Advent 2013 days thirteen and fourteen

We didn't manage to open the Advent calendar yesterday, because of general craziness and because it was so cold that I was totally unmotivated to carry out what I knew was on the paper for the 13th, originally scheduled for the 11th, when pouring rain made it likewise impractical. And Jörn admitted to me what his plan was for today (also originally scheduled for earlier this week and switched around at his request) and it went well with yesterday's, so we opened them both today and combined them. Day 13 was "go for a walk" and Day 14 was "Papa's surprise." We sort of carried out day 13 in walking to Souvlaki Express, the fact that Jörn wanted to go out to eat hardly being much of a surprise to anyone, but a nice treat, nevertheless!

 

From the souvlaki place, we walked to the Salt Lake park, continuing our official Day Thirteen activity:

This was the first photo Jacob took when I asked him to take a photo of Jörn and me:

 He then did take a photo of us, but I was rather annoyed and looked it, so as Keeper of the Camera, I deleted it.

 

After only 15 minutes, Jörn needed to leave to take a cake that Lukas had made to the people Lukas had made it for, but the rest of us continued walking. Lukas found a big cardboard tube and ran towards it yelling joyfully "Treasure! I found treasure!!"

We walked through the park and to the Nature Trail, and then Jacob and Konstantin went home, but the rest of us kept exploring.

 

 Of course, the first bench we came to made Elisabeth say, "Let's have a rest," and her siblings were happy to oblige:

We left the Nature Trail to go down to the lake. At this point, Lukas has hidden his cardboard roll and managed to get Helen to carry (wear) his hat and Elisabeth to carry his coat!

 We've finally had some rain, so there is a little bit of water, but not much, and it wasn't as muddy as I thought it would be.

 

After about half an hour, Jörn phoned to say he was back and to figure out where to meet. The children were so excited to see him, running to meet him and yelling "Papa! Papa!" that a casual bystander might have thought they'd been separated for weeks or months, rather than barely 30 minutes:

 

Lukas managed to get his sisters BEGGING to help carry his cardboard tube, and he even turned to us and smirked, "Just like Tom Sawyer!" He still finds reading a struggle, but he's read the first couple of chapters and was very impressed by Tom's managing to get his friends painting the fence AND paying him for it.

My coat came on and off several times--in the sun, it was almost warm, but in the shade and when wind came up, it was rather chilly. Lukas's coat was worn by him, carried by Elisabeth, and worn by Helen and Katie, Katie's shawl was worn by her and by Helen, and Helen's coat was worn by her and then by Jörn:

The walk was about an hour and a half all together and a lot of fun, and I can't really think of any good reason that we don't do this more often!