Knorr Family Adventures

At the end of every school year Andrei's school puts up a festival.  Festival is fun, kids put up shows, school provides games, book sale (where this year Andrei got a book for free), and bake/sausage/beer/prosecco sale.  This year Andrei was in 2 shows - acrobatics and a fashion show.  We unfortunately did not take any pictures during acrobatics performance but Andrei did several somersaults and was really timid. Acrobatics is one of the programs that are offered through extended day at his school and Andrei has been doing that since January. One of the games - throw a ball and if you hit the bulls eye, you get  candy flying at you which you have to catch. We did take some pictures during the fashion show.  Andrei came up with his own "costume" and as you can see from his face, he was pretty funny about walking the "red carpet."   

We've been in the States for a week now ...  no specific order.  We are on vacation but life is just easier here The washers are bigger which means I can do laundry in under 2 hours instead of 5.  The restaurants are bigger and the amount of food served is plenty. It rained every single day and the humidity is horrible. Air conditioning is everywhere and it's cold everywhere! English is spoken everywhere - surprise, right ... Here is the weird part - people want to talk to me and chit chat.  I spoke to more people I've never seen and will never see again like at the playgrounds, stores, etc.  I guess people are just friendlier :)  Kids need to supervised.  I love that in Germany I can send them to park on their own; here - not so much.  Waiting for a school bus to arrive is not fun. Stores are seemingly always open.  2 out of 3 musketeers :)

As of about 10:40 last Friday, I officially have one 3rd grader, one 4th grader and a kid who is just going to continue his kindergarten journey!  The school picks up again on August 14 giving us exactly 6 weeks off but for now I am happy to turn my alarm off and sleep.  They do have some learning to do over the summer but nothing excessive (shouldn't be more than 30 minutes a day for math, English, German and Russian for Ilya). Their report cards are good.  Or at least we are happy with their respective grades.  They are not perfect straight A students (and if their parents are any indication the boys will never be straight A students but it's more than OK).

Andrei, Ilya and I leave for our American adventure in 6 days.  Chris and Anton are staying behind for a bit :) What still needs to be done: 3 dentist appointments 3 speech therapy appointments 1 reading therapy appointment Russian consulate appointment (apparently my kids are not my own - our last names are spelled differently, boys do not have "K" in their Russian spelling and I do so that needs to be fixed) - DONE, ISSUE NOT FIXED 2 regular pediatrician appointments - ONE IS DONE 1 appointment at Health State Office with one of the boys Birthday/July 4 celebration  And pack!  It's going to be a busy week ...

Towards the end of the year, the school load increases and Ilya has had to memorize a significant amount of Russian and German poems.  Some are easier than others but overall it's not an easy task for him so he decided that Chris should join him in learning.  Enjoy :)

On Friday Anton got a new accessory :)  He looks absolutely adorable if I can say so myself. Andrei was a bit jealous but he is not going for a checkup until August. Ilya just had his eyes checked and he has perfect vision.

Last weekend Chris took Ilya and Andrei camping with Ilya's school.  We didn't fully realize that it's a whole big Russian event where people come from all around the area (including Luxembourg) and have fun.  Chris stayed up until 3AM listening to Russian campfire songs for 2 days in the row so it had to be fun, right?!?  Our kids went to sleep around 11PM, but apparently plenty of kids were partying it up until 1AM.  They had some kind of a Russian/German scavenger hunt which the boys successfully did.  Overall, fun was had by all including Anton who got to spend time with me and we even took 4 trains to get to English school library.  One downside was when kids came home on Sunday, they were absolutely exhausted and cranky and Chris left for Paris about an hour after he dropped them off.