Skip to main content

Germany

Portraits taken at Hohenzoellern Castle, 22 Oct 16
A few months ago I was presented with the opportunity to move to Germany and, after almost no consideration at all, we decided to take it while we could.  Rachael and I had always wanted to move here and couldn't pass up the opportunity to travel and raise the kids on a second language, so here we are.

We've been here about a month now and are still trying to get us and the kids settled in.  We've been living in a temporary apartment for about 3 weeks now and finally move into our house this upcoming week.  We've had the chance to travel a bit but have mostly been focusing on settling in with the kids and getting them back on track with a normal schedule, whatever that's going to look like.  We are hoping to get Joe enrolled in Kindergarten here as soon as we can and get him out and starting school for the first time.

Joe's been reading a ton for the last few months.  He's at the point now where we can give him pretty much any book and he will try to make some sense of it and can read just about anything.  He loves Star Wars, the weather, and trains, and has recently started getting into building Lego sets... Star Wars ones, that is.  He has been having some behavioral issues recently, but we're hoping it's nothing more than the stress of us moving and the lack of real routine exercise for him that's been causing it all.

Nora is just coming up on 18 months and just finally got her canine teeth in after months of teething.  She's still been fussing a bit with them but it was a very long time coming and we're glad that's finally done with.  She loves nursery rhymes, horses, cats, and trying on shoes, and frequently walks around the house in someone else's shoes when she has the chance.  She's a bit more of a picky eater than Joe ever was, but still eats pretty well compared to many other kids I've known.

Joe and Nora get along great for the most part.  They frequently sit together and read or make each other fall over laughing over just about nothing.  They do have their rough patches but Joe is pretty good to her for the most part.  They play together in the back on car rides and Joe is really good about looking out for her in her car seat since we can't see her all the time while she faces backwards.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

German Kindergarten

Mom and the kids at the Alhambra, Granada, Spain Both kids have started German Kindergarten (Kindi) in the past few weeks.  We're still going through a compulsory transition period with Nora but Joe's been in full-time for a good while and he's loving it.  It's rare that he doesn't come home covered head-to-toe in sand and he still has a hard time leaving every day because he's having such a good time.  His German is improving quite rapidly and he's already saying things I don't understand, which couldn't make me happier.  I'm so happy for both of my kids that they get this privilege of growing up in another country and having two primary languages, which I hope will give them opportunities later in life that I can't even think of.  Even without new opportunities, though, I'm happy that they can grow up in another culture and have the perspective of the world you can only gain through travel that I sorely wish I'd had as a young k...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nora Caroline

Nora at 2 weeks old Nora Caroline Shannon was born on May 4th at 545pm.  She weighed 7 pounds, 8 ounces and was 20.5 inches long.  It's been quite the few months since my last post for our whole family and, while I constantly regret not being able to get here and write down my thoughts, when I look back I understand that we've been running on fumes for months.  Rachael and I both just finished our respective undergrad degrees and I spent a month doing 60-hour weeks to try to bank some money to tide us over while Rachel isn't getting a full salary for maternity leave. Rachael had the birth experience she wanted with Nora and I couldn't be happier for her.  She delivered at a midwife practice on King Street on Old Town Alexandria in a bedroom, not in a hospital hooked up to all the monitors we dealt with for Joe.  She was able to labor on her own and go for a walk with me around town early on and did a lot of her heavy labor standing or on all fours in bed. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Visiting pop-pop and grammy for the first time

Hanging out on the couch and relaxing  with the kids Tomorrow we leave for a short but much-needed vacation to Phoenix to visit Rachael's father and brother.  It'll be everyone's first opportunity to meet Nora and have a chance to see how much Joe has grown since they last saw him.  Wayne hasn't seen Joe since before he turned three and Wes hasn't seen him since just before we left for Belgium when Joe was only 8 months old.  It'll be a great weekend, I'm sure. Nora is just about 6 months old now and just loves to smile and spend time snuggling with mom and dad.  She has parts of three lower teeth in now and has been gumming soft food for about 3 weeks now - sweet potatoes, bananas, and steamed carrots mostly.  She also loves grabbing at just about anything we put near our mouths, especially glasses and cups.  She's still running in the 60-70 percentile for height and weight, which is a drop-off from her earlier rate but still is great to see. ...
Post a Comment
Read more