Our plans for the future

Our current lifestyle is rather interesting. We are not (im)migrants, we are not military, and we are not fully expats. Our kids do not go to international school, they go to local German schools; we have to deal with German government services yet our knowledge of German is rather limited (we make it work nonetheless).

This week we said goodbye to our friends who are moving to Israel by the end of the week. It sucks for us but we are happy for them. It took them about 4 months from "we might go" to "leaving on Sunday." More or less the same time frame our move happened. Partially because of them, partially because of wanting to have less stuff, we have been clearing our stuff - file cabinet, baby/toddler books, some random stuff.

The question that while is not always on our mind, but comes up regularly enough is how long are we planning on staying here. According to our original plan, we were not even supposed to be here in Germany as I type this up on September 1 of 2017. We were supposed to move back this summer. At this point, we are taking it one school year at a time - right now Andrei is going to finishing Grundschule (4th grade) here and Ilya will finish 3rd grade. Are we staying here for another year after that? Only time will tell. But definitely stay tuned for our explorations in next steps of our children's education- it will be an exciting ride :)

Here is the thing though - we have enjoyed watching our kids grow up here. They are getting an amazing experience, learning to be a bit more independent than they probably would of been had we stayed in Pittsburgh, they are speaking,reading and writing in German and Ilya also in Russian. We have traveled to so many incredible places. Life here is not always easy but it seems like it's certainly worth the troubles. And we probably would of have "troubles" in Pittsburgh as well.

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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...

Anton's class breakfast

Last Saturday Anton's class organized breakfast and before I forget I'd like to take down some notes. Anton does not go to local school, his school is in Frankfurt and also if you didn't know Anton goes to school for deaf and hard-of-hearing children (this will be important in a bit, also I will do a separate post on why Anton is in that school as well as how it's going). Because it is a specialized school, children travel to school as far as 100 km/60 miles and that makes it really hard to have school friends. Thus (I am guessing) is the reason why in the fall school organized family fest and now class breakfast - get to know other parents and see who your kid is friends with. The school has a hard-line against sugar and because of that I signed up to bring bread rolls - I didn't want to be the one to bring the wrong type of honey or something like that. I guess most parents thought the same thing because there was a TON of bread products with very...

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