The Past Week

I realize it's been a few days since I've posted so I thought I'd fill you in on my week...

On Monday the temp dropped over night and by Tuesday morning there was snow on the ground. It melted before lunch and I have to say I was relieved. We've been getting such beautiful weather here that I figured we wouldn't see snow again til next year. However, the relief didn't last long and it has snowed consecutively for the last three days in a row. Tuesday the roomies and I also experienced our first snow shoveling day. Since Anne is from New Jersey and Andrea is from Toronto they've had quite the experience shoveling snow and putting salt on the ground so I was in good hands.

The girls and I have also been asked to help out w/the youth group at our church. We have about 20 kids who come regularly (that's considered a pretty fair amount by European standards) and their youth minister is leaving and so they are in need of people to come and fill in until they find a new person. The young adults in our church are helping out by coming every other Sunday and being the "adult" of the group. I'm really excited about this since I've always had a heart for youth!

Spring Open House was on Thursday night and we had a fair amount of people show up. We spent all day Thursday cleaning the school and making our classrooms spic and span. My 2nd/3rd graders LOVE cleaning which is great for their teacher since I always put it off until the last minute! I'm sure my parents are reading this and nodding thier heads in fierce agreement!

I've also started reading "Third Culture Kids" which is a book we all received at our orientation this summer. It's really good and I wish I'd started reading it earlier when I moved here back in August. It talks all about the different stages of transition in a new country and all about the kids we work with at school--Third Culture Kids. These are kids who basically grow up in a country that isn't their home country but take on the culture of the host country. Hope that wasn't too confusing!

Finally, yesterday after school Diana took the girls and I to our local "mall" called The Rhein Center. Inside is a huge grocery store that reminds me of a Super Walmart type place. It's called Markthauf and we normally go there when we are seriously out of EVERYTHING! I think we bought enough groceries to last us for a while.

Today is our BIG CLEAN DAY which means we have to clean the hallways in our apartment as well as the cellar and sweep outside. We're also having a Lord of the Rings Marathon later today since it is rainy and snowy.

So, I apologize for the extremely long post today. I just figured since I hadn't updated all week I could get it all done in one entry! Sorry if I bored everyone!