But just before May happened this happened

This girl turned 9!

Celebrations were had at home, at school (oops, one cake to few, luckily the birthday girl said she'd take the hit and not have a cake, even luckier, someone in her class didn't like cake) and at an ice cream cafe in the city where she ordered her first spaghetti eis. 

 Then the Bear turned...13!

Unfortunately there was no giant 3 balloons in the shop so I improvised with number sparklers. Bad parent moment as I forgot he doesn't really like sparklers and I really can't blame him after the 2017  cake bunting catching on fire even though mum promised it wouldn't incident. More cake was eaten and a 10 hour Marvel movie marathon with his very own shopping list of junk food (after we had discussed what ws humanly possible to eat in a day) was his wish. He was one very happy Bear particularly as the "can't sit still" members of the family left the sofa/movie faction in peace for a couple of hours in the middle of the marathon...the weather was too good to sit inside

. 

Welcome to being a teenager our boy. You are amazing and we love you.

 The night inbetween his birthday and his movie marathon we meet Herr M, Frau J and the Possum and went to the fair called Send.The Bear surprised us all by asking to go on the rollercoaster. He had 3 very willing accomplices and 4 very willing spectators/camera operators.

May aready! Part 3

LEIPZIG

A trip isn't a a trip without a visit to Leipzig and the Frau K and Girls there. This time the English/Leipzig/ Australian contingent also made an appearance and we spent a beautiful day in the botanic gardens and butterfly house catching up and eating icecream. Thank for the english Yorkie Tea! We trained (Harry Potter style cabin on the way back which saw various scenes reenacted), we trammed, we caught up on the last 4 years, we watched dodgy reality TV, threw in a bit of Bach and East German nostalgia and we just hung out like no time had passed since we last saw each other. I finally got to see one of the lakes in Leipzig and the Monkey dipped in her toes. 

May already! Part 2

Cake, Cake and More CAKE

It is an understatement to say we like cake. Actually the best thing about cake, apart from the cake is enjoying it with friends. Leading up to Easter in the cold weather we had a lot of cake experiences, some were birthdays, so were just because then easter Sunday came, we switched to bread in the morning then were back to cake in the afternoon.

Frozen pond in front of the Windmill.

Easter bread (Baked by Frau Z)

Not our table but somewhere we often 

                             enjoy cake and chatting

The healthy part of easter.

 Dancing after all the easter cake

Random stuff indoors as it was still freezing!

Elaborate engineering that required ladders to be fetched and all was videoed and sequenced into a fabulous film.

May already! Part 1

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. 

 

Waking up miles away, yet home

And then we woke up to snow! I so rarely see snow and I always find it beautiful and wonderful. 

 Herr F loves it because it slows me down just a little bit... but not much, the girls and I jacketed up and went out in our newly bought winter boots. 

 Lots of excitement: a snowman (please remember we don't come from a snowy land),The Mouse is keen to show her friend at home her new apartment (the bathroom is always such a great place to start), and talk of getting mobile by reconstructing/buying bikes, imminent cake eating invitations and going to school in a few days.

The beginning...again.

I have finally remembered the password to this blog. It was a very Zen week where I didn’t yell at the computer and I ran through all the possibilities and eventually stumbled upon it. So, now I will start from the very beginning of this trip, even though we are 6 weeks in because,as we all know the beginning is a very good place to start and my OCD tendencies mean I have to have order.

What do you do when you are all comfortable where you are, great friends, work kicking off again for me and work always good for Herr F, kids happy at school and with amazing friendship groups, ….you take the opportunity presented due to Herr F’s work and pack up 150kgs of luggage between you all which, for the record included one bike and no-where near enough socks, rent your house out and head off to Germany for a year (again)!

 Sounds easy right and mostly it is because before you go you ask friends for help as without them this kind of adventure isn’t possible. You pack the dog off to friends, prepared the house for the renters, share house for a week with the American family renting the house (this was an amazing experience as we all banded in together), ask a friend to pack up a bike, go to one last school working bee and not really work but chat with a broom in your hand, realise the fish need a home and take up the offer of another friend and realise that more goes into moving fish than dogs, have a giant party on a 45 degree Celsius day just to really feel the love we are leaving and say yes to every chance of one last get together when there really isn’t time but of course there is always time for get togethers! Except for that last cuppa on the day we flew out, even I had to let go of that one. Then you take up the offer of fabulous friends at the other end to pick you up from the airport and fill the fridge with pizza, chocolate and Nutella supplies to get us through the first night and day. Then you breathe out and marvel at the fact you actually did it and you all still love one another.

This time we made a conscious choice to return to the smaller city that we have lived in before even though Berlin may have been the more exciting option on paper. Just like in Australia when we moved states we have built a ‘family’ for ourselves with our friends in German and as this will probably be the last time we can drag our poor, but very obliging children from their schooling, we,  the kids and I suggested that archives can be visited but the majority of friends need to be around the corner. Sorry Frau K we will visit promise!

We even managed to get the same furnished apartment. The kids were less than thrilled at the thought of sharing one room with a double bed and a camp stretcher…but we promised them we would sort it out. Though it seems we didn’t sort it out quickly enough for their liking. We are quite slow movers when there is so much going on in terms of registering with the city, getting visas, new schools, getting bikes for everyone and trying to keep enough food in the house. They were kind for the first couple of days then staged a revolt and dragged mattress off one bed and created their own spaces and stressed the temporary nature of this solution to us and that they had, in fact been led to believe we would quite quickly source a better solution involving a bunk bed. I did manage to get them a desk so that they wouldn't miss out on a single moment of homework. Again they were less than impressed at this kind gesture.