A visit from the Fingerle's.

The last week of August, Ragnar's oldest sister Pamela came with her family from Germany to visit us. They have never been here, so it was neat to be able to host them for a week. They have been on a United States tour for a month and we were their last stop.

We took them to NASA one day and we enjoyed seeing amazing history of the space program.

Deacon loved seeing all the rockets and such.

We made it down to Galveston beach. It was a very hot day but sunny nonetheless. Mia and Channing played well together even though they couldn't understand each other due to the different languages they speak. 

Cute girls had matching hair and matching swimsuits! 

 

I really don't enjoy the beach as the stress of the mess of sand and all the prep and cleaning up makes it not relaxing for me. However, I do enjoy going a couple times a year as the kids really enjoy playing in the sand and the waves. We had a nice time visiting as well!

Next we showed them the World Champion Houston Astros baseball team. They aren't very familiar with this American Sport, so it was fun to take them on a once in a lifetime experience. It was a very long game, but we enjoyed chatting as they played.  

Aaron is great with Deacon. He always plays with him and wants him to sit by and hang out with him.  

Ragnar and his sister the night before they left. We played games several nights and it is always nice to play with their family. They are always kind enough to bring us a fun game and we enjoy what new ones they will come up with! 

 

We are very grateful that they took the time to come here and to spend time with us and see Houston. Regardless of if August is the worst time to visit Houston, we had a nice time and enjoyed catching up!

The 2018-2019 school year has begun!

The summer is officially over and we are back to school! Thankfully the kids love school, so they are usually happy to go back. I miss them when they are gone, but love to watch them progress throughout the year.

Their first day of school was August 20, 2018

Ella is now in 7th grade and started a new program at TMS called the STEM program. There are 80 students in her grade doing the program and she was excited to be chosen. They will still take them through the AP class material, but will do most of the learning through hands on learning and projects to understand the concepts. I hope it goes well and she is really looking forward to it! She also is still doing her concert orchestra and is playing the cello.

Cavin began 5th grade and his teacher is Mrs. Pickard. He was so excited about school starting that on Friday he asked if we could skip Saturday and Sunday so we could just start school! He has always been an incredible student. He is playing soccer again and excited about starting that soon. He also does safety patrol at school where he basically opens the car doors before and after school to let the kids in and help the car line go quicker. He is excited about it because he is the big 5th grader on campus and he can do that now. Also he was told he is going to be the captain of the math Olympiad team, so he was really looking forward to that!

I caught a quick shot of him opening the doors the first day of school. :)

Channing started 2nd grade with Mrs. Petzold. She has a teacher who asked to move up with her class, so she has the same kids and same teacher as last year. I was excited about that since she is a great teacher. She was super excited about school all until the morning of. She woke up crying because she said she was so nervous. She kept saying her tummy hurt because she was so nervous. She finally was able to get out the door and a few hours later the nurse called and said she had been doing ok, but now she was crying again. She let her talk to me on the phone and the conversation was heartbreaking. She just said "mom please can you just come get me, I want to be home with you. When I said I couldn't, she just cried and said "please, just come at least give me a hug and I will feel better." It was heartbreaking. I felt like I had abandoned her. It was unusual for her and even her teacher wasn't sure what was wrong. She had a rough couple weeks and now we are fine. She just wouldn't hardly eat and would cry every morning, had a bloody nose, just very unusual things for her when she has always loved school.

So after our company left I took her out for a couple hours with just mom. Sometimes that is what you need!

Deacon is 4 now and he begins preschool tomorrow with his teacher Mrs. Brittany. She does a preschool of about 12 kids from her home. He will go Monday and Wednesday for 4 hours and was very excited that he is big enough to go!

I hope this year ends up being a great year of growth for the kids! They are growing so fast and time is flying by!

Literacy Girls

The past two summers Ella has had the privilege of being a part of a book club called Literacy girls. She loves reading, so she obviously loves the group. This summer there were 14 girls all between ages 10-12 who she would meet each week with and study books. The focus for this summer was great american women so they studied women like Clara Barton, Pocahontas, Helen Keller, Abigail Adams, Harriet Tubman, and Esperanza Rising. They took them through the history and did simulations of their life period and learned to knit and make different foods, quilt, find constellations, read braille, all sorts of incredible things. Jeri Wyn Mumford, the woman who puts it together does an incredible job and I am so grateful Ella gets to learn from her!

They were learning a conversational game here. 

Then they were going through the work simulation that John Smith went through. 

Today they got to learn archery and she did pretty well.

This was the last night where they had family night and did their skits about the women. Her group was responsible for Esperanza rising. 

I love that Ella loves to read and that she can keep studying wonderful things throughout the summer!