A Broken Arm, Pumpkins and gifts...

It has happened.....the first broken bone of the year....for all of Residence Life. S is a little bummed that he has to shower with a bag over his arm, but he feels pretty cool.

While playing ultimate frisbee intramurals on Thursday, S fractured his arm in two places. We are very glad he broke his left arm and not his right!

Lots has been going on over the last couple of weeks. We have had our first dorm birthday, visited a few more castles, carved pumpkins, met neighbors, received our first package from the states, had some late night talks with students, and dressed up for the middle school party.

M had his 13th birthday a couple of weeks ago. Some dorms have traditions regarding food, but all dorms have traditions regarding water. The high school boys dorms "creek" their dorm brothers by catching them and dragging them down to the nearest creek. You better bring a change of clothes if you step foot into one of these dorms on your birthday because they creek visitors too. The girls dorms are a bit nicer and just dump water on each other. We decided to use a hose on M.

The other day Daniel met our neighbor that lives across the street. A few minutes later Daniel showed up with these:

Our neighbor asked us to stop by later and pick up more. When we returned from our meeting a couple hours later, this was in our driveway:

Good thing we are in Residence Life so we could give some away!

With Halloween coming up this week, we decided to carve pumpkins. S and E have never carved pumpkins so this was an extra awesome experience for them. A group photo before beginning.

E decided to give her pumpkin sunglasses (she comes sunny place) which turned out really great:

Daniel had some fun with the sunglasses:

M gave his pumpkin braces (totally appropriate):

O made a "yeti" :

S did a pretty awesome job with one arm:

Of course I had to make one with fat birdies:

Daniel made one for math and one with a pretty stellar jack o lantern face:

And a group photo:

Well that is all for now. Tomorrow we are going to Basil with all of Res Life for a festival. More pictures to follow!

Hi there - it's been awhile!

Hello,

I'm not sure whether to begin by apologizing or not. Frankly, you've heard it all before, and we've had much longer stretches without updating this blog. You'd rather we just update and get on with the meat. On the other hand, I am sorry for the lapse in info. Perhaps in the course of reading this post, you'll understand what we've been up to instead of blogging :0)

Since arriving, the kids (and us) have been busy, busy, BUSY. It's incredible how we pack so much into their lives. They've already had to learn to say no to a few things, and there's been a couple mornings where some of the kids go to the early Open Gym to play basketball, but one emerges an hour later saying, "I just needed to sleep."

Someone asked last time about our kids' names. For a couple different reasons, we won't be including their names on this blog. We'll refer to them by their grade and gender. Our 7th grade girl is Nigerian, and her parents are living in Nigeria right now, working with a big church in Abuja. Our 7th grade boy is American, but was born in Germany, grew up mostly in Moscow, Russia, and now his parents live in Istanbul, Turkey. Our 8th grade boy is Korean, but was born and lived almost his whole life in St. Petersburg, Russia. Our 8th grade girl is American, and lived for the past year in Linz, Austria with her parents, where they are now. We love these kids, and hope to get you acquainted with them enough that you can love them with us, and help us by praying for them.

Every Sunday night, we have what we call a Dorm Fellowship. This is mostly just a time set aside for the whole dorm to get to know each other, and hopefully have some fun. Our first fellowship, we went on a short hike up to the World Wars monument in Kandern. This sits just behind the school, just outside the city on a BIG hill, that overlooks the valley where Kandern sits. It's an incredible view, and we can see Sitzenkirch (where the Middle School is), Malsburg, Tannenkirch, Vogelbach, and the ruins of Sausenburg, where we also went a subsequent week for DF. This is a great time each week, and we guard it very carefully; Parents know not to call, kids know not to leave homework, and friends know not to plan anything.

Hiking up to the monument, we passed the train tracks - PHOTO SHOOT!

Sitting on the monument, looking over Kandern

Other side of the hill, with a view of Tannenkirch at Sunset

Hiking up to Sausenburg, 8th grade boy is impressed by the steepness

Atop the tallest tower at Sausenburg, we can see Switzerland and France, point out Lorrach, and Basel, spy the Vosges Mountains, get a good look at all the valley below us, and a great view of Hoch Blauen, right up behind us and one of the highest points in the Black Forest.

Every other week, instead of having the kids pack their lunches, we bring a hot lunch to the school for them. We've already made Lasagna and homemade pizza - who knows what culinary endeavors we'll explore next?

Enjoying the goodness of Italian cuisine

A couple weeks ago, Kandern hosted a popular annual event called Budenfest, which means Festival of Booths. I know what you're thinking, but no - it's not really all that similar to the one that the Jews have. THIS ONE means that all the clubs in the surrounding area (skiing, wrestling, ping pong, and many others) all take over the Blumenplatz (town center) with their huge booths. They serve traditional German food, and raise money for their events throughout the year. Sunday afternoon, we went with the kids, walked around a bit, and ate lunch at the wrestling booth. The kids went the safe route with Brats and Brots (Sausage and Bun), and one got a flammenweie (think pizza with a cream sauce). Victoria and I shared some schnitzel with gravy. Traditionally, most people are drinking beer - and lots of it. We thought maybe some apfelschorle (a mixture of apple juice and fizzy water) or a coke might be better for the kids :0)

8th grade boy, enjoying the atmosphere

7th grade boy, showing off his new braces (the current bane of our existence)

7th grade girl, enjoying her brat

8th grade girl . . . we don't feed them at home much.

Today, the kids are at the Middle School Overnight, a get-to-know-each-other time with all the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. They stayed the night at a Youth Hostel in Lorrach, and are having a great time, I'm sure. There are TONS of events coming up, and we need to decide what our birthday tradition is going to be before our 7th grade boy turns 13 here in a few weeks (in most of the other dorms, you are sure to get wet on your birthday). We'd like to do a day trip sometime soon, but finding a free Saturday to do it is kind of a pain.

So that's a little bit of our schedule - we keep pretty busy around here, but we will try to prioritize and keep you all up to speed. More to come later - TA TA for now!

A Week and a Day

We have survived.

That seems to be what everyone has been asking us, and we have been able to answer with an emphatic yes! We love our dorm and our kids. Before they arrived, we prayed that they would all get along, especially the boys since they share a room. Well, they all really enjoy hanging out together. The boys both speak Russian, so for the first couple of days they enjoyed having a 'code' language. Also, they have all discovered the Nerf gun. They had 'Nerf Wars' with only one gun on Friday night, so when we went to France on Saturday, we purchased a few more.

Last week the kids didn't have very much homework because their first full day of classes was on Wednesday. So on Thursday night, we had a flag hanging ceremony. Daniel and I ordered flags off Amazon representing the different countries our dorm represents.

8th Grade Girl

8th Grade Boy and 7th Grade Boy

Our handy work

Every Sunday night each dorm has a dorm fellowship. Basically, we spend 2 hours each Sunday night together as a dorm doing something spiritually enriching. On Sunday, we decided to take the kids on a short hike, then have a Bible study. The hike begins at the high school and follows a trail to a lookout over Kandern. On the way, we decided to have a photo shoot :)

Once we reached the overlook, we took more pictures and talked about the life of Joesph. Daniel talked to the kids about being exactly where God wants them, just like Joesph was where God wanted him. The kiddos really enjoyed the narrative.

We really do have great kids. They are very excited about being here and getting involved at BFA. Both boys are participating in the Middle School Intermediate Band - 8th grade = French Horn, and 7th grade = Saxophone. Both girls are participating in the musical that is a combined Middle School and High School production. They are all wanting to participate in intramural sports teams. Please continue to pray for their adjustment to life in the dorm and to a new school.

A tour of the Middle School House!

Hey - Here's a quick video tour of our house. Enjoy!

Finally, some pictures!

So, this post will be short on in-depth details, and more on the pictures. Besides, they're worth a thousand words anyway :)

About to leave . . . with our heaps of luggage

Our plane

For two weeks we stayed in Holzen, a nearby town - this was our view each morning :)

Holzen is home to dozens of storks, which is why the BFA dorm there is called Storchenblich - rest assured, they are ugly, disgusting birds

The Auditorium - home to several boring meetings

Meetings have been our lives for the past several weeks

The Middle School in Sitzinkirch - they occasionally let us out for good behavior to see various bits of Black Forest Academy

One of the Middle School classrooms

The Library - there's, uh, still some work to do . . .

The Gym

The Elementary School in Wollbach

The Elementary School has a bilingual program, with many local German children attending

Getting the royal tour

Incredible how diverting an elementary school can be

See what I mean?

Victoria was especially impressed with the height-adjusting chalkboards

One of the classrooms

The Library - a bit more put together than at the Middle School

The Music Room

On the last day of the All-Staff Orientation, we made a trip into Basel, where the BFA Personnel Office treated us to Starbucks. I know, I'm amazed, too: I couldn't believe Victoria could go a whole three weeks without Starbucks.

The Rhine River

The courtyard of the Rathaus - the local government building

. . . with a great view of McDonalds . . .

So there you have it! I'm sorry there's not more stories and details, but those will certainly come later. We're still getting our house ready for the students' arrival Sunday evening. I'm hoping to video a tour of the house sometime Saturday night (but you really mustn't get your hopes up, as it's not quite at the top of our priority list).

For now, pray for us, and for our four students (7th Grade Boy, 7th Grade Girl, 8th Grade Girl, 8th Grade Boy) as they are, even now, making their way to Kandern and a school year away from their parents. Toodles for now!