Phew! Bear turns 6, Easter and Windmill, Zoo and Castle

Before any festivities could begin haircuts were in order. Luckily Grandma isn't too fussy about the scissors she is asked to use and the small folk lined up for new 'dos...and Grandad too (who had to look respectable for the coming cruise). If you look closely you will see the Monkey has a fat lip after falling from the slippery dip at kindergarten the day before in a face-first plunge to the bottom. It nicely highlights the cut that will leave a scar on her eye from a fall a few weeks before. Am seriously thinking of enforcing the wearing of a full face helmet.

Then the fun began. The Bear turned 6 and was lucky enough to be visited by a whole sway of the family even though we are on a different continent at the moment. Bless retired grandparents. We have officially moved into the lego phase and the Bear had been dropping hints for weeks about the lego castle he wanted. Everytime he mentioned it I had to make sure not to do the dance of joy as I had already bought it.

Two cakes, a visit to the icecream cafe and about three burritos later the Bear's 6th birthday drew to an end and he fell into bed a little bit older and with the well wishes of many floating in his head and many plans for his wonderful booty of presents. A huge thank you to everyone for the thoughts and gifts sent to our Bear.

As it was Easter holidays, amazing weather (over 20 degrees C and sunny) and grandparents were here, the Bear had to be happy with just looking at the cover of his lego box for a few days as his mother (yes me) kept saying, "Don't open it until we get things sorted or you'll lose pieces". As a diversion we caught the boat to the zoo where we sent a lovely day wandering from playground to playground, bumped into Fraulein L and family, ate ice cream and occasionally saw some animals.

When folk come from such a long way and you have saved up all the activites until spring, a full programme is in order so off we went again (on public transport of course as neither of us want to drive here) to see a castle. By sheer chance this castle had the exact same drawbridge as the one the Bear had begun building from his Lego....thankfully I had allowed building to begin.

Someone bought the Bear a sword...

Found the full face helmet we were looking for. Should prevent any future facial injuries.

There was about twenty busts that lined the way between two castles and the Mouse was fascinated by this particular one and kept saying "Papa/Daddy".

I blame the goatie beard and the nose.

And still the sun shone and it didn't rain.

So Easter Sunday -after discovering the easter bunny had been very nice and left not only eggs in the garden but special treats in the house - we grabbed baskets, hopped on the bikes and headed to the Muhlenhof (windmill) for an Egg Hunt.

All the foreigners where surprised by the Easter Bunny's dedication to his work in hiding the eggs and the use of real eggs. Efforts were made to eat them even though this Mama feared E. Coli and (thanks to Tante J) I now know what the bug looks like. So the 2 or 3 egg per kid rule wasn't hard to adhere to and we even re-hid some.

One brave soul made it through the egg and was still able to eat icecream later.

They bred 'em tough in the US.

Three reasons to find a windmill and move in.

As the festivities drew to an end we where lucky enough to spend a wonderful afternoon in the garden of Familie N where more cake was eaten and the weather was so warm that the "Dancing Clown" sprinkler came out and the kids ran under the falling drops squealing with delight. A wonderful weekend drew to an end and the littlest one just couldn't stay awake any longer. Even when she was taken out of the bike trailer and put on the lawn.

Just when we thought all magical visits were over, the wobbly tooth finally fell out and was cleaned so well that it earned two gold coins from the Tooth Fairy.

Luckily I live in the age of computers and I have avoided smudging the margins with the chocolate coated marzipan that quickly disappeared whilst I was writing this post.