Pfingsten Weekend

On Saturday, May 30 we celebrated our 5 year anniversary. It's hard to believe that 5 years have gone by already, and it's amazing to think about all of the memories we have already made and how our family has grown. Happy anniversary!



On Sunday we visited nearby Tueddern to enjoy a local "Oldtimertreffen", which basically involved a ton of old tractors lined up for viewing. There were different clubs who travel together and set up camp near their vehicles. There were many groups sitting out in the sun and drinking beer at 10am. The orange and red tractors pictured below are Porsches. We also saw a sampling of various breeds of chicken, some of which were very attractive with beautiful plummage. We quickly toured the Bauernmusuem to see examples of traditional tools, clothing, furniture etc. We saw women making lace, bees making honey, and bakers baking bread from scratch. We had a snack of bread and pommes (fries) with curry ketchup and let Brennan burn off some steam on the playground.



Patrick had Monday off for Pfingsten (aka Pentecost) and it also happened to be Deutschen Muehlentag, or Mill Day. There are 4 old windmills and 1 watermill in our area that were open for touring. We loaded up our bikes and, along with our friends the McLallens, biked to 3 of the windmills. The weather was beautiful, which was fortunate since we made some wrong turns and ended up biking for much longer than we had anticipated. The mills were lots of fun though and were completely open for visitors to climb around in. Aside from keeping people away from the turning blades, there were no safety measures to speak of, or crowd control. It got interesting as the little rooms filled up with people and everyone was jostling to both see and stay clear of the spinning beams and moving parts. The mill in Waldfeucht had a grill and we stopped for a lunch of brats and potato salad (and fruit and snacks from home). The mill in Haaren still works and we were able to see flour being made. One of the volunteers there heard us speaking English and gave us a personalized English tour, which was great. It was a beautiful day in the sun, and even though it cut into Brennan's naptime, he was so excited to hang out with his friends Colin and Brandt that he managed to hang in there, falling asleep in the bikeseat only at the very end.