June in Bavaria

Last week we had a bit of a heat wave with about four days in the upper 80's and touching 90. This may not sound too bad to our Texas friends and family, but remember air conditioners are not common around here. We have talked to our neighbors and others to get the scoop on how to best battle the heat this summer. There are some tricks that help keep the home cooler. Our house is only equipped with several Vornado fans that we have purchased upon our arrival last year. The largest one sits at the bottom of the stairs in the lower level. The house is three levels with the stairs for all levels in the middle part of the house. They are wood steps that are open all around that allows air to flow. When it is hot outside we can blow cool air from the basement up to the middle and upper level. The other fans are in each room to just circulate air.

The next defense against the heat is the construction of the house. These houses are all concrete, very thick concrete. It is mostly to insulate from the cold I am told, but it works well to combat the heat too. In addition all of the houses come equipped with these roller shutters called rolladen. They are made out of a heavy composite material and can completely black out a room on a bright sunny day. Above is the large window in our living room and a few second later with the rolladen down you see no light from that window. The little strap on the right side on the wall below is what controls it. So on a hot day, once the temperature outside starts to get above the indoor temperature we seal up the house. On the 90 degree day the upstairs rooms did get up to about 78 or 79 while the basement stayed around 72. Once the sun goes down the temperatures drop very fast. Then we open up the windows again and by morning the house is cooled down again. It does take some effort and I still need to tweak the timing on when to seal it up and when to open it up again, but we are figuring it out.

Katherine has really been liking the outdoors lately. This was after school on Friday after our mini heat wave. The past few days it has been sunny and 70 degrees with lows in the upper 50's at night. She had a snack of popcorn and licked the brownie bowl while playing outside. She has a few neighborhood friends that love to be outside too. If they are not around she will entertain herself in the backyard for a good long while.

We made brownies Friday because our next door neighbors were coming over to have dinner and chat on the back patio. Martin is the dad and the native German who works for BMW. He grew up in Berlin when the wall was there and remembers it coming down. He personally had a sledge hammer and still has small pieces of the wall. It was interesting hearing him tell stories about his family wanting to travel to Austria in the summer and the hours it took to get past the checkpoints. He gave us some good information about the area too since we are traveling there this week. His wife is also a Cindy and she is American. They met in the USA and have lived in the US and in Germany at various points. It sounds like they are pretty well settled to stay here long term. Cindy still struggles with living in Germany even after being here for so long. It was good to hear some of her commentary about some of the same observations that we have had. It is just not the same as the good old state of Texas. They have two adopted kids from Russia that are really close in age, around 12 years old. One boy named Lucas and a girl, Katarina. Katarina is a social butterfly in the neighborhood and has friends her age, but also seems to enjoy playing with younger kids. Katherine plays with her a lot along with another girl younger than Katherine named Fina. Recently Lucas and David started playing together. Mostly Minecraft on the computer, but both sets of parents are determined to get them outside to play together too. They are very similar kids and have done well together. We are excited for David to have a good neighborhood friend. We had a great evening and really enjoyed getting to know them better. They are really nice folks.

On Saturday we rode our bikes to the Unterschleissheim Volksfest. It is really close to our house. This was similar to the Freising Volkfest that we attended last summer, but on a smaller scale. This is the local, small city, wayyyyy scaled down version of Oktoberfest. David's friend Lucas came with us and was handy to have around for translation purposes. It was kind of nice having a couple of kids rides and all of the German beer that you can drink. There are no half liter options here, you are getting a liter of beer.  

The chair swing is a staple at any amusement park in Germany. The kids love it.

They had a few smaller rides, thankfully Katherine only wanted to do this one and she was done. She is in the helicopter.

Bumper cars!!

We had to do the trampoline jumping thing several times too. Katherine quickly learned how to back flip and did not want to stop.

The kids got done fairly quickly so we started to head out. We almost made it to the exit when we came across one last carnival game. The old knock the cans over with three throws. I might not have paid attention to it except that they had placed a large pink and white unicorn as the big prize right up front. Little Miss Katherine was not going to just walk by a huge pink and white unicorn. She wanted it, now. I thought back to a great scene in a great movie, Despicable Me, when Gru wins the unicorn for Agnes and she exclaims "It's sooo fluffy, I am going to DIE!!!!

Well I can knock down a few cans to make my little girl happy. I went ahead and paid for three rounds to get the discount. "Here David, you go ahead and give it a try". He did good, but not quite. Okay now it was Katherine's turn. She even got to stand on the counter, really close, but to no avail. I gave it my first try and realized there was a learning curve to get this done. Okay, next round. David and Lucas both got to try, still no winner, let me take care of this. After my three throws there is one can on its side, but still on the shelf, loser again. Okay enough messing around, I paid for just three balls because that is all that I am going to need. This time, epic fail, not even close. Okay, three more turns, we are going to get this done. Fail, fail, down to our last chance. Ball one takes out the left side of the stack. Ball two wipes out the right side but one can refuses to fall off the shelf. One can, one ball, I like these odds. Deep breath, focus. Think about little league days when Dad is telling me to throw, don't aim, just throw. I let lose with a might fast ball, that can has no chance, it is on target, then complete disaster. The ball was too low, it hits the edge of the shelf and comes to rest harmlessly next to the victorious can. The carny is being nice now and offering smaller alternatives as prizes, since at this point I have paid off his kid's tuition. Katherine is sad but eventually settles for a smaller version of the unicorn. I leave defeated but not broken, Katherine makes the best of it by the time we get back to the bikes and we head home. Cindy is being the good wife by saying it is rigged and that nobody ever wins, trying to boost the husband's ego after a crushing defeat.

Sunday we decided to catch the Atomics men's baseball team playing a double header. We have not been out to see the "professional" league team yet and it was another beautiful day. They had the grill going, we ate burgers and watched baseball. Lucas went with us to check out baseball and Katherine met up with a girl that she knows from her toss ball team. The kids mostly played out in the grass and watched parts of the game. It was an extra inning win for the Atomics in the first game. Cindy was actually freezing cold and the first game was very long so we decided to head home. 

We did not stay home for long. We made plans to meet up with Bernhard and Madelon at the Volksfest to have a beer and enjoy the rest of the day. David choose to stay home, Katherine wanted to go back. She said it was to ride the chair swing and the trampoline thing, but she had other motives. 

We rode our bikes there again and found our company and a table. Katherine was happy coloring for a while but soon enough she was on the chair swing and the trampoline thing again.

We ended up ordering dinner and staying for a few hours. Katherine was being really good and earned another ride every so often. Towards the end of the evening the trampoline thing was not busy so they let her jump forever. I think she finally wore herself out.

Back at the table she "mentioned" that she was still dreaming about the huge unicorn. The carnival stand was in sight from our vantage point in the beer tent. I had a plan, this was going to be fun. We know from spending time with Bernhard that he is a sports enthusiast. He loves sports and is accomplished at hand ball. I wanted to have a little fun with him so I told Katherine to ask him to win the unicorn for her. I was going to get a kick out of him feeling my pain and spending his beer money trying to win the stupid thing so he doesn't let down this little girl. She asked him, he immediately responded with, "where is this place", and they were off. I was giggling inside and Cindy was griping at me to give him some money. No way, I was going to enjoy this while drinking my beer. It was perfect we watched them walk up to the booth. Katherine was pointing at the prize so Bernhard knew what the goal was. I know for a fact that carny recognized Katherine and was ready for another pay day. He paid his money and here we go. Ball 1 knocks off the top few cans of the stack. Why is throwing left handed? Ball two takes out several more, but there are still two cans upright and one on its side. He positions to throw the last ball, no chance sucker, start digging for more money. We don't want to let the little girl down again..... Just before he throws the carny interrupts him, tells him he has to throw straight on, no angles. Like it is going to matter, Cindy told me this thing is rigged. Watching from a distance Cindy, Madelon, and I let loose a cheer.......................

He did it!!! Three cans with the last ball, first try. We can see Katherine running over to the corner of the booth pointing at the unicorn again. The carny gets in down and reluctantly hands it to her, Katherine says the words "It's so fluffy, I am going to die!!" We are all smiling ear to ear. This worked out even better than I had planned, I never considered that my little girl would get the prize. I just wanted some company for my misery. Madelon gave the hero a big hug and we celebrated at the table.

Some men would have trouble dealing with this scenario. Sure I wanted to be the one to win it for her, but clearly that was not going to happen without taking out a loan. It was such a great moment and so fun. Big thanks to Bernhard for making my little girl happy and for sticking it to the carny. Katherine slept with her big unicorn, her smaller one given to her out of pity, along with her other hundred stuffed animals. The unicorn will get tossed away in a few years, but I think we will always remember the story. 

Last Friday David's class put on their show for the school assembly. Each class does this once through the school year, David's class is the last one. They just finished up Exhibition a few weeks ago and did not start working on their presentation until recently. David had convinced us that they were doing a modern day Romeo & Juliet and that he was just going to be a stage manager. He still wanted us to be there because there was a surprise at the end.  

Each class usually does a musical number to showcase the musical talents developed over the year. The parents are in the balcony overlooking the stage and the primary school students below.

After the musical number we got a warning that the show was going to be silly and get ready to laugh. This does not sound like Shakespeare. It was not. David tricked us, it was called "5T's Got Talent". It was partly talent but mostly just silliness.

We did get a singing act that was good, but we also got a wheels off magic act with a cross dressing assistant. Speaking of cross dressing, to my amazement, my son came on stage in full ballet attire, women's ballet attire that is.

This is the same kid that last year, during a baseball tournament to benefit breast cancer awareness, refused to wear anything pink, because it is a girl color.

I really had to hand it to him. He came on that stage and owned the performance, as did the other boys. They got the biggest laugh, and the best response from the crowd. They were the act that everyone talked about after it was over.

Never thought I would be proud of my son for dressing up in a girl's outfit, but here we are. All joking aside this was another reminder of how much he has grown in the last year. He handled himself very well.

The judging panel included a Simon Cowell, Lady Gaga, and Justin Bieber. Kind of a mix of America's Got Talent meets American Idol with a sprinkle of SNL and HeeHaw.

Here is the two minute video of just David's part of the show.

We had a pheasant a few weeks ago in our yard, now a young buck is visiting our fence pretty often for a snack.

Off to Berlin on Thursday.