Skating on the canal

We were in the midst of a deep freeze last week, with a couple inches of snow every night.  Mind you, Munich is flat, with snowplows for both the streets & sidewalks, so we weren’t really affected by the snow at all.

[Except it takes sooooo long to get the girls dressed for school, clean the car off, warm everyone up.   I have never been much of a morning person, but I am really beginning to hate the 7-9am hours.  Just too much stress for that early in the morning…]

However, we were able to take advantage of the low temps (a high of –5 on Thursday) to have some fun on the canal in front of Nymphenburg Palace. Alexandra managed to talk us into letting her out of her stroller & being able to run on the ice. Sophia just had a great time skating around in circles, and pulling our friend Dominic who was visiting from Italy. She & Alexandra are so funny together Alexandra is just doing everything she can to keep up with Sophia.  This does not bode well for us in the future… And yes, all Alexandra wanted to do was eat the ice shavings. So we left for lunch, and passed by all of the Germans playing a game on the ice, a mixture of shuffleboard & curling.  I don’t understand it, but with all of the ice cleared it looked like there was quite the serious tournament going on.

Sophia & Friends

Sophia has had a very friendly week between all of her activities, and our visitors.

First was a play date with her Doudous. She lined them up all over her bed to make sure she could remember all of their names.

Then she was able to show off her reading skills with Uncle Brehan A birthday party, line dancing included And finally the winter celebration party for the end of the unit in Sophia’s class.  The children were able to choose their own costume (a preview of what the Fasching Celebration is going to be like) and sang “Winter Wonderland” for all the parents.  Sophia decided to be an angel, using Alexandra’s halo, her butterfly wings, and an American Girl Nightgown. The kids had movements for all of the verses, and had obviously worked really hard at remembering everything! Then there was time for a smorgasbord of treats, sweets, and a few crafts for good measure.