Knorr Family Adventures

We had a great time in Pittsburgh even though the ending did not go exactly as planned, and the time went by too fast.  We visited with some friends but not everybody we wanted, we enjoyed playground and pool time, gone fishing, did homework and some yard work.   

Caves are kind of another one of those Irish attractions that is somewhat a must.   We choose Aillwee cave - partially because its location worked with our planned path, partially because it sounded pretty cool.   Guided tour is a the only way to see it and it was our family and another couple – so semi-private.   The tour guide was super kid friendly and answered about 100 questions that Andrei had.   The cave itself is about buzzilion years old going back to Ice Age, it was discovered in 1940s, but nothing done with it until 1970s.   The stalactites and stalagmites are over 100 years old that we were able to see and even touch and an underground river and the waterfall at the end of the of the path were absolutely worth the experience.    Corcomboe Abbey sounded really cool when I read about it - it was 13th century monastery that was built out of local limestone and located in the beautiful scenic mountains.  The beautiful scenery a...

I really enjoy going back through our travels and hope that at some point I can stay on top of things but that time is not now :) The plans for our fall break (nearly a year ago!) were a bit spontaneous as Chris saw sufficiently cheap tickets to Ireland and we just went.   We traveled around the island and while in 7 days you cannot visit every single thing, you can see a big part of Ireland. We flew into Dublin, rented a car and went north where we spend our first 2 nights at a  Pillo Hotel in Ashbourne that had a fitness center with a pool attached to it, 2 restaurants to choose from and a working wi-fi. On the following morning we started out exploring Battle of the Boyne.   The battle was hugely significant in Irish history since it pitted Catholics (James II of England) versus Protestants (William of Orange) and as we all know that conflict lasted many years.   Funny enough (according to Wiki) most of the Irish people supported James because he dec...

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).