Matt's Grandfather

Matt's Grandfather was born in Hovelhof, Germany and emigrated to the US in 1923 when he was 24 years old.  He left everything and everyone behind to seek the American dream.

Here is a picture from the grand send off at the train station when he left.

The woman whose hand he is holding is NOT Matt's grandmother.  :)

And that is a band in the background!

He returned once in 1950 to visit.

This is the farm where he was born.

But all that was there when he lived there was this building.

The family lived upstairs, the animals downstairs. 

Since we had the picture above from the grand send off at the train station, we wanted to see it for ourselves.

Maybe a little updating....but not much....

Can't wait to take George and Judy to visit!

Touring Detmold, Germany

On Wednesday, we drove to Detmold, which is about 20-30 minutes away from Paderborn, up the mountain.  We originally went because Martina thought that their Christmas Market was still going on, and she knew how much we had enjoyed the market in Aachen. 

We started off at the Lippe Castle.

I will preface this by saying that it was beautiful inside, and very interesting.  AND still occupied by a Prince.  But I will also say that the girls were less then cooperative.  Audrey was awoken from a nap to get in the carrier because it was not stroller friendly, and proceeded to scream throughout - testing the acoustics, I guess.  And Grace was not amused by the slippers she had to wear over her shoes to protect the floor.  I can't say I blame her.  They were big enough to fit Matt.

Below are a couple of buildings in one of the squares we were in.

 The town was beautiful.  Very picturesque. 

More timbered houses.

If you enlarge the picture above (click on it), you can see the yellow stars hanging outside of each of the store fronts.  They look like Moravian stars.  So pretty.  I came home with one like them.  :)

Sadly, the market was not open.  But that's ok.  It was a beautiful day, and such a nice town to visit!!

Riding the Carousel in Paderborn

Touring Paderborn - Part Three

The door below leads to the Chapel of Bartholomew.  It was built in 1017 and is the oldest vestibule church north of the Alps.  Very impressive acoustics inside.

The knob is the peacock, which was the symbol of the Saint Liborius, and can be seen throughout the church.

I didn't get a picture of the inside, but here is one I found online:

 

This building is the Imperial Palace.  This is where Charlemagne met Pope Leo III, who escaped from Rome, in the year 799.

Grace and her new best friend cousin, Vanessa.

Below is the inside of the Market Church.  The altar was destroyed during the war, but was completely restored to it's original design in 2003.

Touring Paderborn - Part Two

Examples of Timbered architecture in Paderborn.

This house is known as the Adam and Eve House.  It is one of the oldest Tudor-style buildings in Paderborn.  It was built around 1560.  The facade is decorated with colorful wood carvings.  One of the carvings reflects the expulsion from paradise, and how the house received it's name.

Another beautiful building is the Town Hall.  If you look closely at the windows on the bottom, you can see pictures displayed.  This served as the town's Advent calendar.  Every day they turned over a new picture leading up to Christmas.

I'm not sure what this building is (maybe Martina will send me an email and remind me), but I just thought it was pretty, with beautiful details.

Touring Paderborn - Part One

Tuesday morning we took a tour of Paderborn.  From Martina's house, the city center is only about a 20 minute walk along the very nice pedestrian paths along the river Pader (shortest river in Germany).

First up, the Paderborn Cathedral, which is about 700 years old.  The first church (there have been 5 on the same site), was built by Charlemagne in 777.

The creche/crib, carved from wood.

The cloister of the cathedral houses the 'famous' Three Hares Window, which dates back to the 16th century and depicts three jumping hares in a circle.  The picture only shows three ears, yet each of the hares appears to have a complete pair of ears.  The circular movement is the ancient symbol of the cycle of the moon; rising, descending, and becoming invisible and rising again.  Thus, the hare window is an image of the beginning and the ending of life, but also a sign of new creation.

Replicas of the Hare Window can be found throughout town, and have become the symbol of Paderborn.

Trip to Germany

Monday we set off on a 4 day adventure to Paderborn, Germany.    Paderborn is where Matt's grandfather was born, and he still has relatives that live there.  We were going to visit and stay with Matt's cousin Martina, her husband Burkhard, and Grace's new best friend cousin, Vanessa.

Paderborn is about 4 hours from Brussels.  We left a little before 10am, and got a good 2 hours in before we needed to stop and feed Audrey.  So we made it a lunch date for all, and had our first McDonald's in Europe.  And it tasted just about the same.

We got to Paderborn a little after 2pm.  After a quick introduction to the family, we took a walk around Lake Pader.  Grace needed to let out some steam from being cooped up in the car, so it was good.  I wish I could say the weather was good.....but I guess that's Europe in the winter for you.

When we got back to the house, Martina's Dad, Karl-Heinz, her Mom, Auguste, and her sister Verena were waiting for us.  Verena and Martina speak very good English, but their parents do not.  But that didn't stop them from talking to us!  With some translation help, we were able to understand them ok.  Karl-Heinz is Matt's father's first cousin.  They are also Caspermeyer's, but spelled Caspersmeier.  It is likely that Matt's grandfather adopted the new spelling when he arrived in Ellis Island, because his cousin John, who was already in Illinois had changed to Caspermeyer.

Everyday at 4pm they eat cake!  Isn't that awesome?!  So we all sat down and had some cake.  Yum!

After cake, we sat around and sang Christmas Carols.   Verena played the guitar, and Martina and Vanessa played the recorders.  It was so nice.  And some of the songs are universal.  A few were unfamiliar, but most we knew....in English, at least. 

Afterwards, Martina's parents and sister went back to their house (which is right behind theirs), and we had dinner, put the girls to bed, and watched some slides of their trip to Australia.

Tuesday, we toured Paderborn with Martina and Vanessa.......see next series of posts (4 in total).......

The Caspermeyer Four for Christmas

Christmas Morning!

 
Sisters, and matching jammies.

 

Showing her sister how it's done

Trying out the new kitchen

Playing with her new favorite toy

That face.  Ugh.  In her defense, this was after present opening and church, and before lunch and nap.  Attitude improved somewhat.  But I feel the 3s are going to be ROUGH going for awhile.

Merry Christmas! Part One

 

Santa came last night.....

Should have let Rudolf eat the carrot before I took the picture.....

The girls stockings.....

Yes, I realize Audrey's is not embroidered......but at least she has one, right?  That could have easily been forgotten in the moving game.  Matt actually bought it the day after Christmas last year ...

Audrey's chair, and a new walker toy were her 'big' gifts from Santa.

Grace got a kitchen of her very own!!

More to come from Christmas morning/day......

Santa was here!

"Twas the Night Before Christmas

Married

Grace has taken a sudden interest in our wedding pictures.  She points to them and tells us that is when Mommy and Daddy got married.

Yesterday, she got married.

LOL... but when Daddy got home, and he asked her what was going on, he thought she said she was MARY (as in Jesus' Mommy).  I guess easy confusion!?  Loving this age and the imagination, that is for sure!

Awwwww

Making Cookies!

Grace and I made cookies this week.

First up were sugar cookies.  We made the dough and icing from scratch, and split the dough in half and did it two days in a row.

Grace had such a good time rolling the dough, cutting out the shapes, and decorating.

Also loved licking her spoon when we were done.

We also made spritz cookies.  No pictures of that endeavor though.  As usual, Audrey supervised.