Christmas Markets

For the last few weekends, we've been trying to hit the Christmas markets.  Unlike where we've lived before, where most markets last a few weeks to a month, some of the smaller cities in this area have one-day markets.  We went to one in the city of Gangelt in Germany last Sunday.  Since it was only that one day, it was very crowded, but pretty, and we had a nice time.

We've also gone to markets in the German towns of Geilenkirchen and Aachen.  Wally loves to walk around and try all the different foods, and I love to look at all the crafts with a nice hot cup of gluhwein. The kids' excitement with the markets is already wearing thin...little do they know there are still three weeks to go in the season! Usually there's at least one little kiddie ride that Aiden and Lexie can enjoy, and Julia likes to look at the vendors who sell jewelry. 

Things have gone well for all of us the past few weeks.  Wally's been busy at work.  I've been enjoying my new Children's Literature class that started in November.   It's the first class that I've ever enjoyed the homework! It's so much fun.  I'm still volunteering at the school with the PTO and SAC.  (School Advisory Committee)...I was also asked to join the International SILT (School Improvement Leadership Team)...so many meetings!! :)  It's good though. I enjoy being part of the groups that make decisions about our school.   Along with those activities, attending some events with the spouses club has allowed me to meet a ton of ladies in the area, which is nice when the community is so small.  Again, let me stress how much I truly love it here. 

Julia, Aiden, and Lexie are doing well too.  Julia just had her first concert.  She played Oh Come All Ye Faithful on her clarinet with two other kids during the winter musical this week.  She did a great job.  Aiden and Lexie are both doing great in school and learning a ton.  Aiden's reading like crazy, and Lexie's drawing like crazy.  We're so proud of all three of them. 

It's getting cold, but we've only had a little bit of snow.  It's supposed to snow more tonight and tomorrow, so we'll see what happens.  After living in Graf for three years, I've been thoroughly disappointed in the snow department in Kansas and here so far.  I want the ground to be covered.  I want to shovel my sidewalk.  I want to spread salt.  And I don't care how nuts that sounds!!

Oh yes...one more thing.  My sub paperwork finally went through, and I was able to start this week.  I subbed in a preschool class, and it went really well.   I'm really glad I'm able to work in the school... I miss having a classroom of my own so much! :/

Another Busy Weekend

Lexie and Aiden during the St. Martin procession at school

Wally was in Berlin most of last week for a conference, and it was our last week of cheerleading and soccer practice for the season.  On Thursday night we attended the St. Martin's Day celebration at the school.  The kids had made lanterns in Host Nation class and brought them home the week before.  I went to Blokker (a local store) and found these cool things that hold the lanterns.  It kind of looks like a fishing pole, with a hook to hang the lantern on, then a little light on a wire that hangs down into the lantern to light it.  Very cool little invention and only 69 euro cents apiece! Plus 2 AA batteries in each, which thankfully, we had at home.  There was a performance by the younger students onstage first, and then they turned off the lights, everyone lit their lanterns, and sang a song in German.  It was so neat.  The kids had a great time running around with their friends during the parade (which was really just a walk around the school in the dark), and of course Julia was way too busy with her friends to hang out with her mom and siblings.  It was a great night, and the lanterns were so pretty! If you're interested in learning more about St. Martin's Day click here.

Friday night we went to the Fall Sports Banquet so Aiden and Julia could get their trophies for cheerleading and soccer.  It was a potluck so we took baked ziti and mac and cheese.  Wally got in from his ten hour bus ride back from Berlin just in time to meet us there.  The kids were SO excited to see him! He hasn't traveled in quite awhile, and he'd been gone three nights.  It was good to have him back.  He brought them each a stuffed animal so they were thrilled.  Saturday morning Julia had to be at the school by 9am for cheer camp with the high schoolers.  Wally thought that sounded silly, but I remember doing that when I was a kid and always had so much fun so I insisted she do it.  Her friend Mathilde was also going and had asked Julia to spend the night that night so she took a packed bag.  Wally, Aiden, Lexie and I went out for lunch in Germany to our favorite doner place, Hella's Grill.  Lexie mostly ate fries dipped in tzatziki :) Then we headed to a bazaar at Geilenkirchen (GK), the Air Force base that's just over the border in Germany.  It was a very small bazaar compared to what we had in Graf, but then again, this is a very small community.  The only thing we were really interested in was a huge wine barrel that can function as kind of a pub table.  I went to my friend Mervi's Halloween party last week (the one with the soup competition) and she had one and we just loved it.  They had an option to personalize it, which we also liked and thought was neat and different.  We've been to lots of bazaars and had never seen this type of thing before.  We ordered one, it will say our last named and our "established" date, 2004.  We can either wait until they come back this way in January to receive it or pick it up in Delft, which is about 2 hrs away.  We figure we may head up there next month for the Christmas market and could get it then.  We'll see.

This isn't ours specifically, but similar. 

The top will be engraved with our name and date.
Sorry it's a little blurry.

Julia after cheer camp

We headed back to the school to watch Julia and the other cheerleaders show off to the parents what they learned that day and get their certificates.  She had a great time! We hugged and kissed her and sent her off with Mathilde.  We got pizza for dinner from our favorite pizza place and went back home to hang out (and so Daddy could watch football, of course :) Sunday was pretty much the usual: commissary to get groceries, laundry, getting things in order for a new week.  And more football. :)

This is the last week of my theory class so on Thursday my next one will begin.  I'm so glad to be done with research & theory for now! Well, almost done.  I'm in the final stages of my research proposal.  It's due Thursday, along with a reflection essay of what I learned in the course.  The instructor wasn't the greatest, and I can tell from some of my classmates' comments that they've also butted heads with her.  Fingers crossed I don't end up in one of her courses again.  My next course is Children and Young Adult Literature, which I'm hoping is as wonderful as it sounds.  I love books.  My kids love books.  Even Wally is reading so much more in his spare time lately.  I have a whole book post that I'm thinking about writing; we really are a literature-based household.
In the meantime, I'm going to try to update on the family at least once a week, and then in between maybe post things I've been thinking about, like the book post I mentioned, or information about places we've been or want to go.  I'm going to try to remain active on here.

Life in Brunssum

Well...again, a lot has happened over the past few months.  We moved into our house on August 1st, and we really love it.  The main floor is spacious and wide, something that is not common here.  The kids have settled into their rooms nicely, and we had fun decorating them.  We bought Julia and Lexie beautiful closets from IKEA.  School started around the end of August, and we are very lucky to have amazing teachers for all three kids.  The girls have American ladies for teachers, while Aiden has a Canadian man.  There are kids in their classes from all over: Czech, England, Norway, Denmark, etc.  They take German everyday, and Julia was doing so well in the beginner's class they start everyone in that they bumped her up two levels to the advanced class :)  She may not have had German that one year we were in Kansas, but she sure remembered what she learned in Grafenwoehr! We are so proud of her! She seems to be fitting in well, lots of friends, and is getting good grades.  She is learning to play the clarinet and in January will join the Elementary School Band. She also just finished her fifth year of cheerleading.
Aiden's learning to read, and we're very proud of how well he's doing.  Academically, he's a little below grade level.  He's really started progressing quickly this school year, because he finally just got really motivated to learn! That makes a huge difference.  He's especially into math, and he shocks us sometimes with what he can figure out on his own.  He's finishing his first soccer season this week, which he enjoyed immensely.  We were a little surprised at how much he enjoyed it!  He says he wants to play again! :)
Lexie is having a blast in Kindergarten.  She had a rough start.  She cried everyday the first week, which surprised me.  I didn't think she'd do that.  But then she got it together and now you couldn't keep her home if you tried :)  It was a big adjustment for her.  She went from being at home to being gone from 8:30 to 4pm everyday.  The school day runs from 9:00-3:30pm.  Since they ride the bus, they usually get home a few minutes before 4pm.  Lexie is also really enjoying German class...Aiden too, but the girls seem more interested at this point.  She and Aiden are both very good at repeating things back to us that they've learned in school.  I love to hear Aiden tell me about how they worked with an electricity kit that day or what solids are and then start naming off math facts that he's memorized.  Lexie can tell you what types of workers used to wear wooden shoes in the Netherlands (farmers) and name several farm animals in German.  Such cool things they're picking up.  All three of them count and sing German songs.
We've done quite a bit of traveling since we've been here.  We've been up to Amsterdam, as well as Rotterdam, The Hague, Delft, and Scheveningen.  The Netherlands is a beautiful country.  Over Fall Break we went to London for a few days, which was very cool.  It was the first time for all of us.  Pictures of all of these are on my facebook page, but maybe I'll post some favorites here too.  It's exciting to think how much we've seen and that we've only been here for four months!  I really can't wait to explore as much of Europe as possible over the next 3 years.  

Our day in Cologne

Today we left around 11am and drove about an hour to Cologne, Germany.  Wally's always talked about taking us there, so we're really excited to live so close now.  It was a nice trip, no pressure to see everything, because we know we'll be back many times.  Today we just had 3 things to do: 1. Have lunch with Oliver, Wally's exchange student partner whom he's been friends with for 21 years. The kids and I have met him several times so they were very excited to have lunch with Uncle Oliver :)  He took us for a great German meal and even bought the kids ice cream afterward so he was a real crowd pleaser.  We plan to see him again at the end of the summer before he moves to Berlin.  2. Go to the chocolate museum. Apparently this one of the ten most visited museums in Germany.  It's also a chocolate factory, and we got to watch chocolates being made right there in front of us.  We loved the beautiful gold chocolate fountain where a lady dipped wafer-like cookies into it and passed them to out to everyone.  There was a gift shop full of chocolate items and a dessert cafe, but since we'd just had a huge lunch and ice cream, we decided to save the cafe for our next trip.  3. The last thing we did was go inside the Dom. We also went into a smaller church called Great Saint Martin.  They were both gorgeous, but the Dom was the largest cathedral I've ever been in.  We ended the day with a drink at Starbucks before heading back to our hotel here in Brunssum.  I know we'll all sleep well tonight! These are pics from the chocolate museum gift shop, but I have more I need to add to this post! 

Chocolate cigars at the museum gift shop.

White chocolate bar with gummi bears inside...wow! 

Chocolate man with whipped cream and strawberries! 

These are chocolate too!

Chocolate Dom bars

Posting pics from my phone.

Hmmm....I want to post pics to my blog directly from facebook, but I can't figure out how... ? If anyone knows, I'd appreciate the help! Until then, pics are gonna have to be posted like this from my phone! And these are not the best quality! :(

Lexie, drinking a spezi (Coke & Fanta) at Cafe Everblatt in Aachen, Germany

Aiden spinning on a toy in the Brunssum centrum.

Julia and I at Vijverpark in Brunssum.

In front of the windmill at the entrance to
AFNORTH International School