Our 2nd summer in Germany

We are in the 3rd week of our 6 week summer vacation, and today on August 2 the high temperature was 65F and it rained ALL day long. Back to pants and jackets it is. It's an interesting experience to only have 2 weeks of really hot summer but without air conditioning it's really not that bad. The stores and such also don't have it so it's not like I can go shopping for hours to get relieve.

Anyway, from our experience it's pretty hard to find German camps for the boys as most of them seem to be linked to school and many times only offer certain weeks. For example, Andrei's school is closed until mid-August with no camp, but he will go for the last week right before school. Ilya's school will hopefully have a camp for the last week of summer vacation as well, but other than that nothing. Even Anton's kindergarten has 3 weeks off in the summer. We found some English-speaking camps but it seems crazy to pay 200 euros for 4 hours of questionable entertainment. Thus, the four of us are hanging around entertaining ourselves while Chris is on his business trip in the States. We've done some scientific experiments, some water gun fighting, some building using magnetic tiles and Lego, older boys are working on their math and English reading nearly daily, we tye-dyed something for the first time, so all in all we are doing "summer things." We've had some good days and some not so good days but I really can't complain as in 2 days we are heading out to Italy to see some amazing stuff (including Italian beach).


Went to the park and Anton was too weak to bike back

Different park, different day- yes, they dress themselves and I am ok with it

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School update

It's been almost exactly 2 months since the last time I wrote here. Our summer has come and gone as well as 3 weeks of school have passed. The life has been busy but I knew that since all the kids are in new schools and our schedules are completely different from last year. We are still trying to figure stuff out but anyway ... Our house looked like that most of the summer Night before school Anton has started 1st grade. He goes to school for kids with hearing issues and from what I understood the kids in his class are all over the spectrum regarding their issues. Anton does not have a problem with hearing but his brain does not process what he hears at normal rate and Anton's teacher knows how to work with him which has been good so far. The school is a little bit further away but he gets picked up and dropped off right in front of our house and it's going good. He leaves the house at 7:15 and comes home at 15:40 3 times a we...

Random notes

Wrote this last week but never published :( My plan was to write about Anton and his school a bit. Or about how German language acquisition is (after being in Germany for 4 years). However ... life! Last week Andrei was home Tuesday and Wednesday because the teachers held parent-teacher conferences for those 2 days and kids had no school. First time it's happening this way because in other schools meetings were always held either before or after classes. After having him home for 2 days and meeting his classroom teacher, I learned pretty much nothing new - his grades are good but he needs to talk more in class. That's what I got out of a 30 minute meeting. Friday Anton was home because his school starts Carnival celebrations early. Monday and Tuesday all the kids were home because again Carnival - Rose Monday and for no reason for Tuesday. Anton's extended celebrations continued into Wednesday. I am not a fan...

Medicine in Germany

I knew two things about Germany before we got here - food and medicine are supposed to be really good here. Today's topic is medicine that we've encountered so far. It has definitely been different than what we are used to. Anton has had 3 bouts with bronchitis in 3 months and every time he had to use steroids to get rid of it. The last time we went for a check up to make sure he was in the clear, the pediatrician said that we should use the steroid medicine until the "bad season" is over which is somewhere in March or April. I questioned the use of a steroid as a preventative measure for 2.5 year old and she said that it wasn't a BAD steroid, so it was ok. I came home, looked it up and didn't like what I saw - not a lot of research has been done on this particular medicine so far and it might cause some psychological, growth, and other issues. And it's only being sold in Germany at this point. I forwarded that info to some more medically info...

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