Friday Funnies

Courtesy of the local British grocery store:

Yes, these are potato chips.  No, we did not buy a bag.

Week 14

This week we dove into all our fall activities...we had a full 5 days of school, orientation for homeschool co-op, piano lessons for 3, two soccer practices, one ballet class and one family-accompanied TDY to Germany.  

For this round of activities, our family of 6 now consists of three piano students, two soccer players, one ballerina, one small but loud tagalong cheerleader for all events, one soccer coach dad, and one part-time taxi-mom.

The boys are playing soccer at the Amer. school, so I get to meet other US families there, but Dandelion #3 takes dance with kids from all over the world.  I made friends with mamas from Sri Lanka and Israel last week.  So fun!  (Pics from soccer are yet to come...)

Week 13

Week 13 was the start of our school year.

As I described in my previous post, it was a really, really great week.  We even managed to fit in not one, but two trips to the zoo!

Can you tell who our class clown is?

After school, socializing with friends at the zoo.

At the zoo, take 2, with Daddy.

First Day of School 2014

No Labor Day in Belgium...It was the First Day of School for us!

The quote of the day was from our Kindergartener.  As we went through her ABC flash cards, we came to the letter H.  She said, "H, /h/, for UNICORN!"

I said, "Uh, I think it's /h-h/ horse." 

Her response, "Nah, I like unicorns better."

She has truly made the start of the school year joyful because she is extremely enthusiastic.  All day, she asks for more school and finds work for herself if I am occupied teaching the boys.  All hesitation I had about starting kindergarten  with her has faded.  She's flying through the material and I am having to pace her.  She's ready.

The boys are finding their rhythm, too.  We had a really great first week!

Deciding to homeschool this year was a really, really difficult decision for me...for a whole slew of reasons.  The Hubs was not really in favor of putting them in school, but he loves me well, so he genuinely joined me in praying about it and checking some schools out.  Ultimately, none were a good fit and we both felt confident God was calling us to continue with homeschooling. This is definitely best for OUR family again this year; not necessarily easiest, but best for us.

FIRST attempt at free hand drawing the US.  Pretty impressive, especially since they had to look up at a tiny map on the board!

Dandelion #2's first try.  Ironically, we're studying US History and Geography this year.

Finding extra work for herself...

A celebratory gelato after a successful first day!

Friday Funnies

This is clearly not a child who takes after her mama when it comes to pizza eating.

Weeks 11 and 12

I've had a hard time writing out the last couple weeks cause they have been emotionally low points in this transition.  Realizing summer has passed us by in a blink and saying farewell to those precious, beautiful, WARM months reiterates what a challenging move this has been.  Time is flying by, but it feels like we just got here since we are far from settled.  Also, trying to make decisions about our fall schedule and schooling have been really hard.  For the sake of journaling...

Week 11:

Not much interesting to report.  We shipped the kiddos off to summer camp/all-day care cause this house still isn't put together, school decisions needed to be made, more IDs needed to be acquired, broken computers needed to be fixed, a new cell provider needed to be found, Mama needed some quiet, etc...  The settling-in process here takes a year they say...a YEAR.  Oh.my.

Week 12:
More of the same.  More organizing, more cleaning, more school-prep and more trying to find "our groove."  I put out the fall decor we brought along because summer is over.

~~~~~

Yeah...the whole "it takes a year," thing.  Sigh.  I am immensely grateful for this season of life here and already do not look forward to it ending.  Yet at the same time, getting the basics of daily life sorted out have been so challenging.  I am having a hard time articulating my feelings as I certainly want to be careful not to complain, but to be real to admit that moving to Europe is not all fun and vacations...we have days, more in the past couple weeks than normal, where we are intensely frustrated about being in a country where we aren't near a base or support, where they do not speak English, where you aren't sure which language to use cause there is more than one and you don't know either, where you can't read your bills, you can't read the road signs, you can't understand a thing anyone around you is saying, you can't get any customer service, you can't figure out your phones or get them to work properly, you can't get rid of your trash cause you don't have one of the 2,553 IDs required...ok, it's only 10, but seriously!!!...that's where we've been.
 Here's to His mercies being new every morning and trusting God's figured all these tiny life details out because he cares that I need to properly dispose of my lightbulbs and that I want to be polite and greet people in their native tongue.       By His grace, we will find our groove, figure out our garbage schedule, get over the phone issues (I always said I'd like to disconnect, anyhow!) and grow so much because of this new season in our lives.  There is much to look forward to...