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!