Category: Family

memories and remarkable stories, pictures with some text, all about the family

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Funny Picture

paus
Paus go to Hell

As I just pointed out in my last post about the name Paus that it means Papst and is actually dutch. A while back I received this really funny picture that a friend of mine send me with a big smiley face. I think I have to soon use this someone when I give a talk.

This picture is an unchanged official picture from 2006 from Reuters. The official description is:
“An Indonesian Muslim protester holds up a placard during a rally outside the Vatican embassy in Jakarta September 18, 2006. The sign reads, “Paus (Pope) go to hell”. About 100 Muslims rallied on Monday to condemn Pope Benedict for his controversial remarks on Islam. REUTERS/Dadang Tri (INDONESIA).”

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My Childhood Accounting of the Paus Family Crest

As I have indicated in my last post the Paus family (gt Dickmann) has a family crest. This has been explained to us for the first time by my uncle I seem to recall. My father never mentioned it as much as I can remember. A crest is obviously something super cool, in particular when you are a little kid and I was always quite impressed with it. At the time I wondered, a crest is usually the sign of a noble family, but Paus certainly does not seem to be a noble family name and it is even not a very well known name in Germany. Searching Paus on the internet, the best you can come up with is that it means ‘Papst’ in dutch and there is a well known noble family in Norway called Paus. I do not know but I would assume they have nothing to do with us. Anyway, I am straying because I wanted to talk about my childhood recollections. When I asked my uncle, he never really explained much at a time, maybe he did not really know either but the picture that emerged from the little information is as follows.

The old peasant Paus was ordered by the local noble man to bring beer to the large feast in the castle. There have always been wolfs but with the cold winter and large snowfall they were more aggressive and straying through the region. There had been reports of a particular large lonely wolf. Peasant Paus had a large horse pulling his sled which he used to transport the beer in the bitter cold night, when a huge wolf appeared and started to leap at the horse. He got off the sled and fought the wolf with his bare hands and killed him, strangling the poor beast to death. The noble man was grateful for the delivery of the beverages and the killing of the big bad wolf. The crest was a sign of gratitude.

I cannot possibly believe that story but there must be something to it. Stay tuned, I will with time update the story with better researched facts.

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Das Geschlechtswappen

paus
Das Wappen.

Dieses Wappen habe ich irgendwo bei meinem Bruder von einer Webseite und ich glaube er hat es von unserem Onkel und jetzt habe ich es eben. Dachte mir hier ist eine schoene Stelle das Prachtstueck zu praesentieren und mit der Zeit die Geschichte dieses Wappen zu dokumentieren. Ich war bisher nicht in der Lage irgendetwas ueber dieses Wappen im Internet zu finden…. ziemlich erstaunlich aus diesem Grunde werde ich hier einmal die Geschichten dokumentieren, die mir von meiner Familie ueberliefert wurden. Dazu aber in folgenden Posts.

Wie ich spaeter von Pup erfahren habe, hat Onkel Juergen dieses Bild des Geschlechtswappen aus den Registern der damaligen Bundeshauptstadt Bonn besorgt. Also, dieses Wappen ist in der Tat hoechst offiziell eingetragen.

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A Night at the Museum of Science

The boyscouts once a year run, probably since a long time, the night at the Museum of Science in Boston. The museum offers people to stay the night and enjoy the exhibitions more thoroughly and including a sleepover the simple, sometimes boring museum visit turns into a much talked about adventure. The first year Ivan and I opted out, I thought it was rather expensive. This year though the price was much reduced and we (the three oldest males of the family) decided to go. Ana picked me up from work on Friday (Jan 20). We went to ‘Au bon pain’ at Kendall square to make sure we had eaten well. We got some good sandwiches and off we went to the museum. Ana had packed the bags with everything we really needed: air matresses (two queen size), three sleeping bags (new), PJs, some pillow pets for the kids and some small snacks including a big bottle of apple juice.

We arrived and quickly found the entry, that is right at the entry of the parking garage (left side when you enter), with good signs…. it seems there are many people doing this regularly. We dropped our bags at the entry at the prescribed spot and got our information sheet including the floor plan. All was very neatly organized and we found our spot quickly. We had the reception in the Cahner’s Theater were we learned oabout the Science of Sound. some nice fun demaonstrations, one highlight being the ‘Bernoulli Principle’. The rules of the house were sung together in the end and the main thing I remember was that we should never take off our shoes, which made me worry as I only had my big boots on, but later I learned that the rules about the boots seem not to be strictly enforced, I asked myself what the whole point was anyways, ‘…and never take off your shoes.’
After the reception we moved downwards to the lower level were the kids had a wonderful workshop in the Triceratops Cliff. The parents standing around and chatting were all surprised how easily the museum helpers could convince the kids to puzzle a Dino skeleton together and later design their own Dinos. They really did very well. After the workshop we slowely moved up to receive a snack (coffee, tea, juice, cookies). From there we went to pick up our sleeping gear and constructed out camp ground in the ‘Investigate I’ section on the 2nd level. Our matresses took longest to inflate, because they were the biggest but our batteries came through and we had excellent sleeping spots for everybody. After some wild plays Science in the Museum we were invited to the lightning show in the ‘Theater of Electricity’. It was all about lightings produced with Tesla coils and the famous Van de Graff generator which actually the man himself (an MIT professor) had build and left to the museum when it was not needed anymore. They put it up on the parking lot at the time and the museum build a building around it. The show was electrifying with one highlight being the theme song from ‘Mission Impossible’ being played with lighting humming, very cool. Of course the large lightnings were cool too, Markus got a little scared: He does not really like load noises. Then we wnet to bad, and the kids fell relatively quickly asleep, shortly after midnioght when the lights were put out. We did evantually take off our shoes and even put on the PJs, very civilized including theeth brushing etc.

In the morning we were woken by the museum folks, after a good night’s sleep. The morning program was packing uip the camp, breakfast, a wonderful show in the planetarium and a 180 degree cinema show on life on a journey. Wandering birds, wales, zebras and monarch butterflies. How do they decide to be the forth generation? …. an how in the world does the 4th generation know were to go in Mexico? what a mystery! We went home in good spirits with Damien (Markus and I) and Jim (Ivan) and met a equally relaxed crowd. I am sure this was not the last time we did this. Pictures are attached.

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Passion for Früh Kölsch

One of our standard tours in Bonn is the zoo in Cologne, the kids love it. The zoo in Köln, together with its aquarium und terrarium seemed huge to me, when I was a kid, in fact I always thought there could not be a bigger one in the entire world. Today I find them much smaller, but still a quite respectable zoo with lots of animals and nicely displayed. Anyway, this is probably a whole other story, the reason why Ana and I would never miss a tour to Cologne is a visit to the dome and even more importantly to the original Früh Kölsch brewery. If you do not know about Kölsch follow the link and read up on it.

When we stoped at Dom/HBF we exited and there it was the Dom (cathedral) practically right on top of us. We just had to walk around it and follow the place right to the brewery. It is a relatively normal old house but when you enter you realize how huge the place is. It is complicated, has many different small and bigger rooms and has a beautiful basement. The Köbes came by and in the typical Rheinland manner wanted to know what we want… interesting only most Köbes at least at that somewhat quiet hour were not Germans. They had an accent which I could not identify, but they knew the drill and kept the beer coming without much ordering. The 0.2 ‘Stangen’ were nicely cool and the beer was most refreshing. Ana disappeared to the rest rooms only to come back with nice t-shirt for me (red with white rims) ‘Liebe Deine Heimat’ written in white on the chest. Blake liked it so much that I had to put it on him and after fitting it a bit in the back it worked like a long robe for him. He was the attraction of the neighborhood for a few minutes, people even snapped some pictures. We ordered some ‘Schweinebraten’, ‘Salat’, ‘Nudeln mit Hackfleischsosse’ and ‘Fleischkäse’, please check the extensive menu.

After another round of beer we went back — Ana very happily I might add — to catch the train and get back to Bonn.

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Rheinauen Spaziergang

Heute morgen haben wir einen erholsamen und sehr kinderreichen Spaziergang in die Rheinaue gemacht. Susanne war bei der Arbeit und die Kinder haben noch Ferien und somit waren Susanne’s Kinder bei den Grosseltern, wo wir ja auch einquartiert sind. Als wir dann langsam alle wach waren fanden wir das Haus voller Kinder und dazu auch noch voller wild spielender Kinder. Um das Haus ein wenig zu beruhigen machten Ana und ich uns auf den Weg in die Rheinaue um einen der Spielplätze auszuprobieren.

Es ging los nachdem wir uns alles vollständig angezogen hatten, was ja doch immer ein Weilchen dauert bei inzwischen 7 Kindern, mit einem Gang durch den Friedhof. Schnell bildeten sich Doppelpacks aus Rebecca und Gisele, Raphi und Markus und schliesslich noch Ivan und Blake. Anfangs waren alle noch voller Energie und wir mussten ein wenig zur Ruhe aufrufen. Eine Beerdingung war entweder im Gange oder gerade abgeschlossen, denn es liefen einige zum Anlass fein gekleidete Gestalten durch die Wege um die Kapelle am Haupteingang. Wir liessen den Friedhof schnell hinter uns zurueck, vorbei am deutschen akademischen Austauschdienst und über die Mittelstrasse in die Rheinaue. Markus fing gerade eine Tirade an über ‘wie weit es noch sei’ und ‘wie muede er jetzt schon wäre’ als der erste Spielplatz vor uns auftauchte. Die Kinder liessen sich nicht lange bitten und alle Geräte fanden gute Verwendung. Als wir uns schon fast wieder aufmachen mussten hoerten wir einige Schreie und entdeckten Opa der mit einer Rotzfahne an einem Stock auf sich aufmerksam machte. Die Kinder fingen ihn schnell und nach einem Gruppenphoto machten wir uns dann auf den Rückweg. Der Rückweg verlief überraschend angenehm, Raphi setzte sich mit Opa ab, während ich einen Vater-Tochter Moment mit Gisele durchlebte: Rebecca, Angie, Ivan und Markus jagten uns für eine Zeit während Ana die Nachhut übernahm. Zum Essen kamen wir fast pünktlich um 12:45 (es war für 12:30 geplant).

Von unserem früheren Spaziergang hier ein paar Bilder von unseren Kindern mit dem Kunstwerk vor dem DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer AustauschDienst).

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Lalas and our Visit to Germany

As long as Blake is able to observe things around him he has always been attracted to animals smaller then him or maybe even his size and in particular to dogs. When he started to speak a little more he also gave them a creative name. They were all called Lalas, the word he also uses for his pacifier. Luckily, the contexts are usually so different that it is easy for us to keep track of the specific meaning when applied. My mother got a new dog about a year ago which we all had not yet seen as we had not been in my parents house since August 2009. When we arrived from the US (Dec 25) Blaki was very excited to see the nice, tall, brown pudel with name Cha Cha — yes, like the dance. He immediately fell in love and after short we had to protect the poor dog as Blake’s love was becoming rather physical, resulting him to start riding the poor creature or just lying on top of her. Cha Cha is a somewhat more mature dog and has some back problems that prevent her from fully enjoying our youngests intense love. She would not make a sound, but her eyes, frantically searching for her master, gave her away. She is a very calm and quiet dog, so that we started to call her a lamb.

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Grimlock and Pitsha

Gisele has just earned herself a new name: Grimlock. Since recently she has started to scream like an attacking viking warrior — very dark and loud or better fierce voice — ‘Grimlock‘. When I heard it the first time I was wondering who was screaming as I did not recognize her voice. A wild viking warrior was my first thought but then I saw our sweet little girl belling out the intimidating scream. First of course i did no understand exactly what it was she was screaming but after several loud repetitions i had my ears ringing and figured out that it was G R I M L O C K. The viking phases, luckily, were never all that long but they were repeated over the last days until finally today I asked Ana, where the new word might have its origin. Ana explained to me that it is the result of one of the kids’ games. Gisele was telling the boys what they had to do and one of the commands was supposed to be ‘headlock’, where they would put their head into a lock with their own arms. Gisele modified the command into grimlock for no particular reason, which resulted in Markus and Ivan trying to convince her that it was supposed to be headlock. Gisele of course insisted on her much better version and the voices got louder and louder until the vikings appeared on the scene and the friendly conversation turned into a feroce viking screaming match. It is quite apparent who won the battle!

Another instance of Gisele’s insistance on her version is about how to call the pizza. Ana from time to time makes a pizza for all of us. Usually she would ask whether we would like to have a pizza resulting in a simple question to the kids: Pizza? and them repreating ‘yeah, pizza!’. Only Gisele for no good reason would answer ‘pitsha’ (pronounced as the baseball pitcher but with a sha in the end). Again, our boys started to correct her with the same result as in the grimlock battle.

Grimlock
Grimlock on the playground in the Rheinaue.

On the picture Blake identifies Lelle and Djay — or for us normal people: Gisele and Markus. It was pretty easy to identify Lelle but it took us a while to realize that Blake consistently called Markus:’ Djay. Ivan by the way is Ivi.

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Weihnachten 2011 in Bonn

Endlich, nach 3 Jahren sind wir mal wieder in Deutschland zu einer zünftigen Weihnachtsfeier, mit Familie, Weihnachtsgebäck, einem richtigen Familiensingen und ein paar guten Flaschen Früh Kölsch (Ana hat eine heftige Passion fuer dieses wunderbare lokale Bier entwickelt nachdem wir vor Jahren zum ersten mal im Brauhaus in Köln vorbeigeschaut hatten). Um ein wenig am recht teuren Weihnachtsspass zu sparen haben wir den Flug für Heilig Abend 18:26 gebucht. Wir sollten dann um 10:40 morgens am ersten Weihnachtstag in Köln ankommen, nach einem Zwischenstopp in Amsterdam. Der Flug war dann in der Tat auch angenehm ereignislos. Pup und Motz erwarteten uns dann auch am Flughafen. Der Gang zu den Autos war dann erfrischend kurz, da Köln wirklich nur ein sehr kleines Volumen an Flügen hat. Wir alle haben ns nach einer hefitgen Begrüssung nocheinmal schnell auf die Betten geworfen, eigentlich etwas was total verboten ist fuer den effizienten Zeitzonenreisenden aber fuer einen längeren Urlaub ist das erlaubt.

Nach unserem geruhsamen Nickerchen haben wir ein wenig chillaxed, abends habe ich dann noch alle Weihnachtsgeschenke für die Familie eingepackt und unter dem Baum plaziert, nahezu wie ein professioneller Weihnachtsmann. Die grosse Weihnachtsfeier war dann am nächsten Tag um die Mittagszeit. morgens um 10 Uhr bin ich mit Ivan in die Messe gefahren in Sankt Quirin. Die Lesung vom Stephanus war dran, wie immer am zweiten Weihnachtstag. Als wir nach Hause kamen waren die Vorbereitungen schon in vollem Gange. Die Besucherschar liess nicht lange auf sich warten und am Ende waren es dann 30 mit der kompletten Kinder- und Kindeskindergeneration meiner Eltern. Alle Partner und Kinder waren auch dabei, wie man auf dem unteren Bild sehen kann.

Paus Family 2011 Christmas
Ana and I decided to go to Germany for Christmas.... as you can see we make up just 20% of the party. The Paus Family is big.

Das Fest war wundervoll: ein Mahl mit Schweinelendchen, Semmelknödeln und Erbsen & Möhrchen, eine typische kleine Weihnachtsfeier mit einigen Liedern, einer kleinen Ansprache und einem wundervollen Song von Cat Stevens gesungen und mit der Gitarre begleitet vom Rockstar der Familie: Johannes Hagen. Der Spruch des Tages kam vom Lasse, nachdem er vom Opa gefragt wurde worauf er sich denn am meisten freue: “Die Geschenke natuerlich!” Endlich mal eine ehrliche Antwort von den Kindern. Nach dem Essen und der Bescherung kam es dann zum Familienphoto und angenehmen und sehr ‘satten’ Unterhaltungen während die Kinder das notwendige Chaos fast im ganzen Haus verbreiteten. Wunderbar!