New School Year

School has started!!! Yeah! Maxwell is in the 3rd grade and Marcus in the 2nd. They have lots of subjects (math, german, english, sport, culture, music, nature and religion). Maxwell also has swimming every other week. There are 7 kids in the 3rd grade and 8 in the 2nd. Let the games (and homework) begin....

Max on the first day

Marcus in his classroom with his teacher Frau Körper

They had a lil party program and did a skit to welcome the first graders.
Max was a rabbit and Marcus a mouse.

Max (rabbit) and Emily (donkey)

My friend Janet and family
Christian is a 1st grader with his Spiderman Schultüte

Swimming

Summer vacation is almost over and school starts on Monday, Sept 10. Whoohoo!!! We went to a really nice swimming pool yesterday where they have a really cool water slide. Charly and Maxwell went on it but me and Marcus were too chicken...

Marcus watches from the side.

Maxwell looks out from the top

Charly slides

Maxwell slides

Charly's Triathlon

Charly did a triathlon in a lake here in the area with his sports team.
They had to swim 600m, bike 16km and run 4km.
He made it in 59 minutes
and made 16th place in his age group of 50 men.
His team leader won in 49 minutes.

before the race with friends

Charly's bike, shoes, shirt and bag at the
changing station.


warming up in the lake

Ready,

Set,

GO!!!

Go, go, go!!!

now change for the biking

change into bike gear

biking

Run, Charly, Run!!!

He made it!!!

Tree House

Charly finally finished the tree house.
He used old wooden pallets and some wood he found.

view from the back

the front

Marcus watches as Charly puts the top on

Maxwell peeking

We still need to make a ladder.

Maxwell and Daniel inside decorating.

Marcus taking notes


They've been playing in there everyday.
They put in some camping mats, blankets, pillows, pictures,
water guns, a clock and a radio.

Maxwell's 9th Birthday

We celebrated Maxwell's 9th birthday by going to a indoor playground with 7 of his friends. Everyone had a great time including me and Charly because we didn't have to cook or clean up!

Opening presents

Climbing the huge slide...

Max did his first backwards sommersault too!

Golf

We went with Charly's sister Ellen and her husband Reimund to visit her son Maurice, who's working at a Golf Club over the summer. M&M loved playing golf, Tiger better watch out!

Reimund shows M&M how to golf.

M&M, Reimund and Maurice practice.

Trying to look strike a golf pose!

Golfing makes you thirsty!
Yes, 17 year old Maurice has a beer.
Kids are allowed to drink beer in Germany at 16!

August 2007

I know it's September but I want to share with you some of the stuff we did in August. The kids have only 6 weeks summer vacation so we did some things here locally. Nickelodeon came to Stuttgart so of course we went to see Sponge Bob. Marcus wouldn't get close enough to take a pic but Max did. We also went to the castle garden in Ludwigsburg.

Castle in Ludwigsburg

Max & SpongeBob

1st Post

Welcome to my first blog! I got the idea from Katy and Justin whose blog is oh so cute with Miss Jamison. I think it's a great way to share info and pics with family and friends. Especially for us being so far away here in Germany! Now let's see if I can just keep it updated...

This was in the Grand Canyon Aug 2006