Ty is 14!!

27 Monday May 2024

Posted by jg28602 in Germany

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Not sure when this happened, but my little boy is now 14 years old. He is 5’10” and weighs next to nothing soaking wet, despite surviving on a diet of chips, ice cream, and peanut butter sandwiches. he had a 3 hour baseball practice on Saturday, so we decided to celebrate on Sunday instead.

We were all planning on taking the bus to Bad Soden for the Wine Fest, but Ty was tuckered out from practice. Lily, Jay and I went. These Germans sure do know how to do a festival. This was the 8th day of people sitting around drinking wine and eating yummy food. Still going strong!

Speaking of yummy food, here is where the best bratwurst I have ever eaten in my life was prepared.

Ty wanted to go for a family hike for his birthday, so on Sunday we headed to Saalburg and explored the end of the Roman Empire. It is crazy to think how far north the Romans controlled.

The basements of the wooden structures remain in tact.

And the wall surrounding the Fort is incredible. I wonder if the people that built the wall ever imagined that we would be looking at the same structure almost 2,000 years later.

The hike took us up to a point where we could see quite a ways out over the beautiful German landscape.

That little pile of stones was part of the Roman Limes, marking the end of the Roman territory.

We are approximately 832 miles away from Rome. That’s roughly Iowa to Pennsylvania.

Our luck of finding an oasis continues! Kaycee was pretty happy about the rest stop. I’d love to know how many steps he takes on our hikes – back and forth and left and right.

The restaurant was at the base of this tower. I spy Ty (the only one with enough energy to climb up and check out the view).

5.5 miles would take a normal person just over 2 hours to complete. We took our time and were out exploring and eating for about 4 hours. A bit of elevation on this hike but it wasn’t too bad.

Sunday night we had dinner with some friends. They grilled all sorts of food so we walked out of there stuffed. Overall it was a great ending to a great week.

Mountains – Montana & Switzerland

20 Monday May 2024

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Last week I took an unplanned trip to the USA to visit my Auntie Shell in Montana. To say she is one tough cookie is an understatement. She has been battling f-ing lung cancer for 5 years and had surgery to remove a new mass in her stomach. Spending the week with her was good for both of our souls. When I was a child and my mom needed a break from her 5 kids, she would drop us off at Auntie Shell’s house where we would do all sorts of fun things. Swimming, shopping, baking cookies, listening to the NYE Casey Kasum countdown, staying up way too late, playing with my hair. All the best things. I got to go on several road trips to Wyoming with her in her green Intrepid, music cranked, windows down, writing Pete the Penguin stories, stopping at tourist places along the way. She was who I wanted to be like when I grew up. When I was with her at the rest home, she kept getting stronger every day. The day before I left she was able to walk up and down a few steps. Incredible progress, especially considering what her body has gone through.

I left Montana and flew to Zurich, Switzerland, where we had plans with Kovar’s to spend a long holiday weekend on Lake Lucerne. We had found this amazing rental home in Sisikon, Switzerland. Whenever I am asked to draw a picture (I am a horrible artist), I draw snow-capped mountains with a lake at the base. That was what I got to look at from the couch. Gorgeous. The town was small, but the location was good for being able to do things around the lake. We ate at 2 restaurants in town, both were delicious. And you cannot find a better view…

Saturday afternoon I needed to fight off the jet lag so the girls went into Lucerne to explore a bit. This picture was taken on the Chapel Bridge, which connects the Lucerne Theater with St Peter’s Chapel, crossing the River Reuss.

There were many paintings on the roof of the bridge that caught my eye. I googled them. Renward Cysat either painted them or had them painted in 1611 (that is not a typo). Before a major fire in 1993, 147 of the original 158 panels were still in tact. Unfortunately 110 of them were affected by a fire that had destroyed most of the bridge.

The Water Tower was built around 1290-1300!!!!!

On Sunday the boys went fishing. No surprise, there are a TON of laws regulating what you can and cannot do while fishing in Switzerland. They had a great guide, Rolf, that took care of all of that for them. While most of the day they only caught little fish, it was good for all of them to be out on the water.

While I would love to be able to say that Ty caught the one and only big fish, I cannot. 🙂 The guide snagged it and reeled it in. Ty did help bring it in the boat with the net, though, so we will give him credit.

The girls spent the day exploring Mount Pilatus. We took a gondola all the way up to the top – stopping twice to switch carriages along the way. There are a few different tourist companies in the region. We used Pilatus. Without having anything to compare to, it was great. https://www.pilatus.ch/en/discover/lucerne (no, I don’t get paid to say that)

At the summit – around 7,000 feet above sea level. It was pretty cloudy that day so we couldn’t see very far, but it felt like we were on top of the world.

The views were incredible. I was thankful to have a ride up the mountain. We saw lots of hikers making the climb. No thanks….

Lily was the only one brave enough to get into the lake. The water was pretty chilly.

Here’s the info for the house rental if anyone is interested in booking directly with the owner. Highly recommend!

On the 4.5 hour drive home, we passed by the John Deere Bruchsal factory. Nice to see some green and yellow paint on the way!

We played a lot of Would You Rather while in the car. Would You Rather live in the mountains or on a beach. I choose mountains.

Schönen Muttertag und Vatertag

13 Monday May 2024

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Thursday was Father’s Day (Vatertag) in Deutschland. It is tradition for dads to grab a bunch of friends, a wagon of beer, and head out for a hike. A few of the baseball dads (and Jay’s backpack cooler of beer) went out for a wander during baseball practice. Lily and I crashed the party, breaking tradition of no wives or children.

We stumbled across this old hunting shed that was open to party. They had traditional German music blasting, burgers and wursts, and of course beer.

The Fathers Day Crew. One of the dads is a German, and we decided he should have been a professor. He shared his thoughts about German history and culture. And we all shared some good laughs. It was a great time.

This group had a proper wagon, with a speaker and a giant jug full of Apfelwein. Check out the dude’s glass holder necklace. I asked Lily to crochet one for me. I feel like I need one.

This group of dads had matching shirts and hats. Next year the Cricut will be busy. :).

Königstein had its annual Knight Festival this weekend.

Lily and I walked out to the park behind our house on Thursday evening and saw this unexpected renaissance camp. There were campfires everywhere, guitars and singing, knight costumes laying on the ground, lots of hides on wooden chairs (the original bagchair), and ax throwing! Super cool vibe.

Jay, Lily and I took the short walk up the hill to check out the festivities. First stop, the tavern. We could have returned this mug to get our Pfand (deposit) back, but who wants to return that sweet mug?!?!

There were lots of market tents selling all sorts of medieval goodies. Lily brought home an Ocarina – a little necklace flute.

No Knight Tournament is complete without some proper jousting. The competitors captured rings on swords, sliced apples off hanging ropes, chucked axes into giant wooden boards from horseback (I felt sorry for the guys that drew the short straw and had to stand behind the boards to hold them up). There was a battle with bow & arrows, and legit beating on each other’s metal war suits with hammers and axes. It was pretty intense….and awesome.

This dude. I had to snap a photo. And I’m pretty sure I need one of those horn steins.

Lily misbehaved and had to spend 5 minutes in the time-out chair.

We had some friends over between the afternoon and evening show. We grilled burgers and had way too much food, just enough drink, then we went back to the castle for the torchlit night Knight Tournament.

I think Cam preferred playing with the cotton candy over actually eating it. 🙂

The show was basically the same as the noon show, but the fire addition was pretty great. There was fire added to all of the competitions except jousting. It was impressive to see the horses not even flinch a little at the flames.

The schwarz (black) knight won the tournament.

Ty’s baseball organization is large enough for there to be 2 teams. On Sunday, the teams played against each other. Such a great group of boys and coaches. The head coach, Yumi, is Japanese. She calls Ty Ty-san – and now all the boys call him that. It’s kind of cute. 🙂

Lily’s team also played on Sunday, and I love being at the ball field on Mother’s Day – especially when the weather is perfect! For the first time in organization history, Redwings Softball was able to fill a 16U team. And they won their first game!! They played a double header and lost the second game in double overtime. The girls played great!

I wonder who made the hair bows for the girls? 🙂

Not to end on a bummer note, but I am getting ready to catch a flight to Montana. My aunt has been battling lung cancer for over 5 years (a few years longer than they thought she could fight it), and had emergency surgery over the weekend, where they found more cancer in her intestines. She’s such a fighter. When I was younger I wanted to be like Auntie Shell. She is strong, independent but loves hard, hilarious, intelligent, hard working, free spirited, she has travelled all over, loves to spend time in the mountains. She didn’t have any children, but always spoiled me and my siblings as if we were her own. She could use some positive vibes and prayers to come through this latest life hurdle. #cancersucks

Thanks in advance to Jay and our friends here for getting the kids where they need to be this week.

Labor Day, Hockenheim, Fleamarkets, and WorldFest

06 Monday May 2024

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We had a fun week! There were not any baseball or softball games, but we managed to find ways to fill the time. Read on to hear about a week in the life of the Shearer’s.