Legoland Deutschland

Regardless of how thoroughly I clean my house, you will always be able to find random lego pieces on the floor, under the couch and/or tucked away on the bookshelves. My boys are crazy for lego, and man, do we have a lot of it. Of course it doesn't help that my children have a father who actively feeds the lego obsession. (Did I ever mention that Andrew got the giant lego Kingdom's Castle set for Christmas? No? Well I am now.)

Anyway, Legoland in Germany is only 3 hours away so during spring break we spent two days basking in lego heaven. I'm not much of an amusement park person, but this place was completely manageable. Plus, it was relatively inexpensive to boot. Fun was had by all, and I'm sure we'll be taking another trip in the future.

*Side note: The day after we got home from our trip I was doing family genealogy and discovered that we drove RIGHT BY the village where my oldest known ancestors were from. Like, RIGHT BY. As in I probably saw their village church from the high way. So not cool.

Quote of the trip: "If I wasn't a God fearing person, I would totally be filling my pockets with lego right now."
-Andrew, inside of the lego factory store holding a handful of lego (picture below).



Afton loves "grandpas" and was all too willing to sit on this one and plant this one with a kiss.



The inspiration for this trip came from our good friends who have a son in Sam's school class (See picture below- Cushla is on the end and Fletcher is in between Sam and Luke). They are frequent Legoland visitors.



I think the trip was worth it solely for the picture below. Andrew convinced the boys to go on this roller coaster- and while they maintain that they "loved it", a picture does not lie.





Afterwords, we toned things down a bit...



... while Afton was content to just get soaked.

Sam's New Look

People always talk about how the biological children of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pit hit the genetic lottery pot. Really, it's my children who they should be talking about. So far I've bestowed upon my boys the spacing between their two front teeth, and now it looks like at least one of my kids has inherited my poor eye sight.

As of a few weeks ago, Sammy boy received his first pair of glasses (to be used predominately for reading). But come on, how utterly adorable does this kid look in his new specs? I could just eat him up.

And aside from the gene pool factor, let me give you a few more facts about Sam:

• He is obsessed with school. On weekdays he wakes up bright and early and exclaims, "Yea! School today!"
• He loves to read and write. I'm told that during his free time at school he rushes to write stories. In fact, he is currently on chapter 18 of his new dragon novella.
  
• Just yesterday, while outside playing, Sam stopped and told me, "I need to go inside to have some thinking time".
  

So basically I've determined that it wasn't so much that Sam found the glasses, but that the glasses found him.

And just so I don't leave the other two...I could squish these kids I love them so much.

Road Trip- Destination Prague

I hate road trips. I always have, and I think I always will. Car sickness plays a huge factor in this, but I think the biggest reason is the scarring from a childhood filled with road trips. As the oldest of 5 children, traveling across the US with screaming babies, tumbling toddlers, and my Dad's love of classic country music was not my idea of a good time. Now that I'm a mom myself, I think it is even worse since the screaming babies and tumbling toddlers are my responsibility.

However, I married a man who loves, loves, loves road trips, and compromises must be made (I know, I really should be giving marriage seminars).

Our boys recently had a week long school break, so we decided to head to the Czech Republic for a visit to Prague: travel time, 7 hours. We broke up the drive by stopping in Nuremberg, Germany (4 hours), and I have to say the drive went a lot smoother than I anticipated. Nuremburg was wonderful, but unfortunately overshadowed by Prague, which was amazing. If you ever have a chance to go to Prague- go!

Nuremberg, Germany

Above, Andrew is standing in front of a portion of the Nuremberg Castle. In the below right picture I was standing in front of the house that Albrecht Dürer lived in for the last 20 years of his life. I was able to tour the inside, while Andrew took the kids on a tour of the castle. This city also has a ton of Nazi history, being the location of Hitler's Nazi rallies, and then the Nuremburg Trials.



Prague, Czech Republic

I'm not gonna lie- I was a little anxious about heading into Eastern Europe. However, Prague seems to be about as tourist friendly as you can get. The architecture is stunning and this place oozes "old world charm" (I think I read that in a Rick Steves book). Also, compared to most of the other places in Europe that we have visited, Prague is relatively inexpensive. There are many different parts of the city- each unique in it's history and purpose. The kids loved climbing the castle towers and roaming through the city with us. We were looking forward to visiting the Jewish quarter if the city, but unfortunately we planned to go there on a Saturday...which of course is the Jewish Sabbath so nothing was open. That's ok, we'll visit again, as Prague is now added to the list of cities that we want to revisit "kid free" in about 20 years.

The other woman...

There is another female vying for my husband's affection. She is a feisty little go-getter who is pretty darn adorable, and only has eyes for Andrew. The competition is officially on.

As you can see, the two of them had a good time in Prague together (the rest of us enjoyed it as well).

dinner for 2 please-





Who would have thought that this little 2 year old would have such a strong hold on her father? Ok, I guess I did.

Fasnacht

Fasnacht (carnival) is kind of a big deal here. Actually, Basel boasts the largest Fasnacht celebration in all of Switzerland. Having no previous carnival experience, I really didn't know what to expect. Even now, having experienced it, I'm not sure that I could adequately describe it. Here is the basic history and gist though---

• Basel's Fasnacht dates back to 1376. That first celebration involved a jousting tournament that resulted in the killing of some noblemen and subsequent beheading of 12 citizens. Sounds like a good time, right?
  
  
  
  
• Fasnacht last for 72 hours, beginning at 4 am on Monday morning, and ending at 4 am the following Thursday.
  
• Most of the outlying towns have their own celebrations. Our town, Reinach, celebrated the week before. These, of course, are a much smaller affair then Basel's Fasnacht.
• Each day has different designated activities. For example, Monday and Wednesday are the big parade days, Tuesday is "Kid's Day", and on Tuesday evening there are concerts in town.
• Paper confetti, known as "räppli", is tossed everywhere. I'm told that you will find it all throughout the year in very random places. I found some while making my kids beds this morning.
• A major component to fasnacht are the different cliques, or groups, who dress up in traditional costumes. These cliques march around or ride on floats, often with drums, piccolos and other brass instruments.

And with that intro, here was our experience with Fasnacht-

Reinach's Fasnacht
This was our town's celebration, which began with a parade featuring all of the different school age kids. Each school was responsible for making their own costumes, and I'm still in awe of their creativity.







We also attended Reinach's main parade. The kids LOVED it when they had räppli thrown of them. On Sam's jacket you can see a little bronze puzzle piece pin. You can buy these in different finishes (bronze is the cheapest), and they are your ticket to fasnacht. You can still go without one, but I think you are more likely to be a target of the räppli.



Basel's Fasnacht
-Morgestraich-
Basel's fasnacht officially begins with Morgestraich, which happens on Monday morning at 4 am. That's right, 4 am. All of the lights in the entire city shut off and the cliques march in a parade carrying (or wearing) lanterns and playing the drum or piccolo. Since it would be insanity to take our children to this, Andrew stayed at home while I ventured off with my friend Cushla at 2:45 am. It was an awesome experience, followed by a nice breakfast at 5 am.

The city before the lights shut off (above) and after (below) with the lanterns (they are not on fire, my camera's exposure just makes them look that way).

Most of the lanterns have political or social messages. Since my German is so elementary, most of it was lost on me, but I did happen to see a few lanterns the following day (on display) directly related to US politics and affairs. I found this fascinating.

Kid's Day
Tuesday was kid's day in Basel, and let me just tell you, the kids ruled the city that day. Typically it is the old women who rule, but not on Kid's Day. Kids pour through the city wearing costumes (we dressed in our US store bought ones and stuck out like sore thumbs), and also come armed with wagons full of räppli- which is thrown on everyone, including the old women. I had one little girl lure me over with a flower, and right as I was thanking her, she threw a hand full of räppli right in my face. Kids also hand out candy to each other, while the cliques march throughout the city forming impromptu parades (or maybe these were planned, we couldn't tell). Either way, it was a blast.





Sam (above), going to get candy from a float, and then getting dumped on. Below is a perfect example of two little kids with their wagon of räppli waiting for some poor fool (me) to walk by.

We loved our first experience with Fasnacht and can't wait till next year!