Based on a suggestion of a reader - we have asked our different family members to take a shot at writing a blog entry. Here's our first 'guest'

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The Guest Blogger

Julia McNicholas

Friday:

I had a first date with a kid named Nick. I am a traitor to all the Stolfis. He is from Michigan. We went to the Starbucks of Germany then to the canal. We fed the ducks and sat along the water.

Saturday:

Oktoberfest!!! We left at 9:30 to go meet some friends to watch the parade go through Munich. All five of us in our Trachten (Yes, Mom did get a dirndl) (OMG!!). All of us in our Trachten and then the other family in jeans and sweatshirts. We met the friends outside of McDonald’s. We got breakfast as our friends waited outside. We were soon out in the sun. During the parade, we were forced to sit in the shade and were freezing. When the freezing torture and the wonderful parade ended, we walked to the Weisn. There we ate sugared nut, ice cream, and cotton candy. We also went on many rides again and again. I was mostly thinking isn’t it great to be a kid as Mom refused to go on any rides or have some of my 36in. long and 6in. wide cotton candy while the boys ate their ice cream. My favorite rides were log flume and the spinning ride. All in all the perfect start to Oktoberfest. Careful Bebe! We’re professionals now!

Sunday street party

This weekend was super weather and we took advantage of it. Golf Saturday morning, mountain ropes course Saturday afternoon, Daphne and I bicycled to dinner Saturday night, and Sunday we went to a huge street fair in Munich.

The kids started with some bungy / trampoline fun...
...and David and Brian tried a new game that is a combination of tennis and badmitten (the shuttle is different and goes much faster.)
The fair was trying to get people to be more active and do things to be more "green". Here the kids are trying this popular activity called slacklining. People tie very strong straps to two trees (normally) and then try to walk along the strap by keeping their balance. It's hard.
My favorite was the "sand rugby" area in the middle of the steet that was hosted by the munchen rugby club. It's touch rugby in the sand. It actually looked like a ton of fun.

In addition to trying all sorts of other things, like stilts, they served beer and sausages.

High Climbing Garden

This past Saturday was a beautiful day in Bavaria. Clear, sunny and crisp, the Germans call this wiesn wetter - Octoberfest weather.
We took advantage of the weather to get outside and have another adventure. The kids and I went south one hour to the mountains where we took a ski lift up the mountain. The view was great.
Once on top of the mountain - we went to the 'high climbing garden' - a ropes course through the trees.
We had very professional harnesses and helmets followed by a detailed safety course in German. It was one of those times where the safety instructor spoke for 5 minutes straight to our friend who then turned to us and said, "...be careful."
Once safely prepared, we headed into the trees.
They had 6 different courses for varying degrees of challenge and height.
You can see that our kids jumped right in and didn't have any trouble with the heights.
Here Julia is walking across a connection made from hanging ropes.
While a bit tentative at first, both Julia and David took off on their own after the first hour to try different courses. (The only way to take pictures is if I am on the ground - no cameras in the air.)
The favorite part was the long zip line at the end of one course. Here Brian is coming down the line.
While resting at the top, the view down the mountain was incredible. There was a beer garden available - of course.
Here was my favorite shot of the day. The kid knows how to have fun.

Golf

The kids have been taking golf lessons for the past several months. Every Saturday morning brings a class with the local PGA pro from the UK (Mark).
This weekend brought warm weather and sunshine. You'll notice Julia has a nice swing and David is swinging like he's holding a Louisville slugger.
The kids seem to enjoy it and when it is a sunny day, everyone is happy.
Brian takes after his father. He comes home each weekend to tell me how far he drove the ball on his best drive. This weekend - 120 meters. The pro calls him Brian Furyk because the swing is ugly but he hits it a ton.

Once he gives up on his mini-golf, we will be able to go have fun father/son time by blasting inaccurate drives off the range and then calling it a day.

Julia's Field Trip

Julia went on the traditional 8th grade field trip this past week. The difference is it's not a trip to Washington DC to see the capital and all the sites.
Here they go to Italy to the mountains to spend time together as a group bonding and learning to trust in one another through hiking, biking, and ropes courses.
We sent her off thinking about summer but the weather in the mountains turned out to be quite cold. You can see many of the peaks had snow. The pictures she took show spectacular scenery.
She told us they went to this castle and had various exercises including rappelling. If you look closely, they all had to rappel out the top window of the castle down to the courtyard.
There was also mountain biking and lots and lots of hiking.

One night they had a heavy snow fall (for September) and you can see from the pictures it made hiking more difficult.

While we were happy to see such wonderful landscape in her pictures, it was also nice to see that she was able to experience such a different trip than she might get in the US.
I love these pictures that show 1. how high up the mountain you rise and look down on the villages and 2. how the kids have to hike without ten foot safety nets, helmets, and full body protection.


Julia loved it and seems to be growing more confidence every day.

Fleas & more

We hope everyone in the USA is having a great holiday weekend. We will be wishing we were with you as we go to work on Monday. No Labor day here - everyday is labor day.

We try to have new adventures as frequently as possible. Sunday brought a partly sunny forecast so Daphne and our friends decided to visit the largest flea market in the city. After a late start (we must have missed all the good stuff), we arrived. Now - the flea market looked the same as every flea market I have ever driven past/visited - but Daph insisted this was new because she has never been to a flea market.

I will say that the age of the average item for sale was much older than in the USA. Makes sense.
Daphne's big score was this "authentic" cow bell. Avid blog readers will appreciate her spectacular excitement juxtaposed to my furrowed brow and questions about what "authentic" means. She was no longer interested in my intellectual curiosity long before I asked why we needed a cow bell. I don't need to tell you that there was a beer garden in the center of the flea market.
Brian's big score was a complete set of 20 European/German trucks. It's Christmas in September.
You should have seen his face when I was negotiating with the guy- trying to lower the price- and said, "...we can't pay that..."
I think he would have been happier if I was selling George to the butcher. Once we secured the trucks - all was OK again.

We left the flea market and went to a local park. Daphne is posing in front of a "creature house" which was built for owls, bats, and small birds. There is also space for frogs and snakes near the bottom. We spend so much more time outside than we ever did in the US.

Finally - we walked along the river and just enjoyed the beautiful day.

Of course, there was a bier garden along the path by the river as well.
After heading home, we discovered that our little square or 'platz' by our apartment had organized a small festival with food, beer/wine, and entertainment. Daph bought the kids some Nutella crepes and we sat to just enjoy the atmosphere. The two man band played mixed German / English songs and the kids loved it.
The boys couldn't believe how many people belted out John Denver's "Country Road" but this is a HUGE hit at Oktoberfest. Our real surprise came when the group all got up to dance to Achy Breaky Heart. I swear - not only was it surreal to have three dozen 60+ year olds dancing to this in Germany, but our kids started discussing the connection to Hannah Montana and the US influence on culture in the world.
Whoa.