The kids are becoming more German

Well, it is starting to happen. The kids are becoming more German by the day. We went to a restaurant last night to have dinner and some beers with some friends (one of them had a birthday Wednesday). The plan was to sit outside in the Biergarten and let the kids play at the park across the bike path. Unfortunately, we have a weather front tormenting us, and it started storming like crazy right before we left. We got to the restaurant (after arguing with Briana about whether or not the last tram we were on, which was one of the really old ones, was actually a bus. She wouldn't buy in to it being a tram). We were trying to decide what to get the kids to eat. We were talking to Aiden about getting him some fish sticks. He said yes, and then looked at me quizzically and asked me what fish sticks were. So I said "Fischstäbchen". Which brought an obvious look of comprehension and an, "Oh, I love fish sticks." That is really weird.

It quit raining by the time we had finished dinner, but the restaurant didn't want to start service outside, so we paid up and took the rest of our beer out with us to chit chat where it was much cooler (gotta love a country without A/C) and we could keep an eye on the kids. My friend Michael had brought his son (who is about to be 10, but is pretty small for his age) with him. Now that Aiden is speaking German, they get along quite well. We were able to have a pretty relaxing end to the day. We are planning on meeting them there again on Sunday afternoon. It is supposed to be dry tomorrow, so it should make for a nice afternoon/evening.

I went and got a haircut today. My hair is finally long enough that Sarah couldn't really tell it had been cut. I can. The back grows pretty fast. Or at least, the back is the most noticeably in need of cutting first. I had gone to a cheap place the last couple of times, but they just weren't quite cutting it. Pun intended. I paid a little over twice as much today, but she seems to have done exactly what I wanted. Which is pretty impressive considering my pathetic command of hair cutting German. The most important part was keeping everything long while trying to make it look like the back half of my head was part of the rest of my head. I was getting powerful close to looking like I had a mullet while having long hair all over. That is quite a feat, I admit, but not really one I want to be known for. We'll see how it turns out over the next few days. Hopefully it is good enough. I only get my hair cut once every few months, so I am hoping I have found someone who has done a good enough job that I can go even longer.

To continue on the hair cut front, I bought some clippers today. Sarah has been using my beard trimmer to cut Aiden's hair. My beard trimmer sucks. So I got something that is better designed for it. Aiden was pretty insistent that we cut his hair like his friend Patrice's. We can't go quite that short (he apparently has none), but I did go over it enough to get him into the army at the least. He is pretty stoked.

OK, to finish this off, here are some pictures. Enjoy it, Mom.



Here's Aiden jumping on a trampoline at a festival.



This is another one from our visit to the castle park while Sarah's folks were in town. This is the water feature the kids can play with.



This is another one of the visit to the castle park. These ping pong tables are all over Karlsruhe. They are at enough of the parks that we go to that I broke down and bought some paddles and balls. We have actually had quite a lot of fun playing.



This is a shot of the kids with their friends Vojta (behind B) and Michelle, Vojta's little peanut of a sister.



Here's a shot of us sitting around the table after the races. That's Vojta, the guy who makes me ride so much, in the white Iron Man cap.