Oktoberfest

Family Oktoberfest 2023

Today I finally got around to preparing our annual family Oktoberfest! Of course I had to wear a dirndl…I think I wore five of my six dresses to various Oktoberfests this year!

I didn’t make fondue this year, but I did make pretzels, and I even experimented with making a few larger ones. I need to work on rolling them out a bit thinner, but they were good!

Of course I had to celebrate in Animal Crossing, too:

I made our favorites for dinner…Schnitzel (which at this point, I think I’ve perfected!), spaetzle, and rotkohl. I still haven’t been brave enough to make sauerkraut from scratch, so that was store-bought. I did make Jäger sauce this year, though!

Yes, our house smells like a German restaurant!

For dessert, I made our favorite Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte…I wouldn’t dare make something else!

This is always a delicious day!

Sartorial Saturday–Oktoberfest 2023

Time for a look back at the outfits I wore to various Oktoberfest celebrations this year! I attended a record four Oktoberfests, which means I got to wear 2/3 of the dirndls in my wardrobe. I wore my very first dress from Rare Dirndl to Belleville’s Oktoberfest, but with a fairly new apron:

I wore one of my newest dirndls to St. Charles Oktoberfest, but I again switched out the apron:

I decided to go for a lot of color at Zootoberfest at the St. Louis Zoo:

And I paired my new “Surprise Me” apron with one of my oldest dirndls at Oktoberfest at Das Bevo:

Looking back at the places I went, I can say that Belleville’s Oktoberfest is still the most disappointing to me, while St. Charles is the biggest and best. Surprisingly, though, the zoo had the best pretzels!

St. Charles might have the best Oktoberfest, but you just can’t beat the setting of Das Bevo. It was the smallest one I attended, but just look at that gorgeous building and fun tent!

I’ll leave you with everyone’s favorite call for a toast!

Chickadee Thursday

Even if it hadn’t been Zootoberfest, Chickadee would have had a great time at the St. Louis Zoo last weekend because she got to see the entire elephant herd!

Chickadee Thursday

We went to St. Charles Oktoberfest for the first time, and it was so much fun…Chickadee especially loved seeing all of the dachshunds that were there for the “Wiener Takes All” Wiener Dog Derby!

St. Charles Oktoberfest

Yesterday we went to St. Charles Oktoberfest for the first time, and it was so much fun! I really loved the location at Frontier Park right on the banks of the Missouri River…it’s the perfect place for a festival!

There were lots of tents, and we got to hear several bands:

There were also German dancers, which I absolutely loved!

The dancers were from the German Cultural Society of St. Louis, and they also had a booth where they were selling cookbooks (I added one to my extensive cookbook collection) and Schwarzwälderkirsch Cupcakes (very tasty!).

Speaking of food…is it even Oktoberfest if you don’t have a pretzel?!? We also tried the schnitzel sandwich, which was served open-faced on rye bread with sauerkraut and mustard…so delicious!

We didn’t get to see the “Wiener Takes All” dog derby, but we did see tons of dachshunds everywhere we went!

And we weren’t there for the glockenspiel performance, but it was cool to get to see the clock!

With apologies to Belleville, this was the best Oktoberfest I’ve been to!

It was almost everything I hoped for in an Oktoberfest…lots of people, lots of tents, German music and dancing, German food, and even places to buy various German items. I think if I want to get my souvenir clothespin, a beautifully decorated Lebkuchenherzen, and a Steckerlfisch, I’m just going to have to plan a trip to Munich, though!

2023-24 School Year–Week Four

Fun things first! We took some time out of our school day today to go to the library and visit our town’s Oktoberfest as long as we were downtown!

Ladybug read about the expansion of the early church in religion. She used the trig table to solve for an unknown in pre-calculus. In writing, she came up with a conflict for a story. She read about Jeong Jung-bu and the overthrow of the Goryeo Empire in Korea. There were even more comma rules in grammar. In physics, she started learning about two-dimensional vectors. She continued her literature study of The Hound of the Baskervilles. We also started reading The Two Towers.

Chickadee reviewed everyone’s favorite, long division, in math. She started a chapter about muscles in science. We started reading Felicity Learns a Lesson. She learned about Justinian and Theodora in history, and then moved on to the Gupta dynasty. In grammar, she reviewed simple, progressive, and perfect tenses. We read my favorite parts of Anne of Green Gables, when Anne cracked her slate over Gilbert’s head, and when Diana inadvertently got drunk when she came to tea. We also baked the Chocolate Goblin’s Food Cake from The Anne of Green Gables Cookbook:

“I just grow cold when I think of my layer cake. Oh, Diana, what if it shouldn’t be good! I dreamed last night that I was chased all around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a head.” –Anne Shirley

Sartorial Saturday–Mother-Daughter Dirndl Wearing

I think by now it’s obvious that I love wearing a dirndl, but I love even more that it’s something I’ve been able to share with Bunny, who received a dirndl on her 18th birthday last year.

I love how she adds her own personal style to how she wears it!

We even had a chance to get dressed up and go to our town’s Oktoberfest last fall:

I’m so happy she shares my interest in the culture of our ancestors!

Oktoberfest (Finally!)

It’s a little later in the month than I would have preferred, but today we finally had our annual Markel Family Oktoberfest! It was a beautiful day, and I thought it was very fitting that we sung a hymn in church this morning that I remember my dad singing in German while I played the piano when I was a child.

I was excited to have a dirndl and lots of edelweiss accessories to wear this year:

When we got home from church, we had our traditional Oktoberfest lunch of fondue with brats, German pickles, and homemade pretzels:

I made most our dinner of schnitzel, spaetzle, rotkohl, and sauerkraut from scratch (the sauerkraut was the only store-bought item).

For dessert I made our favorite Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte:

Oktoberfest is a lot of work…like an actual holiday’s amount of work. But it is a holiday for us, and I love having a way share my heritage with my family!