Field Trip, Hessen Park!

One of the reasons we were excited to move to Germany was that we all could experience and learn more about European history, other cultures, languages, etc.  Last school year and also in the one to come we are studying ancient history.  So for our first 'field-trip' we decided to visit a place called 'Hessen Park' that is about 45 minutes from us.  We got a late start, because Anthony had a fever the night before and needed to make a trip to the doctor in the morning, and we got lost on the way there.  But in the end, that was good, because apparently, there were 300 students there in the morning.....by the time we arrived, the students were all boarding the busses and driving away, so we had the place virtually to ourselves.  Very nice.  Despite Anthony's fever, and illness, he opted not to cancel our day-trip and went along anyway, feeling awful, but was a trooper none-the-less.  He's definitely getting better now.  Here's the link to the park: http://www.hessenpark.de/index.php?id=english

Boys and their hats...in this case, boys and their blue hats.  For now, Malachi is still small enough to ride on daddy's shoulders, but not for long, I'm afraid. 

Here's the courtyard of the park.  These are called 'half-timbered houses'.  This courtyard now has a couple places to eat or drink coffee, a bakery, a cheese maker, a brush maker/soap maker and a couple of other shops.  Next time, I think I'll take Anthony up on his offer to buy me some yummy smelling soap, it was very nice!  

Here is one display inside the museum.  It's an open-air museum.  They have reconstructed the buildings of the village, to include the furniture of the time, have veggie gardens being grown, a bakery using all the original methods of baking, a blacksmith, and a whole lot more in terms of how the villagers lived during this time.  

We are currently reading through the book, 'Charlotte's Web' as part of our school.  This was a very cool picture of me to take, since we have here Wilbur's (sister), and Charlotte in the top left corner.....this could be the picture of the sequel book (since this piggy is a lady  :-) 

Behind little Hannah is a man doing some woodworking in a shop, he had wagon wheels, axe handles, broom handles, rakes, etc. that had been made in this shop.  We watched him work for a while.  

Here's a knot tying station, with all sorts of different knots that we tried to learn how to tie.  Knot tying is not easy, but it is something that I enjoy (weird I know).  The kids gave it a good effort....especially Essie below....

Who tied herself up  :-)  

Of course, an ice cream break was necessary.

If you look behind Hannah you'll see a little wooden baby crib with pretty designs.  This was one of the more 'modern' houses, that showed us some of the developments in terms of furniture, decorations, lighting, etc. over time....the only thing is that all the signs are in German only, so we had to just try to figure out what everything was, rather than read about it....so during our next trip anywhere I'm going to have to do a lot more research before hand so that we can get more learning out of our time.

A group of rooster's was just roaming about the village.  The kids tried to catch them, but were unsuccessful....probably good, since I think they either bite or scratch or both. 

The blacksmith working.

And this was the linen house, where we learned how linen is made.  Linen is made from a plant that is dried.  The fibers are  cleaned of all debris, combed (which is what the kids are doing), and then spun into thread.  The lady in the background was our teacher here, she is cutting leaves off of nettle plants, that can also be dried and used for thread.  She told us that in order to make enough material for one linen shirt (about 3 meters) in this manner, it would take 90 hours of work.  So we have a lot to be thankful for in terms of modern machinery.  Though there is something wholesome and good about working hard, and seeing your efforts result in something beneficial to your family.

There was much, much more to be seen at this museum, and I think within the park there is a ton more to see and do.  But with Anthony not feeling so well, we kept our stay brief, but sure had a great time together on our first trip.  Malachi kept saying, 'hey! I saw that in my book!' Which is a pretty neat experience for him, and the rest .....

In terms of schooling, we are considering enrolling the kids in a German speaking preschool.  Here they are called 'Kindergartens'.  I have an appointment for this coming Tuesday to meet with them and to visit the school.  We think it would be a great opportunity for the kids to learn German, and it's only for the morning, so they'd be home by noon...so we could continue school at home in the afternoons.

That's all for now....have a blessed and worshipful Sunday tomorrow,  Erica

Possible Missionaries to support...

There are some missionaries we know of, who are trying to get over to the Czech Republic to serve alongside the Roberts Family, who are the GMI missionaries that we know.  In the event that you've been praying about supporting the Gospel going forth in the Czech Republic and want a good missionary family to support....here's a good option  :-)  Anthony Vahala is a Czech national, who was saved while in the states, I believe he's graduating from Seminary soon, and they would like to be back in his home country helping to strengthen the church and train men to lead the church, they have 5 young kiddos....

Here's their site: http://gospelforczech.org/home.html

Thanks!  Have a worshipful Sunday...make that, 'have a worshipful day, everyday!'

Erica

Frog hunting, giant slugs and a sweet, sweet boy :-)

So last Saturday, we spent all day at home, just trying to get ourselves moved in to our home, more officially.  At the end of the day, I suggested we go for a walk...the girls weren't too keen, and with Essie's arm not feeling so well, I suggested that Malachi and I go alone, and look for frog eggs or tadpoles.....so that's what we did  :-)  We grabbed a jar and some water, and set off into the forest, looking for a new pet to raise.  I barely recognized one of the trails we've been on before. With all the recent rain, the plants have all grown so much, the trail looked completely different. 

 A field nearby...along my new favorite route....

 Same field, different angle.....

 Any tadpoles in here??? nope!

Any in here??? Nope, but plenty of mosquitos and thistles....

So we gave up on tadpoles and started collecting treasures along the way....

 We stopped to inspect some logs, and Malachi noticed that some worms had made some designs in a log.....He thought this looked like some mountains with the sun shining down....I agreed....then he said, 'I can't believe someone can train their worms to make pictures like that! That's amazing!'....cute.

One of the hunter's hide-outs we find along our walk, these are so great to climb up in....the view is beautiful and you're kinda up there in the trees....on another day, Anthony watched the kids and I was able to go out on my own for a walk.  I climbed up in a really high one, and could see really far....Although I could feel the hide-out swaying in the wind....which made me a little nervous, but it was very neat and peaceful....On the topic of the hunting hide-outs, we were at a birthday party a couple of nights ago, and I heard gun-shots for not the first time.  I asked someone who's lived here for a long time, if people walking in the forest ever got shot by the hunters...she assured me that it's never happened.....I think I still might invest in some reflector vests for the kids just to be sure.....

Some logs....that I thought looked cool....

Some muddy water with what we thought might have frog eggs, but the 'eggs' looked more like bubbles in the algae....here's Malachi with his 'maybe it is-maybe it isn't' pose.

But we'll never know, because then we spotted this guy.....a giant slug! Perfect!

And a few feet away, this guy....a giant ORANGE slug!

And a happy boy, with his two new pets....see that brown stuff on his thumb?  That's slug slime.  These slugs have indestructible slime, I had to scrub his fingers pretty hard to get that stuff off, it was like tar....which means we won't be playing with these pets....not that I would have been playing with them anyway :-)

And then, one more!  So now we have three!

So we now have three new residents....two black slugs named 'Blacksmith'...I guess it's easy to name them both the same name, so you don't have to tell them apart  :-), and the orange one is named 'Rufus', because 'Rufus' means red in Latin, and this is the name of the species, we found out when we 'googled' slugs....(Just in case you're reading, Sherli, this slug is NOT named after your wonderful husband....though we miss you, we would surely not name a slug after him  :-) though I do think of you when we say his name, in a good way  :-)

And here they are in their new habitat, living in Malachi's room...being cared for quite well by their proud owner....for us they are the perfect pet....when I googled about slugs, I found out mostly that people talk a lot about how to kill these guys because they devour gardens....since our goal is to keep them alive, it's a great thing that they are hard to kill.....durable pets are what we're after....

And this card arrived on my pillow the other day....not related to our walk....but I sure thought it was the cutest card from my sweet boy, ever.  This one is framed on the wall....it sure melted my heart!

And one of the pretty flowers along the way....

I think we will still go looking for frog eggs or tadpoles....I think that would be so cool to raise a frog.

On another note....I've been thinking about writing a post about life in Germany.  There are many things that are different here, both big and small...so I thought that if you (whoever you are  :-) had anything that you would like to know about life in Germany, then we could write about that....if we knew the answers that is....but either way, I might try compiling a list of things that are unique about living here.....

Erica