Peter developed chickenpox. For consolation and to stimulate him in learning to read and write, I brought him a spelling pad. Click to enlarge the picture to see his progress so far. In the meantime David is playing a computer game in which he has to beat up pizza monsters. It's amazing how fast he is, and he figured it out himself.
On our way back we did a little detour in the northern part of the Black Forest, and suddenly found ourselves in a winter wonderland. A big contrast with New Year's Eve, but a nice opportunity to test our winter tires.
Best wishes for the new year from the Black Forest, where we're spending a few days with the Simsons. With 14 degrees Celsius it feels like Spring is in the air... Yesterday we drove up to the Blauen, where you have a great view over the area. Always nice to look into 2007 from a mountain top. In the evening dinner with the Guidicis (together with Thomas Wolfgang wrote 'Der Preis des Geldes', about the influence of Mammon and how to break that power system). Lots of good conversations over excellent meals. No, we didn't eat starfish.
Yesterday our 5-year old Peter drew a picture for me. The conversation went like this:
Dad: "Wow, this is a beautiful picture, Peter. Well done."
Peter: "Dad, you're holding it upside down. You have to turn it around."
Dad: "Ah well, now I see. It's a snake, isn't it?"
Peter: "No dad, can't you see? This is not a snake, this is art!"
Dad: "Art? Do you have any idea what art is?"
Peter: "Yes, art is that you make something beautiful, but don't know what it is."
Late morning sunshine in a damp forest near Den Dolder. The boys are looking for little animals.
It's Monkey's birthday, so Karolien helped the boys to make an apple pie, and we sang him a birthday song. In the afternoon we watched the astonishing documentary 'The March of the Penguins'.
David discovered he can fold himself in three wooden storage boxes and turn himself into a table.
Six weeks ago Peter fell from his bicycle, and since then he resists giving it another go, no matter how hard we try. He's very creative in finding excuses. Today he said: "Dad, I'm willing to cycle, but only when it rains." (He knows that when it's raining, he can use that as an excuse not to cycle.) Then I tried the 'imagine you could do this' approach: "Close your eyes, and imagine/picture you take your bicycle, go the elevator, push the button, go down, etc." Peter interrupted me: "Dad, I don't have these pictures available in my memory, the space where they used to be stored is empty." Aaaargh....
The forest is beautiful this time of the year. We made walks near Leersum and Ede, and I came across a wide variety of mushrooms.
