Winter Run

 Winter is here. This means I need a little more motivation to get outside in the cold and run.  Luckily, the bike trail near our house makes this infinitely easier.

I usually run before the kids go to school. Now that it's dark in the morning that means running on the sidewalks around our neighborhood.   This is a great hilly run, however after a snow, it seemed more than a bit dangerous for someone who tends to be a little klutzy.   Dark roads, black ice, snow and curbs are not a winning combination for me. I waited until the kids went to school and ran on the bike trail instead.

The bike trail is awesome.  It is beautiful and safe and well used.  Seriously, look at the scenery.  As I ran down the hill to the trail this morning I was so glad I got out the door.  It was just breathtakingly gorgeous.

Oh and this bike trail?  It leads to a Biergarten.  5km and you are sitting next to a little lake sipping a beer.  Come visit!    

Photoshop Magic

My kids are in cahoots. Nearly every time I try to get the four of them in one picture someone makes a goofy face. It is so much worse than when they were little. But this time I choose to use the power of technology (usually their strength) to win!

Happy Birthday Steve!

Today was Steve's birthday!  He didn't want to celebrate but we thought he should anyway.  Thanks to all our facebook friends who sent him messages to wish him a happy day!  We thought we would share a few pictures from his day!

The girls found this little deer (dear) in a shop in Starnberg (our town).  They thought Dad should have a buck for his birthday since he wasn't able to go hunting this Thanksgiving like he normally would!

Dominic carved him an "S" bottle opener and AJ found him an antler paperweight.  AJ gets extra sneaky points, he left his present in Steve's car with a card for Steve to find when he went to work in the morning.

I'm pretty sure in the end he enjoyed his day!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving a day early here in Munich.  Since the kids had the day off from school Steve took the day off too so we could make a whole day of the celebration.  Tonight on the actual day, we will eat delicious leftovers and watch the Macy Day parade and a little football.  

Do you like my special plates?  

We started our day with breakfast from the bakery and delicious hot chocolate.  A new favorite treat is hot chocolate made by mixing steamed milk with a block of chocolate on a stick.  It's fun and so heavenly!

Waiting for them to learn that whether or not they cooperate
when I take the picture I'm still going to use it!

Next it was time to cook.  Some cooking shortcuts are not readily available here.  The missing items that affected us most were: canned pumpkin, evaporated milk, ready made pie crusts, cream of mushroom soup, fried onions, canned sweet potatoes, stuffing mixes, unsweetened chocolate and of course brown sugar (which I learned how to make right after we moved here).  However, I have found substitutions or new recipes to deal with each and every one of these missing ingredients!  By the way, it's a good thing I didn't make that list of "can't find in Germany" before now...

Seriously, all three of these pots are for the green bean casserole!

We started preparing on Sunday by baking cookies, Monday was cranberry sauce and shopping day, Tuesday was pie day.  Pumpkin pie, from scratch, apple pie, always from Steve's mom's recipe, and chocolate silk pie. Today, everyone helped with the cooking and the final product was definitely satisfying.  Everyone had to help because "from scratch" cooking is definitely more labor intensive!  We even tried the turkey a new way, cooking from a frozen state; and yes, it worked, and even better, was quite tasty.  Why would we cook a frozen turkey instead of defrosting one?  Mainly because there is not room in our refrigerator to thaw a turkey for three-five days.  Really, this 12lb turkey barely fit in our freezer.

While dinner was cooking the kids frosted cookies and we watched Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving.  Frosting cookies during the Macy Day parade is our usual tradition so we just had to mix it up a little.  They also had a little homework to do, no additional day off tomorrow.  Although they did try to convince me that "no one" was going to school on Thanksgiving.  Considering less than 20% of their school is American I find this unlikely.

Our final dinner consisted of: Turkey, old-fashioned bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, butter-pecan sweet potatoes (these were terrific and a new favorite, for any meal), homemade green bean casserole, gravy, corn, salad, rolls and cranberry sauce.  Well not really the cranberry sauce, we forgot it in the refrigerator so we will have that with our leftovers.  Things can't be perfect.
  
After dinner, the kids did the dishes and I did not help at all.  I loved that.  Truly.  Afterwards we watched a movie and had dessert.  The pies were scrumptious and we all went to bed happy!  

Pies!

While we miss all of our family and friends on this special holiday we are truly thankful for what we have and that we are together.  We wish everyone we know a Happy Thanksgiving and now that we know how to do it in Germany, let us know if you're coming next year!

Sports!

Sports

Tonight we went to the MIS Athletes Recognition night for high school sports.  It began with each team in its own classroom with the coach speaking about the team and a short video presentation.  We had three varsity athletes so that was a little tricky.  Rachel went to Stefanie’s room, I went to AJ’s and Steve went to Dominic’s.  Afterwards there were team presentation in the auditorium.  Everyone does not get a trophy here.  One coach’s award and one most valuable player award per team.  However, we were surprised because one DelRosso did bring home a trophy tonight!!!

All four kids played a sport this fall. We had decided before school started that this would be a great way to meet more friends and be active at school even if that meant not knowing anyone when they went to try-outs. Lots of opportunities to embrace inner courage here. 

And as an aside, I can relate a little. I almost didn’t go to the first MIS Mom’s tennis day because I was afraid. What if I’m not good enough?  What if I don’t know anyone? What if I suck? What if everyone else plays all the time? And then I thought, my kids all tried out and are playing a sport, how am I going to explain to them that I wimped out on going to play tennis? So I went, had a great time and now have friends I play with every week!

Sports are a bit different here.  In general the international school community is not as competitive as the American system.  Most kids don’t play sports year round on travel teams so the level of play is just different.  A bonus for us here is that they are all at one school which means one place to pick up kids after practice and one recognition night.  Logistics are easier.  

Dominic decided to give rugby a try, something different after many years of soccer.  He liked some of the kids playing and we had heard great things about the program.  Not only did he make the team but he started all season and has really learned quite a bit about the game.  Thankfully he plays on the wing which means he isn’t always in the middle of the ruck, but it is still really hard to watch him get tackled.  No pads in rugby.

AJ had to make a choice between volleyball and soccer since both are played in the fall here.  He chose volleyball which he really grew to love this past spring at Charter.  He also made the varsity team and had a great season.  He’s already looking forward to next year and what he will be able to do as a setter.  

Stefanie also played volleyball.  While middle school volleyball is played in the spring, high school girls is played in the fall.  The school’s website said if you were 13 you could play high school sports so we, incorrectly it turned out, assumed lots of kids played from the middle school.  Since volleyball is Stef’s only sport we had her try out.  She was the only 8th grader, and she made the varsity team.  This was a big deal and she did great all season.  Stefanie is also our family’s winner of a trophy - she received the Coach’s Award.

Rachel chose to stick with soccer, her sport of choice.  She played on her grade’s middle school team and had a great season.  While she has most recently been a defensive player she did start switching to offense and played quite well.  She was asked to play with the 8th grade team for their end of the year tournament in Frankfurt.  This was a fun opportunity for her since 6th grade students don’t usually travel overnight.  

A highlight of playing in the international community is that the competition is other international schools.  Dominic went to Zurich and Zuoz in Switzerland, AJ visited Frankfurt and Warsaw, Stefanie went to Zurich and Vienna and Rachel made a trip to Frankfurt.  The kids usually play a Friday game, spend the night with a family from the school and then play a Saturday game and come home.  At the end of the season there are tournaments that last three or four days.  

We also house students when teams visit our school.  So far it has gone really well.  We had lovely girls from Austria and some fun British boys from the Zurich school.  The British boys played monopoly with our kids, it was fun to watch and we enjoyed the internationalness of our American kids playing Monopoly with British boys who live in Switzerland at our house in Germany.

Four kids in four sports does make for a busy fall, but it’s just like what we did at home which provided great familiarity. We are glad they played, and they are glad they played.  

Suß oder Sauer

I have been asked by many friends if Halloween is celebrated here in Germany. The short answer is yes. The longer answer is not by everyone and not all Germans love it. I have been told that five or ten years ago there wouldn’t have been any Halloween.  

An awesome part of celebrating Halloween in Munich is that it is in the Bavarian part of Germany which is mostly Catholic. In fact some Catholic Holy Days of Obligation are actually holidays.  One of these is All Saints Day which falls on November 1st. This makes celebrating Halloween in Germany particularly terrific because the kids don’t have to go to school the next day.  Really, what could be better than people giving you candy and then getting to stay up late eating it!

Rachel, Stefanie, AJ & Dominic

We had about 30 trick or treaters at our door and 90% of them were German little kids who did not speak English. They knew to try our door though, the four jack-o-lanterns (the only ones I saw) on our gate were a big clue. As a side note, jack-o-lantern pumpkins were just piled up in the corner of a field. We picked our four and left our money in an honor box posted next to the pumpkins.

Some kids know the english phrase of “trick or treat” but many just said Suß oder Sauer” which literally translates to Sweet or Sour. While I tried to get them to say “trick or treat” it was quite hard with the little kids. Most kids don’t start English until the fifth grade so unbelievable as it may seem, they know less English than I know German.  

Within our international school community different areas of trick or treating were organized. AJ volunteered with friends at one where they had a haunted garage, a ghost walk and trick or treating. 

Stefanie and her friends trick or treated where AJ was. A key difference to the US, the kids rode the train on their own to the neighborhood and returned when they were finished.  Kids are much more independent here and in general it is quite a bit safer.  Stefanie continued her trend of non-scary costumes as Minnie Mouse while surrounded by ghouls and zombies and devils. 

Rachel had a sleepover party with friends, where they played spooky games and dressed up and trick or treated through the community. The neighborhood where she was has many international families who embraced trick or treating. She had a blast and unlike her sister completely loves the creepy and scary aspect of Halloween. She was a princess zombie.

Dominic completely abandoned Halloween activities and met friends in Munich for the evening.  They had their own kind of no school the next day fun!

And since the kids had their own plans, what did Steve and I do?  We gave out candy and then met friends for drinks.  A fun evening for all of us.