Macy's First day of First Grade

I love these pictures.  She's so happy and so ready to go!

The first day was actually on a Saturday, so all the mamas, papas, omas, and opas could come.  

Here she is with one of her good friends from kindergarten.  The morning's festivities began with a service in the Catholic Church.  We felt dumb that we weren't more dressed up.  We were surprised that people were more dressed up than they were for last year's Christmas service! 

Then, the second graders who had started school the week before, had a whole program prepared for the new first graders with music, pictures, and puppets to teach them about the school.  It was so cute, especially to hear them showing off some of their English.

Every kid got to send off a balloon with a postcard attached.  They see how many they can get back and from how far away. 

Another one of Macy's good friends from kindergarten.  Where there's a German party, there's always lots of cake.

 

Macy got to meet her teacher and spend some time in her new classroom.  She's holding a bunny, her class mascot.  So far, she loves school.  She just comes home pretty tired.  We get the inside scoop.  She tells us things like, "Guess what?  One kid asked the teacher if she liked how pretty his mom colored his homework for him," and "In math, we didn't do any math.  We only counted."  She gets to see Carly at recess, which is fun.

Fun with Macy

Macy could not wait to start school, but we got to have fun together for one week by ourselves before it was her turn.  While I was in the shower one morning, she had fun doing a photo shoot wither her babies and friends.

One day, she made a carrier out of a box.  Just one more way she figured out how to use a karate belt from her friend's B-day party a few years ago!

 

Yoga, Macy style.  We also had fun taking walks to the grocery store with her baby stroller and reading Frog and Toad.  

The German Backpack

After many long nights of scouring the Internet for the perfect German backpack, Macy's finally arrived, just in time.  (We didn't notice the fine print, in German of course, with the first one we bought, saying that they couldn't ship it; you had to come and pick it up, and it was near the Denmark boarder!  Also, new ones can cost $300, so we were looking for a nice used one).

They come with reflectors since all the kids walk to school.  It looked even better after Macy and I had fun scrubbing it up.  The front pocket is where she puts her "bread box," a place for a morning snack, since they come home in time for a late, big lunch.

German backpacks come with a matching "Sport" bag for PE.  All the kids must have a sport outfit and shoes only to be worn in the gym.

A place for a water bottle-no water fountains here.

 

And, a place for school supplies that are brought to school and taken home every day.

The German Schultute

This is a German tradition that Macy and every other first grader was quite happy about!  A friend gave her this one, filled with little toy surprises and chocolate.

 

This one she made with me and her kindergarten friends before the summer break, going along with their Roman theme from the year.  Robyn had fun helping me fill it in time for the first day of school with things like chapstick, school supplies, a watch, and candy.  I loved seeing the other kids' schultutes--so cute and creative, like ones with sea themes, princesses, etc.

Prepare For Take-Off, I Mean School

Robyn, ready to blast off into 6th grade

 

And, Carly into 3rd

 

So far, so good.  Just gotta get used to that good ol' homework again.  Oh, well, at least this time around, they don't have to use Google Translate quite so much :)

Pictures from Prague (finally!)

Our Czech friends invited us to Prague and their town during our summer break.  It was so fun spending time with them again, and meeting their newest addition.  It really is amazing to drive just 5 hours and be in a whole different world.  We loved all the treasures they showed us like hidden tunnels, a singing fountain, and "miracle water."  They made us delicious traditional dishes and took us to their favorite places, both in the famous "Golden City" as well as in the forests.  Our trip was memorable for many reasons, starting with a flat tire and ending with a parking boot.  (Luckily, we were all safe).  We loved seeing new places, trying to new food, and just being together.

Come take a stroll with us on the cobblestone sidewalks.  I can hear the music playing...  

Fun with the Gillespies this Summer

We are so happy that this great family has one more year in Germany, and that we could do some fun things together this summer!

This show was fun to watch, and fun for me to hear the guy giving them commands in German.

Macy at the playground.

These baby gorillas were cute.  The girls still keep talking about them.

 

This "Strandkorb" is a sea basket that people use on the windy beaches to store their things underneath and still enjoy being outside.  The zoo had a mini-beach area with birds.

 

This is one of my favorites.  Ahh, the life of summer break!

Back to School

Tomorrow is Carly and Robyn's first day back to school.  What a bittersweet time of year.  Tonight, for bedtime stories, the girls asked me to read from one of my journals.  It happened to be Robyn's last day of first grade, and of course, I couldn't believe she was that old.  Carly was on the waiting list for BYU Preschool, and Macy was potty training.

Last year, we were pretty clueless about what to expect.  We didn't even know what most of the school supplies were.  This year, the girls have their (German) bags packed and are ready to see their friends again. Ah, a big sigh of relief!

Carly has talked a lot about trying to pretend she's the new girl again, this time from somewhere Spanish speaking.  (She now has her first pair of glasses and a hair cut).  Yesterday, when we ran into a boy from her class, he didn't recognize her.  She has decided it will be hard to remember to pretend that she doesn't understand German, but maybe she'll be able to pull it off, after all...

Well, it's time to go.  6:30 AM will come early.

Weinheim

Another beautiful city!  We didn't know the bride or groom, but thought it was fun to see them.  There must be some tradition with letting balloons go.  I'll have to look that up.  The girls thought it was fun to see the "outhouses" on the castle, which go directly out below.  I think it is these kinds of things they will end up remembering in the end...

Stuttgart

We got in contact with a family making the same kind of a move we did, one year after us.  It was fun to get to meet them and spend the day together.  They really found a great place to live for their family!

Flowers and Fountains

A few weeks ago, when we went downtown to help Carly choose her first pair of glasses, we were blessed with a beautiful, sunny day.  I love all the flowers and fountains in Europe.  Lavender is something especially popular by us.

Robyn's B-day

My favorite part of Robyn's B-day was seeing how excited Carly and Macy were to choose/make and wrap gifts for her.  They were so excited that they couldn't sleep.  So, bright and early, before anything else, she got to open them--pillows for her stuffed animals and a parachute guy.  She also got a German playground Playmobil set, which included a zip line.

For her menu, she requested:
Crepes for breakfast.  (We picked blackberries to have with cream, and had bananas with Nutella for the others).
Pizza and fruit bouquets for lunch.  (She got to make this with her friends as part of her party).
My mom's sweet and sour chicken for dinner.

Last year, we celebrated as a family in our little guest house apartment.  This year, she had a good group of friends to invite, which made it even more fun!

The last time someone asked how old Robyn was, I almost said, "10," and then had to correct myself.  We enjoyed re-telling her birth story, which finally did come to pass 11 years ago after much waiting and anticipation by all!  We also had fun continuing our tradition of taking turns sharing what we love best about her.

Just to name a few:  She reads with Macy and plays games with Carly.  She's a great reader, well organized, and loves to help with shopping and cooking.

She's taught herself a lot of songs on the keyboard this year and is now interested in learning guitar.  She has also taught herself to speak German well enough in the local dialect that people tell us she has no accent.  I'm happy for her that she's adjusted so well to life and school here, and is in our family!

We had a problem today

We checked out more books at the library than we could carry!  Luckily, we could squeeze them all into our backpacks and bike baskets in the end!  Robyn was polite and asked the girl standing in line behind us if she'd like to go in front of us.  She declined, not realizing just how much we had!  The limit is 50 items, and we had 48, including books on CD and games.  (I love it that you can check out games here because you can try a bunch of different ones out for free).  We also have others from Macy's library.

The other morning, Macy woke up early and crawled in bed with me after Myles had already left for work.  We enjoyed reading English books together that a friend let us borrow.  Ahh, this is one of my favorite parts of summer vacation--not having to rush out the door in the morning, just having a chance to stay in bed with books, one more child climbing in at a time.

One of my favorite parts of summer vacation as a child was also going to the library and stocking up.  I loved whatever summer reading program they had.

Robyn wishes we lived even closer to her library.  She would like to live at one someday, or at least work there.  Then, I can check books out from her!  Perhaps, she'll even raise my limit :)

What are your favorite books now and from before?

Flowers in Germany

Fresh flowers play a big part in German culture.  It is very common to bring a bouquet to someone's house when you're invited for dinner or for someone's birthday.

We cut these from a self-cut field by our house.  It's cool to be able to choose whatever you want and to cut them whenever you want.  (You just leave your money in a metal box).  They are also cheaper than the ones in the grocery stores.

Next time, I want to bring my camera to the field.  There are big sunflowers there now, too.

End of the year parties, etc

We had a lot of end-of-the-school-year festivities here.  I remember playing this game once when I was a kid.  It's a fun, easy game that seems pretty popular here.  A group of kids sit in a circle taking turns rolling a die.  When someone rolls a six, they start putting on all the gear and try to further open a chocolate bar that's wrapped in lots of layers of newspaper, using a fork and knife, before another kid rolls a six.  

There was an end-of-the-year party for each school (the girls were at 3 different ones this year) and each class, as well as hiking days and other field trips.  Only German would children think that it's perfectly normal to hike up to a couple castles with your school for a field trip!  Only German children would also think that it's perfectly normal that there's no bathroom around and so you just use the woods.  Luckily, our girls are blessed with nice friends who helped them out with this.  

Macy had a special art show with her kindergarten for the parents.

Her "Phantasiefeuerballtier" can be translated as "Fantasy Fireball Animal."

The girls and Myles had fun trying this out at a Medieval Fest.

Carly's class entered their drawings into a contest at a big park, and one of their groups won!

This "German" caterpillar was my favorite.  Very creative, I thought, and timely during the big soccer games.

Macy's kindergarten theme for their big party was Rome.  The kids had lots of fun blowing their little trumpets.  Myles had fun making a catapult for them to try to shoot a little Papa Smurf into a bucket.

Here is Macy with one of her best friends from kindergarten.

And, Carly with one of hers.  My favorite thing about her report card was that the majority of it was about how they learn and treat others, not academic grades.  The most prestigious award given to a boy and girl from each girl in the graduating class could be translated as "The nicest student" award.  Although Carly and Robyn's principals both said they would not give any German grades for their first year here, their teachers said they did so well that they chose to break the rule.