Germany

Travelkins // Thankful in Germany

By Debbie Jovel, Contributor Leave a Comment

This was our family’s first Thanksgiving since moving abroad, so we decided to spend it together being thankful for each other and for the opportunity to live in Germany by visiting and spending the night in a castle. We headed to one of my son’s favorite places, Anholt Castle, where we spent the night in a corner room of the castle, had a delicious family dinner and explored the castle and its grounds. My son had his map in hand to lead the way, while my husband and I followed with our cameras. My husband captured images of the castle and the light refracting off of the moat, while I took pictures of my son as his imagination had him discovering, and dueling dragons in the moat.

Craftykins // Schultüte (School Cone)

By Debbie Jovel, Contributor Leave a Comment

My son started Pre-School in Germany this week, and it is a German tradition to give your babiekins a Schultüte (a prettily decorated big cone filled with toys, sweets, school supplies, and other goodies) on their first day of school to make their big day a little sweeter. A Schultüte is really meant to celebrate entering the first grade, but since my family is new to living in Germany and I love starting traditions with my son, I decided to make him a Schultüte (entering pre-school is a pretty big deal too). I searched Pinterest for ideas and showed him several Schultütes: decorated traditionally; with ninjas; with soccer balls; with a giant crocodile; and one like an ice cream cone. My son, with wide eyes, picked the ice cream cone (an ice cream cone is his favorite treat after all). With my design inspiration in hand, I accomplished making my son his very first Schultüte, and this is a tradition I am thrilled to share with him and continue. Do you have back to school traditions you share with your babiekins?

Measure a large triangle for your Schultüte & or the paper to wrap your Schultüte with, then cut it out with scissors.

Decorate your Schultüte – I used washi tape, a drawing of an ice cream cone, and painted wooden letters to spell my son’s name.

Staple fabric to the top of your Schultüte, I also stapled a fabric scallop that I cut out to represent ice-cream, then fill the Schultüte with toys, sweets, school supplies, and other goodies.

Fill & shape the top of the Schultüte, I used bubble wrap or you could use tissue paper, then tie it closed with a ribbon at the top.

Lastly, decorate the top of the Schultüte to look like candies on the ice cream cone by sewing on beads. My son helped by picking out the beads to use, but I didn’t let him look inside the Schultüte – that was a surprise for his first day of school!

My son’s first Schultüte!

My son loved his Schultüte and he loved his first day of school. I hope your babiekins have a wonderful first day of school too!

Travelkins // Dragon Castle

By Debbie Jovel, Contributor Leave a Comment

My son, like most toddlers, loves to explore and to imaginative play – lately he has been spending most of his afternoons in our front yard slaying dragons with sticks. Because of my son’s love of castles and dragons, we took a drive to Königswinter, a city/summer resort on the right bank of the Rhine River in Germany. We went to Schloss Drachenburg, a mixture of a Villa-Mansion and Castle built atop a summit with an impressive view of Königswinter and the Rhine river. The summit also has the ruins of a castle built in the early 12th century, known to the locals as Drachenfels, because a cave in the hill is said to have sheltered a dragon (German=Drachen) that was slain by the hero Seigfried. My son may not be Seigfried, but once he was on the summit with his wooden sword there was no dragon that could get in his way from protecting his princess (a.k.a. mama).

Travelkins // Thankful in Germany

Craftykins // Schultüte (School Cone)

Travelkins // Dragon Castle

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