April 3, 2016 - Rudesheim- Rhine River-Rhinestein Castle

For our final outing, Kerali and Brian took us to Rudesheimer and we took a ride up and down part of the Rhine River

Garth is in front of the office where they got our tickets for the boats.

Kerali took off at a run to make sure we made it before the ship left.

Although it was cold, we chose the top deck where we could see everything.

 I liked this old tower we saw on shore as we passed by

Another shore scene

This really old building was another one that caught my eye

It wasn't the best picture taking weather but I had to take a few of the castles.

This one has obviously been abandoned for years but there is still quite a bit of it standing.  That gives you an idea of the strength of their original construction

Another castle  but it is much better condition.

If we were to take the full Rhine River tour we would see many, many castles.

Some were built early as customs' houses and later turned into residences.

The lovely castle Kerali and Brian took us to see is the Rheinstein Castle.  It's brief history - built in the early 14th century as a counter fortification to other castles and helped serve to protect the Mainz territory and the customs posts there. This castle was never destroyed but from the 17th century on it gradually decayed.   It was restored and additions were made.  In 1817 Prince Phillip and turned the castle into his summer residence. In 1823 it was bought by Prince Friedrich of Prussia and he and his family used the castle as a summer residence even after 1850.  In 1975 the castle was sold to the former opera singer, Hermann Hecher, who preserved it from misuse and imminent decay with the help of preservation groups.

Janice and Garth at the entrance gate.

Garth, Kerali and Brian inside the gate

I'm not sure how authentic this is but it was colorful

This was apparently the dungeon of the castle

This small church was built later in the history of the castle

A close-up view of the castle.  We went up into this tower.

One of the most charming things was the restoration had tried to be as close as possible to the original and also serves as a museum with a lot of things from the periods of its use.

More museum pieces

And a close-up of the armor

This is rather a nice kitchen

Probably an older oven where coals were put into this area with the food to be cooked.

A rather nice sink, wouldn't you say?

This is the main part of the castle and the rooms inside on 3 levels have been beautifully restored


















Another side view of the castle and of Kerali

Janice and Garth in the top of the round tower


















Every effort seemed to have been made to make these rooms look as much like they did when occupied and used.


The furnishings in the rooms were done in a way that I felt that the people who lived here were just allowing visitors to look at their home.

Another beautiful room.

A bedrpp,

A music room

A dining room or breakfast room

Another bedroom

This charming little office was in one of the round towers with lots of sunlight.

Our return trip to Rudesheim

We took a little time in the village where Kerali wanted us to go on the Mechanical Music
















  We were taken through the rooms and various mechanical musical instruments were shown tous and played for us.

The large piece in this picture was a full band with quite a few different instruments.

In this cave-like room they had a lot of magical children's type displays. 

You can see our guide on the far right.













This one was a merry-go-round

This one is another merry-go-round with added things

We didn't get to hear most of these play but you can use your imaginations.

In this room we were shown the old phonographs first and discs that had holes in them to make the music.

This was a most amazing player piano and player violins.  The center band on the violins went around to act as the bow and the strings were "fingered" with metal levers that went down in the proper place at the proper time.
















The house this display is in is very old as shown by the vaulted ceilings and cobbled floors, thick walls, etc.  This was a display of smaller music boxes that had various things happen when they played.








The ceilings of the house were painted in intricate patterns.

This beautiful, ornate cabinet contained monkeys and people who moved or played instruments when the music was played

Note the monkeys are on the front row with the instruments.

We finished our tour in this room where Garth was invited to be the "organ grinder man".




We saw one room where there were the implements used to create these mechanical music boxes.  A person really had to be an artist to make the music come out perfect and to design these things.

It was a fun tour and opened up a whole new world of types of music for me.







In the lot by the museum sat this old car and Garth wanted a picture with it.



It was a lovely day and a pleasant way to end our time in Germany.

Thanks to all who made it possible!

Days 16 & 17 - Michigan

 Tuesday evening we met Thayne and family half way between their two homes for dinner.  Thayne chose a BBQ restaurant and ordered
"2 lids"  This is what came and it was very good!
Each plate had 2 or 3 different meats, cold slaw, baked beans, corn muffins & french fries

Blair, Paxton and Thayne are enjoying the meal.

Jenny, Dana and Serena are doing the same.

Following the meal and before we went our separate ways -

Left to Right:  Paxton, Jenny, Thayne, Dana, Garth,

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

In order to have a chance to see Amanda and Joseph, Serena and Blair arranged for us to meet about half way between where Amanda lives and where they live.

We traveled to Frankenmuth - also known as Little Bavaria.  We found a Crepe shop where we had our brunch.  It was very interesting and enlightening to watch the large crepes being made on three large cooking areas.  The ingredients were placed on and when cooked and hot, the crepe was folded in half then in thirds and put in a triangle shaped bag.

Blair, - who never wanted to be far from Joseph -
Joseph being fed by his grandfather

And Amanda.

A closer picture would show how much Joseph looks like his mother.

After having been in Germany, I was amazed at the efforts that had been made to recreate many of the scenes we had seen

Even to the Easter Egg decorations hanging around. This one was in front of the largest year around Christmas store in the world. When we were in Germany, there were many places still decorated with a multitude of plastic multicolored Easter eggs.

One of the last things Kerali showed us in Germany was a year around Christmas store.  

You can imagine my amazement to be in Michigan and find the epitome of a year around Christmas store.

Some views of the huge store.

Serena was looking at fake Christmas trees because she would like to get a different one.

I found this one to the right and told them if I were going to do a "theme" Christmas tree, this would be the one.  It was covered in crystal and that has always been a favorite of mine.

 The Bonner family - obviously a German family-  started the year around Christmas store.

 

The big project I worked on while with
Serena and Blair was curtains for the front end of their Air-stream trailer. 

Some of the "Spooks" that attended our Halloween Party

Our little lion is Soren Brown

Nyah and Addie Brown both have Rapunzel dresses from the movie, "Tangled" that I had made. Although Nyah is wearing a wig, that is Addie's own hair!

This is Marcus Harding beneath the mask and coverings.  I made the black tunic for him but he designed and made the amazing mask and gloves from foam and duck tape.  It's very impressive!

Caleb Harding looking solemn in his handsome costume

Mitchell Harding looking for all the world like a real astronaut

Drake Hansen - and I'll bet you wouldn't know what he is but I was informed he is a Nyan Cat.  It's an Internet neme.  He is wearing a poptart and flies through the air trailing a rainbow.  I made the sweat suit for his birthday but Liz came up with all the rest of the costume.

And here is Liz wearing Drake's Dr. Who coat that I helped him make.

This cute couple are Max and Stephanie Outsen - dressed as Hansel and Gretel.  I was pleased to make Stephanie's dress from things I had here at home.

Kasen Brown is a combination of scary things and looks quite impressive

Shelby Hansen is wearing the Cora costume from one of the TV shows that she likes.  I'm a bit illiterate in that regard so can't tell you for sure which series, but it is an impressive costume - another one I made.

And doesn't Sam Brown make a cute Charley Brown?

And last of all is sweet little Eve Harding dressed as a cat.

Halloween 2014

Halloween with all its fun and frustrations has come and gone once again.

As usual, we had a fun family gathering that involved most of last week to get ready for.

Following are some of the pictures of  foods and fun from this year's party. The pictures of the food are self explanatory.  Though this year I stayed with the fun - not scary foods for the benefit of some of my grandchildren.

Addie really got into the party planning this year and she found lots of things she wanted to make.  Marenda and Addie furnished this fun treat.

Deren requested that Liz make Chili for this year and she came up with some cute ghost biscuits to go with the delicious chili.

This was another of  Marenda and Addie's contributions. Not only do they look great but they were very tasty

The ghostly pops were also contributed by Marenda and Addie.  The bananas were covered with white chocolate and chocolate chips for eyes.

Max, Stephanie and Shelby went to our decorated garage and judged the Jack-o-lantern the children had brought

When we decorated, Addie came up and helped. She came up with the giant spider walking on the ceiling and the pillow case ghosts.

We had some very creative Jack-o-lanterns this year

One of our games was to eat the donuts while they hung from a string without the use of hands.  Drake is doing a good job of getting his

We can't have a party without games so here are some of the grandchildren playing Left, Center, Right. Starting left and going around the table to the lefty we have Eve Harding, Kasen Brown, Marcus Harding (hiding his face), Drake Hansen, Caleb Harding, Mitchell Harding (with the candy bowl) and Addie Brown