Kohlrabi...

Have you ever cooked a kohlrabi?  It looks like this when the greens are still attached:  

I cut mine off, but I hear you can cook them up, too.  Anyhow, I just wanted to try one because they seem to be a common vegetable around here...so I looked up possible cooking methods and decided to add it to my beef soup.  It looks and smells like a turnip or radish when it's raw, but once it was cooked into the soup, it had a texture much like a less dense potato with a milder flavor than turnip.  Quite tasty and even the kids ate it up!  Don't know the nutritional value, but fun to try new foods!

The weather here is quite erratic, it seems.  Yesterday, it went up into the 90s mid-afternoon, and suddenly we had a huge thunder storm and somewhat "torrential" rains, and the temp dropped to a cool 68 degrees Fahrenheit by 7pm, which made it absolutely wonderful to sit outside in the back yard while the kids played.  

 In other news, we heard that Milka chocolates were the best, so I picked up a few to try, and I can agree that it is quite a delicious chocolate and they have such a variety!  The girls liked Oreo cookies and cream best...I really do like the hazelnut chocolates... :)

The girls have been helping out with getting the garden ready...probably for next spring...we are awaiting contact from a local landscaper who will give us a little guidance on our ideas for the backyard garden to see if what we want to do will work.  It's still fun for them, though...just digging around and collecting rocks.

Also. As we have continued to unpack, the girls can't help but play with things as we come across them in the boxes...like this Santa costume! 

...and this darling hat.

In baby news, Little Bit is just happy as a clam playing "catch the feet" at night...which delays everyone's bedtime by a bit...but how do you stop a cutie from learning and enjoying her newfound skill?  

Continuing the baby update, we have started introducing solids...a little earlier than I had planned, but she was showing signs of readiness, so we went with it and she is doing very well.  Here, she is enjoying mashed banana from her Unni.  

I'll end today's entry with a photo from early this morning...it was our first foggy morning here in Germany.  It reminded me of one of my favorite poems by Carl Sandburg, Fog.  

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Driving home today from the store, I felt this sense of comfort and calm coming over me because it actually felt like I was driving into MY neighborhood to MY home...for the first time.  It took me just shy of a month to feel this way...what a wonderful feeling.  I can finally really start calling Germany "home."