Christmas Time

It is almost December and Christmas seems to be right around the corner. I decided to take a teaching job at a catholic Kindergarten only a five minute bike ride from our house. I had originally planned to teach younger kids at a different pre-school, but will now be teaching the 3-6 year old classroom.* It is the same school I went to as a child and we are getting a spot for Emmi starting in January and for Lily starting in September despite a long waiting list. One of the perks of being a teacher! I am really looking forward now to teaching again!

Emmi is super excited about starting Kindergarten and she is also very excited about Christmas. The Christmas Markets opened on Friday and we took a little trip downtown visiting a couple of them on Sunday. Emmi and Lily split some chocolate covered strawberries and Dugan and I have to come back by ourselves to enjoy some hot wine :) .

Emmi has been busy adding lots of things to her Christmas list and Lily doesn't really care as usual. We'll be celebrating Christmas with my parents and then go up to visit my grandparents over New Years.

Until then we'll be busy visiting lots more Christmas markets, baking Christmas cookies, doing arts and craft projects and (re-)learning lots of Christmas songs.

I love Christmas!

Dugan has started his language class last week and has already improved a lot after just one week! I bet he'll be pretty fluent in less then a year. I am so proud of him!

*German preschools are all age mixed and divided in 0-3 or 3-6 year olds. They go on to 1st Grade at 6 years old. Preschool education is heavily subsidized by the government and being a preschool teacher requires 5 years of schooling. The curriculum mostly emphasizes creative thinking and independence instead of academics like I have seen a lot in the States.

MIA

Our life has been crazy busy those past few weeks. I quit updating, but we did eventually finish our camping trip after four weeks and 6023 miles on the road and we could have easily added a couple of weeks. It was the most awesome trip we have ever done! We returned to Austin for a few days to wrap up some last things we had to do there and to say good bye to our friends. Telling her best friend Lena good bye was the hardest part for Emmi and at that time I think she actually realized what a big move we were making. From Austin we headed to Houston to spend a couple of weeks with Dugan's family. Dugan got to go duck hunting for a week with his Dad and Uncle up in Canada and we girls had many fun adventures hanging out in Houston with MeMe and KayKay. October 25th was finally the day. It was sad and exciting at the same time. It's hard at times having a marriage with family divided between two continents. Whichever way we go we are always leaving behind people we love and who are devastated seeing us leave, while we are greeted just a (long) plane ride later by our other side of the family just beyond happy seeing us arrive. So wherever we choose to go in the future we will always cause sadness. But we believe we just have to make the decisions that we think are best for our family and for the moment we feel the best place for us right now is in Germany.

And from the minute of arriving we have been busy settling in and organizing our new life and we have been quite success full so far. Only three weeks since arriving Emmi has started a ballet class that she has been asking for since last Christmas, Dugan got his three year work and residence permit, I have had two job interviews and two job offers, we have hunted for a preschool opening for Emmi and have finally been success full, Dugan's german has already improved a lot and he is starting his german class at the goethe institut next week, we have received our container last week and have unpacked all but a couple of boxes already, we have bought a new kitchen (which unfortunately won't get here until January) and we have decided not to get a puppy for now. Seems like our life is crazy enough as it is :) !

I realized yesterday how much I am dreading going back to work though. Now that the date is moving closer (January 1st) I am slowly beginning to panick. I know that the kids will be just fine. Emmi is going to love her new school and Lily gets to stay with my Mom all day. But I don't know how I am going to manage not seeing them until 4 pm most days, after up to now spending almost every moment with them since they were born. I know I am being a cry baby and I realize how fortunate I have been to get to spend this much time with my babies but it's still hard. And I will miss them. But until then we got more busy times ahead! I'll try not to go MIA again and update more often! A big hello to all of our friends in Austin!! We miss you guys!