The house’s newest accessory

Little Matthew is not too happy with the houses’ newest accessory.  New gates. 

The combination of four levels of perfectly rock hard marble stairs and one daredevil little 14 month old was a tragedy waiting to happen.  For the last month we’ve constantly been on edge about where Matthew is or who has Matthew.  We’ve blockaded the stairs with moving boxes, and an unreliable gate from Georgia, not quite wide enough to fit the opening.  Meanwhile Matthew has spent all his energy in walking towards the stairs and trying to go ‘down’ while we’re not looking, turning around and sitting on them, smiling, WALKING up them while holding on to the iron rod siding, and giving us a near heart attack.  We even found Luke, trying to be helpful, holding his hand and helping him WALK down.  

We definitely needed some gates… and fast. 

Our German neighbors across the street are fantastic.  So welcoming, so nice.  They speak English pretty well and we are able to communicate great.  I asked her what she does with her toddlers and these awful stairs. (everyone here has three or four levels with these same stairs)  She got so excited and brought me over to her house so I could see her gates.  They are perfect.  It is a spring loaded white canvas that stays rolled up on one side.  After clicking the top, you release the canvas and pull it across and latch it shut.  My older kids can do it but Megan and Luke can’t… which is good.  They are out of the way when I don’t want them up and easy to put up when I want them.  Genius.

Sylvie gave us the popular German kids website ‘JAC-O’ and wrote down what they were called.  Then she helped me set up an account on the website so I could order them.  Instead of sending a confirmation code in an email they wanted to send one through the mail.   A couple days later, while waiting for the code to arrive, Sylvie found out that they were at a local German store for 10 Euro cheaper and came over to give me the details.  Not only that she called the store to reserve four, and looked up the address so we could type it into our GPS.  All I could do is hug her.  We went and got four gates that afternoon.  Two for the main floor and two for our floor (master bedroom, Ryan’s room and the little boys room).  Chris began to install them immediately but soon ran into a problem.  The walls here are made of cement and you need a nice BOSCH Hammer/drill to get the screws in.  Luckily, our neighbors came to the rescue again.  Joe helped Chris put the first one up using his collection of drills and screws and then let us borrow them for as long as we wanted. Thank you neighbors.

Now when we pull the white canvas across Matthew starts to whine and sometimes drop to the ground ready to show us the beginnings of a tantrum.  If I close it and leave him up while I go down then he cries but just because he’s heartbroken.  He points to the gate and says “down” (which also means up) and is one of the few words he says.  Yes, it’s an important word.  He’d rather climb on the stairs than do anything else.  But we’d rather have him safe and these gates are the answer.  Halleluiah.

{Quick tour of the picture:  That’s our front door at the end.  On the left hand side of the rug is a door to our half bath and on the right is our small shoe cabinet.  Right after the rug and second doorway you turn to the left (right in the picture) to our kitchen. Behind that hall door is a little closet.  They don’t really have closets here so that little closet is a big deal.  We keep cleaning supplies, jackets and will have something organized for backpacks soon.  Obviously, that white thing is our gate and the other one on the other stairs is installed but not pulled across at the moment.  And look at all that white tile… just imagine me sweeping and mopping like a crazy woman.}

Our very own bike path

After two weeks of focusing all our attention to our house, unpacking, organizing, rearranging, installing, thinking, hanging, shopping, purchasing, and setting up we decided to venture outside.  No, we’re not done with the house, but it is now very livable and we can slow down and relax again.

We live in St. Leon, a very small German town… on the very edge of town.  Four houses down is where our bike path starts – the bike path that wanders through golden hay, corn fields and our very own St. Leon lake. Our kids had been to the nearby park everyday and had used the bike paths… but this was the first time we really explored. 

Katie and Emily rode their bikes, and for most of our walk were way out in front, stopping occasionally to pick blackberries while waiting for us to catch up.  Megan rode her scooter.  Luke rode his motorized jeep… handed down to him from Megan and Emily before her.  He loves it.  Absolutely loves it.  And he loves to have his picture taken and is ready with smiles every time I pick up my camera.  Only a couple times did we have to remind him to “Look where you are going” instead of stare at me hoping for another picture.

The funny thing was all the odd stares we got from other Germans out for a ride or stroll.  We’ve learned they don’t have power wheels toys like this here so everyone that passed us was completely amazed and had to turn back for several more looks.

Matthew was perfectly content in his stroller.

See those houses?  That’s our town.

 

Katie’s blackberries.

We took a peak through the fence at the St. Leon Lake.  Just a couple Euro to get our whole family in.  Looks fabulous.   Love this little town.

The Partnach Gorge… in Garmisch

On Saturday morning we set off to hike the Gorge.  We parked at the Olympic ski jumping stadium and walked in right at the beginning of some big championships.  Yes, in 90 degree weather the Austrian ski team and whoever else were skiing down the jump which looked like fake grass.  then as soon as they landed the handsome young skiers unzipped their ski suits and walked around bare chested with their skis in hand.  We watched for awhile and then headed towards the gorge.

For 15 Euro we climbed aboard a horse drawn carriage to take us the couple kilometers up to the base of the gorge.  The carriage was squishy already so we had Emily and Katie sit up front with the big German driver.  20 seconds later, our driver asked another couple to come for a ride.  As Chris and I thought, “Where are they going to sit?” the big German driver picked Emily up and put her on his lap and the couple squished Katie over.  Emily was silently but extremely annoyed… poor girl.

The gorge  was incredible.  The low light and spraying water made it tricky to get clear pictures so I only took a few but I wished Mike was here to really capture it… or that I had a camera that could go to 3200 ISO… hmmm. 

Inside the gorge the temperature dropped drastically and we welcomed it.  Chris had Matthew in the backpack and I held little Luke’s hand as we walked on the pathway that followed the windy river through a series of narrow damp tunnels.  It was gorgeous. 

 

On the other side we found  rocky shore and ate Pringles and Honey Chex Mix (thanks Nikole for our new favorite snack) and drank Gatorade while the kids threw rocks in the water.

We walked back the several km’s to the van (instead of horse and carriage much to the disappointment of Luke and I since he didn’t want to walk and I had to carry him.)  Once back towards the van we checked out the Alpine Slide and each of us did it twice.  Really fun.  Back at the hotel we went swimming again, got ready and went to the hotel buffet for prime rib.  It was fabulous.  The kids filled up on soft serve ice cream with sprinkles and a few other buffet essentials.  Both nights we ate here we had great soups, which reminded us of dining on cruises. Must do that again.

After dinner we drove around and found a big park with lots of grass, pathways, trees and flowers.  Ryan, Katie and Dad played soccer while Emily, Megan, Luke and I played silly games and entertained Matthew in the stroller.  Another fun day.

Lake, food and an evening out... still in Garmisch.

After our adventure up to the Alpspitze, we drove to the Riessersee, a small lake at the base of the mountains.  We walked around the whole thing with a stop in the middle to throw rocks. 

Katie girl could not stop making ‘nature jewelry’ the whole day.

It was interesting to ‘try’ to read the Olympic information here.  Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany hosted the 1936 Winter Olympic Games. (The games were officially opened by A. Hitler)   When this lake froze in the winter, they used it to cut square blocks of ice to make the bobsled track just a km or so away. What a lot of work.  They also held the men’s hockey games on this lake.  (That year Great Britain upset 1932 gold medalists: Canada).  The Bobsled Museum was open but the kids were dying to eat and get back to the hotel’s pool!

We picked a German/Bavarian restaurant downtown Garmicsh to eat lunch called Werdenfelserhof. At 2:30 in the afternoon we had the whole restaurant to ourselves.  We’ve heard the German dining experience is slow and can take hours so we prepared ourselves but other than the hotel pool beckoning to the kids, we had nowhere to be anyway.  We sat at a large wooden table and ordered drinks.  We should have searched the menus for the price before we ordered but we were so thirsty we just went ahead and ordered – plus the tap water isn’t great.  We paid 4 euro per drink! – that’s like five bucks a drink without refills. Mental note: don’t go thirsty to a German restaurant? OR don’t take family of 8 to a German restaurant.  Yes, that’s better.

Chris ordered the recommended “Farmer’s Platter”  which consisted of smoked meat, roast pork, belly pork, sausage, sourcabbage and a bread dumpling.  Whew.  He liked it, but had a hard time finishing the whole thing.

I ordered Asparagus and Hollandaise sauce on Schnitzel (with roasted potatoes on the side).  Very good.

The kids ordered a cream schnitzel with noodles.  Their schnitzel and sauce was delish.  They also ordered some wieners and pomme frites (french fries) to share.  We give our first real German meal two big thumbs up.

We walked down Lugwigstrasse for awhile before heading back to the pool. 

Later that evening, after the kids were in bed and Ryan and Katie were babysitting, Chris and I headed back downtown for an evening stroll.  I can’t even tell you how fabulous it is to leave our kids back at the hotel.  We wandered hand in hand (with no stroller) through the shopping district, although all the stores had closed by now.  Instead we found great gelato, and sat down on a bench under the big tree in the center of the cobblestone square.

      

Up to Alpspitze

Friday morning we headed straight to the base of the Alpspitze… the second highest peak in Germany.  We boarded the Alpspitbahn gondola which took us to Osterfederkopf… the look out area.  As the gondola ascended, the view got more and more spectacular.  Like the photo above, the distant mountains and town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen looked blurry and almost fake because of their distance.

 

Osterfelderkopf mountain station sits a breathtaking 2050 meters above sea level.     New this very July, is two protruding steel look out balconies hovering over the 1000 meter abyss.  I’m sure they test out this sort of thing before letting visitors on, but I could definitely feel a little movement while out at the end and it does something to your stomach.  It didn’t help that Luke was bouncing up and down.  In fact, one man wouldn’t even walk out on it after seeing Luke’s little bounces gently move the lookout tower.

After checking out the views from the overhangs we headed over to the grassy area for another great view.

 

From the mountain station are hiking trails down and also up to the Alpspitze peak. One of the highest peak in Germany…2628 meters above sea level.   We saw lots of hikers.  In fact, almost everyone travelling up the gondola had hiking boots on.  They are very serious about their hiking boots and hiking poles here. Mental note:  must buy hiking shoes.  Within about five minutes we reached a patch of snow.  It wasn’t cold so I don’t know how the snow was even still there, but Chris and the kids had fun making snowballs and throwing them at each other.  The hike was gorgeous and open to beautiful views all around us.  We hiked until we reached a turnoff and small trail dead-end where we stopped to eat Pringles and have a drink.  Chris took Matthew off his back and then he and Ryan and Katie climbed the rock walls to see if they could get a look at the Zugspitze… the tallest peak in Germany (2962 meters).

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is where the little kids and I waited while Chris and the big kids did their climbing.

This is the view of the Zugspitze, which of course this picture doesn’t do justice.  When they hiked down it was my turn… see below.  It was so impressive.

    

After the hike we stopped and relaxed on the grass for awhile and then Chris made us sing ‘The Hills are Alive…’ for the video camera while we twirled around.  It was a perfect morning.  A plaque at the mountain station  captured what someone wrote in a journal, years ago, having just climbed to the peak… “ What should I write? – I cannot think, on this mountain as I rest, of anything but silent awe, and feeling blessed.” Max from Munich.   Amen, Max.