Adwoa und Ama

Our clock arrived today and we really like it. E was QUITE mesmerized by the sounds on the 1/4 hour. I think we all will enjoy it.

Halloween is just starting to be celebrated in Germany, so there was a bit of acknowledgement, but no trick-or-treaters or decorations on our street.

E, however, had a Halloween party at Kindergarten… yesterday… (of course!)… but the teachers had not told us about the party or that it was dress-up day. So when I dropped her off at 8:10 (oh-so-comfortable to get to my 8:30 meeting) and saw all the other kids dressed up, I was a bit dismayed. I did, of course, what I needed to. First I called my colleague and told him I would be late for the meeting. Then I drove home, picked up 2 outfits from the dress-up bag that S&N sent to E, “hemmed” one of them with 4 safety pins, and drove back to Kindergarten. Pulled E out of her classroom at 8:30 and asked her which she wanted. Of course she chose “ballerina” over “witch” (even though all the other kids seemed to be wearing spooky clothes), dressed her in the hallway (ballerina gear over her outfit), and dashed. Arrived at 8:50. Ah, small town commuting….

Now, I have decided to assume that we did not see some sign that was posted telling all parents about the dress-up activities… rather than they just forgot to tell us. Otherwise, I would be a very crabby mommy at drop-off in the future.

E didn’t know the difference and had a good time during her party. No complaints. And I noticed she didn’t eat any of the snacks in her bag from home… must have been plied with treats all day.

We are all well. Tomorrow is a holiday in Germany and my friend Hilde is coming to visit from Norway for a long weekend. I have to work on Friday, but she is looking forward to a quiet day in cafes in downtown Zweibruecken. Or so she says….

Hope you all had lots of treats and not too many tricks.

Dear All,

I am so sorry to write that the sweet little girl who I wrote about a couple of times, Grace Oughton, lost her battle with Neuroblastoma today. She was two months older than our E. A couple of weeks ago, her family learned that there were no more treatment options available to them and they went home to Virginia to be together for her last days.

We are sending our love to Grace’s parents, Alec and Crystal, and her brother, Landon, and to her aunt and uncle, our dear friends, Heather and Daniel.

Remember to hug the people you love and take a moment to appreciate all the happy things in your life. I know that Grace was a great source of joy and inspiration for her family.

Love,
Liz

Here is the video from our trip last week. As you will see, we had a lot of fun and saw some beautiful and amazingly old things! It is a giant file, so save it. We’ll take it down by Monday or Tuesday next week.

Just a wee bit of background… any of you who are interested, please feel free to ask for more detail! For any of you who I told we were going on a Mediterranean cruise, I was mistaken. My European geography needs some work. We were in 3 seas, actually… The Adriatic, the Aegean, and the Ionian…. but not the Med. Oops.

Dubrovnik used to be a major European beach vacation spot, and then the war with Serbia hit in the early ’90s. The city suffered a lot of damage, but few structures were actually destroyed. We thought the city was really beautiful and a walk on the walls that surround it was a fantastic way to see it. The walk around the walls took about an hour and a half. And tourists are definitely returning to Dubrovnik with good reason. We really liked it there.

Ephesus is a city of 2000-year-old ruins. The site has been under excavation for 100 years and they have found so much… you can really get a feel for what it was like to walk through the streets in those days. The city had about 300,000 citizens and was second only to Rome during the Roman empire. Amazing.

Santorini is a caldera… one of those odd geography terms that we might have learned a long time ago but never used. Basically, a caldera forms when a volcano erupts and then the walls of the volcano collapse. This caldera was filled in by the ocean, and now Santorini consists of the walls of the volcano that are still standing. There is pumice everywhere and it is a pretty amazing landscape. We took a nice long hike there, between two cities, walking the ridge of the caldera.

Corfu was probably the place we found least interesting. But we did enjoy our walk to and within a fortress there.

Venice, where we started and ended, is such a special city. You cannot get away from water there… the whole city is criss-crossed with canals in the same way most cities are criss-crossed with roads. It is beautiful. But REALLY crowded. So we were glad we were there for a day before the cruise left, but on our return, we decided to spend the day in Padua before our flight home, rather than another day in Venice.

We had a whirlwind trip to Padua by public bus, then walked around for about 2 hours, then back to the airport in Venice by bus (1 hour each way). While we cannot say we experienced much of Padua, what we saw, we really enjoyed. It is a university town, and it feels like it. It was beautiful and lively and not too touristy. We wished we had more time there.

So… thanks for reading this far. We hope you enjoy the video.

(By the way… both girls are fine. J had her stomach problem for about 6 hours. Then she needed another 12 hours of sleep to feel better. But as of this morning, she was fine.)