Halloween 2014

Thank you so much, Sophie, for having us over to trick-or-treat on your street.
Sophie was a Vampire Queen and Lillian was Vampire Hermione Granger.

I had the honor of painting their vampire faces.

Getting ready for Halloween

Lill practiced putting on and taking off her Halloween costume for school -- Hermione Granger.

For trick-or-treating, Lillian will be Vampire Hermione Granger.

Zombie mugshot

Thank you, Anna, for a wonderful hat.
Lillian loves it.

Canadian Thanksgiving

Thank you so very much everyone for making this year's Canadian Thanksgiving super amazingly special.  To all the moms and dads -- we love you!

Going home to Canada

The airport in Cologne had a PLAYGROUND!!!
We couldn't resist.

Lillian also got brand new kids pink headphones for the flight back.

Bonn, Day 8

 On Friday, we were able to see my family again. Uncle Igor was so inspired by Lillian's ability to climb on the monkey bars that he decided to give it a try.  He got stuck.

This is my photo of Evgeny, my cousin, taking a photo of Latham and Lillian.

Lillian and I took Evgeny (who lives in Berlin) to the Botanical Gardens and showed him some of the strange plants that we had encountered in the past few days.

After everyone went home.  The three of us partied until it got dark (since it was our last night in Bonn). We ate a Margarita Pizza and danced on the street.

We were exhausted and hardly made it to our apartment.

Bonn, Day 7

 On Thursday, Latham had meetings all day and Lill and I continued exploring our burg and Bonn.

We found this great arch-way in a courtyard next to our apartment door.

Behind our apartment was this old sundial - at least we think it's a sundial.

We planned on seeing a mind-blowing collection of minerals, in the science department of the University of Bonn, housed in a building called Poppelsdorf Palace. But it was closed on Thursdays.

So, we consoled ourselves by balancing chestnuts in the park ... 

... snuggling a ginormous pumpkin in the Botanical Gardens ... 

... drinking a giant Schokoladen-Bananen-Smoothie ... 

... and shopping.

Lillian saw this outfit in the store window and we immediately went in and purchased all of the parts.

Bonn, Day 6

Wednesday was another day when Latham had a full day of conference obligations. And Lillian and I had a full day of obligations to fun.

We breakfasted on a Donut Spezial and then immediately lunched on a chicken sandwich.

 We walked to the Botanical Gardens and on the way there we collected chestnuts, left our initials in the leaves ...

... and discovered an outdoor library.

The Botanical Gardens were huge and insurmountable by us in one day, so we decided to explore just a few key parts.

We saw a lily pond ...

... that had this weird green sculpture in the middle. Lillian threw stones at the sculpture until she got twelve hits.

We saw a giant sequoia and touched it's soft bark.  It is said that you can punch through the bark with your fist - but we didn't think it was prudent to try it just then.

We also found what we thought were crazy long pine cones, but later we figured out that they were dried branches of bizarre evergreens. 

Lastly, Lillian was really excited to see how beautifully symmetric some giant leaves can be.

 And then we went back to the playground and Lillian became even more brave and did some spectacular acrobatics.

Before we went home, we also made giant skulls in the playground sand.