Monthly Archives: April 2024

Zum fröhlichen Landmann – and horses!

28 Sunday Apr 2024

Posted by in Germany

≈ Leave a comment

Saturday was a beautiful day for a ball game! Ty played with the Redwings 18U team in Mainz, Germany. Their complex was really nice – full concession stand with a bar, nice toilets, covered bleachers. The nicest we have seen in Germany so far. Ty caught a couple fly balls to Center Field, and hit a bomb double to deep left field. MTR victory 11:7!
Saturday night we caught the bus to Bad Soden and met up with some friends to check out an Irish Festival. There was a Greek restaurant, Thessaloniki, across the street from the park that had outdoor seating and was close enough to hear the music. We grabbed a table and had a delicious meal with lots of laughter. It was a great time.
Sunday was hike day. We decided to head towards the Schlosshotel Rettershof, which translates to Castle Hotel. We see the signs to it whenever we drive to the school and always say “we should check that out.” Today was the day. I’ve photo dumped a lot of pictures from the hike – there were lots of times when I stopped and thought, gosh, that’s cool. Sharing it all with you. 🙂
Everyone (except Kaycee) spied this little deer in the woods.
Ty and his friend, Gary, found this old building last week. Is it a bomb shelter? A mine entrance? A well? Or something else?
Here’s a snapshot taken through the little window.
We saw quite a few people riding horses on the trails today. And dodged lots of piles of horse poop.
This made me smile.
We found where all the horses were coming from. While this is no longer the entrance to the property, it still makes a statement.
This is a horse hauler. The building behind it is a barn……
Which is cooler? The entryway? The old statues? Or Lily?
We found the Schlosshotel, which was supposed to be our lunch stop. Unfortunately they do not have a chef on Sundays. Ty about lost his mind because he was STARVING, but at least they had cake and Coke. The inside of the hotel was beautiful, but it was strange that there was nobody there except for a few staff.
Another building at the horse farm.
For real. This is the stable. Lily wants me to find out the scoop on doing lessons in the summer.
The not only have horses. They also have giant peacocks. Fun fact. Peacocks don’t seem to like chickens.
Roof art.
And then we saw the magic words. “Cafe – Restaurant – Biergarten”.
A cute little oasis, Zum Fröhlichen Landmann – to the happy countryman – filled all of our bellies with a yummy lunch before heading back towards home.
Lots of great trails around the cafe.
A stretch of the trails had these awesome hand painted signs, I assume saying the names of plants and animals that we might see in the area. Thought of Uncle Mark when I saw this one.
I am really not a great photographer. As we came out of the woods, there was a large open pasture and the only structures you could see were two iconic Königstein buildings. The castle on the hill, and the private residence that looks like a castle on the left. It was gorgeous.
Little yellow wildflowers and a very happy dog
While this was a LONG hike, there wasn’t much elevation change, and it was full of fun little surprises. I give it 4 stars.

It’s raining, it’s Hailing, it’s Snowing

26 Friday Apr 2024

Posted by in Germany

≈ Leave a comment

I know! It’s been a while since I posted anything. I was waiting for there to be something new and exciting to share, but we pretty much have had a normal couple of weeks. Lots of softball and baseball, dog walks, gym time, school stuff, and work.

We are on the lookout for a good breakfast sausage. Zwiebel Wurst (onion sausage) is NOT Shivers Farms breakfast sausage.
Lily convinced us to implement weekly allowances for the kids. There are some base requirements to meet the base pay, but they have an opportunity to earn extra cash. Lily was all over cleaning the windows. #winning
Look closely at this picture. Those white things floating around are NOT cottonwood. It is snow. Play ball! Ty is playing on a 15U team and an 18U team. 15U is 2-0 (plus a Friendly victory). 18U is 1-0. There is some solid talent on both teams. It’s going to be a fun season to watch.
Lily is skilled at making and editing videos. Jay recorded the baseball game and Lily worked her magic to remove non-action footage. (Also, yes, that is a giant pile of cardboard in the background. It needs to be driven to the recycle yard.)
Hail. At the end of April. That turned into snow. It didn’t stick, but we are all ready for spring to come and stay a while.
My rental car threw me a “Add 1 liter of oil” warning. Just buying the liter of oil at the dealership was a whole thing, because it’s an Audi and I went to a VW dealership. It’s oil. And VW Group owns Audi. I eventually got my oil and paid the bill. Any guesses on how much 1 Liter of oil at a German car dealership costs? Not putting it IN the car, just the bottle of oil. A quart of oil is ~$8 in the US. A quart is roughly the same size as a quart. Whatever number you guessed, it was too low. 38 EUR!!!!!!!
Lily’s school had their Spring Concert this week. That type of setting (on stage, everyone staring at her) usually triggers her anxiety. We aren’t sure what was different this time, but she didn’t have any issues! For the first time, she was able to just relax and have fun singing her little heart out. She even got in a few booty shakes. The smile says it all!

The factory workers wear these pants, and Jay had to get a pair for himself. They might be his new favorite pants.

I don’t have the official certificate yet, but I completed the A1 German exam and passed!!! That is the first level, there is so much more to learn, but my vocabulary is growing, my confidence is (slowly) increasing. I could read, write, listen, and speak basic German.

On the work front, I was able to visit out operations in Windhagen, Germany. It was great to kick off an exciting project. Jay traveled to a few different cities in Poland.

That’s all I have to share for now. Gutes Wochenende!! Have a good weekend!

Goodbye Spain. Hello Softball!

09 Tuesday Apr 2024

Posted by in Germany

≈ Leave a comment

Today’s German road sign challenge.

Our last day in Tenerife was probably the best weather. We took advantage of it and soaked in the sunshine. We wandered along the coast and found this huge area full of rock stacks. It was kind of incredible to see how many had been built. We all added to it. 🙂

Lily and Jay were the only ones brave enough to go into the ocean. Ty and I dipped our feet in, but it felt pretty chilly. Of course they said it was fine when you got in, but no thanks. 🙂
Goodbye Bahia Del Duque resort! We highly recommend this hotel if anyone has Tenerife on their vacation wish list. The rooms were comfortable, views were incredible, location was great, lots of pools, huge resort, great spa.

All in all, the Canary Islands did not disappoint. We all needed a wind-down, relaxing, forget-what-day-it-is vacation, and we got it. The island was very clean, I felt safe everywhere we went, the food was great, shopping was fun, adventures were memorable. We had planned on doing more outings (water park, zoo, etc) but really didn’t need those entertainment options. And now, back to normal life….

We came home to pretty nice weather in Königstein. Spring is in the air – so I planted flowers in our front window box. They make me smile.
Saturday night we were able to live stream Lily’s Bettendorf softball team on our living room TV. Thanks to Mike for running the GameChanger video! Lily loved cheering her friends on from afar. Go Chaos!!
It looked freezing cold in Iowa – I was thankful we were watching it snuggled up on our couch under a blanket.
Watching the Chaos game got Lily in the mood to play! She had her first game with the Main Taunus Redwings 16U on Sunday. Yes, she’s 10. Yes, she’s playing on a 16U team. The range of skills varies widely as softball is not a very popular sport in Germany. There are girls that are just beginning to learn the game, as well as girls that have been playing for years and are really good. Once Lily got her nerves settled, she was able to get some decent hits. One hard ground ball down the 3rd base line got her a double. Woot woot! I am the team DJ and GameChanger scorekeeper (shocking, I know). Yes, I already have a PowerBI report prepared with the analysis of the stats.
Kaycee was happy to be back at the ballfields. Germany is a very dog-friendly country, so I imagine most ballparks will allow dogs. Memaw would be proud that I packed a bag of snacks for him (it’s usually her job).

Spring Break 2024 is over, the kids went back to school, and Jay and I turned our computers back on. Wah wah.

This road sign is an important one to know. Ein = one. Bahn = train (which doesn’t make sense here since it’s on a road). Straße = street. One Way Street.

Happy Feet – Canary Islands

02 Tuesday Apr 2024

Posted by in Germany

≈ Leave a comment

This post summarizes how we spent Monday and Tuesday. The theme seemed to be Feet.

Ty had a pretty nasty sunburn from Sunday so he wanted to stay out of the sun on Monday. We headed down by where Jay and I had dinner the night before.

Directly above the beach is a row of random shops. Above that is a street full of bars and restaurants.

Lily, Jay and I explored the beach area.

Let me rephrase that. Jay and Lily explored the beach. I got distracted by the foot massage shop along the beach.
See why I got distracted? Comfortable chairs and a gorgeous view.
Even Lily couldn’t resist the temptation of the foot massage. When she asked if she could get one, I just added 15 minutes to mine so we could enjoy it together. 🙂
A shop a little farther down had a bunch of these fish tanks. Lily said she wanted to do it. The things I do for my daughter.
Ready or not….
Er-mer-GERD!!!!! Clearly I had way more dead skin than Lily did because they swarmed my feet. At first we couldn’t stop giggling and had to resist every urge to yank our feet out of the tank. It tickled SO MUCH! But after a couple minutes we relaxed into it and it was oddly enjoyable.

It kind of felt like hot tub bubbles. Of course this was an impulse decision that involved zero research, so when we were sitting at lunch waiting for our food, I picked up my phone and said I wanted to read all about the positive health effects of these little fish. Jay said “you don’t want to do that.” Uh oh. Let’s hope we don’t end up with any weird diseases from that 20 minute experience….

We finally convinced Ty to come out of his room once the sun went down. Lily was worn out and is best friends with the room service guy, so she relaxed while Ty joined Jay and I for dinner.
Tuesday morning we headed back up the mountain to go for a hike. This was a great one!
We started by walking along a large vineyard.
Lily found the horses.
Let’s talk a minute about the terracing. Wow. There are amazing hand built rock walls everywhere. It is actually really incredible to think about the amount of labor that has gone into the structures over the years. This is a newer one, no crops planted on it yet, waiting for the vines.
Part of the trail was a paved road with beautiful little flowers growing along the ditch.
I read on the trail app that these caves were used for food storage. I have nothing to back that up but it sounds lil a good story. One cave had a door on it at one time.
They only went in partway. Jess would probably still be wandering through the caves if she were here.
This vineyard was pretty far up the trail, not easily accessible, but perfectly terraced.
One section of the forest had some fire damage.
This part of the trail was awesome. This a giant wall of lava rock. See Ty standing on the back slope for scale.
The lava flaked off of the wall.
Even Lily thought it was cool.
Ty usually runs ahead on the trails, and when he gets to an intersection he has to wait for us to catch up and tell him where to go. Lily is always bringing up the rear, and let’s just say she prefers to take her time and enjoy every inch of the scenery. This leaves Ty with a decent amount of time to wait. Today he occupied his time in an interesting way. Maybe he was thinking about the Spanish beaches….
This was the least manicured part of the trail, but was kind of neat to walk through. Ty started singing “a whole new world”
Jay hung back and made sure Lily didn’t fall too far behind.
I could have taken dozens of photos of the pretty flowers growing in seemingly random places. I loved how these were hanging on the edge of the cliff.
Ty wanted to lick the clouds to see if they tasted like cotton Candy. This was as close as he got.
That rock wall was really old.
We made it!!! A whole field of wildflowers was the prize for finishing.

We were all pretty hungry after the hike, so we tried a late lunch at a Tex Mex restaurant. Let me be clear. Spanish food does not equal Mexican food. The chips and “guacamole cream” were similar. That’s about where it ends. They did this weird thing where they put pomegranate seeds on every dish. Nachos, burritos, everything. and they didn’t put a lime in the margarita. I think we need to stop trying and just wait for Mexican food when we visit home.

15,173 steps was about all my feet could handle today without another foot massage. Jay and Lily went for an evening stroll to watch the sunset. Gorgeous.