We had a 'harvest meal' to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving on the 11th. I made pumpkin soup -- Lukas surprised us all by becoming a fan of it -- rice, and lentil stew. The kids also had a small amount of grilled turkey. With the price of meat so high, we keep our servings of meat fairly small.
In the photos above, Anna is wearing a new knit vest that she is especially proud of. She's really fond of 'helping', and helped me to set the table. Just as we were about to start the meal, Stefan's phone rang. It was a Japanese reporter from Fukui prefecture who was in the country to interview folks in Rührstadt about their storks (Fukui is also proud of its stork population). Stefan had acted as a go-between for setting up interviews for the reporter. The kids hadn't heard Stefan speak in Japanese in quite a while (plus they have forgotten how to speak it themselves apart from a few phrases & food names) and giggled a lot at the sound of Stefan saying 'Hai hai hai' (Yes, yes, yes) repeatedly.
The eagle-eyed among you will notice that the furniture has been rearranged in the dining room. We went to Ikea the week before last to order a new countertop (it's a long story, but in short: in trying to repair our drafty kitchen window our landlord managed to take a chunk out of the countertop - SIGH -), and of course had to order a couple of other odds & ends including a new cabinet for the telephone & its surrounding paraphenalia.
Lukas has a two week holiday from school -- Herbstferien. Last week he continued to go to the school for special activities run by the after-school program. Tomorrow, we are heading to Neustadt to visit Oma & Opa. The kids are looking forward to using the public pool they have there. Our local one is unfortunately shut due to lack of funding :(
We experienced our first frost of the season this morning. As I went to my excercise class at 8am, I was impressed by the numbers of spiderwebs I could see, such as the one a bicycle above. It has been an exceptionally cold autumn so far, with loads of snow in Bavaria and other mountainous regions last week. If you look at the weather for all of Europe, it seems to be just Germany that's being hit by the cold weather. Lucky us.
After baking:
A week ago, we decided we wanted to get a bookshelf for the kids' room. We were feeling to lazy to go all the way to Ikea (plus all the carsharing cars were booked), so we decided to try out a local furniture box store. Along the way, there were plenty of distractions.
Anna was pretty tuckered out after all that playing and ice cream eating...
Anna was pretty tuckered out by all of that playing and ice cream eating. . .
One of Anna's close friends had her birthday party a couple of weeks ago and all the girls invited to the party had their faces painted up like butterflies.
Bought this organic selection of a tomatoes at the market the other week - I had no idea there were so many different shades that tomatoes could come in!
After Gerald & Adina's wedding ceremony, some outdoor activities were planned in a nearby town. Lukas and Anna enjoyed themselves looking for insects and petting the sheep. As you can see in the last photo, Lukas was pretty tuckered out by the time we returned to the main event space for dinner.
