Lyons Cub has found his favorite indoor playground! Having tried out GeckoFun in Burscheid, Hoplop in Cologne, and Oki Doki in Langenfeld, we went to Trampolino in the city of Hilden, and this place had something of everything and some additional attractions the other places lacked. Let’s see how those four indoor playgrounds compare. Attractions…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. It’s the first of October today. Have you carved a pumpkin yet with your kiddo? We bought an already painted one with…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. [No worries, nobody will buy this!!] What’s it like to grow a Hatch’em Dinosaur Egg? Ehem, this is the first negative review…
We were at Duisburg Zoo yesterday, when the sun was shining, so today, when it was rainy and cool, we JUST wanted to go to the post office in town, but we happened upon the fall festival… And here it goes. Lyons Cub went bungy jumping (which he already enjoyed as a toddler), fishing for…
This was Lyons Cub’s third zoo visit today! The first one was Nashville Zoo in 2019, and the second one was 2021, when we went with grandma to the Wuppertal Zoo. Alas, it was very hilly there and not easy to navigate with a senior and a stroller. It was quite exhausting, although the variety…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Ahhh, the fascination of little kids with sand and water 😉 Here we are at the park with the climbing animals and…
What’s it like to invest in green energy shares for your child? I want to prepare for harder times to come (especially with regard to the energy crisis fueled by the war in Ukraine, and the climate crisis), so that my son has a nest egg to fall back on when he needs it in…
Today was Lyons Cub’s third visit to an indoor playground, and this one was special! After having experienced GeckoFun in Burscheid and Hoplop in Cologne, we visited Oki Doki in Langenfeld. While GeckoFun was small and nice for parents to attend because they could watch their kids from a comfy seating area, Hoplop was huge…
Today, we are reviewing an old Parker Brothers game from the 1970s. It’s called Mind Maze, and I bought it for my husband David from an online antiques seller some time around 2015 or so. It says it’s for 8 years and upward, but I played it with my 4-year-old son. It worked a couple…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. When we visited an art gallery in Langenfed to buy two paintings from Ivan Beslic, Lyons Cub also got a collector’s item…
Today, Lyons Cub proved his bravery — he held an albino king python for the first time in his life!!! Given that his mommy used to be a vendor at reptile shows as LZRDGRL in Wheaton/Chicago, Indianapolis, Sheperdsville, and the Memphis Repcticon from 2010-2014, he totally steps into her shoes, heehee… This was his third…
Yay, this is our third day in the Irrland theme park already! We have already climbed on haystacks, fed goats and chickens, raced on tricycles, climbed on towers, and jumped on trampolines on our first day in the park, and inspected planes, gone down giant slides, played with connecting pipes on sand hills, slid down…
Wow, this is already our second day in the Irrland amusement park! If you missed out on what we did on our first day in the Irrland park, check it out here. Today, we’re off to see 12 new attractions. We spent a nice, quiet night in the Parkhotel and swam in their pool in…
On a hot summer day, pack your kids and go to a splash pad for a little refreshment… That’s what we did, and what’s more, Lyons Cub met his friend Giulianna and her daddy there. The kids had fun playing in the sand, climbing and sliding on the playground, and my son was the most…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. When we went to shop for groceries at ALDI’s, we saw a cool LEGO Ninjago robot (Zane’s power-up Mechc EVO), and I…
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. OMG, Lyons Cub is dry!!! Even at night. It took 4.5 years — well, he had been almost dry when he started…
This was Lyons Cub’s second visit to a circus. The first one he ever went to was Circus Liberty, where he got to ride a horse and feed the animals during the break. He had enjoyed that very much, so when we saw the posters advertising for the “Mitmachzirkus” (participation circus) Proscho, he thought he…
Hello expats, travelers, or even locals who need a few tips what to do and where to go with kids aged 2-12 in the Rhineland — check out our recommendations for activities around here, be it inside or outside, in all kinds of weather. I moved back to Germany after 15 years in the United…
Who would have thought that a dog that detects mines has his own Wiki page, or — even better — would be awarded the Order for Courage by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy? Meet Patron (meaning, “Bullet”), a Jack Russell terrier and Ukrainian sapper dog from Chernihiv born in 2019, who belongs to Mykhailo Iliev of the…
It was pure coincidence that we found Waldbad Hilden, a public swimming pool with slides in the middle of a forest. My son and I had been shopping at ALDI’s when a nice, older lady walked past us with her little dachshund. My son steered towards her, touched the leash and asked, “Can I walk…
It’s not “Irland” (= Ireland), but “Irrland” (country of the crazy) that we visited… So it’s not a typo! For our summer vacation in 2022, we took a 4-day trip to Kevelaer, a famous pilgrimage place. On the fourth day, we did visited a basilica and a couple of churches, but we were really there…
Lyons Cub loves indoor gyms, such as GeckoFun, which have lots of inflatables, trampolines, and climbing towers and bridges and slides. The biggest one we ever went to (with his little friend, Giulianna and family) is the Hoplop in Cologne. It has a huge play area for the children and a nice quiet area for…
Second visit to the magical place for Lyons Cub… this time with his American friend, John. It is really possible to go to the same attraction twice and see completely different things! Last time, we went with grandma to Legoland in Oberhausen. We were busy collecting stamps and noticed we didn’t get a stamp from…
Today, we visited the Fauna animal park in Solingen and were not disappointed — we saw a few different animals than in the Solingen Bird and Animal Park and the Reuschenberg animal park in Leverkusen, where we had already been: What stood out most were their albino deer and the leafcutter ants that had a…
At the age of four, Lyons Cub is not aware of the Nibelungen saga and the story of Siegfried slaying the dragon yet, but he loves all things castle, knights, and dragons. Especially dragons!!! He even visited the village of Erpel on the Rhine River across from the famous bridge at Remagen, which sports a…
Lyons Cub was taking out his American friend John, and what better place to visit than the remnants of the famous Bridge of Remagen where the Americans crossed the Rhine River with dry feet at the end of WWII? Thus, on a cloudy Sunday, we set out to visit the city of Remagen and take…
Lyons Cub really likes it at mommy’s office. He has visited her several times to pick her up, and one day, he was allowed to attend an office barbecue and chat with her coworkers. He spent time on the rooftop terrace, eating bread rolls and sausages and drinking apple juice, looking down on the train…
Lyons Cub knew something was up when mommy researched medieval markets in North Rhine-Westphalia. We found one that took place on May 22nd in the city of Witten. Which little kid doesn’t love knights, armor, horses, castles, and dragons? Admittedly, the dragon that was supposed to appear at the medieval festival in Witten was the…
Lyons Cub loves to play outside, especially in the forest, where he can build and hide in wooden teepees, climb on tree trunks, and find all kinds of insects, such as lime hawk moth caterpillars, etc. We found a cool nature adventure park, Landschaftspark Rheinbogen, in the town of Monheim at the right side of…
Last Sunday, Lyons Cub showed his friend John from Virginia the Cologne cathedral, and this Sunday, we took him to the city of Oberhausen to climb the Gasometer and see the exhibit, “The Fragile Paradise.” What’s the Gasometer? First of all, it looks like a huge, rusty oil barrel. It was first used in 1929…