It is May already!!!! We have been here just over 3 months! I have been slack at keeping a record of the last few months and the OCD Tash is not letting the fun Tash enjoy writing this blog as the want for chronology is overriding the want to show our fabulous everyday adventures and let you know it isn't always beer and skittles, though there is a lot of beer, tea and cake! So with the aim of letting fun blog writing Tash triumph over OCD chronology Tash here is the last few months in a nut shell. With wildly scattered images that you can imagine I am so happy about their placement!
School!
All the kids are at school, timetables are organised and homework needs to be done. The Mouse is in the Grundschule and the Bear and the Monkey are at a Gymnasium. It is never easy or fun to change schools but I have to say a huge thank you to the kids who have dealt with this part of the move very well. It is hard to leave your friends and your safe environment, especially when you are nearly a teenager and drop into a different system. The kids have dealt with it in there own ways. The Mouse has tried, and succeeded in bending everyone to her enthusiastic will, and enjoyed the 2 day farm stay clas trip with no worries in the world. The Monkey has just jumped in, joining the choir, sailing and athletics club and the Bear has been true to himself, steadily finding his feet and navigating a path through the level of the work and the already established friendship groups. Just finding your way around in a high school is difficult as I witnessed at parent teacher afternoon last week, all the parents kept getting lost!
We are all working on homework together with wildly varying results in terms of emotions and correct maths or German grammar answers. Yes, I do know that both actually have a correct 'easy' to find answers but it still often alludes my attempts to help the kids. Hopefully I am teaching them patience. My homework is to read German and I started with an article on Burke and Wills. Reading it in German with that one more level of removal made the expedition seem even more chaotic and ridiculous. It was great for vocabulary as I often say I pack like a European explorer and this article helped me to explain that to German friends. The 2 older kids even survived Tag X. This is the day at the end of Motto week, the final year students muck up week. Excitment was high, emergency ponchos were bought just in case the wasser verbot wasn't up held (it was -2C) and the 5th class were told they didn't have to go to school for the first hour if they were worried. Both kids were desperate to see what it was all about and came home with vastly different impressions (the first hour was a disco...not the Bear's thing) but were happy they experienced it and you don't often get to see your teachers attach a slinky to their fly zippers and try to move a hoop to the other end! Hilarious, love it.
Excursions!
As school finishes pretty early here, especially for the Mouse we tend to do a little excursion here and there. Town is always fun, especially with the weather warming up and the ridiculous parental promise we made of icecream till your heart is content as it is yummy and cheap...turns out the icecream heart is a very big vessel.
The huge toy shop with a slide is loved by all and a special treat is bumping into friends who are also trying to pull their kids, and themselves away from the great toys and games and the SLIDE.
And of course the library with its great selection of English books, dvds and games is marvelous
Festivals!!!!!
It is always great to arrive just in time for Rosenmontag, the huge street parade where sweets and useful items like toothpaste get thrown of the floats. The popcorn collection lasted weeks.
Wanderings! Near and Far.
Even in the cold, and with strong opposition from the "sofa faction" in the family we get outside. Sometimes just us or, as I like a group activity we hook up with mates and hang out. Friday night Stammtisch is a hoot. The Monkey sang in a choir in the city theatre with the symphony orchestra and a jazz band. I went along with a friend and it was a real treat. The Monkey organised herself fabulously as we were out of the note from school loop. She understood everything about when the practices were on the Friday and Sunday and the concert times. She even hooked herself up with a bike gang when all the cyclists were just told to find their way back to school after the day time gig. As she wasn't 100% sure where to go she piped up and asked a group of girls if she could follow them!
Cooking!!!!
I am not sure if it is the cooking we all like or the eating , regardless there is a high turn over in the kitchen.
Trying to keep me occupied inside!
The puzzle is an ongoing quest and visitors often add a piece, though I will claim individual victory when it is finished. It is horses and I keep humming "The Man from Snowy River" theme when I do it. I also realise I have never worked through my teenage envy of Sigrid Thorton's luscious hair. It also highlighted strongly held opinions on the correct way to start a puzzle.
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