Halloween (Very, Very Late)

Halloween was only a month and a half ago.  I'm a little (very) late posting these but I figured you'd like to know how we do Halloween around these parts.  We went to a Halloween Party at our church the night before.  The kids had a blast.

Alyssa was a witch (she took off the hat and didn't want to carry the broom), Kobe was a football player (we picked up a German football jersey while in Berlin), and Devon was Jango Fett.

Alyssa was loving the candy!  She ate quite a bit before we left.  They had some games as part of the festivities and the kids really enjoyed themselves.

Kobe did some bobbing for apples.  He tried several times, but he couldn't get his mouth open enough with the braces.  They kindly gave him an apple anyway.

They also did a little donut-on-the-string fun.  They did a little better at donut game than the apple bobbing.

We did a little pumpkin carving on Halloween.  We had three pumpkins.  Kobe and Devon drew the faces that they wanted and we did the carving.  After Kobe's was carved, I let him use the knife to clean up some of the edges.  I was terrified, but he was careful and he still has all of his fingers!  I count that as a success.

Above is Devon showing off his pumpkin.  Because Halloween was on a Sunday, we didn't allow the kids to go trick-or-treating.  They did have fun passing out the candy.  Alyssa wanted to be in charge of the candy and would get angry when anyone else touched the bowl.

One interesting tradition here is that when the kids in Scotland go trick-or-treating, they have to tell a joke before they can get their candy.  Good thing to know for next year.  We'll make sure our kids have their jokes prepared.

Guy Fawkes Night

November 5th is Guy Fawkes Day in the UK.  It is a day to commemorate the failure of a plot, hatched by Guy Fawkes, to blow up parliament.  People all around celebrate with bonfires and fireworks.  Jonathan arrived home from work too late for us to attend the big fireworks display in Paisley, so we had our own fun with fireworks in our front yard.

Jonathan was our official lighter.  I don't want any kids with blown off fingers.  It was difficult to keep Alyssa away because she was so fascinated.

The one directly above rotated on a plank and was my favorite.

While Jonathan was getting the fireworks ready, the kids kept themselves occupied with the sparklers.  Alyssa was afraid to touch it at first, but she eventually warmed up to the idea and has as much fun with them as Kobe and Devon.

Kobe and Devon were pretending that they were wands and yelling spells from Harry Potter at each other.

It was a fun first Guy Fawkes Night for us.  We've never lived in a place where fireworks were allowed so I was a little nervous (very nervous--I'm a worrier).  All appendages are still in tact, and for that, I am grateful!  Hopefully next year we'll make it to one of the big displays.

Berlin Part (who knows I lost count)--Last One I Promise!

I'm super lame!  We've been home from Berlin nearly two months and I haven't posted all of the pictures.  This is going to be really long so if you're not interested, it won't hurt my feelings.   I'm not going to say much about the pictures because there are so many.

Below is Checkpoint Charlie.  It was a crossing point between East and West Berlin when the wall was still up.

The Brandenburg Gate was built in the late 1700's.  It was closed once the Berlin Wall was built and reopened once the wall came down.

The following pictures are from the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.  It was dedicated in 2005.  There are 2,711 slabs of gray concrete.  There are no names or other information on the memorial.  On the third picture you can see that the ground is uneven.  It goes in waves.  It's an interesting feeling to walk through the memorial.

You can see from this picture that the Holocaust Memorial is situated near the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, and the US Embassy is on the right in the photo.

We were able to do a tour of the dome in the Reichstag, where German Parliament meets.  They have a fantastic audio tour of the history of the building itself as well as history of other areas of Berlin that you can see from the amazing viewpoint of the dome.

Here we are outside of Schloss Bellevue, the residence of the President of Germany. Kobe took the photo and didn't get as much of the building as we had hoped.

Below is one of the many palaces in Germany.  We arrived too late to go inside but the outside was pretty amazing.

Here is the new US Embassy.  It was opened in 2008.  I had to get something notarized while in Berlin, but the US Citizens services are in the old embassy.  It was a unique experience going in.  There were massive gates surrounding it.  I had to go through metal detectors and was escorted by an armed guard to the place where I was supposed to be for my appointment.  Not many friendly people working in the embassy.  It was a little scary.

There are so many Dunkin' Donuts in Berlin.  There is one on every corner.  We did get the kids donuts once, but they didn't have a very good selection of ones we are used to.

Kobe is our meat eater so we promised him we would take him to a steakhouse.  We found one and he couldn't have been happier.

We asked for his steak medium, but it came out rare.  He didn't seem to mind though.  We were a little bummed that they wouldn't serve us tap water.  I guess that is pretty common in Europe.  We weren't trying to be cheap.  The kids had drank enough soda on the trip, and the bottled water in German is disgusting!  They add some weird sodium stuff to it and it is barely palatable.  We ordered a large bottle of still water for us to share and I had to force myself to drink my glass.

It rained almost the entire time we were in Berlin.  When we got home from the steakhouse, we were freezing!  Luckily the hotel offered hot chocolate at their bar so we didn't have to brave the cold to make it to another shop.

Our last day was decent weather so we took a walk around the Tiergarten.  They had a fun park for the kids.  The zip line was their favorite, but they enjoyed the little trampoline as well.  Poor Alyssa missed the park because she was crashed out in the stroller.

So now you have the remainder of our trip...kinda.  The shortened version at least. Now I just have to get around to posting the Halloween pictures.  Only a month late on those!

Snow

We had our first snow of the season this weekend.  It started Friday around midnight.  I was still awake waiting for Jonathan to get home from his Christmas Party for work.  He finally arrived at around one in the morning.  He was lucky to make it into our neighborhood.  The wheels were spinning and it took him five minutes to get past two houses.

Kobe was the first to wake up in the morning and he was so excited that he had to come and wake Jonathan and I up (ugh!), and his brother Devon (double ugh!).  Jonathan kindly got all of the kids ready and took them out while I stayed inside the warm house and got some cleaning done.

This was really Alyssa's first time in the snow, that she remembers.  We went to Brianhead when she was about 10 months old, but she wasn't walking yet, so she didn't get to play in it.

They had some mean snowball fights.  There are a few other kids in our cul-de-sac so they were having a great time.

Kobe loves playing with his sister, so it didn't surprise me to see pictures of him pulling her around on the sled.  Here in Scotland, they call it a sledge.  The neighbors took our boys to a nearby field to go sledging a little later in the morning.

The snow wasn't sticking really well, so they had to make this tiny little snowman.  As it has continued to snow, there are now several huge snowmen, as well forts in our front yard.

Here is a solo shot of their creation.  Jonathan said that Alyssa kept telling him that the snowman needed buttons.  I think she has watched Frosty the Snowman a few too many times.

And of course, here is Kobe making the obligatory snow angel.  This is the first time our kids have lived in a place where it snows (besides Kobe living in Provo, but we moved before he was a year old).  The snow has been fun, but we're a little bummed that we can't get our car out of our neighborhood.  We ventured out to church on Sunday but only made it out of our street before getting to a hill that our car couldn't get enough traction to climb.  

Berlin Part III--The Berlin Wall

My posting of our trip is dragging out forever.  Sorry about that!  You certainly can't visit Berlin without visiting a section of the Berlin Wall.  We found a couple.

This first section is fairly long.  We found it just down the road from Checkpoint Charlie.  This is the backside and behind it there is an exhibit "Berlin 1933-1945:  Between Propaganda and Terror."  At the site of the exhibit, remnants of a cellar exist where the Gestapo was headquartered and many atrocities took place.

Near the center of the photo above, there is a brick path, two bricks wide.  This is a memorial that runs through the city of Berlin as a reminder of where the Berlin Wall stood.  It runs through the sidewalk, and at times through the streets and through grass.

I can't remember the intersection, but there are several thin sections of the wall standing and there is information about the history of the Berlin Wall between each section.

I still have more to post about Berlin and many more things happening at home.  I'll try to be a little more consistent about posting.

Berlin Part II--The Zoo

We spent one of our days in Berlin visiting their fabulous zoo.  I grew up in San Diego and my wonderful Aunt Cheryl bought us passes to the zoo every year.  We went often and I loved it.  The San Diego Zoo is amazing, but I can honestly say that our visit to the Berlin Zoo was by far the best experience we have ever had at a zoo.

It was raining quite a bit the day we went, but there were plenty of exhibits in the buildings so we could still enjoy the animals and find shelter from the rain.  Our favorite was the Big Cats exhibit.  It is similar to most zoos, where the exhibits outside are like their natural habitats, but they also have exhibits inside where you can see the animals much closer.

I've always known lions were massive, but it was incredible seeing one this close.  Their roar is so deep and loud you can feel vibrations in your chest.  At one point there were two female lions and two male lions in the internal exhibit.  One of the male lions started to roar and then the others began.  They were communicating with each other, then all of a sudden they all laid down to rest.  It was incredible.

There were two cute baby lions also.  It was fun to see them play together.  I couldn't figure out how to turn the flash off so it is difficult to see it, but I thought I'd post the picture anyway.  I finally remembered how to turn off my flash, but when we went back, they were no longer on exhibit.

We also were able to see the feeding of two panthers and a cheetah.  They tossed in some meat and they were fighting over it.  I guess you can see from the picture above who won.  The other two only got a small bit.

There were a few tigers when we went back the second time.  Tigers are one of my favorite animals.  This one looked like it was about to fall asleep.  It was just sitting there staring and occasionally it would close it's eyes.

They had a really fun primate exhibit that we visited as well.  Again, I hadn't figured out the flash so this shot was really dark.  I lightened it with Photoshop so it's grainy, but I couldn't pass up posting this cute little orangutan.

This little gorilla was hilarious.  It's kind of hard to tell, but that is his bum.  He mooned us!

Of course the kids had to take pictures with all of the statues.  Alyssa was helping this orangutan out by picking his nose.  I guess she supposed that she has such skill at picking her own, she should offer her services.

Alyssa was at the back of the hippo saying, "Look, there's a tail!"

Here is the family crossing a bridge at the zoo that goes over the river.  Of course, Alyssa didn't want to stop for the photo, and Devon is making the obligatory silly face.  

Jonathan insisted that I posted this fountain photo.  It is pretty funny with the little tail and turtle hat.  I didn't want to take a picture either, but I did, again at Jonathan's insistence.  I apologize if it offends anyone.  It was in plain sight at the zoo.

We saw these signs at the zoo and had to take pictures.  Los Angeles Zoo 9684 km.

There was a little playground at the zoo as well.  The kids had tons of fun on the tire swings, and there was a fun tree-house-like play set they could run through and climb on.

It was a fantastic day at the zoo, despite the rain.  We spent the entire day there, and the kids even wanted to go back the next day.

Our home internet is finally up!  I'll post more of our Berlin trip later this week.