2009.07 - When school is out ...

The last weeks at school/kindergarten were as always very eventful.


We were searching frantically for somebody who would take care of Kiwi & Sky during the entire summer holiday.
One of the last ideas was to try the PetShop staff where we bought them more than a year ago.

The trip paid off.


After agreeing on the terms with a very nice lady, we could look around relieved in the recently re-arranged shop and its hopefully just temporary inhabitants.
It was fun. And educational.
For the first time - after having experienced the difficulty of actually finding somebody who takes care of our pets during vacation - the kids DID NOT beg for any dog, cat, bunny, fish or whatever other creature they saw!



Since we could only look at the fish swimming in a pool instead of jumping into one pool ourselves on this really hot day - we needed some cool refreshments - and so we stopped for a cocktail on the way home.


For the rest of the week we went swimming every day. The temperature stayed over 30C.
Except for the "board jumping day" of J's & D's "shark" and Annie's "gold" swimming course.
On this day it was 18C. But we had to go anyway.
My camera objective was unfortunately not good enough to show all the goose bumps the kids had during this excercise.


































Annie had an extra support by taking her friend Viktoria from Ballet School to the swimming pool.


She cheered her and waited patiently with the towel and clothes until Annie was finished.






By the way, she is not only to Annie a great friend but also plays with Julia and Daniel like any mother would wish.




In the German Kindergarden it was also time for Annie to say good-bye, along with other pre-schoolers.

To "ease the pain" of the little ones staying "behind" another year or two before they can also go to school, the pre-schoolers (rather their parents) donated - according to tradition - additional toys to the Kindergarden. Four bobby cars matching the colors of the Groups in Kindergarden.

Although we had to limit the time spent in German Kindergarden to 1 day a week in favour of 4 days a week in the American pre-school, Annie still had the opportunity to make some friends.


Here, she is in the forest playing with one of her best friends, Katarina.
One of her best friends in the American School is also called Catherina.


We were very lucky to have flexible teachers who accepted "our way" of bilingual education and cared for Annie the best they could - Frau Schilken and Frau Sahmel. They were in charge of the Red Group in Kindergarden.

I will not really miss going to Kindergarden with a child, except for the access to cheap professional photos which they organized once a year. Here are Annie's from this year:
















Having no school to go to anymore, Daniel spent some time with painting his picture of Jesus' Last Supper.
This is a huge painting by number project he bought with his saved money.


Julia and Annie followed Dana's other initiative and collected some grains to grind. Daniel's last week of school was spent in "Stone Age". He brought home two giant rocks which they used to grind the seeds.