Barfusspfad

This morning the Activity Days boys and girls took a trip to a barefoot park for their end of Summer celebration.These are the 8-11 year olds in our Church and they usually meet twice a month to do some fun stuff, fellowship, and also to develop faith. This sounded like a good time, so Toby and I tagged along, er, helped chaperone the group. Altogether there were about 30 kiddos and 10 adults in our group.

 

So... what is a barefoot park? This is actually a pretty popular concept in Germany. When Charlotte was in German Kindergarten they even had some old tires on the playground filled with various textures of things for the kids to walk on barefoot. That was our first exposure to this concept.  This place however, in Bad Sobernheim, is on a much larger scale. The 3.5 km walk takes you through several pools, across various rocks, mulches, gravel, clay, sand, balance beams, swinging platforms, see-saws, and even fording a river.  Their website proclaims, "Es ist Gesund!" Yup, it is healthy for your feet to "experience the earth" and this "spa-like experience" even promises to improve posture, misalignment, balance, and overall well-being.

 

Healthy feet?  This was after the very first mud pit. The Germans have funny ideas about what "spa-like" means sometimes.

 

There are so many things to walk across and balance on, I didn't even try to take pictures of them all.  And yeah, occasionally you have to stop to remove pebbles, mulch, and even a splinter or two from your feet.

 

The second pit.  One of the other adults told me this one would be warm, but she was a liar! It was so cold.  Like not normal cold, but like they must fill it with ice every morning cold.

 

Fording the river was my favorite part. At it's deepest the water was up to the top of my legs and moving pretty swiftly, so it was pretty deep for some of the littlest ones. It was chilly, but I don't think it was as cold as that other pit. We didn't lose any kids in the river.

 

We also learned that none of these kids (or adults) is going to run away to join the circus and be a tightrope walker. But it was fun to try.

 

Sometimes you need to put your feet up and relax.

 

And other times you try to shake all of the other kids off the little swinging platforms.

 

I love this picture of Charlotte crossing the suspended rope footbridge.

 

To cross the river back to the starting point, you use this human powered ferry. At this point we almost did lose a little boy in the river, but he survived without a dunking and his mom was there to manage the mischief, so no worries. The area that this place is set in is beautiful. I should have taken a few more pictures of the scenery.

 

"Da ist man vom den Socken." 

As far as I can tell, this means "Here is one from the socks."  Rob and I have debated what the heck is going on here. Does it mean here is a person with no socks? Does it mean here, in this place, one is set free from their socks? It must be idiomatic, but I don't quite get it.

 

But here is another one from the socks.

We had a really fun time at the barefoot park, and while some of the surfaces were a little rough on my tender toes, afterwards I actually felt like I'd had a really great foot massage.  We may be back again next Summer with the whole family.

The Bear is FOUR!

 

It's true. Jakey is growing up. He requested the "whole family" go bowling for his birthday and have dinner at the bowling alley.  The 6 weeks that we spent living in the Lodge on base were apparently some of the happiest of Jake's short life.  He often wants to eat at the bowling alley and hang out at the Lodge's playground, and invents excuses to go inside to get ice from the ice machine. He asks when we will get to live there again.  So off to the bowling alley we went and enjoyed a pizza and nachos and awesome bowling fun.

 

Amelie and I were a team, but she likes to sit with Dad.

 

Jake's got skillz!

Sometimes he used a ramp and sometimes he preferred to throw the ball down there as hard as he could! Either way, it was very serious business.

 

After the bowling alley we went home for cake and ice cream.  Jake requested a minion cake this year, and this was my creation. I love this picture of the boys looking like they are best buddies, even though most of the time they fight like crazy. It reminds me that they do actually love each other.

 

We just love this kid so much.  At four years old, Jake is still the most likely in our house to crack a joke (and then laugh at it,) make friends with strangers, and cuddle up with his Mommy. He counts among his best friends; all of the kids in his church Sunday school class, our 80 year old widow neighbor (who speaks no English, but always has time to visit with Jake when he calls out to her "Hey girl!"- we're working on that,) our landlord, and his Uncle Mark. 

He loves to play Legos and video games and gets frustrated when people try to exclude him for being "too little."  He usually exhibits his frustration by hitting them as hard as he can. We're working on that too. This Fall he will begin German Kindergarten and I am excited and anxious to see how he copes with the transition... and how they cope with him.  But I know wherever he goes in life, he is sure to make friends and have a fun time- because he brings the fun with him.  

We love you Jakey Bear.

 

Jake's birthday interview:

(20 questions style)

1. What is your favorite color? green

2. What is your favorite toy? Legos

3. What is your favorite fruit? watermelon

4. What is your favorite tv show? The Incredibles, maybe Super Hero Squad too

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? cheese tortillas

6. What is your favorite outfit? train underwear, light blue pants, and a soccer shirt

7. What is your favorite game? Yahtzee (he also likes Blokus and Uno)

8. What is your favorite snack? Cereal

9. What is your favorite animal? Cheetah

10. What is your favorite song? Hello, Guten Tag (we sing this to visitors and new kids at church in Primary- it is just the "Hello song" with a little Germany twist)

11. What is your favorite book? All about boats (current library book)

12. Who is your best friend? J.J.

13. What do you want to be when you grow up? Drive a digger

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? jumping on the trampoline

15. What are you really good at? riding bikes

16. What is a food that you hate? black food (burnt toast, or things blackened on the grill)

17. What do you like to do with Mom? play outside with you

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? oatmeal

19. What is your favorite dinner?  meat and noodles (Pad Thai)

20. What makes you happy? clapping your hands, petting a dog, flowers and cuddles, pulling weeds with Herr Nold, and riding in Dad's truck

mia bella caccolina

In early August, we got to host some Italian friends for a week. Mari and I were roommates at BYU about 17 years ago, and hadn't seen each other since. But thanks to the miracle of Facebook, we have been in touch the past several years, and when she expressed an interest in visiting the Frankfurt area, I invited her to come stay with us.  I am so glad they took us up on the offer, because we had so much fun visiting. And eating.

 

See, Mari and her friend Monica are Italian chefs. One night they made 10 different pizzas for all of us.  Soooooo much yummy pizza. Between our three families, we had 5 adults and 8 children in the house but it was still way too much pizza.

 

Buffalo mozzarella, fresh garden tomatoes, Mug root beer.

Another evening they made two pans of lasagne- with homemade sauce and beschamel.  And homemade tiramisu for dessert.  (They even made me a third lasagne to put in the freezer for another day!) I was exceedingly spoiled.

 

In exchange, I taught their kids how to roast a perfect s'more on a 100 degree day. I also provided plenty of Dr. Pepper, Mari's favorite drink back in the day.

 

 Only Mari spoke English from her crowd.  And only Rob spoke Italian from our crowd.  Although I really impressed Monica by sharing the Italian Mari taught me so many years ago... this blog post is titled "my beautiful little boogers." She only taught me really important things like that.

 

But the kids got along really well and had fun jumping on the trampoline, going to the playground, and playing Legos and Barbies.  Rob and Fabrizio took all of the boys to the park a couple of evenings to play baseball and they enjoyed that as well. I love this photo of Giulia "reading" a book to Amelie by describing the pictures in Italian.

We loved seeing you Mari and getting to meet your bellisima famiglia and cari amici. I hope we will get to see you again... maybe next time in Italia!