M's last day of Kindergarten

Despite having a graduation ceremony two weeks ago, today was the last day of kindergarten for M. V and T went to pick her up on their bikes. They had a sort of ceremony when she left. The teacher and some of the students had brooms. When they saw V coming to pick her up they "swept" her out of the kindergarten, because she is not returning in September but going to the 1st grade, which here is in a separate building/institution.

V has a bike

As an early birthday present, V went and picked out a bike this morning. She has had her eye on it for a while. 3 speed, external generator for the lights, basket rack in the back, red, not too tall. Now everyone in the family has a bike (except mine still has a flat tire I need to fix).

Slippery Slope

Despite my best efforts, we have started down the slippery slope of home technology. V now has a phone hooked up and working. Until now we made it with no car, TV, phone, microwave, computer or much of anything of that nature at home, but now it appears this is going to change. V and M called me at work and the kids called Grandma and Gigi back in the states to try it out.

M the Translater

The kids are slowly but surely learning German (even though T denies it). Not only is M learning she is reading it to! The other morning we took here by the bakery and as we were sitting she pointed to a sign and said "that means cake". She was pointing at "Kuchen". It took me a moment to realize that she had read it in German and translated it for us. We have high hopes for her next year in first grade!

Best Beard

T going sailing

A weasel?

Berry Picking

M's graduation from kindergarten

Last day of school

Today is finally the last day of public school. M and T have been in school since last August! M has (another) graduation on Saturday to mark leaving kindergarten and going (back) to public school next year. I wonder if she will end up in the Catholic classes just to keep us guessing? T is much relieved to be finished this school year.

T has been assigned a religion

Last week we found out that T is being sent to Lutheran classes. This is another big difference between the public schools here and in the US. In Germany religion is taught at school. When we asked about what religions were taught the teacher told us both of them, meaning Catholic or Lutheran. We didn't hear anything else about it for a while till T told us he was being sent to the Lutheran classes. I can only imagine how a Muslim or Jewish family might feel living here.

Fishing

The whole family went fishing on Sunday. We walked to the Pluss See and each of us took turns casting the pole (T and M got the hang of it after a few tries and did well). We didn't catch anything (tried an artificial spoon/rooster tail type lure, a minnow and corn bait), but it didn't really matter. We did see some fish in the water and there were claims of some bites. After a while the kids played in the water and collected mussels and found a leech! and they ran around in the woods some.

Overnight

M is off for an overnight at her Kindergarten. I'll let you know how it goes.

Head wound!

Late in the day Tuesday T showed up at work out of breath and ran to me after someone let him in the building. "M was hurt and her head bleeding!" So I dropped everything and ran home with him. V was there in the bathroom sitting on the floor holding M and there were smears of blood on the floor and holding a cloth to her head. She had washed her some in the tub to clear away the blood that was everywhere. I found out that her and T were playing with a ball in the living room. She had jumped off the couch to catch it and hit her head on the edge of the coffeetable. It cut the top of her head and bled like crazy. There was blood all in the living room too. I grabbed my first aid kit and a freshly washed and sun dried sock. M said it hurt when V wasn't pressing on it but I told her I would be as fast as possible. I cut the top part of the sock off, put neosporin on the cut, put the "sock bandage" over it, and wrapped it to her head with an ace bandage to hold everything in place. Later she added a pink night-cap to cover the bandage over her head. In the morning everything was removed and M scrubbed to get all the blood out of her hair. She seems perfectly fine now.

Happy 4th!

This is a bit late. I fell ill last weekend-Monday and have been catching up on everything since.

The fourth of July crept up on us and suddenly we realized it was imminent. I had to do something for it so M and V came to the rescue and made up a batch of "snickerdoodle" cookies. I brought a piled up plate of them to work with five little US flags toothpicks out of the top ones, put them on the shared lunch table, and sent out an email saying they were there for everyone and why. As it happens I forgot to bring my laptop to work so I asked G to send the email for me and he refused (he is English), so I asked a German coworker to send it. Once the word was out they didn't last long. A little while later I passed back by and there were only two flags and some crumbs in the plate that avoided being devoured.

At home we had ice cream for the fourth. Next year I'll try to get some fireworks.

There was a negative note on the day. T was late to school in the morning and in retaliation his teacher drew an "X" on the back of his hand in ink (what century is this?). It was really mean and obvious she had marked back and fourth several times to make the lines thick. I helped him scrub it off with soap and water as best we could. It is fading already.