HAPPY LEAP DAY! A Squishable Celebration

Peanut Butter: Today is February 29, 2012, a very important historical event.

Julius: I just think it's fun that this day only happens once every four years.

Yulysta: There is an actual reason why this day happens, for those of you who don't know. The Earth circles the sun every 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 16 seconds, to be exact. To make up for that difference in time, every four years roughly 24 hours is accumulated, thus giving us an extra day in February!

PB: Leap days were part of the Julian reform, which was used to realign the Julian calender before the Gregorian calendar was considered more accurate, and leap years were also used in transition from the Roman calendar. This all took place over 2000 years ago.

Y: Today is also a historical day where women traditionally propose to men. This happened according to an old Irish or other legend stating that St. Bridget talked St. Patrick into letting women propose to men once every four years. Timeanddate.com says:

In some places, Leap Day has been known as “Bachelors’ Day” for the same reason. A man was expected to pay a penalty, such as a gown or money, if he refused a marriage proposal from a woman on Leap Day. In many European countries, especially in the upper classes of society, tradition dictates that any man who refuses a woman's proposal on February 29 has to buy her 12 pairs of gloves. The intention is that the woman can wear the gloves to hide the embarrassment of not having an engagement ring. During the middle ages there were laws governing this tradition.

PB: For people who are born on February 29th, they are all invited to join "The Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies." These people have the option of celebrating their birthday on non-leap years either on February 28th or March 1st.

J: I think March 1st makes more sense.

PB: However, in Scotland being born on the 29th of February is considered bad luck, and in Greece it's considered bad luck to marry on the day. In France, a humorous article titled: La Bougie du Sapeur (The Sapper's Candle) published every leap day since 1980.

J: This is all incredibly boring. I mean, who really cares about all of this? It happens once every four years, and only to keep the Earth in time with it's rotation. And it's another day that we sit on this shelf getting dusty.

Y: It's an historical event with a lot of significance. People take for granted the days we're given. We have an extra day this year to appreciate. And it's only just now starting to get a little warmer. We couldn't really go anywhere before because if we fell and got dirty from the snow we couldn't be washed in the washing machine. Fur washable only.

PB: I think Julius is a little ungrateful for what he has.

J: Am not.

PB: Anyway, Holly learned today that the children had never played Battleship before! She pulled up the game on the computer and the children loved it!

Y: Another game Holly loves that the oldest child seemed to enjoy is Rummikub. She bought the travel version of the game and she enjoys playing a generic version of the game on the computer too.

J: There has been some craft things going on lately too. She made recycled yogurt cup shooters and gave them to the kids to play with. (Site that held the inspiration.)

Y: And she made clothes pin dolls with embroidery floss, and what else, clothes pins!

PB: Holly's plants have really grown too. She has thinned and re-potted most of them and they're looking great.

J: I hope everyone enjoys the pictures she's put below.

Y: The next post she'll write won't be until March! Warmer weather and more sightseeing should be on the way so stay tuned for more exciting news!

PB, J, & Y: Happy Leap Day everyone!

Bean seed at it's very beginning.

Root sprouting...

Little more root...

Solid root growth.

Pumpkin seed sprouts...

Little taller now...

Leaves opening up now...

Now some solid growth!

Avocado pit splitting.

Now I have an actual garden! I'm not expecting the pear or clementine to sprout but we'll see what happens!

I just thought it would be kind of neat to post a picture of a German keyboard for everyone to see. See the differences between American and German keyboards?

Recycled yogurt cup shooter.

The inside. We'd put little lightweight kids clay balls in the inside, pull the balloon tail, and they'd go flying! Try it!

My embroidery dolls. Aren't they cute? The oldest one made a nice one too.

Glücklich Schalttag!




Sources:
www.wikipedia.org
www.timeanddate.com

A Working Vacation Week Comes to an End

It's always sad when you have some time off and then you realize you have to start working again.

Granted, this week wasn't completely free for me, I had floors to mop, clothes and sheets/pillowcases to iron, milk and bread to buy, recycling to take care of, and cleaning of the whole house. But I did make sure I did something fun for myself everyday this week, starting with Monday when I went to the ballet and made a chicken pot pie, then Tuesday when I went to the butterfly exhibit and made a buttermilk chicken dish (picture below).

On Wednesday I did go to the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum, which I was hoping would be much more than it was. It turns out, it was just a mall. What was interesting was how extraordinarily typical it was to an American style mall. I have no pictures to share as it was a very typical mall, but I did make tortellini soup for myself which was delicious.

Thursday was a tad bit rainy, so I decided to do an inside activity: visit a palace! I went to Nymphenburg Palace (information link) which was truly gorgeous and was a whole experience in itself. Not only did I get to tour the whole castle, but I also got to tour the porcelain and carriages museum (all in the same area). I am learning a lot about the history of Bavaria, and the two kings I have heard or read the most about are Kings Ludwig I and II. The first king I don't know as much about as the second, but I do know that the first king had quite the fascination with female beauty and had an entire hall devoted to it. King Ludwig II was titled "the fairy tale king" because of his desire to have lavish artwork, castles, and sleighs much like those from fairy tale stories. Needless to say, his reign was not very popular, however today his palaces and carriages are very popular to visit. I took many pictures of the palace and I have shared some of them here. Less interesting, but still important for me, was I made the caramelized shallot dish, but with a slight twist. I used roasted cabbage instead of brussels sprouts, and did make my homemade bread to go with it.

Palace Nymphenburg in the background, lots of birds, including swans, in the foreground.

The Main Hall. So gorgeous.

Painting in the Main Hall.

Many of the ceilings had elaborate paintings.

King Ludwig I with the Gallery of Beauties description.

Some of the paintings in the Gallery of Beauties.

The royal bedroom where one of the King Ludwigs was born.

One of the many carriages/sleighs in the exhibit. Truly impressive.

King Ludwig II loved his horses. This one is actually taxidermied, and he had dozens of paintings made of his horses.

The porcelain exhibit was amazing. They had beautiful sculptures and dishes.

The dishes above were my absolute favorite in the exhibit. I think they are just beautiful.

My roasted cabbage with caramelized shallots and homemade bread dish. Yum!

I had checked the weather report in advance to see what Friday was going to be like. And it was absolutely gorgeous. About 45 degrees Fahrenheit, bright sunny day with only a touch of wind. It was absolutely the perfect day to go to the zoo! Hellabrunn Zoo is a wonderful place to visit, and I had a wonderful time looking at the animals and taking lots of pictures... until my camera had reached memory card capacity, and then shortly after trying to erase a few pictures, the battery died. I made it about 3/4 of the way through the zoo before it died, and the only depressing part was that it died before being able to take pictures of the big kitties. My favorite part of the zoo, which was something I had never experienced before, was an area named "Villa Dracula." What it is is a smaller building which is very dimly lit inside and houses dozens of free flying bats! Which means I got to walk into an room where bats were flying around me and chirping like crazy! It was surprisingly fun and I now have a new fascination with bats. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures, first because it was too dark to take pictures, and second because my camera was dead. This area housed free-flying tropical birds as well on the other side of the building which was also very neat.

Ducky. There are many kinds of ducks in the world, but I always remember seeing pictures of this particular breed and wanting to see it in real life.

I have always loved flamingos.

A cozy red panda.

Big fishy.

Mississippi Alligators. In Munich, Germany. Who knew?

These were the biggest tortoises I have ever seen in my life. At least three to four feet long and two to three feet high.

A seal basking in the glow of the sun.

My grandma's favorite animal: giraffes!

No zoo would be complete without elephants.

Horseys in the children's part of the zoo.

Me petting a goat at the zoo.

And that just leaves today. I went to the grocery store to pick up milk for the family, as well as pick up the dry cleaning and "ein kleines Bauernbrot" (one small farm bread). Then I got to have a new experience after I dropped off the recycling, which was feed the goats. The host mother had been telling me that there is this path next to the recycling, and it leads to a very pretty area and passes goats. I had never really wanted to go over there. There's something creepy about following an unmarked trail next to recycling bins that passes a herd of goats, but I decided that I didn't want to compost the apples and purple cabbage the mother had left behind. So I went off onto the very muddy trail like Little Red Riding Hood, carrying a plastic bag full of goodies to deliver to a herd of goats. Fortunately, I didn't have to walk far, it was only a three minute walk, and there were the goats off to the left. Now, maybe it's just me, but feeding a herd of goats who are being loosely held in an area by a few very flimsy wires, and not having any idea who the goats belong to as there's no farm, just kind of a loose standing hut in the middle of the goat enclosure, made me a little nervous. I was half expecting a crazy farmer to appear out of nowhere, cursing at me in German telling me to stop feeding his goats and get off his property. Fortunately, my imagination is just a little wild, and when I got to the enclosure, a few goat heads popped up. They were all huddled in the middle. I looked at the edge of the enclosure and found quite a bit of thrown fruits and vegetables. I threw a quarter of the purple cabbage into the enclosure. A brown goat took a step towards me. I held out another quarter of the cabbage. A few more steps and a couple more goats did the same. I dropped the cabbage. Suddenly, all goat eyes were on me, and a herd of goats walked to the fence area where I was standing. I started trying to feed them the apples but they were all just so excited that the apples kept slipping into the enclosure. It was oddly exciting for me, and when I was done I found myself really wanting to own a small farm.

Expectant goats.

Hungry goats. Goats are kind of fun.

Not much else going on today. I woke up not feeling so great again and I think I will take a nap before working a bit on my German vocabulary. Tomorrow is church and homework day, and then it's back to normal routine. I'm not sure when the family will come back. I assume it's today, but they may arrive tomorrow too.


March is already around the corner. Spring will be here soon!

Enjoy!

Heute ist Faschingsdienstag

Hello!

Everyone should be forewarned: this will be a longer blog post, mainly because of the pictures that are included.


It has been a very interesting week, starting really with before Valentine's Day. The Sunday before, I went to the little boy's birthday party, where I quickly became the villain that was out to capture the little children. I built a Lego dinosaur with the littlest girl and that was actually a lot of fun. I also went out to the store and bought a domino set for the children during the week. The little boy loved it the best, and I would have put a mini video of the toppling dominoes, but this post is already going to be way too long. In addition to the party and the dominoes, all three children and I also created little pom-pom bugs complete with decorations and antennae and little legs. Lastly, the two girls and I built snowmen. It was actually an involved little process, as the oldest girl wanted her snowman to be a very certain way, frustrating the littlest girl and making me decide to build my own snowman the way that I like it.

Coco Loco, which is the place where we went to for the birthday party. Yes, I did actually climb all over that structure, but no, I did not go on the trampoline, even though I could have.

RAWR! (His eyes light up red.)

This was so much fun to do. I think I will be picking up more dominoes for even more toppling fun.

This is my snowman...

...and this is the girls' snowman.

Pom-pom bugs. Mine is the one on the right.

And then, late Thursday, I got sick. I could feel it coming all week. I couldn't concentrate as well, I was losing energy, and then my throat started killing me. I tried everything to stop it: vitamin C, zinc, fruits, juice, tea, vegetables... but sometimes your body just needs to get sick. It's actually good for your body to be able to heal itself without the use of over-the-counter aids, but that's a whole other blog post. This was problematic mostly because the family was leaving on Saturday to go for a week long ski vacation, meaning my vacation was really a recovery time. Well, it didn't matter anyway because the host mother literally gave me a list of things to do. Like, a handwritten, front and back list. Ranging from ironing sheets, including fitted, to cleaning out the refrigerators. Yes, plural. So I decided to organize my time accordingly, and took as much of Saturday and Sunday off as possible. What I ended up having was a cold that should probably win an award for the most debilitating cold on the earth, as I craved sleep and rest like a drug. I'm still not 100%, but at about 90-93% so I'm alright.

And then there's food. I have a hard time cooking when the family's around, so I have created a list of meals to make while they're gone, preserve, and eat later. So far I have made the world's greatest looking chicken pot pie, and some very, very tasty cashew butter cups. I can't take any credit for the pot pie recipe, as I found it here, with a crust recipe that I did alter a bit from the same website, however, I can take 100% of the credit for my cashew butter cups, as I didn't find one anywhere online and they ended up being delicious. I also plan on making a personal variation of tortellini soup, plus Brussels Sprouts Hash and Amish White Bread as meals. I also found a very fun, new way to do breakfast eggs, Eggs on a Cloud, which also happens to be delicious. Something else worth mentioning is a cultural treat called "Schokoladenkuss" which translates to "chocolate kiss." Now, being organic, I had never tried one, but then I discovered a box called "Bio-Kuss." Organic cultural treat. I had to have it. When I had originally asked the mother what they were, she told me that the inside consistency was kind of like a meringue, but not really. I discovered it's like a really, really soft marshmallow! Pictures below.

Bio-Kuss!

Marshmallow goodness.

Egg in a cloud. Happy egg.

My little tub of cashew butter cups.

Detail. They may not look perfect, but they taste amazing.

The world's most beautiful chicken pot pie.

My dinner: slice of delicious pot pie.

Last night I went to the Bavarian National Theater to see a ballet called Dornröschen or Sleeping Beauty. I have one word to describe the experience: fabulous! The theater is absolutely gorgeous, the ballet itself was absolutely gorgeous... it was all-around a wonderful time. Since I couldn't take any pictures of the ballet itself, I found a link to show a few pictures of the performance: Sleeping Beauty. But I did take pictures of the theater! I was so pleased with the performance, I do plan on going again. I will let everyone know what I decide!

Chandelier. Walked up a set of marble stairs to see this.

Beautiful hallway.

These rooms are all stunning.

Some of these pictures are a little blurry. I apologize for that, I had to take some of these pictures quickly.

This is the ceiling inside of the actual theater.

There were so many statues and paintings here that were so beautiful.

This is the view from my seat. Third row. Great spot to be in.

These seats are very old-fashioned, velvet covered. Very comfortable.

And then today I had the most amazing experience at the Munich Botanical Gardens. I had gone to see the tropical butterfly exhibit (which the pictures below show how much I enjoyed it), but I ended up going through the whole place on top of it. There are no words for me to describe my pure, childlike enjoyment at being in a room full of exotic butterflies floating through the air. I had honestly expected less butterflies, as I have been to butterfly exhibits with very few butterflies. But there were easily hundreds of exotic butterflies just everywhere. I could have lived in that room for the rest of my life. Then, when I finally had taken enough pictures, I really wanted to see the rest of the gardens. Breathtaking. There were so many plant species and tropical fruits growing, plus a room that was full of flowers. Not to mention fish and turtles! Shown below are mostly butterfly pictures, but I threw in some others as well.

Munich Botanical Gardens

I had never seen a green butterfly before today.

A butterfly landed on my hand within 10 minutes of me getting in there. I was so happy.

I love that tropical butterflies feed on fruit.

My whole life, I have always wanted to see a Morpho Butterfly.

I love this butterfly.

I love bluish butterflies.

I want camouflage like that.

Blue and orange. Pretty!

I loved this butterfly because it was purplish iridescent.

I got a really good shot of a butterfly eating the fruit.

I'm going to be a butterfly farmer someday I've decided.

They grow exotic fruit here! They also have cacao pods, oranges, taro, and lots more.

TURTLES!

Beautiful flowers.

As far as what's next for me this week, since I have until Saturday to myself, I plan on going out to shop, maybe visiting a palace, and just some general exploring. I have officially decided to spend a week in Paris, France during April, probably Easter week, since I have two weeks of vacation time. For my second week I'm looking at Athens, Greece during June. I'm also hoping to find some more craft things for the children.

I will post again soon, when I have more exciting things to talk about!