Mia's Schullandheim - Kennenlernen Tagen - or simply: Mia's Class Trip to the Bavarian Forest

Each year, the German schools go on a class trip for several days to get the students together outside of school and to spend quality time with one another. This year, Mia's class went for 3 days to the Bavarian Forest. 26 kids, 2 teachers and no additional chaperones for 3 days. Gotta love the lack of liability. (To give you an idea of the difference in schools between my kids ... when Bailey's school had a College Fair DAY trip to Ramstein (filled with 16-18 year olds), they needed 1 chaperone per 10 kids. They are old enough to drive, yet they need a chaperone - kind of crazy in my book! Something else that I thought was cute is the fact that Mia's Class was allowed to bring things to play tricks on each other with. With 4 girls against 22 boys - it should be fun to hear the results of the tricks (for ex. Mia brought fingernail polish and mayonaise - yikes!!!). Hopefully, she will come back with lots of fun stories. They even get to go on night hikes with flashlights - so much fun! I love the different experiences that she gets to enjoy. Hopefully, there will be many wonderful memories for her to look back upon!

An early morning "selfie" with "my sticker" Like a sticker, she is always with me, so it is so weird when she is away :-( I already miss her!!!

All packed up and ready to go...

Mia with 2 of the 3 other girls in her class. Luckily, they have all become fast friends. Can you tell that she didn't get any of the German height  :-)

Just the epitome of cuteness!

This was what we were greeted by when leaving the store the other day. Just this adorable little dog waiting for his owner to finish shopping. I melted :-)

An all American type of Saturday...

Bailey and Camden are each playing a high school sport this year. Camden is running Cross Country and Bailey is Cheering. Because of the weirdness of where we live, the teams only have a handful of competitors and many of the games are quite a distance (were talking England, Italy, and the French Border - definitely not your typical High School rivalries).  Anyway - this weekend was really fun because the kids both had home games/meets and the weather was gorgeous. I should say that Camden's TEAM had a meet, but he is unforunately injured (knee) so we just went to help direct runners on the course. It was really nice to see the comraderie and support that the cross country team offered one another. I like to run, but never ran in High School - so I never realized what a great "team"sport it is. The parents are nice, the kids are nice and it is just a really good over all nice sport. After the cross country meet, we spent the afternoon at the Football game. It was very exciting bceause our team was not expected to win at all, and while we did not win, they did tie (which is almost like a win because of the odds :-). It was very exciting and especially fun to watch Bailey having so much fun. Definitely an all American type of Saturday!

The Cross Country team listening to find out the top 10 finishers (if they were in the top 10, they got to go to Vincenza, Italy for a regional meet).

The Cross Country Team - A really nice group of kids!

A gorgeous day for a Football game!

Bailey cheering for her team - Go Falcons!

Changes...

The rose garden still has a few roses..

and lots of lots of tourists too...

The Bamberger Rider is still there  (the famous unknown man)

The Vineyard looking up at St. Michaels...

And whats that?

look a little closer....

It is September, so it is Harvest Time!

Even with all of the tourists, there are places to go where it is calm and quiet...

A few Apple Trees filled with apples ready to pick!

I think she will forever think of Bamberg as "home" 

what a great place it is!

Definitely our favorite!

We had 2 birthday parties to celebrate 2 weekends in a row in Bamberg. The first was a family affair and then the second was just for Mia's friends. Her little click there is so cute and they are growing up so fast! This morning she got a "what ap" (that is our version of texting over here) from one of her Bamberg friends saying that she was linked into a "group chat" for her "grundschule friends - so cute!!! Anyway, Bamberg is definitely changing since we moved there 7 years ago. The tourism has picked up like mad and there are so many tourist groups now - it is hard to get around through the city on a bike anymore Another thing that is changing (not just in Bamberg, but all over Germany) is the refugee influx. The Germans are good people. They are kind and generous and they understand what is like to suffer. They have welcomed refugees here and - oh my  - have they started coming in! So many infact that, that they have had to close the open borders again to try to maintain some level of order. There are many different feelings on the matter and I won't go there, but one biggie for us in Bamberg is that they are wanting to bring 6500 (yes - six thousand five hundred) refugees and put them in the former U.S. Military base. There will definitely be a lot of change if this happens for this little city of 70,000 people.  Bamberg has a true culture (like no city I have seen before) - it IS a cultural world heritage site after all. Hopefully, there won't be too much change with all of the changes happening here. If you can't tell already, I kind of like the place ;-)

Happy Birthday Camden!!!!

We celebrated Camden's 15th birthday last week. I love this guy! He has changed so much in the last year. He has become quite mellow and chilled and it is so enjoyable watching him grow up. He is running Cross Country this year and just started working one day a week too, which means we hardly see him, but we did manage to celebrate his special day after a busy day of school and running. High School has been a seemingly easy and good transition and he appears to be quite happy with it all. Camden - I adore you and hope that the year brings nothing but happiness and good things your way!!!

I love this picture! I think Mia was the most excited about Camden opening his gifts :-) She created a treasure hunt for him...

Enjoying the handmade card...

He was happy to get a phone for his birthday. He might be the last person on earth (besides my Dad ;-)) to have a smart phone (even Mia has one). Up to now, he didn't really want one.  It is an old version, but he seemed to like it. :-) 

Mia bringing out the cake...

And scratch tickets from Maine - no wins, but a fun gift none the less :-)

1st Day of School (take 2)

Mia started school today. Yikes - It is crazy to see your "youngest" in a school with 18 year olds. I've been asking her for weeks if she was excited, nervous etc. and she frankly didn't really want to talk about it. As we read together last night and turned out the lights, she started to cry - poor little thing - I think it finally hit her that yes once again she would be going through the process of starting a new school. That, or maybe she was just sad that "vacation" was over. Lucky for her though, she knows how this process works (starting a new school) and this time around, it isn't just her that is starting a new school, but ALL of her friends will be going to new and various schools.

She woke up bright eyed though and we walked to school together. It is amazing how consistent the schools are here in Bavaria. It was almost the exact same introduction that Camden had had at the 5th grade Gymnasium in Bamberg so long ago. They bring you all in an auditorium, there is a quick introduction, then break the kids up into their classes that they will be in and head off with your class. The parents stay behind for more conversation as the kids get settled. Then the parents get to go into the classroom to see where the kids have chosen to sit and all.   We joked that at least she knows the language (poor Camden had a vocabulary of only 20 words or so when he first started) - talk about being dumped right into the thick of it!

She chose a Math and Science school. I don't know if you have read much about the Math and Science fields, but there is a huge percentage gap between girls and boys in these fields. And yes, there is a HUGE percentage gap in her school as well. In a class of 26, she is only one of 4 girls. There are 4 classes with approx. the same make up. Which means in a class grade of about 100, there are approx. 16 girls. She was very happy though, because some of the boys in her new school were in her class at her old school - so at least she had a few friends right away.It should be interesting to say the least!

And so it begins - a new school year and all of the fun, stress, exhaustion, and happiness that it brings. Here's to a great year Mia!!!

update.....

Her first few days were a huge success. She absolutely LOVES it. The few girls in her class have all clicked very quickly. Everything is so organized and they are treated like little adults. What a relief to know that she is happy!!! I think it is going to be a great year!

*Had to mention this funny thing.... There is a smoking section. Oh yes - just like we had back in the day. There are only a few students out there, but it is still so funny to see. I guess the administration doesn't have to "babysit" the kids (that is the parents job) - they just educate them. If they don't make the grades, then they get moved down to a lower level school. Such a simple idea!

New York City

After we left Maine, we drove to New York City to meet my Aunt and her Grandson (our Cousin). We weren't able to get down to Virginia to visit them on this visit, so they very generously offered to meet us half way - in NYC. It was so great seeing them and also touring around a bit. We did not have a ton of time there (only 24 hours), but the weather was beautiful and the time what we did have was really fun. The kids decided that they would definitely like to go back for a longer stay next time.

When we arrived, I thought that it might be handy to take a picture of our rental car, just in case we never saw it again (after handing it over to be parked in NYC:-))

Mia taking a selfie :-)

Bailey in Times Square

The famous New Years Eve Ball - it won't be long now until 2016!!

This guy was announcing his run for presidency - "Robbie Williams" - never heard of him ;-)

My Aunt treated us all to tickets to the top of the Empire State Building - such a fun and cool experience!!! Here - you can see it in the background as we were walking towards it....

As you get closer though - it just seems to get bigger and bigger...  Crazy to think that this enormous building was built in only 11 months (back in 1930!!!)

86 Floors to the Observation Deck...

And such amazing views from the top!!! In the background, you can see the new "One World Trade Center" building (the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere)...

And we could see the Statue of Liberty too - it looked so small!

Our group shot!

Such gorgeous views!!!

After the Empire State Building, we went out for Pizza and then walked around Times Square at Night

They say that "you never know what you might see :-) - quite entertaining for a Thursday night

In the morning, we went to the Good Morning America Studio. 

It was neat because one of the guests was one of the "heros" from the Paris Train Incident 

We smiled thinking that this guy was just an ordinary every day guy one week prior - and now he was all over the news ...

Outside the studio, they broadcast too ...

We haven't watched the regular news in over 7 years, so I wasn't quite sure who this is - but had to get a picture anyway :-)

After breakfast, we took the subway to Central Park to walk around together before our flight later that evening. The kids thought this was funny to see (being that Donald Trump was in the news non stop during our visit home)

the Tavern on the Green in Central Park

So calm in a world of busy!!!

It was so nice to visit my Aunt under a bit calmer circumstances for a short time - before we had to say our goodbyes

 

They had a silly camera  that took your picture and put it up on a building - it was really funny! Bryan made "crazy man" eyes and made us all laugh.

After a great month, we drove across the river to Newark to catch our flight home to Germany. We smiled at our plane - instead of "Lufthansa" - it was called "Fanhansa" and had a soccer ball - Gotta love the Germans :-) 

Tschuss America - bis 2017! Vielen Dank fur eine schone Monate mit Familie und Freundinen!!!! *had to practice my German a bit, as we spoke nothing but English for an entire month :-)