Taking Daddy to the Lake

As it felt kind of warm during our morning run in the nearby forest (the one you can see in the background of the pictures below), we had a quick change of plans for the afternoon and decided to go to the Unterbacher Lake in the afternoon rather than taking a trip to the city. Sophie loved the idea when we told her after preschool.

 It was perfect this time. Enough kids for Sophie to play with, but otherwise pretty empty even though it was sunny and warm. 

Plus, finally Daddy had the opportunity to join us.

Everyone Had the Same Ideas

The hottest weekend of the year. 

We decided to cycle through the forest for a cool down at the Unterbacher See together with our neighbors Mark, Andrés, and Adrian.

 However, this was the line to enter the beach park. These must all be people who had circled in their car for ages to find parking only to be standing in this line now. 

 There was no way I was going to stand in that line, so we headed to the nearby playground in the forest to stay somewhat cool.

 Andrés and Sophie playing frog.

 After a couple of hours in the woods, we gave the lake another try as we were desperately longing for a dip in the water. The line was much shorter, it was still very busy inside, but manageable and above all the kids had a blast and wore themselves out. 

See if you can spot Sophie in this picture above.

There's a good way to handle the heat. 

At the Lake

One last warm and summery day before a predicted cool down. We arranged to go back to the nearby Unterbacher See this time with our neighbors Sissi and Jessica from China. When I apologized to the girls' mother, Chris, that it might be crowded there, she reminded me that in Shanghai this kind of place would be absolutely packed. It's all just a matter of how you look at it, I guess.

Anyway, the girls were happily playing in the water for hours, just coming back to us on a regular basis to refuel on snacks. 

Unfortunately we had to leave early as some dark thunderclouds were approaching rapidly and they were closing the beach. 

The girls continued playing inside and Sophie and I were invited for a delicious home-made Chinese vegetable and noodle soup. 

Hamburg

Our biggest trip during Sophie's break from preschool was up to see my brother and his family in Hamburg. Weatherwise it still feels more like September than July. Brr!

 Sophie is becoming a pro at taking train journeys.

On Friday morning Sophie and I met with my childhood friend, Britta, for brunch. Britta also has a daughter, Hannah, but unfortunately she was visiting her grandmother. 

In the afternoon we picked up Thore and Talea from preschool/daycare, went home and played princess and knights.

 The weather was improving on Saturday: time to head outside. First to the local playground.

 Then we went to the Landungsbruecken (shipping piers) in St. Pauli, where we sat on the steps and ate   herring fish rolls and watched the athletes cycle past on their triathlon.

 From the piers, we took the ferry (sorry too crowded for a good picture) to the Elbe beach, where it was time for dessert.

 We watched some impressive ships sail by 

 Even a Mississippi riverboat.

 Sophie grabbed my camera and took a picture of Talea.

On Sunday, I wanted Sophie to be able to run around outside as much as possible before we were going to jump back on the train home. We explored yet another playground (this one was big) in a park called Planten un Blomen.

Big slides, tunnels, ladders, mountains...

 The three crazy kids.

 A derelict building right next to the playground made for an interesting backdrop.

 As did the TV tower.

Thore, Alexandra, Stefan and Talea.

Thank you for having us and see you again soon.

A Day by the Lake

The weather is somewhat nice, it's a Saturday, and there is a big lake with two beaches nearby. Needless to say, we joined our neighbors, jumped on our bikes, and rode a couple of miles through the forest to the Unterbacher See. Even though the temperatures were not scorching hot, it was a perfect place for kids. A beach with a water play area, shallow water and life guards. 

 Sophie and her friend Andrés spent three hours in the water and on the beach.

What a perfect afternoon in fun company.

The kids were so tired by the end of it that they fell asleep in their bike seats on the way home. 

Did I mention that there is a nudist beach right next to the beach we went to? Had a not so nice view of some fat old Germans airing out their jewels. The hot young guys must not have been out that day. 

A Very Special Guest

Back in Duesseldorf, Andrew back to work, back to routine - except that we had a very special visitor coming from a long way away. My very good friend Birgit was in Germany for a couple of weeks on a visit from Australia. She managed to add a few days to her business trip and spent them with us. 

 One day we went to Duesseldorf's largest book fair right on the Königsallee. At one stand, they were giving out tongue tattoos. Very entertaining!

 We did not really manage to browse the books and watch Sophie at the same time (it was probably a good thing for my wallet), but we found a tent with children's story time and a stand with very elaborate instruments. When Sophie recognized one of the odd-looking instruments from preschool, we found out that they were actually supplying her school with them. Sophie was fascinated by the collection of gongs. Must sign her up for music classes!

After the book fair, Birgit took us on a tour of her favorite shops and boutiques in town. She used to live here.

In one of the shops, we ran into Daddy! (I wish I had had my camera ready.) He had left for work early in the morning to be on call 3 hours from here. As he arrived he was given another 24 hours off and decided to turn around and surprise Sophie. Success!

With Andrew home, we had a babysitter for a girls' night out. Thank you!

 The next day, Andrew was really on his way, and we decided to explore another part of Duesseldorf: Kaiserswerth. It housed the rebuilt ruins of a once large and impressive castle, the Kaiserpfalz (imperial palace), built in 1045. It lay right by the shore of the river Rhine. For Sophie, the ruins made an excellent spot for some climbing (she is my daughter after all). 

 Balancing along the outline of the former keep. She could not get enough of this place.

 We managed to bribe her away from the rocks with the promise of a waffle at the adjacent beer garden.  We are in Germany after all. 

 Then we scrambled down to the Rhine shore. We spotted a lot of shells on the beach and many excellent skipping stones. Unfortunately, we also found a lot of glass, so we dragged Sophie back to the bike path.

 Two elves.

Sophie finished off the day in style with a good old water fight in the garden with Lina.

Blue sky in Duesseldorf.

Sophie's Favorite Day of the Vacation

When we asked Sophie at the end of our vacation what was her favorite part of our trip, she said it was the day at the beach. I can see why. I will let the overload of pictures in this post speak for themselves.

This is the view to which we woke up in the morning.

As the weather forecast was better for a beach day today, we decided to postpone our trip to Skye to the next day and headed to the local beach after breakfast.

Sophie started out in her full outfit of clothes.

I quickly took off her skirt when I saw that she was actually venturing into the water.

The beach used for the movie "Local Hero."

Taking off another layer. Ben, the dog, was enjoying the beach too.

And another layer gone. Looking for shells.

Just looking at this, it could almost be Hawaii, except that we had the beach almost to ourselves.

We just rescued a fish who had got stuck on the rocks.

There was a local agricultural fair behind the beach today. We hiked over the dunes to have a look.

There were girls doing some stunt horseback riding.

Sophie was clearly enthralled.

Yet another face painting.

The Highland cow.

It was like the movie "Babe."

After we had fueled up on ice cream, drinks and snacks, we returned to the beach to slowly stroll back to the car.

This really is Scotland.

Later we cleaned up from the beach and dressed for our very fancy dinner at Arisaig House. This was the view from the back terrace where we had our drinks.

There were only about six tables in the entire restaurant.

My dessert: lavender-scented panna cotta with home-made peach vodka. 

It was terrible!

On our drive home.

Mallaig harbor

Scotland showed itself from its best side. Truly a memorable day.