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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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. While grandma gifted Lyons Cub a day each at Legoland and SeaLife in the city of Oberhausen for Easter, mommy offered him…
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…
Today was awesome! Lyons Cub went to GeckoFun, an indoor playground with inflatables and lots of climbing castles. We went with another family with two little girls and spent from noon through about 4 p.m. there. This adventure playground is in the city of Burscheid, where we had never been before. It was totally worthwhile!…
Yay, the circus is in town! No, not the big Moscow State Circus or Circus Krone, just a small family circus, but for my son, it was the first time ever to see one. I had read to him a book about a happy lion who finds his lioness at a circus, his favorite story…
Strictly speaking, “Jurassic LIVE Tour” is a misnomer, and my son knows that the dinosaurs have long been extinct because a meteorite hit Earth and killed them all. Still, he seemed to forget about that from time to time, asking me, “When will they fight? When are the real ones coming?” We’re at the dino…
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…
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. How can you spend your time when you have a cold and cannot go to kindergarten? Easy! Get out your playdough and…
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…
Today was one of those days…. I took my son to the city (we went to see his pediatrician to get a prescription for nose spray and cough syrup, and then, we ended up in a shoe store, because mommy needed new shoes for work and Lyons Cub needed Crocs for kindergarten). In the back…
No mommy wants to have her baby in the NICU on Valentine’s Day. No mommy expects to be widowed for Valentine’s Day, either. Both happened, so might as well make the best of it… Our biggest helper was our dear Nanny Nancy, who had secretly printed a preemie onesie with a red heart, saying, “Mommy’s…
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. My son just went through the stomach flu, a gift from his kindergarten. Now, he’s feeling better, but is still under the…
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. Do you have a bilingual child? Even if your child speaks only English or German, check out this awesome, relatively new toy…
We have the “2G rules” at the Christmas market (“geimpft und genesen,” which means “vaccinated or recovered,” and our immunization status is checked at the entrance with the CovPass-App that makes sure the digital records are not forged). And of course, we’re all wearing our FFP2 masks and keeping social distance. But the German Christmas…