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…
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…
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…
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…
Lyons Cub really wanted to go on a ship. So the day came where he would experience making a panorama trip on the Rhine river at Cologne. But that wasn’t all. He also visited the Chocolate museum and got free samples and to try from the chocolate fountain, and he went into St. Martin’s church,…
Lyons Cub loves to watch and touch animals. We’ve been at the Reuschenberg Wildpark in Leverkusen several times already, but today, we tried out a different place, the Bird- and Animal Park in the city of Solingen. It has more birds than the park in Leverkusen, even big storks and colorful pheasants. The most interesting…
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. Have you ever painted Easter eggs with terrible, electronic Christmas music in the background? No? Then, you absolutely need to try the…
It’s Easter Sunday and our second day of adventures… We have a double ticket for Legoland and SeaLife, and now, we’re doing the second part of it. Lyons Cub had been to the AquaZoo in Düsseldorf before when he was merely 1.5 years old, on our summer trip to Europe. I figured that at 4,…
Lyons Cub’s Easter present was a visit to Legoland and SeaLife in the city of Oberhausen in the Ruhr river area in Germany (a former coal mining district). My son is a big fan of LEGO. Like other little kids, he started out with Duplos (his dinosaur duplos, for example) and evolved to dinosaur skeletons…
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. This year, like in the past two, there won’t be much of carnival going on, at least not in our city, because…
Oh no! We’ve read in the press that from May on, the Tonieboxes and Tonies will get more expensive! I can totally understand that added material and production and transport costs will cause a little price hike, but 20 bucks more for a Toniebox is quite a bit, and it’s not cheap as it is…
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. Lyons Cub grew up with two cats, Frankie (our rescue from a reptile show) and Felix (our stray that came with our…
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. Today, Germany is awaiting a major storm, so the government of our state, North Rhine-Westphalia, has ordered all schools closed tomorrow. Since…
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t JUST an art gallery, it was also a store for trading card collectors, and we took Leander’s Daddy’s baseball card albums from the 1960s and 70s there to have them appraised. But what we really wanted to do was to pick up his 4th birthday present, an awesome painting of Pikachu…
Especially during the pandemic, you might have considered online educational programs and asked yourself: “Is ABCmouse worthwhile?” While there are other alternatives on the market, we have been happy with our ABCmouse subscription for two years now. We don’t use it regularly; my son goes to bed with two books every night (one in English,…
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. Oh sh**, it happened, Leander brought the stomach flu home from kindergarten, which means for the both of us tea, apple juice,…
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. Are you an artsy, crafty mommy? I love to do art projects with my son, but as a full-time working mom, 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. As a child of the 80s, I loved to play Tetris (invented 1984 by a Russian software engineer) on my gameboy (invented…
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. Do you have a bilingual child? Even if your child speaks only English or German, check out this awesome, relatively new toy…
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. Leander’s pre-Christmas gift arrived on December 21st in the form of a visit to the LWL Museum für Naturkunde mit Planetarium in…
My mother’s brother and one of her sisters with their children grew up, lived, and worked in East Germany. Her oldest sister and she herself got out as teenagers, before the Wall was built. While I was lucky to be born on the other side of the Wall in prosperous, free West Germany, I was…
by: Emily Sewell When people outside of the United States think of American homeschooling, I can only imagine what comes to mind. Religious zealots, living off the grid, and/or families of at least fifteen children most likely. I think there is a solid stereotype in there somewhere. Well, I am here to dispel some of…
In the past, I have shown you how the kaleidoscope app works, how to make hyperbolic tilings of images, and how to create “belfies” (breastfeeding selfies) with the tree of life. Today, I’m going to show you how to use artificial intelligence to create pictures and paintings of different styles (such as cubism, impressionism, child’s…
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. There are so many cute porcupine children’s books out there, and guess what they’re teaching about? You’re right: befriending a special person…
Big day for Lyons Cub!!! We visited the zoo in the city of Wuppertal on October 31st. Alas, due to the danger of Covid-19 transferring from people to the big cats, we couldn’t visit the lions and tigers. However, the brown bears, the elephants, the pelicans, the penguins, the seals, the deer-pig (yes, that’s a…