So here is the second part of our two part catch up post, May and June. If you have not read the May post, you might want to skip down and read that first. During these last two months we kept thinking of where we were a year ago. Finding out that I lost hours at Barlow, loosing more hours, starting to look at international jobs, split between Barlow and Gresham, finding the job at Thuringia International School, applying for the job, calling the school and having an interview that night, being offered the job 2 days later, accepting the job and making the decision to uproot our family and move to Germany! Now here we are a year later being stretched in ways we never thought possible (in a good way). So let me share with you what has been happening during the month of June.
June
In our last post I said that the month of May was incredibly nice, well the month of June was incredibly wet! It rained a lot and was just grey. We've been told that that is fairly common here. June, July, and August are the wetter times of the year with thunderstorms rolling in and out fairly quickly. Unlike Oregon where it will be wet for long periods of time and then it is nice for most of the summer. So the month of June kept jumping from beautiful to wet and ugly. You never really knew what you would get next.
Stanley and Holly both listening to their "thinking rocks."
The month of June kicked off with a German celebration called Kinderstag (Childs Day). We have mother's day and father's day, why not children's day? Kinderstag was June 1st, and there was a giant festival for it on Schiller Strasse. There was an inflatable bouncy house, balance beams, ring toss, face painting, calligraphy, slack line, music, clowns, acrobats, wood work, and more. It seems as if lots of different groups set up booths with different activities. Heather wasn't feeling very good that day with the pregnancy so I took Stanley and Holly down to check it out. Unfortunately it was very crowded and most of the activities were geared more towards kids 6 or older. But it was fun to see and Stanley and Holly did enjoy the balance beam obstacle course, building with blocks, the slack line, and watching some of the clown acts.
Stanley taking it all in before he jumps in to participate.
Stanley's Kindergarten photo.
On June 2nd my school held the graduation of the 12th grade class. It was neat to see the difference between ThIS and Barlow. 10 students vs 310 students. There were 3 speakers, a student, a teacher, and a key note speaker. They were able to give time for families to take pictures when each student received his/her diploma. It was a nice formal event with a very personal touch to it.
On June 6th I was able to compete in a 5 kilometer (3.1 mile) fun run in the nearby city of Erfurt. It was a business who's-who run where runners represent their respective companies (over 4500 people participated). A group from work came out to compete. I had been running about 30 miles a week plus another 30 miles a week biking. I knew I was in good shape but I didn't know how good. After my run in Chemnitz I was hoping to run under 17 minutes and hopefully win it. We had a collegue from work watch Stanley and Holly so Heather and I could go out together and she could support me in my race. The weather forecast was for Thunderstorms so we were a little nervous about it. Well, the evening went better then expected. First of all, the weather got nicer as the evening went on (instead of the predicted uglier). By the time the race started the conditions were perfect. Secondly, while I didn't win the race (I was 4th) my time was much better then I was hoping for. I ended up running the 5 kilometers in 15 min 17 seconds. (that's about 4 min 55 seconds per mile and was better then my high school personal best and my first collegiate 5k) I was shocked at the result. During the race I knew it was fast (the winner ran 14:30) but I was able to just hang in there and was unfortunately out kicked at the end.
Our group from Thuringia International School.
The two leaders took off early so I was in this chase pack.
The tall guy ended up 3rd when he out kicked me in the last 400 meters.
After the race I was very happy with my time.
Our school's directer and me after the race. Behind us is the Erfurt Cathedral.
The finish was at the base of the stairs up to the cathedral.
My number 1 supporter!
We enjoyed a nice bowl of Goulash after the race.
Our group took two taxis there.
Afterwards we got a taxi to ourselves since everyone else lives on the other side of town.
During the month of June we received a fun toy from some friends from church. Heather had been wanting to make a play kitchen for the kids. We have lots of great play food from IKEA, but they end up all over the house. Marcus and Babett had a play kitchen in their attic that their girls no longer played with so they let us borrow it. Stanley and Holly have absolutely LOVED it and Heather has since done some work to improve on the style!
Enjoying their creations.
Another piece of furniture that we are borrowing is a new bed for Holly! Heather was thinking ahead with the new baby and decided it was time to get Holly into a big girl bed. We were looking at buying an inexpensive one from IKEA, but fortunately our neighbors had one in the Keller. Their 4 year old had out grown it so the dad and his son came up one day when I was still at work and even assembled it for us! (Have I mentioned yet that we are really blessed with our neighbors and friends?) Unfortunately Holly was only able to sleep in it for two nights and one nap. Since she and Stanley are such great friends they are more interested in playing than sleeping. We would find Holly out of bed, then Stanley out of bed, then both of them out of bed. During nap time, Holly was not going to nap. So for now she is back in the pack and play in the closet (which in Germany is actually considered a separate room). We have until November to move her back in with Stanley and we aren't in a hurry to do that any time soon.
Our two precious kids in their beds. They have too much fun together.
Which is a good problem to have.
Heather is always looking at and researching new craft ideas that inspire her. In June she found the art of Zentangle. It is a doodling art form that results in really cool creations. She has absolutely loved it and has come up with some pretty cool creations.
Art time with Mommy
Mid June our church did a really cool thing by having a church service in the local park. They call it open air Gottesdienst (service). They held the service at 2 in the afternoon and it is a more exposed venue that allows people to stop by and check it out. They did a similar thing for the youth Friday night, but that was rained out. However, by Sunday the weather was absolutely gorgeous. I missed most of the service because I joined Stanley and Holly with the kid's activities in the park. During the service they had a girl in the church sing who apparently won a music contest in Weimar, the group of kids performed the bird song that I mentioned in Part 1 of this post, a group did a little drama, and that was about all that I saw before I went off with the kids. In the kids area they did a reenactment of the miraculous catch of fish and Jesus asking Peter "Do you love me?" They even had a rubber raft in a little pond for the fishing boat. It was a really neat idea, and a great way to invite your friends to church. Plus being at 2 in the afternoon no one can say they want to sleep in, and as I've mentioned before everything is closed in Germany on Sunday so you can't go shopping or really be doing much else. The thing to do Sunday afternoons is to go for walks with the family.
Playing in the raft after church with our friend Carola and her daughter.
A big hurdle that I got over in June was that I finally earned my German driver's license! Fortunately, coming from Oregon I did not have to take the entire driving test. Unfortunately, coming from Oregon I did have to take the written theory test. Fortunately, I was able to take it in English. I don't know how they decided this, but when coming from the United States what you have to do to get your German license varys based upon what state you're coming from. From some states like Washington you just need to show up, sign a few papers and viola you have your German license. Some states like Oregon you have to take the theory/written part of the test (which ends up cost about 200 Euros). The other unfortunate states have to do the whole shebang (which can end up costing a couple thousand Euros). We registered to take the test some time in March, but never really got around to studying for it like we should. Finally I decided to just set a date to take the test. I knew that once I had a deadline I would get it done. So a date was set (June 19th) and I had a week to study. The guy at the Fahrshule (driving school) was worried since I had only completed 4% of my online practice guide. During that week I spent multiple hours going through the online guide, although the only thing I could do was go through practice questions because those were the only things in English. Finally the day came to take the test. I went to the Fahrshule and the guy took me to the central exam center. No one spoke
any English (well duh we are in Germany). The exam center is a classroom like environment with laptops for all the test takers. When the exam began I realized in horror that my exam was in Deutsch! I pointed this out to the proctor and he did an oops laugh and went to his computer to change it. Saying a few things to me in German which I didn't understand so I just smiled and nodded. Finally it restarted in English so I was able to start it. The test was 30 questions (all of which were in the 900+ practice questions available online which I had gone through). They range in difficulty from "what do you do when someone cuts you off?" to "if a truck has orange license plates what does that mean?" Each question varies in point value and if you lose a total of 8 points you fail (one question could be worth 6 points). Also, the questions are multiple choice, but multiple or all of the options could be correct. So the answer could be A and D or A, B, and C, or just B. Because of my late start I was one of the last ones to finish. After I was done I told the proctor. He looked at the results and said "Topps" he then showed me where to click so I can see my results. 100%!!! I was so excited. In America it took me two attempts to pass my written test and 3 for my driving test (given that one of those 3 was when the brake lights didn't work). I now have my German driver's license (actually I have a temporary license and I am waiting for the actual license to arrive in the mail). The next day at work I had a long break and was going to pick Stanley up from Kindergarten mid day for Heather because she wasn't feeling well. One of my colleagues offered to let me use her car, but then stopped, reminding herself that I don't have a license. "Actually I do now!" So I got to drive the day after receiving my license. After 11 months of not driving it came back very naturally. I got to pick up Heather and Holly and the three of us went to pick up Stanley as a little family adventure. Heather was feeling sick enough to not be able to do the whole catching a bus routine, but good enough to get out and let me chauffeur her around. We had a lot of fun that day.
We had a tea party for Stanley's Orange Baby. It apparently was the baby's birthday.
(We're glad Stanley told us or we would have forgotten). ;-)
Holly was happy to celebrate and loved her tea and ice cream.
She now asks for "Holly, Holly...Tea...Holly, Holly...hot tea, hot tea...Holly...bitte"
During the entire month of June my school year was also wrapping up. In Oregon we finished mid June, in some states the beginning, at Thuringia International we finished the end of June (which is better then the public schools here who are still in session). I'll take a little tangent here to say in Germany they only get 6 weeks of summer break but have other week long breaks throughout the school year (two fall, two Christmas, one winter, two spring break). To balance out traffic the entire country has their summer breaks staggered according to region (state). Those weeks could vary from year to year. In Thuringia this year they get from mid July to the beginning of September. Next year it might be from the beginning of June to mid July, or the beginning of August to mid September. They publish these dates years in advanced so it isn't a surprise. So Theoretically if you move between regions you might start your summer break beginning of June and not have to go back until mid September if you're lucky or if you're unlucky you might not get a summer break at all! Anyways, we get all of July and the first part of August off. The last month of school however was fairly odd. We did final exams June 7, 8, 11, 12 (remember final exams are really big here). But after finals were done on the 12th we were back to school on the 13th! We still had 2 more weeks of lessons. This works well for the high school classes because they are really 2 year curriculum (IGCSE for grades 9 and 10 then the IB for grades 11 and 12), but for the middle school what do you do? We ended up doing some extra content that we couldn't fit into the year and some more hands on work. Statistics in grade 8 and scale drawings and constructions in grade 7. We also lost some days to different field trips that some of the classes went on. But the days were very relaxed and fun. On the last couple of days the students had class parties and it was hard to get them to do much of anything anyways. In that regard it is nice to not end with finals because it allows more time to do some of those last minute bonding activities that you would otherwise miss out on being so focused on the final exams.
Two fun events during those weeks was a school talent show and sports day. The talent show was actually a fundraiser for an orphanage in Kenya that the school helps support. The 11th graders had people vote for their favorite act by donating money. The act that received the most money was the winning act. When talking to another teacher who was the adviser for the 11th grade I made the comment that it's not about the most talented but who can get the most donations. I then went on to tell her about my exploits as a Senior in high school when a couple of friends and I did a magic show at our class banquet when we really didn't know any magic. She thought that was hilarious and said I should perform. I laughed and said I would think about it (really not planning on performing). Well two days before the talent show a couple of 11th graders came to me and said that I was on the list of performers! Yikes. I couldn't bail out at that point so I went ahead and performed in the show. Actually I got my twin brother "The Magnificanto Americano" to perform in my place. It was a lot of fun, the kids loved it and the act ended up in 4th place out of 11.
"The Magnificanto Americano's" first act was to make his leg disappear.
Unfortunately the photographer spoiled the illusion.
The final act was to saw a student in two,
but since the the saw was a little rusty he just made the student "disappear."
The second fun event was an upper school (grades 6-12) sports day. Although grades 10 and 12 were not there because they were done for the year. The PE teachers did a great job organizing it and putting it together. The morning consisted of class and individual competition. 75/100 meter dash, long jump, ball throw, jumping rope, wild river, and flags. I was the starter for the run and it was fun to put my sprint coach training into practice. Thank you Jordan Trump for all you taught me about using blocks! In the afternoon we had the Swedish Relay, soccer, volleyball and other activities. The Swedish Relay was a 9 person sprint medley. 50-50-75-75-75-75-100-100-200 (future Barlow Relays idea Dave Kilian). For this the staff was also asked to put a team together. Being the runner of the group I got the 200 meter leg. The students who were also running the 200 kept asking me to go slow. My response was, "I am a distance runner not a sprinter and you probably will be too far ahead for me to catch." Well, when the teachers were 10 meters behind after the first two legs I knew it was over. By the time I got the baton I was 50-75 meters behind the last team. The winning team was almost 100 meters ahead! I ran valiantly, but students were getting onto the track by the time I came around because they thought it was over. Besides getting last place we had a lot of fun.
The strange thing about teaching in an International School is that good byes are a regular occurance. Teachers and students are always coming and going for various reasons. On the last day we had the end of the year assembly aka the crying assembly. From my homeroom class we had two students leaving and one student who is going to study abroad in America next year. There were also 8 teachers moving on to other adventures. One of the teachers, Freya, has two sons the same ages as Stanley and Holly. At the beginning of the year we hung out with them several times, but then once the year started we didn't hang out much. During the last couple weeks we got to hang out again several times and were asking ourselves "why didn't we do this more?" Stanley got to speak English with kids his age! The kids loved playing with each other. We babysat for them one time to give mom and dad a much needed sanity break (they were doing what we were doing last year, scrambling getting ready to move). They played together at an end of the year staff picnic, and then one last good bye the night before they moved to Japan. While we can still stay connected via facebook, for a lot of these people you say good bye to you realistically will never see again unless they know Jesus and we can be reunited again in Heaven. Goodbyes are just weird.
We had some friends from Heather's choir over for dinner during the month of June.
Heather does a great job creating a great meal and presenting it well.
To end the month of June we got to go on a fun canoe trip with some friends from church. We were honored and so thankful to be invited. We rented a bunch of canoes, drove about an hour to the launch point, and made our way about 10 kilometers (6 miles) down river. The weather turned out to be beautiful and it was a great time with friends. We were reminded again how blessed we are with our church in that all of these people are friends from church. The people from work are great, but come summer most of them are off traveling Europe or visiting family. We ended up in a canoe with the four of us plus Selma for the first leg of the journey. After that we stopped for lunch. After lunch we did a little trade and got Erik Meichsner and lost Selma. That actually worked out great letting Erik and I do all the work and Heather was able to just enjoy the ride. She was sore the next day from just rowing on the first leg. Imagine how much more sore she would have been if she rowed the whole way! The second leg was defined by water fights, although we stayed out of it for the most part. After that we stopped for Kaffee and Cake (a German tradition kind of like English Tea time) and during that stop we all got to jump in the river and swim a bit. Then the last leg took us to our final destination Freyburg which is known for its beautiful vineyards. The leader of the group took the drivers and canoes back to the starting point so the drivers were able to get the cars and pick the rest of us up. It was a day of laughter and friends and we all felt it was a great way to really kick off the summer!
Enjoying dipping our feet into the natural spring in the park.
A favorite free hangout place for families on hot days.
Our absolutely adorable, fun, energetic, and precious children. (We think so anyway.)
Well, there you have our May and June updates. Thank you for taking the time to read all of this. Hopefully we can get some July posts up given that I am not working right now! Some of the things we have coming up is lots of visitors. My parents and Grandma Bettie are coming out to visit next week. The Smucker family will be here after my parents leave, Urska will come from Slovenia in August, and we may have some other guests in there as well. We are looking forward to it and hope to have some fun adventures along the way. Unfortunately we will not be able to get up to London for the Olympics. Tickets to Track and Field were ridiculously expensive anyway. We are hoping to go on some fun day trips though. Some with our visitors and some just our little family. We are thankful that it is summer and that we get to spend it in such a special place. Thank you for taking the time to stay caught up with our family. Please feel free to leave a comment, we would love to hear from you. Here are a couple more photos for you.
Being in the center of town, there is always something interesting to watch. On this day the German equivalent of the American Red Cross was having a festival regional get-together. It started off with a drum/rhythm procession that started in Rollplatz. More and more people started to gather once the drumming began until there was a huge crowd.
When the days get hard/long/frustrating we look around us and remind ourselves
"WE LIVE IN EUROPE!!! How cool is that?"
