Last month Big Sister started 2nd grade. After all the fanfare of becoming a 1st grader, the quiet start to 2nd grade was a relief. She walks to school with a friend from her class. They already know the way so they can make it on their own and I know most of the parents and some of the staff from last year, so I can too. She knows her teacher and has the same classroom as before. Apart from a few things that needed to be replaced, she already had her supplies and so the first day of school was like a reunion instead of a plunge into freezing cold water. In Bavaria 2nd graders have about one ..read more

Hello! It’s been quite a long time. When I last wrote, first grade had just begun–now we are in the homestretch. So many unknowns have been uncovered- Verbs and nouns, pages of reading, addition and subtraction. The kids in the neighbourhood walk to school and back without adults and without fear or trepidation. Lucky for me though, Big Sister still gets excited when I offer to meet her half way. This time of year is sentimental for lots of other reasons too, many of which are connected to America’s Independence Day. Growing up I loved celebrating the 4th of July each summer. The heat, the fir ..read more

In the year or so that it took to capture these four shots, we weathered multiple lock downs. We finished with diapers, and someone lost a tooth. We looked for ways to love each other better. To be slower to anger and quicker to laugh. We made ice cream (a lot). We learned to listen to the rhythm of the earth. To breath deeper. The drumming of our feet on the ground with this tree as melody and then as back beat. Spring was full of unknowns— a going inside just as the buds were bursting forth. Then summer, quiet and hopeful, magic with the recognition of the present. Fall was majestic in i ..read more

Hey everybody! Ice Cream Day is coming up this weekend and that got me excited about planning our trip back to North America this summer. As a way to rev up our engines for this year’s Ice Creamery Tour I’m taking a look back at how we finished up the last one. But we before we get to that we need your help–This year we are spending time in Canada as well as the United States–visiting the cities of Quebec, Montreal and Toronto in addition to various regions in NY, PA, DC, MD and VA in the United States. You can help us create the map for our ice creamery tour by sharing your favourite creameri ..read more

In this, our 8th year of marriage, Thorsten and I invested in an Italian espresso machine. It was the dead of winter and we wanted a little taste of Italy. The machine arrived, shiny and silver, all metal and dials and levers. After a few days of admiring it on the counter, it was clear that in order to enjoy good espresso, we needed to learn how to work it. For a novice like me, making a good espresso has turned out to be somewhat complicated. There are a number of steps, the first one being: choose the right beans. After that, begin solving the mystery of how finely the espresso must be grou ..read more

In 2021 parts of the world began to re-open. We kept our eyes peeled and once it seemed safe enough to travel we hopped a flight from Munich to DC. I love writing it so casually– it as if one can just “hop” on a flight with two kids and a foreign husband during a pandemic when Europeans are banned from entering the USA. We prepped the kids for the 8 hours of mask wearing with short, television mask-wearing parties at home and we prepped ourselves by taking along every imaginable document proving that Thorsten really was married to an American or the parent of one. We didn’t know what to expec ..read more

In our family we have established a rhythm. Every week day I am like a goalie from 5-7am. Thorsten has his quiet time. If the girls are up, I snuggle with them or let them play until 7. At 7 we get everyone ready for school–dressed, fed, hair and teeth brushed. I pack their snacks and he drives them. Getting them out of the house on time is a bit of a circus so I always breath a sigh of relief when they are gone and then get on with my own morning routine. Yesterday Thorsten had something to do so I drove them. It was really no problem. But when I got home I decided against my normal morning r ..read more

This month we celebrated our first born going to first grade. I know that it’s a right of passage and I remember the changes that came with being a first grader but I don’t remember it being such a big deal. In Bavaria most elementary schools are walking distance to the communities they serve. Some students, who live further away, take the public bus to school, but in general, students are strongly encouraged to walk (or later to bike) and parents are gently but clearly encouraged to let them. The idea is to walk with your first-grader so that they can learn the route and get used to it. After ..read more

The last time Jola and I cooked together was Christmas Eve. We cooked a goose with all the Franconian trimmings. In November and December we had made some time to cook together too, while the girls were in preschool, and we were both so excited to be getting back to it after a long hiatus because of diapers and nursing, working and just no time. Those of you who have been reading along since the beginning know that before I started a chronicle of pandemic family living, this blog was an adventure about moving to a foreign land and creating a family–embracing the culture and the people. You’ll ..read more

From Ohio, we headed south toward Kentucky with a few stops for the person in the car who thought maybe I said whiskey trail and not ice cream tour…well on a road trip I guess there should be something for everyone. Having had such good luck finding Algamesis Bros in Cincinnati, I decided to make a point of reading up on the local ice creameries in each city and making a game out of it for the rest of our trip. Upon arrival in Lexington, we were need of a quick dinner. One of the ice cream places on my list was in something called The Distillery District. I wasn’t sure what this meant, but the ..read more