Wiesbaden Winefest

The girls have completed the second week of school, and so far I am victorious in getting them to school on time and picking them up at the right time.  Then on Friday, the teacher sends home another class schedule beginning next week. I am color coding the hours again because last year at the start of school, I could not keep track of the times and days when looking at it quickly and wound up being at the school when Adeline still had another class. Eric questions why I am using so many colors and then I show him there is no routine to the week. He points out to me that as least we know Adeline is in school everyday from 8:45-11:25am, but whether she starts earlier or stays an extra hour or two later depends on the day. 

After returning from summer vacation, Eric was not feeling well and late Friday afternoon we finally had the reason why he was feeling ill. He thought it might be a case of jet lag or possibly the flu since he had flu-like symptoms and shooting pains in his upper neck area. However, the symptoms only got worse and after a week of doctor's visits, blood work, an ultrasound, and an MRI the results kept coming back normal. It was finally discovered Eric has Lyme disease as this one blood test took the longest to perform. Fortunately, as soon as he started taking the medicine, he began to start feeling better. We are praying he is on his way to recovery soon and the pain goes away quickly. We are very grateful that he was able to work from home during this time, so he was not traveling while his immune system was low. We are not sure where he acquired the tick as we only saw the bite area soon thereafter, but thought the red area was probably caused from riding the roller coasters during our Cedar Point outing.

After these two updates on Friday, I was looking forward to the Wiesbaden Wine festival on Saturday afternoon. We had another fabulous summer afternoon to enjoy the festival again this year. 

We started in the area where the local family wine booths were at by sampling their Rieslings and grape juice. The girls enjoyed their festival treat of nutella crepes and watching the band march around the square. We ended around the other side of the church near our favorite winery, The Allendorf. Sarah, Jorge, and their friends met up with us in the early evening. Attending the festival was a nice way to end the week.

Musikschule

This week kicked off the girls involvement in Hofheim's music school. Adeline will be participating in the Instrumentkarussel program and Emmie is in early elementary music program.

About every eight weeks, Adeline will get to learn a new instrument. Her first instrument is the guitar. She has weekly practice on Monday afternoons. Her class has four boys and she is the only girl, but she had fun at the first class. There has been much excitement everyday to practice her lessons. 

Emmie's class is an educational class focusing on simple rhythm and elementary instruments while incorporating singing, dancing, and painting. Her class has twelve four year olds in, but with the song and dancing to music relating to a red snake, they all behaved themselves for a good first class.

This week has been long for me as I have had two parent meetings at the music school and each one lasted about 2 hours. For Adeline's class, the parent meeting would have been shorter, if only the parents had not asked such nonsense questions. Emmie's teacher had us parents participate in the meeting, but at 9pm at night, I would have preferred not to play with the instruments. Overall though, Emmie's teacher did a good job explaining the course and demonstrating the program so we have a better understanding what the children should gain from participating.

In school, Adeline started a new schedule this week. I am very happy as the schedule only has one early start time of 8am and the rest of the days she starts at 8:45 am and then she is done at 12:30pm, which is the same time Emmie's kindergarten is out. 

Due to the high temperatures we have been experiencing, the school has also sent home a note about Hitzefrei, heat free day, indicating that when the temperature at 11am is at or above 77 degrees on a school day, then the school will be closed for the last hour, which means school is closed at 11:25am. The kids were very excited this was going to happen since we have been experiencing some hot days, but it has not happened yet. 

Tuesday evening, at 5:30pm we went swimming in the local pool as it was still 89 degrees out. It was interesting to see the amount of people leaving the pool at 6pm, since the air was still very warm. We left when the sun started to set as then the air started to cool off a little bit. 

Thursday afternoon, Emmie had her four year old check-up. She is in 104 cm (40.9 inches) and weighs 16.1 kg (34.5 lbs). Emmie is our healthy little girl with blonde curls and a bubbly personality that we love so very much.

Showtime

Tuesday morning was the big performance for Adeline and her class. In May, they began working on the production for the new incoming first class for their first school day in August. The 52 new students and their parents and relatives were entertained by the school choir, Adeline's class, and a few other acts from the older students in a welcoming program.

First, Adeline sang in the choir. She sang some of the songs we sang in late June at the festival. Then her class began their portion. They started out with a song and then proceeded into an alphabet act. 

Each child wore a mouse mask resembling their class mascot, Mimi, along with one letter of the alphabet. They learned a little saying to accompany their letter. Adeline had the letter K. Her saying was, "Ich bin das 11th kind. Ich heisse Karin und ich fahre immer in Kreis." (I am the 11th child. My name is Karen and I am always going in circles.) She then walked in a little circle after she recited her letter. 

The next performance consisted of numerous small acts to wake the sleeping Schuletüte Monster. Adeline was in two acts for this. She first jumped rope while a few others did gymnastics around the monster and then later she sang, "If you are happy and you know it," with three other students. The ending was different than what she was taught. She told us she had informed the teacher it was wrong the first few times they practiced it, but her teacher did not change it, so she just went with the flow. In the end, the children woke up the Monster by singing a song and then each first class student received their schuletüte, the decorated cone filled with treats and goodies, to end the morning program.

The class performance was wonderful. The teacher did an amazing job coordinating and executing her class of 24 children for the lengthy program. 

When the kids went back to their classroom, I helped out with the bake sale for the incoming class's parents after the program. 

First day of school

 On the first morning of the 2011-2012 school year, we woke up to rain pouring down. Fortunately, by the time we got ready, the rain stopped and the sun was starting to appear. For the beginning of August, the temperatures felt more like late fall, but it did not damper the excitement.

Adeline was a good German girl and choose her Drindl for her first day of school outfit. Emmie picked out a polka dot dress that twirled for her first day in kindergarten.

Adeline's classroom has moved upstairs, so the kids thought this was cool to have a new classroom and be upstairs since they were only in the second klasse. All of the students brought in a flower for Frau Kühner and sang "Happy Birthday" to her since her birthday was over the summer. When Adeline gave her her flower, she asked Adeline if she had forgotten all of her German over the summer. It just brought a smile with a causal "nein". She initially picked her seat next to Rebecca, but by the end of the day, her seat was changed and she was sitting by boys but also closer to her teacher, Frau Kühner, so she did not mind. She was happy to have no homework on the first day of school.

Emmie remembered where her coat hook and the Sonnenblumen classroom was upon arriving at the school. She happily gave her teachers the flowers when she arrived and then quickly went to play with her friends she had missed all summer. The class size is smaller due to many of the older kids leaving and there are not as many new younger kids this year.

In the afternoon, the girls started their dance lessons again and were happy to be dancing again. The restaurant owner warmly greeted us when we arrived for our ice cream treat after being away all summer. 

It will fit...

Saturday afternoon, the weather was quite humid and muggy and our energy levels were low due to traveling and a week of camp, so we decided to make a trip to Ikea. After debating about the closet sizes and the area in our apartment, we finally found cabinets to hold our shoes,  a new closet for our coats with doors since one of our old closets was missing doors and we could not buy replacement doors, and a larger bookshelf. We stacked up the pieces and checked out. 

On the way out, the girls played in the water balls after wandering through IKEA with us. They looked like hamsters trying to run in them. 

Eric managed to get all of the pieces in our car. However, the seating arrangement changed and I was in the trunk while Adeline was in the front seat. Fortunately, we could take the back roads home, but the curves were not much fun for me. We made it home and began unloading just before a major thunderstorm started.  

Eric and the girls constructed the furniture throughout the rest of the stormy weekend. Every piece did fit where we anticipated it to go, but with it also came some rearranging of other items. 

Hopefully, these new pieces will help us to keep better organization in our apartment.

Kids Kamp

We spent our first week back in Germany participating in Kids Kamp at ICF. This year's  theme was Beach Blast. The mornings began with an opening celebration time, then proceeded into age appropriate Bible studies, and then a rotation through missions, recreation, and snack time.  The kids had fun surfing while singing along to the songs, playing games with the various beach toys, and consuming the fun snacks. 

I volunteered as a kindergarten leader this year, so I was in charge of executing the bible story to the little ones and overall making sure they were in the correct session spot at the right time. My assistant, Melanie, was great in helping me out with the kids and the activities. 

The weather warmed up throughout the week, so we went to the pool on Thursday afternoon. The pool was crowded, but we met many friends while we were there. We constantly heard how the summer had been rainy and cool, so this was only the Germans second time at the pool all summer. Fortunately, they had seen on the news how hot it had been in the US, so I did not have to tell them about our summer vacation weather.

Throughout the week, the children were challenged to bring in their coins for a clean water ministry project. Each morning, a leader would announce if the boys or girls bucket was heavier. In the end, they raised 533 Euros which will provide 26 water filters for homes in countries that do not have clean and safe drinking water. 

Friday evening, Beach Blast wrapped up the week with a picnic dinner and then with a performance by the participants. The kids did a good job singing and acting out the motions to the song, plus sharing the different bible lessons and missions they learned and activities they did. Afterwards, the parents visited the themed classrooms and picked up the numerous crafts that had been constructed throughout the week. 

Return Journey

Once again, we took full advantage of our suitcases and filled them to the brim. We checked in at the airport with eight suitcases and four carry-ons. The counter lady very kindly let us check- in an additional two carry-on suitcases so we did not have to lug them through the airport with us.

Fortunately, we had a quick security screening as this allowed us to enjoy some snacks in the Delta lounge before our flight. When we heard the initial call for boarding, we left the lounge and headed to the gate. We no sooner arrived and were informed the boarding would be delayed and to wait for further details. An hour later, we finally boarded. 

Once in our plane seats, we waited over another hour for it to take off. We did not complain though, as the captain announced the cooling fans were malfunctioning and would keep us updated. I had no issues with waiting on the mechanics to ensure the part worked properly before we left. It ended up being over two hours we were delayed, but once in the air, it was a smooth ride.

Us girls started out all together, but after our meal, Emmie sat next to Eric who was behind us. He had an open seat next to him and an elderly lady on the other side of the open seat. This freed up some room for Adeline and I to catch some sleep. Emmie was a wild mouse while she was sleeping. She kept Eric awake and the lady as she kept tossing and turning and putting her feet on the lady. The lady still seemed in good spirits when we landed, despite Emmie intruding on her space.

All of our luggage came out first and the anticipation of quickly exciting on the other passengers' faces was lost when Eric kept taking piece after piece off in the first round of luggage that was unloaded. The lady asked Eric for assistance with her luggage, so we waited for hers while we stood by our suitcase tower. Eric felt it was the right thing to do after she had to put up with Emmie during the long flight.  Of course, her one suitcase was one of the last five unloaded from the plane. The waiting time went quick as the girls had some stored up energy they released around the luggage claim area.

When we walked out of the airport to catch a taxi, we all froze. The temperature was only in the 60s and we were cold after being in the Michigan heat. The day never warmed up and stayed cloudy, which made it good for shopping and unpacking.

Time went fast, but the memories will last. Thank you again to all for the summer of 2011 memories in Michigan!