Tag Archives: Sankt Peter-Ording

Crazy Family, Our cute daughter, Our cute son

Weekend activities with the kids

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The past weeks the weather has been not our best friend here. Most of the days, just like today, everything is just grey and it is raining the entire time. However we also had some nice days on the weekends and we used that time to go on some mini trips with the kids. Here in our state we have visited most of the “sights” and by now we have an idea what the kids like to do.

Beach warriors

On one of the weekends we had some enjoyable hours at St. Peter-Ording beach again which we had visited back in August already. The weather was great, sunshine and warm water. This time we even had swimming clothes for the kids and they loved to play in the shallow water. Both can’t swim yet (don’t ask me why, but everyone refuses to learn swimming from me inlcuding my wife) so we could not go very deep with them. During the time of our visit there was high water once again just like last time so we had no chance to go discovering animals you find during the low water such as crabs, shrimps and all kind of small fishes. Appearently the day was so exciting for our Nathalie that she fell asleep immediately when we went back to the car and she was placed in her safety seat.

Nathan in front is doing okay, Nathalie in the back with me is a mess

Last weekend we revisited Zoo Gettorf again. We have been there last time in 2017. Surprisingly on the day of our visit this time they had a family day event and thus the tickets were much cheaper and there were many events in the park. Nathan enjoyed some pony riding (Nathalie was terrified sitting on the pony) and everywhere you could get very close to the animals. Nathan also wanted some children make-up but the queue was too long at each station.  Needless to say the kids had also here tons of fun. Best thing about this zoo is the distance. By car we only need 30 min to get there and this makes me wonder why we have been there only twice so far.

Wallaby minding its own business

This weekend is another story entirely. As mentioned before the weather is really letting us down so we are bound to stay home with the kids. I must say there are more enjoyable ways to spend time with the kids. Especially Nathalie gets really grumpy after some time (Thundergoat) so it is really hard to keep both somehow entertained. In case you have some ideas for such days, please let me know! We have tried board games, drawing, reading, watching shortly some TV but it all doesn’t last long.

By the way, no crazy stories from China in the past weeks. Would love to keep you updated but it is eerily quiet for now. Something like that never happened before so I expect each day now some disaster striking in form of some really weird stuff.

What are your ideas about spending time with kids during weekends?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.

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Crazy Family, Travels

Nothing New In Germany

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This summer I have not been that forthcoming with crazy stuff from my family. Basically nothing much happened except that worrisome things I wrote about in the past two blog posts. By now all the stress from China has been become just an annoying background noise and we have been only focusing on work and the kids. My dear Chinese mother-in-law is still here in Germany but will leave back to China in the end of August.

Besides the annoying stuff from China we had to manage for three weeks through the kindergarten holidays and thus having both kids with us all day long. For those holidays we had some nice things planned such as trips to the beaches here, traveling on weekends to some cities in the area and such but oh boy, of course the weather had to change to the worse during those three weeks and we had just rain every single day. We only managed to visit Legoland in Billund again and we had semi-good weather with just some minor showers in between. After those holidays were over we managed also a trip to Sankt Peter-Ording here in North Germany where a fantastic beach is located. I must say we had really bad luck with the weather this summer as we only had nice temperature and sunshine on the days we were neck-deep with work.

Now the holidays are over already for a few weeks and something new started for us as Nathalie started kindergarten this week! Little Nathalie aka the Thundergoat can be a difficult little monster so I prepared for the worst when going with her to kindergarten. But for some unknown reason she is a completely different person there. The staff there is super happy with her, she never cries, does whatever they tell her to and is just a little sunshine there. I already told the staff that this little girl they describe can’t be my daughter.

At home we have the usual madness with MIL as describe in the previous post so nothing new from that front. On a personal note I got even nerdier as I picked up during spring again Warhammer 40K after near 20 years away from it. Not writing now anything specific about it but I will have eventually a geek post about my newfound hobby in the upcoming weeks. For now I hope we have some luck in the next weeks with the weather so we can go to Hamburg Zoo again as the last visit there dates back to 2014 when Nathan was just 9 weeks old! This also somehow reminds me that I need to continue editing the last holiday “movie” as I still have tons of material to go through.

 

How has been the weather for you this summer?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

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https://www.instagram.com/Crazychinesefamily

 

 

Crazy Family, Mom in Law, Travels

A Day at the Beach

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Last week I announced that I would be getting more active with blogging again and I kind of regret it already. No not that I hate blogging but I discovered that I have too much material to work with. Yes, you can actually have too much. For one my dear beloved Chinese mother-in-law is giving nearly daily new material to write about. However she is just the tip of the iceberg as I have “postponed” so many other things over the past two years. Only the small trips and craziness in China is already overwhelming me! So this post is about one of our little tours from last summer when MIL was still with us in Germany.

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So much sand

What image do you have when you think about a beach? I’d say it is with clear blue water and white sand. All over the world the beaches are different as I especially noticed when we had our holiday in Rhodes where the beach was a stony hell with each step without shoes was pure torment. Last summer we went to a beach nearby my hometown, to Sankt Peter-Ording.  It is a very popular seaside spa (they have their own sulphur spring!) and is a municipality of the district Nordfriesland in my home state Schleswig-Holstein.  That beach is a bit different from any I have ever visited before as you can see in the pictures. This is because it is a Intertidal Zone, the entire North Sea coast of Germany is called Wadden Sea (including part of the Netherlands and Danmark). Twice a day the ocean decides that it fun to retreat and you can do some great mudflat hiking.

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Yep, you can swim there

Anyhow the beach at Sankt Peter-Ording is also easy to reach by car as it has Germany’s only beach parking lot. So you just drive there and park you car at the beach. When we were at the beach there was currently the low tide which meant that we had to walk still for 20 min till we reached the ocean.  MIL and my wife were amazed as they had never seen something like that nor imagined. Nathan was another story though as he was so afraid of getting his feet dirty in the mud (yes he is one picky little fellow). He also didn’t really trust the shallow waters which were filled with shrimps and crabs. The entire time he wanted to be carried except of course when we wanted to leave. Suddenly he wanted to play around and not leave anymore, what should I say – kids.

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A pile of…I don’t know

Though we were only there for one hour we had a great time. There is just so much fun you can have, especially with kids, as there are small animals everywhere. I still remember how I “hunted” down a crab the size of a golf ball and proudly presented it to my wife. It took a lot of effort and pain and in that moment a small boy passed by showing off his crabzilla. That beast was nearly as big as a dining plate! I wonder if he still has all his fingers…

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That all is usually covered by water

Besides hunting down crabs I also tried to catch some shrimps but that was a bit harder even though there were thousands of them in the shallow waters. In the end I decided against catching any more crabs or shrimps and set them all free because I was fearing that MIL was making some sudden dinner plans involving those poor little creatures. As you might remember from this blog post I was not too happy once we got home as MIL somehow had managed to drag in half the beach in the car. That was some serious vacuum cleaning the next day I tell you that.

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Some of the stilt houses

In case you ever have a trip to Germany and are for some weird reason in the North I recommend to check out the Wadden Sea. It is just incredible what Nature is doing and to see with you own eyes how the water retreats beyond eyesight. Where to witness that spectacle is all up to you as it is magical at any spot at the Wadden Sea.

What interesting beaches have you visited?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore I also have a YouTube Channel in which some videos might pop up from time to time

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