but a substitute. I have worked 6 days in the last 3 weeks. I received my first paycheck today too. I am a substitute for the American School close by. I put my application in a few months ago, that was an ordeal of its own. I had to fill out a huge stack of paperwork, past work history, schooling, and each place I have lived the last 7 years, along with names and telephone numbers of who knew me there. Then after I had completed all that, one of the school's secretaries had to swear me in. I stood in the office with some students looking on, I held up my right hand and repeated...

I, Jennifer Grover, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

I am just a substitute for heaven's sake. I also had to complete an Ethics training course online and print my completion certificate. So with all that behind me I am a substitute teacher. I really enjoyed Geometry, pre-Calculus, and AP Chemistry. I did not enjoy Band. There were just too many kids and they had nothing to do. I also substituted for a literature class, Spanish and World History. So what did I do... I watched the TV show Numbers and Myth Busters. I also watched part of the modern version of Romeo and Juliet and part of Ghandi. In between all these videos I read a novel, while the kids did their homework. So with this school year coming to a close, I will be taking the summer off. Now that is a strange thing to be saying. Then again, with 3 kids do I really get the summer off? I think not.

The rest of our visit

We had planned to take a day and go to Legoland, but I didn't check the dates close enough to see when they were open or closed. It turns out they were closed the days my dad and Suzanne were here. So instead we went to a local children's science museum. We played with some science experiments, toured an alien spaceship. All the kids were scared of that one. Then we found a great family size slide. That was fun. Zachary had to be dragged on it, but he said "Whee" all the way down. We ate lunch there, while the kids played some more, then Stewart and Cassidy gave a go at the Rock Climbing Wall. Stewart made it, Cassidy did not.







We went to Schloss Lichtenstein again. We enjoyed a private tour this time, and our tour guide spoke English. We took the boys on the tour again and still had problems with them wanting to run around and touch things. But Stewart and I definitely got more out the the tour this time, and still love this little castle. We then enjoyed some brats and pommes at the castle cafe.









We spent the our last day together in downtown Stuttgart. We left the boys with a friend and visited an art museum. We walked through the Staatgalerie and really enjoyed ourselves. Suzanne had jun explaining things to Cassidy. Cassidy had fun picking her favorite piece of art in each room. She really liked it when everyone picked the same one. We then walked to the center of the city to have lunch. Cassidy got really excited, she had been there before and we hadn't. She had come into downtown on two field trips with her school. They went through a Pirate Museum and also saw the play Pippi Longstocking in German. She pointed out where they had lunch, and where they fed the birds. We found an outdoor restaurant and had lunch, although it was a bit cold.

Visiting the Past

On our trip to Keukenhof we stopped off at the Wiesbaden Army Air Field. You will see the housing unit behind my dad and I where I spent the first two years of my life. We lived on the second floor. We did not go inside (I don't think much has changed), but spent time walking around the building and listening to my dad tell us about his time here. I obviously do not remember anything about this place, except the stories I have heard. We drove around the base, seeing where the hospital was where my dad worked. We had a nice lunch at Subway and then drove on to Holland.

On the way back home we took another side trip. This time to see one of my dad's childhood homes. Well I can't show it to you, because it had been torn down and Officer homes were built on the area. He lived in a housing complex, much like the one above. He lived at Ramstein Air Base when he was 8-11 years old. We ate lunch here and had Baskin Robbins ice cream, while listening to my dad tell us more stories. He went on his first date here. He took a girl to see a Roy Rogers' movie when he was in the 5th grade.

Before my dad and Suzanne made it to our house they had flown into Paris and took a road trip to our home in Stuttgart. They stopped in a village my dad lived in when he was 7. He and his family lived in a hotel for a year and a half. They actually found the hotel and were able to talk to someone who knew the area and they spent time talking about how things have changed since 1952.

Madurodam aka. Giant World

Madurodam is a miniature city located just outside of Amsterdam in The Hague. It is a model of a Dutch town containing typical Dutch buildings and landmarks that are found around the country. As we were entering the park, I told Thomas and Cassidy (Zachary was asleep) that the doors were magic. That as soon as we went through the doors we would become giants, hence the name Giant World.



It is just amazing to look at the details, they have dogs playing catch in the parks, kids enjoying an ice cream cone, mothers pushing infants in strollers. Cassidy kept asking how they keep the trees so small.

This is the Amsterdam Airport on a scale of 1:25. The planes take turns taxiing down the runway. My parents came here about 30 years ago when my brother Mark was about Thomas' age. Mark did not have these glass walls and was able to walk out onto the runway.


Around the park they have a few exhibits you stick 10 cents into a box and it makes things move. We watched an amusement park come to life, the kids liked the roller coaster the best. It reminded them of the Steel Eel at Sea World. Another exhibit was a brass band playing music in a Gazebo. The drummers beat their drums, but Cassidy liked the trombone players the best. Other areas had cars, trucks and boats traveling along on tracks. Thomas liked the super fast express train.


Zachary slept through most of our wandering. Which turned out to be really nice, because when he did wake up all he wanted to do was touch everything. I had to keep pulling him out of the grass and back onto the path. Madurodam has something going on with Sesame Street, because they had an indoor play area with a dancing/singing Elmo on a big screen (singing in Dutch). In the pictures below you will see the kids jumping off hills into a pile of bean bag pillows. They had an art center and other hands on activities. This is what woke Zachary up, he wanted to play, and play he did. We then drove back to the hotel tired and heading home the next day. It was a quick trip, but worth it.

Keukenhof

My dad and Suzanne came to visit us in Germany. We showed them around our village. We took them to the local Döner Kebab Restaurant and the Eis Cafe. We showed them around Thomas' Kindergarten and showed up at Cassidy's school. Cassidy asked Granddaddy to speak to her class about being a doctor and how he helps people. She has been learning about service workers. The 2nd graders wanted to share all their stories about going to the hospital, or someone in their family who had to have surgery. They didn't like to hear that he spent 20+ years in school to become a doctor, they thought that was just too much school.


We took the kids out of school and drove to Amsterdam, where we spent Friday night. Then we spent the next morning at Keukenhof. We took our time and wandered around these spectacular gardens. They have over 7 million bulbs planted in these gardens. Tulips are the most predominate, but also daffodils, crocus, lilies, hyacinths and a few more I can't name. What is just as amazing as the sight of these gardens is to know that the bulbs are dug up and replanted every year, that is more holes than I could care to dig.


In the center of the gardens is a children's area. We found the petting zoo. I had to coax the boys to pet the animals. They also had a hedge maze, where we lost Cassidy and eventually found her at the center climbing up the Gazebo to see Granddaddy. Later the adults enjoyed a refreshing Coca Light and watched the kids play on the slides. Cassidy talked Stewart into helping her down the zip line.


We did bring our stroller, but Zachary preferred Granddaddy's shoulders. We found a cool windmill, but we got there just as some dancers were preforming so it was real crowded. We left the gardens and found a cute little restaurant and enjoyed lunch. I was feeling inspired to go home and plant Tulips and Daffodils, then realized we are only renting here and they don't grow well in Texas.


We found wooden shoes but decided not to purchase any, they just did not seem to fit. Zachary found a swan on the lake that he really wanted to talk to. Then you just have the beautiful flowers to enjoy in the slide show below.

Easter Day

We left for church at 8:30, so the Easter egg hunt had to wait until after church. I told Cassidy that I had left a note for the Easter Bunny, not to hide the eggs. We didn't want the eggs to go rotten or the candy to melt in the sun while we were at church. So after church we had lunch, then I sent all the kids up to Cassidy's room to help make her bed. I went outside and hid the eggs, both real eggs and the plastic eggs the Easter Bunny had filledwith candy the night before. I had to make sure to hide some easy eggs for the boys to find, then I hid some harder and up higher for Cassidy to find. I put stickers on the eggs for the boys, and told Cassidy she couldn't pick those up. So here is picture of the kids waiting to go out the door to hunt for eggs. I was giving Cassidy her rules.


She was not to pick up any eggs on the porch, but go down into the yard. She gets down there and called back to me. "Mom, all the eggs have stickers. where are my eggs?" I told her she was old enough now, she really had to hunt for them this year. No more freebies.

Here Zachary is on the lookout for the next egg.

See what I found!! He is so excited. He learned a new German word too this Easter. It is not an egg but an Ei. Oster Ei to be exact.


Our yard is pretty big, so hunting took a while.


Cassidy finally found all her eggs. I hid two up in trees so high she could not reach them. One she climbed the tree to reach her egg. The other tree she could not climb. She wanted me to get it for her. I told her she needed to think and get it herself. She walked back to the tree and shook the branches, the egg fell right out.


Later we sat down to our Easter dinner. I cut some blossoms from our yard for our centerpiece. We ate Beef Wellington, homemade rolls, zucchini and deviled eggs. Stewart and I have been watching the last few season's of Hell's Kitchen on TV, so I thought I would try my hand at the Wellington. I discovered I could make one, I don't think I will try out for a position as a restaurant chef though (I would be way too slow).

Pre-Easter Activities

Our Easter Preparations

Well I was a little worried that we would have to decorate our Easter Eggs inside this year. We started going outside to decorate our eggs while living in Houston. Cassidy was 2 and I thought she would have more fun if I didn't have to worry about her spilling in the house. Well I was right, she colored eggs and herself that year. We have been doing it outside ever since. I didn't know if the weather here in Germany would cooperate, but it did. I set up three egg dying stations, one for each of the kids. Cassidy of course took her time, making sure each one was just right. Thomas was a little more careful, he gently placed each egg in a cup and had fun fishing them out with the metal egg dipper. Zachary on the other had, was a true two year old. He just threw the eggs into the cup, cracking a few. Then he dumped the first cup out onto the grass to get the egg out, until I showed him he could reach his hand in to get it out. He dipped, redipped and redipped his eggs. Clean up was easy, dump everything in the grass then stick the kids in the bathtub.

The Saturday before Easter there was a community Easter Egg Hunt and activities. Cassidy had been preparing Thomas and Zachary all week. She would hide the eggs around the house and the boys would have to go find them. At the park they had sectioned off parts of the field by ages. Zachary went out to collect his eggs first. They had plastic eggs and candy out on the field. Zachary ran out into the field collecting the eggs, but passing right by the candy. I think Cassidy taught him too well. He didn't think candy belonged in his basket. Thomas went next and knew just what to do, picking up anything in his path. Cassidy's group was just chaois. The kids were too many and too fast and the field was too small, it was over in a few seconds. But she lucked out and got a prize egg, so she was able to go pick out a big prize. But Zachary made out with the most candy and eggs. They had other activities, like egg rolling, the kids had fun with this. Zachary gave up pretty quick, he thought it would be faster to just pick up the egg and carry it to the end, rather than roll it with your face. They also had a good time with the egg toss and bowling with eggs. The Easter Bunny was pretty cute, although Zachary was too scared to have his picture taken with him, thats a two year old for you.