A Long Weekend

Our children were the only ones (in all of Germany?) to have off for Labor Day yesterday.  A planned trip to the zoo got rained out, a rain plan of the aquarium got nixed in favor of a "lazy day at home" and promises of not whining, napping or asking for screens all day championed by the 2 of them.  It started off well-- block building, game playing (or at least started), drawing... and ended up like this:

Our weekend began typically-- ice cream at the cafe down the street.  Brilliant, huh?  Then I don't have to bake a Shabbat dessert!  Dinner and the start of a Monopoly game in German.  You thought Monopoly was a long game?  Wait 'til you have to translate every Community Chest and Chance card (travel version=small letters, no pictures).  It took 3 days to finish the game.  Mark and D won.  Of course.

Shul on Shabbat (we met more nice people, including several Rabbinical school students, one of whom was heading to the "Goldene Medina" (Rockville) for a high holiday pulpit), a nice lunch, a late nap and more Monopoly. 

On Sunday we headed to our neighborhood Schloss (Schloss Charlottenburg) for a look around.  We stuck to the gardens (not wanting to pay for the art-, antiques-heavy tour inside, hoping not to embody the ancient saying "If it ain't Baroque don't fix it!"), which were Versailles-like without the pain in the ass of getting to Versailles.  D was very happy, putting to use her PSA-gained knowledge of flowers, etc.  Micah took some convincing, but enjoyed the outing at the end.

Just a small summer palace

She's realizing that the flora here is similar to that of Wisconsin and could even identify many of the flowers in the formal gardens.  Thanks, Stacy and Tim for the meadow exploration!

Swans are pretty, but they nip.  Important life lesson.

 

 

Not enough statues?  Make your own!

A photo essay of Monday:

Mark acting out "Caps for Sale"

Dafna and Micah just plain acting out

Yes, they stayed in their pajamas all day

Facetiming with Claire.  Unsupervised. D checking in on Cow and Beethoven.

At least somebody got something done.  Challah rolls.  Not gluten-free.

Back to school today.  First commute in cold rain seemed to go well (I didn't do it! :)).  We have our parent/teacher/child meeting with D's teacher Frau Fischer this afternoon.  Micah's teacher is pulling back from the edge a little.  Our meeting frantically scheduled for this afternoon is postponed until next week; maybe because she heard he'll only be in school 2 days this week.  He starts basketball club this afternoon.  We'll see how that goes.

Desais tomorrow!  (More) Cooking today!