Korea shipment is done

We spent yesterday with three movers. They were surprised at how small the shipment was, and were in and out in just a few hours. The main weight of the shipment was paper and clothing. What can I say...I have a bunch of clothes, Wendall is an attorney. We also had a bunch of artwork, of course, and a few books.

By a few books, I actually mean a few. The shipment will not arrive until the end of August. I will arrive in mid July. The next few days will be spent figuring out what I will mail to Korea before I leave Germany. Wendall will be there to collect the moxes, and oh yeah, it will be free for us to mail as much as we want, so the majority of our books and clothing and even some of our artwork will be mailed.

How is it free? Overseas shipping from one APO box to another is free. The boxes never leave the military postal system, so they are not charged by the USPS. Woohoo! each box has to be under 70 lbs, and they have to follow the USPS guidelines, but I will happily live with that.

This weekend is our official goodbye party. Monday and Tuesday will be the days for the main shipment, so we will say goodbye to most of our thngs for the next few years. Wendall's travel plans are set, and mine will be figured out early next week. I will let people know where I will be (and when) by email.

That's the news for now. I'm off to get the boy and to arrange for some borrowed furniture once ours leaves.

The move is almost here. The movers will be here in less than a week. Our lives are very full right now, and I'm finding it difficult to breathe. I'll be better in two weeks when the big part of this is done.

The Bambino

On the Island of Capri




We just got back from five days in Italy. It was truly filled with wonders. If you click on the photo you will go to flickr, where you will see other photos.

Mmmmm, Currychunks!

HEY!!!!

I DROVE A SMART CAR!

A friend's neighbor was walking out to his Smart Car this afternoon, and she told him how much I loved his car. So he handed me the keys. And I drove it to the next town. He came with me because I was afraid I would break something.

WOOOHOOOO!!!

It was fun. Really fun. I have recently accepted the fact that I probably won't get the chance t own one, but I had a wonderful time driving it.

It gets roughly 62 miles to the gallon. He said that 4 liters of gas will get him 100km. 100km is 62.5m. A gallon is 3.78 liters. Oh, and gas around here is 1,36 Euro per liter. So 5,44 Euro, or 7.41 dollars gets you 62 miles. Have I mentioned seeing more Smart Cars on the road recently?

Gas on base is currently just over 3 dollars per gallon. I honestly don't know the exact price. I'm paying less than half of what my neighbors pay, so you will hear no complaints from me!

But back to what I was saying.....I DROVE A SMART CAR! ME! WOOHOOO!!!

Artwork

From the boy, of course. He brought this home from school ad said that he wanted to share it with everyone. I told him that it was going on our wall (I'll pick up a frame today), but that I would be happy to put it online for everyone to see.

If you want to see the original, you have to come visit. Or you can click on the picture to see it bigger at flickr.

Pictures of a happy day

Dinner at my house

Yesterday we invited friends over for dinner and games. We ate pot roast and chicken and lots and lots of sugar. The boys played with toys, had an egg hunt, and battled one another with swords. The adults played Life and Carcassonne. All in all it was a wonderful day. We went to bed very tired. Luckily the boy has no school this week, so he was able to sleep in this morning. Pictures to follow.

Wings

Someone gave me wings (it's a Bookcrossing thing) for my birthday.

Thank you.

Medallion Reader Award

It's official! Wendall has been awarded his medal and came home really happy and proud of his hard work. His teacher awarded him the medal and the certificate at the end of the school day.





GOOD JOB, WENDALL!!!

Top Class Reader

Today the boy won a badge. He is the top reader in his class for the month of March. All of the work we have done for the past month has paid off well, and he came home filled with pride. We still have a few days to go in the month, but I havery little doubt that he will win the prize he has worked towards all month long--a new video game. He was challanged to read 2000 minutes in the month of March (minutes read to him count), and he is less than 200 minutes from that goal. He is also very motivated.

The best part? The past two weeks have included at least 100 minutes of time where he was reading to us.

No, I was wrong. The best part is seeing him filled with pride at doing something he really enjoyed. Congratulations are in order!

Who Will Win?

An exciting phonics book, read by the boy.

Books read this week

The boy's reading rquirements have us in a tizzy!

This week we have read:

A few chapters of the first Harry Potter
David Gets in Trouble
Captain Underpants
Scooby -Doo and the Mummy's Curse
Lion Boy (three chapters so far)
The Magic Treehouse books #'s 21, 22, 23, and 24
and the Sunday Comics.

Plus he listens to a book every night as he goes to bed, though we do not count those, because we have no idea how much he hears before he falls asleep. He also reads a short phonics based book to us every day.

It is wonderful, and we are all enjoying the books we are reading, but it leaves little time to read for myself!

Just to show how lucky we are....

"Currently, fewer than 3,000 of the 29,000 U.S. servicemembers in South Korea are on multi-year accompanied tours; the rest are there on a one-year rotation. But officials estimate that more than 17,000 of them are married."
From Stars and Stripes

Wendall Reading

The boy is quickly learning to read and write. He asked to write something today, so I asked him to read it aloud for everyone.



At school on Friday, there was a reading program in the library. Wendall read a few books to the kids who had gathered in front of his chair. A large portion of the school attended the evening read-a-long.

The wisdom of a five year old child

A few weeks ago I went on a wander with Wendall's class. While we walked, I spent some time talking with his classmates. One little boy really wanted my attention, so I just let him ramble. This is what he told me:

"My family has a bunch of money. My dad told me that. And wen you have a bunch of money you can go to the dentist and he will put a CROWN on your tooth! And I have one!"

Tonight we were in the middle of dinner wen Wendall looked down at his plate:

"Mama? In Germany we call french fries pommes, but it's a french word. Volcanos have it, too, but it's not french."

"Wait, what do volcanos have?"

"Pumice! It's rocks, not french fries."

Lazy Sunday

We have planned a lazy day today. Brunch and some shopping, followed by an afternoon of cleaning. The boy is on level 3 of a video game, and will probably work on that for a good part of the day. Oh, and we have a project to do for his class.

Exciting times, I tell ya!

Munich

Munich was a bunch of fun.

We started out early Friday, grabbed Ann at the airport, and headed down to Füssen to see the castliest castle in the world (otherwise known as Neuschwanstein) and spend the day wandering through the Bavarian countryside. Our navigator decided not to lead us down any autobahns and instead sent us in a wonderfully roundabout path south. It was a beautiful day, and we had good company, so we did not mind at all.

The castle was good fun. We were able to join an English tour and had a nice lunch afterwards. Then we made our slow way back towards Munich. After checking into our hotel we had some dinner and went to bed.

Saturday was filled wth shopping and eating. Nothing is open on Sunday, so the stores were filled with people. The boy was very excited by the crowds, and was happy to be reminded that we will be moving to a city soon. We did come across a lost child, so we also discussed the downside of moving from the country to the city. We couldn't do much for the lost boy, but we saw some women stopping to help him. He was actually the second lost child we saw last weekend, but was luckily the last.

Sunday was filled with rest and more food. We stopped at one of our favorite restaurants. It is a bar, but also has the best Tex-Mex food we have found in Germany. Luckily, Sausalito's is also a chain, so we have now been to three of their outlets. We also took a tour of the city and did some Bookcrossing, leaving the book with our tour guide.

Sadly, Monday morning meant saying goodbye to Ann and heading home to Vilseck. We had a wonderful few days seeing new things and visiting with an old friend. There's not much more I want in life, really. New things and old friends.

More photos are HERE

Cleaned up and ready to go

Kitty has had her bath. We are packed and ready to head out for an exciting weekend. We are off to Munich for a few days of Fasching fun. No idea what we will see or what we will do, but I know it will be fun. We are taking the boy's costume just in case, but I have a feeling it won't be worn until Monday, when we will head for an actual party.

We will be sorry to miss the parade this year, though. We all had a great time last year.

The boy and I had a discussion about leaving Germany. He says that he wishes we could stay here forever, but also live in Hawaii and Korea and the States. It is conversations like this which show me what a lucky life we lead, but also remind me of what a lonely life we have. It can be very diffiacult to balance the two.