Sarah's Last Day of Kindergarten

Today is one of those days that parents are bound to remember with bittersweet memories. Today is Sarah's last day of kindergarten.

She's going to bring some treats so that she can celebrate with the other kids. Sarah could continue to go to kindergarten up until she starts first grade in August but we decided that we'd take her out since Anna was starting Summer Vacation after today as well. Some of the kids that will be going to school with her will still be going longer, but those kids' families didn't have children close enough in age to decide to pull them out at this time.

Christine and I have talked about this day a few times and while I'd always point out that it was the end of an era, she'd always say with all the activities in their daily lives that she was ready for Sarah to be in school. I'm wondering now if this will be a big tear jerking moment for her? I know that time marches on but it seems sad to think that we won't have another kid in kindergarten, that this time is coming to an end for us. With Anna, we were all excited about her going to school. I was sad to see this time come to an end for her, but I knew that Sarah was still in kindergarten and now this is coming to an end.

For Sarah, kindergarten started on a snowy day in Geinsheim, Germany shortly after she turned three. When asked about it, Sarah doesn't remember living in Geinsheim. As we moved and she started kindergarten here in January 2007, she's spent most of her kindergarten life here, so here kindergarten memories are of here.

I remember Christine telling me about how nice the kindergarten was after she'd had a chance to check it out before the girls started. I was impressed when I first saw it and thought that it must be nice to be a kid and go there.

Last Friday, all the kids that were going off to school had a sleep over at the kindergarten. There was a nice program for the parents, where we saw the results of the projects done by the kids going off to school and the kids sang a nice song about being strong and brave and "We can do it". I walked around soaking it up and thinking about all the last times.

Sarah finally found out earlier this week who her first grade teacher will be. She had met both of the teachers at her new school and now she's got the teacher that she prefered of the two. She was so excited to get the news and she could hardly wait to start.

When I have a moment or two today, I'll think about Sarah being off in Kindergarten saying good bye to the teachers there and thinking that this will be the last time she goes there as a kindergarten kid. Ok, maybe she won't think that maybe I'm just being a mushy parent. Sarah, I'm proud of you and wish you all the best in your school years.

60th Anniversary of the Berlin Airlift

Back in June we attended a celebration honoring the 60th Anniversary of the Berlin Airlift (Die Luftbrücke) at the Rhein-Main airfield in Wiesbaden Germany. I find it fascinating when you think back to what if must have been like to have been one of the pilots and wondering if they had any idea about the historical significance of what they were doing at the time. What were some of the thoughts runing through their minds? Then there are the people that were on the other end of the airlift receiving all the food and supplies. There and to be some fear and anxiety on their part since the Soviet Union was flexing its muscles and trying to take contol of part of Berlin that wasn't alredy under their control. The Soviet Union was blocking off all surface traffic to West Berlin, which was contoled by France, England, and the U.S. If the Berlin Airlift had failed, the world and history surely would have been a lot different.



Anna and Sarah ready to take off!


One of the publicized highlights of event was to be the dropping of candy bars for the kids, much like the pilots during the airlift dropping off supplies. One plane flew around dropping candy bars around the airfield. It is too bad that we weren't able to get any for the girls but it was something to see all the kids (and their parents as well) following the plane around trying to catch one of the candy bars. I didn't manage to see any real close but I did see several falling from the plane with their parachutes.




While the event wasn't a huge air show exhibiting several different models of planes, there were several on display, including a huge cargo plane. I must say that it was impressive seeing all the different planes (and a few helicopters) on the field.


One of the decorated hangers

I really like this last photo showing the German and American flags. It shows the friendship between the two countries and peoples. I've posted several more pictures in an album at Flickr.

If you'd like to read more about the Berlin Airlift you can check out some of the following sites...

• The Truman Library
• Spirit of freedom
• Airlift History What Really Happened
• U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission
• The German Way & More
  

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Our Trip to Europa Park

The family along with Ruth and Diana near the entrance of Europa Park

Last Monday the family went to Europa park along with our former neighbors Ruth and Diana and family that we have been friends with through the girls' kindergarten. The girls were both pretty excited. After all the stuff that we have had to do related to our shed, this was a nice vacation for the family.


Because Anna was taller than last year, she was able to do more rides and Sarah was also able to do more rides. Anna became very excited about riding roller coasters and wanted to ride them all, fortunately, age and height restrictions are in place and she didn't get to do the real dangerous ones. And I didn't ride my first roller coast until I was 10!


Because of the three girls and all the grown ups, there were some arguments about who would ride with who, but it worked out pretty well. Of course the girls were talking about going with the same group of people again. We decided that one day is not enough and will probably try to do some sort of two-day pass next time. After almost every ride the girls would say that they wanted to ride whatever again. I kept saying that they wouldn't be able to ride everything that they wanted to if the did everything that they rode twice or more. Last year, Christine and the girls saw a couple of shows, this time we only managed to catch the end of a parrot show (which was entertaining).

In the England area of the park there were a couple of new rides. One was made to look like one of those double-decker buses that was kind of like a mini ferris wheel. There was another ride where you were in a replica London taxi and were spun around in circles. The girls also got a kick out of driving the cars on the track that was set up.

Puppy Visit Number Three

In the last few days we went to an international dog show, Anna cooked for us, and we got to see the puppies again.

I've been to several dog shows in my life. When I was a kid, we managed to finish one dog (I saw we but it was mostly dad in the ring with our dog), so dog shows weren't new to me. Christine had been to a small one years ago with only a couple of breeds. This was the girls first dog show, and it didn't seem like they were that impressed. Standing around watching the dogs standing in the ring wasn't too exciting for them I'm afraid. They were impressed with a Newfoundland that they got to pet, though. We did buy a doggy bed for our living room, so we did manage to accomplish something. Actually it was an accomplishment getting the bed into my tiny car!

Yesterday evening we visited the puppies. They had grown a lot since we saw them on March 1st. They interacted with us and everyone had a blast. Anna wanted to take our puppy home. Sarah seemed a little stand-offish, maybe the puppies were too active for her and she didn't like how they'd try to nibble on your clothes. Sarah did get along with the breeders 3 adult Breadies very well. We're all looking forward to bringing our puppy home.

The cage/box that I wrote about earlier is intended for the puppy to sleep at night and it is in our bedroom. We bought the bed so that he can sleep in the living room in the day time. The box is collapsable but it made more sense to have a bed in the living room for the puppy to sleep in the day time.

Slowly everyone seems to be returning to health. Sarah still seems to have a little bit of a cold, but sometimes I think that it is for show.

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The Puppy Box Has Arrived

Anna did her first sleep over at a friend's house. Her friend lives on a nearby farm, so she had a blast with their pony and all. She had so much fun she didn't want to come back home.


We still struggle with illness. For the last few weeks everyone has been ill at one time or another (except for me) and when it seemed that everyone was well again, Sarah had a fever again yesterday. Christine had her at the doctor's office yesterday and Sarah was fine when at the doctor's office. Christine is a little frustrated at the moment.

On Monday Christine picked up the puppy's new cage. The breeder suggested that the puppy sleep in the cage at night to help with the potty training. Christine called the breeder yesterday to make an appointment and found out that Krispy Kreme had been sick and on anti-biotics. As a result, the breeder doesn't want to have any visitors if they're sick, so it looks like we won't be seeing till next week sometime. The black and white puppy is Kool Knob and the brown and white one is Knick Knack. That's it for now.

The Girls Saw The Puppies For The First Time

Saturday was quite a day for the girls. First they went with Christine and had their hair done (I've included a couple of pictures here), the had some temporary color put in. Anna had some blue added while Sarah had some red. It was great that the girls got to finally see the puppies.


They were a little bigger than the last time that Christine and I had seen them. It was also neat to see the eyes open and that they were more active. They still get pretty tired quickly. They were moving around a lot more and being more like puppies than the last time that we saw them.


We've had a lot of discussions about names and I think that we might have settled on a name. Since I don't want to jinx our current favorite, I won't mention it here now. Some of the names that we've liked included Snoopy, Max, Jackson, and Bilbo. Christine suggested Kripsy Creme to the breeder and it is one of the names that she used. With both of the girls we had several discussions about the names, so I'm not holding my breathe just yet.


We've been debating between a black and white make and a brown and white male. I believe that we made our selection on Saturday, but again I don't wish to jinx it and won't mention it yet. We got to hold both puppies and the girls just loved it.


Yesterday we were up at the new shopping center and stopped in the new pet store. Anna picked some treats for our puppy and Sarah picked a toy. The selections really seem to match the girls, because Anna seems to eat more than Sarah and enjoys it more while Sarah cares less about eating and often has to be told to eat, because she would rather to other things! I know that they're looking forward to the puppy.

I think that we'll probably go see the puppies again in another week or so. It will be nice to see who much they have changed at that point and what of their personalities will have emerged.

The Little Brides

Here is a slide show that I put together of the girls dressed as brides last summer. I posted it a while ago but thought that I would link to it now that I seem to have the blog and YouTube somewhat synched up.

Sarah's Birthday

Sarah turned five in January. It is hard to believe that our baby is now five!

Sarah and Anna did their second Smurf dance performance at the local Kiddie Carnival. After their performance was done the mc made an announcement about Sarah celebrating her birthday, so of course the crowd cheered her. It was a really nice moment.

We had a nice little party with Oma, Claudia, Nicole and Christian, and Ruth and Dianna after the Kiddie Carnival. The next day we had the kiddie party.

I noticed how much older Sarah seemed at her kiddie party and also that the kids seem to be older as well. It seems that kids were more engaged in the activities than in her earlier birthdays. We did a little treasure hunt for the kids. I went outside and drew arrows out of chalk pointing to where I had the treasure. Christine told me about how excited the kids were following the arrows. Because I had changed colors a few times, Anna had said when there was a new color that they must be getting closer. We did a version of musical chairs using pillows instead of chairs. We did another game where one kid is blind-folded and they crawl on the floor using a wooden spoon to try to find a pot that is covering some candy. The only boy at the party really enjoyed the game and volunteered quite often to be the seeker or various other things. It was a really nice party and I was surprised that with all the kids at our house, that it wasn't louder. I'd say that Sarah had a nice birthday.

Carnival

The girls dance group performed at a local kiddie carnival on two Sundays in January. The did something called the "Schlumfentanz" or the Smurf dance. It was real cute and we were so proud. I was amazed at what a good job everyone did in putting on the kiddie carnival and how many kids we have in our little ort (village). I have posted several pictures at an album I created at Facebook. I also posted some pictures of the girls dressed in costume for their kindergarten carnival celebration. I took some video of them dancing but I still need to edit it before I can post it. The carnival season (the link is to a post that I did in November about carnival and St. Martin's Day with more information it if) started on November 11th and ended with the big parades over the weekend, Monday, and with Fat Tuesday. We took the girls to a smaller local parade on Sunday, but after waiting over an hour for it to start, Anna was cold and wanted to go home. The girls were able to dress up in their kindergarten on Monday and Tuesday, with a little party.

Christmas 2007

We hope that you all had a great holiday season. We were pretty busy this year. Anna and Sarah took part in a kiddie choir the Sunday before Christmas. Afterwards the made decorations and got to help decorate the church tree. On Christmas Eve they played angels in the family Christmas Eve service. The day after Christmas their kiddie choir sang along with a group of seniors in the service.







Although we didn't have a traditional white Christmas, the outside landscape was frosted for several days. Oma stayed with us for several days and we had visits from Claudia, and our former neighbors, Ruth and Diana. We had a nice New Year's Eve party with two other families and Ruth and Diana again. Christine handed out several weight watcher recipes ahead of our party and everyone made a dish or two. They all went over very well, tasted good, and everyone asked for the recipes of things that they didn't make.

I have posted quite a few things from Christmas at our various online accounts. I put several pictures from Christmas on Flickr. I created a photo album at our MySpace page. I also created a photo album at Facebook. At our YouTube channel, I posted 4 videos of the girls singing with the Kiddie Christmas choir; a slide show called "Kiddie Art"; 2 slide show tributes to Oma; slide show tributes to Claudia, and our former neighbors Ruth and Diana; "All Dressed Up" which is a slide show of the girls being all dressed up; "Nightmare" and "Facepainting 2" are all slide shows of the girls in their various face painting escapades. I had made a special dvd for Christmas and it included all that I mentioned at YouTube, except for the Kiddie Christmas Choir, unfortunately, because of standard differences I couldn't make the dvds for my family, their not able to watch videos composed for playback on PAL systems on the NTSC system in the U.S., they can watch the videos on YouTube however.

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season and began the new year off with a good start. I'd love to hear about your holidays or how you're doing.

Christmas 2007 Newletter

Here is the Christmas newsletter that I composed for 2007.Merry Christmas everyone! As 2007 draws to an end, we thought that we would have a look at what happened to the Heron family this past year.



We were very happy that Grandpa and Aunt Betty paid us a visit in April/May. We were glad to be able to spend some quality time them in addition to show them our home and the “new” neighborhood. Darryl went with them to Scotland and Paris. Aside from wanting to see Scotland, Darryl has wanted to go to Paris for many years, so he was pretty excited about both trips. They were here to witness our new stone patio being put in. Darryl’s father had a heart attack in October and ended up having a double by-pass. He has since returned home and appears to be doing well. Darryl was able to fly back to Michigan to be there for the surgery, so he did get to see his sisters and their kids briefly as well. On a sadder note, Darryl’s Aunt Helen passed away last summer.



Our family did some smaller trips this year. We went to Zurich to celebrate the first communion of Felix (Christine’s godson) and visited Europa Park on the way back. Anna was really excited about the rides and Sarah was a little more apprehensive. They both look forward to going back next year when they should be able to do even more rides. We visited Ute and her family in Holland as well as visiting former neighbours of ours from when we stayed in Belgium. The girls really enjoyed both of those trips.




The girls have adjusted well to their kindergarten and have made some friends in our neighbourhood. Both girls are attending a local dance class and are currently working on a Smurf dance to be performed as part of the Carnival celebrations next year. They’ll be angels in a nativity play performed by their Sunday school group at the Christmas Eve service. They just recently joined a church choir. Anna is looking forward to starting first grade next year. Sarah is still very much into princesses. Anna started wearing glasses a few months ago and likes them a lot (some what of a fashion statement I think). She also recently got here ears pierced. And for those you who were wondering, Anna’s new pink diamond ear rings go well with her glasses!



Christine started teaching again last year and it continues to go well. She decided to participate in post graduate program on Teaching German as a Second language, so every six weeks she spends a Saturday in seminar. In addition there is an online component to the class, complete with a forum. Christine should be finishing it up early next year.

In January, Darryl found out that he has type 2 diabetes, so while he doesn’t take insulin injections, he does take medicine and has to watch what he eats. He has been busy with the family blog. He regularly updates it and posts pictures to Flickr and videos to YouTube. He also started up a productivity blog and is trying to make a go of it at the moment.

We’re looking forward to 2008 and hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season and a great new year.

St. Martin's Day

Friday, November 9th, was the St. Martin's Day celebration at the girls kindergarten. St. Martin's Day is officially recognized as the eleventh of November. At 11:11 am on the eleventh of November is the kick off of Karival season in Germany (and other parts to the world as well).

St. Martin was a Roman solder who later became a monk and it is his good deed of sharing his coat with a begger during a snow storm that is most known. Many kindergartens and pre-schools celebrate the day (often on other days, so that parents can attend more than one!) by creating decorative latterns and parading around singing songs about St. Martin. There is often a bon fire, with various food and drink sold available that warms the body on this cold time of of year. The fire department built and oversaw the bonfire, but because of concern about it being too rainy for the little kids, the singing of songs was done in the kindergarten this year. The kindergarten taught the kids some new songs, so they didn't sing the couple of songs that I remember from the past. I have posted some videos on YouTube.

Carnival (Karneval) season kicks off on November eleventh at 11:11 am. Karneval (the Rheinland area of Germany), Fastnacht (around Mainz) , or Fasching (around Munich and Austria) are all differnt names given to it within the German speaking areas of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. The season is a celebration before the quiet period of lent, prior to Easter. The high light of the season is Rosenmontag, which is usually occuring the 42nd day before Easter. Although many German cities have their own parades and celebrations, the most famous are held in Mainz, Colonge, and Dusseldorf. Venice, Italy has a well known costume ball, but many of the German cities have their own costumed gatherings (especially for the kids). We've taken our kids to several parades and activites related to Carnival. The kids really enjoy being able to dress up.

Here are a few links where you can learn more about St. Martin and Karneval...

• St. Martin from Fun Social Studies
• St. Martin's Day from German Culture
• St. Martin from Germusa
• St. Martin's Day from Wikipedia
• Karneval from McKinnion Secondary College
• Fastnacht/Karneval from About.com
• Fasching from Germusa
• Karneval-Fastnacht-Fasching from Germusa
• Carnival from Wikipedia

Anna is outside in two of the pictures while the other two pictures are of new dresses that we recently bought for the girls.

I recently did a post on the other blog on the Thanksgiving Review.