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.