Lego-Olympics

Etoday had pictures of the HK Lego user group implementing Lego-Olympics 2008:
Those are pictures of the Olympic sites built with Lego bricks. Very cool.

Visit to Legoland

Two weeks ago we've been in Legoland Günzburg, which is around 1.5h away from Stuttgart (by car; Günzburg is also reachable via train).
Parking and entrance was no problem. We had tickets that we ordered over the internet and printed them by ourselves. At the gates, those got just scanned in, so there was no waiting in line.

Behind the entrance Orlando did for the first time not run away from a dog, but even approached it and patted it:

First station was the little express train which does a tour thorough the park which enabled us to get an overview. Unfortunately this has been our first 10 minutes wait on the day with more to come (in total the park was not full and wait times were not too bad).

Next we went through Miniaturland (a landscape with different scenes, all in 1:20 scale). And this really was one of the greatest parts of Legoland. Not only we enjoyed it, but Marlene was totally excited. Whenever she saw a moving car in it, she exclaimed "Da!" ('There') and pointed to it. I think she could have been there for hours.

(Rialto bridge from Venice, Italy)

(Brandenburger Tor, Berlin, Germany)

After this we went to lunch to the Dino-Grill. On the next picture you'll see some typical food here :-)

Otherwise Legoland featured some wild animals:

Knights on their horses:

Driving schools:

And a lot of other tourists:

The kids really liked the visit to Legoland and Orlando is very willing to go there soon again. Actually as he was rejected at two places for being to small, he is even now drinking milk to accelerate his height growth.

Small steps and bicycling

While Marlene did her first steps already some weeks ago, she wasn't to enthusiastic about. But since last weekend she is really 'running' around, enjoying walking on two feet wherever she can. This is really great.

Orlando on the other hand is now since yesterday able to ride a bicycle freely without any help and without stabilizer wheels. He still needs to practice some more before we can leave him into the wild, but its a great achievement too.

Small step for mankind, big Step for Marlene

My little daughter finally did her first steps on her own - that is just great. And she really is enjoying it. Orlando is also very happy.

As am I :-)

Marlene is one year old

Man, this last year passed quickly. My little daughter has her first birthday today. Orlando was already singing her "happy birthday" in his comedy version.

So also a happy birthday from my side, Marlene!

Marlene is standing on her own

Marlene is growing well. She is eight months old now and since three weeks, she is able to sit up on her own. She is not yet able to crawl on arms and legs, but she is already moving around quite a bit.

Today she was for the first time able to stand up on her own by holding the bars of her bed and pulling herself up. She was totally happy and excited - as we have been as well

Sleepless in Stuttgart - Part III

Over two month have now passed since my last post.
Both Kids are doing fine. Marlene is much more moving around (but still not crawling).

Around six weeks ago we've implemented the 8-o-clock rule for Orlando and since that time we have our evenings back to us.
The rule is very basic: "Orlando is in bed at 8pm and daddy and mommy are out until the next morning". Actually we have tried this several times in the past, but never really succeeded. The big difference now is that he has an analog clock in his room, so he can directly see if the big needle is already at the top and little one on the eight or not. When he is in bed before eight, we still have some time for reading. If he is in late, it is relatively easy to point him to the clock and tell him that it is late now. That system really works well for us.

End of June we did a short trip to the Bodensee (Lake of Constance) where we had a good time altogether. We were staying at a farm with lots of toys for children. Unfortunately Orlando was the only German kid at his age (there was a French girl), so we still were his major friends for playing). Next time we do such a trip, we will try to convince friends to come with us, so that the kids can go playing on their own.

I am having my second month of Elternzeit and am currently discussing the implementation of that with the regional agency, as the law seems to allow to take the Elternzeit only on the n-th month of birth of the child. So if the child is born on 15th of a month, you can only take Elternzeit from a 15th to a 14th on the next month, but not e.g. from 1st to 31th. Unfortunately I didn't know that :-/ Well lets see, what comes ...

XO review by a 12 year old

This blog entry contains a review of the XO (the One Laptop Per Child, OLPC) machine.
Interesting read. I wish I could get my hands onto one as well

Sleepless in Stuttgart - the second month

Marlene is now two month old. I have been at home for a month as paternitiy leave, as this is now quite nicely supported with the new Erziehungsgeld from the Government. Also my team lead at Red Hat was quite forthcoming on this topic.
Nights are getting better and better.; the intervals between feeding Marlene are getting longer and somtimes reach 5 hours already. And even if this is not the case, it is relatively painless, as she seldom fully awakes.
As the days are now longer and the nights shorter, it is rather Orlando who doesn't want to go to bed in the evening and wakes up too early in the morning.
I am back at work since last Wednesday and found my way back into the code. For our JBoss ON, we now have a nice gui based installer which is also I18N'ed with (some) German messages. It's fun to see this.
As written in the previous post I was also able to create a tools to render DTDs in SVG. Even if I don't plan to write a new book in the near future, I am interested in finding a solution that could be used in such a project.
Over the bank holiday a week ago, we made a family trip to the town of Weikersheim, stayed at a Framhouse and made some trips into the surroundings.

Kindergarden Dad

Yesterday I spent the morning at the kindergarden of Orlando. Parents have the possibility to stay there to lurk around and see what the kids are doing. As I am currently at home, I took this opportunity.
And I must say that I don't regret it. It was very interesting. For the start the kids are in the courtyard. At 9:30 they go upstairs in the group room, drink tea, eat some fruit and talk about different things. Then they have one hour / 1:30 from 10am on to play at various places or paint or build things etc. At 11:30am lunch starts where the kids pick the meal themselves. After lunch, they
uncloth, go to the bathroom and then to bed for a little nap.
That was the point in time where I left again.
Orlando was very proud that his dady stayed at the kindergarden.
It's also interesting how children's brains work. They asked "Do you stay in kindergarden today?" Me: "Yes" They: "Then you are a baby, because babies stay in kindergarden". Or course they don't consider themselves as babies :-)

Visit to a historic iron mine

Today we made an excurs to an abandonned iron mine in Aalen-Wasseralfingen (around 80km from Stuttgart). The mine itself has been shut down after WWII and is now open for visitors. With little trains one drives into the 400m into the mountain. After a little film about the history of the mine and its general layout, one walks for about 800m through the mine and gets a very good impression why it is a good idea to wear a helmet.
The tour gives a very good impression under what bad conditions our ancestors were pulling iron ore out of the mountains, and it is a perfect occasion to go there when kids start to learn about those things in school.

Where does organic food come from?

For quite some time now, we're getting each week a box delivered that contains organically grown fruit and vegetables. Our supplier is a company called Laisacker from about 30km outside of Stuttgart.
A nice thing about the box is that they put each week fruits and veggies from the current season in, which might be items that we would not buy ourselves, but which will always taste very well :) Laiseacker is growing much of the stuff themselves or buying it at regional partners. In total that organically grown food tastes very good.

Yesterday we made an excurison to the company, as they invited their customers to have a peek. For children there have been various stations to play or to get face painted. The adults could drink a coffe and look at how the boxes are packaged.

Sleepless in Stuttgart - the first month

Marlene is now one month old. She and her mom are all right. Nights are as expected 'shorter' than before. Currently Marlene wakes up every two hours and wants to drink. But intervals are starting to get longer.
Also during the day she wants to be close to me or her mom. Luckily we have a baby-sling (see e.g. http://www.didymos.de/english/index_e.htm) so the one looking after her can have both hands free (actually while I a writing this, she is in the baby-sling).
Her older brother Orlando is very excited about his baby sister and likes her very much.
Last wednesday her 3th medical examination ("U3") took place and everything is ok with Marlene.

Stay tuned for another month of "Sleepless in Stuttgart" :-)