Sisters

As I was leaving the library at noon, the "sisters" were all sitting together. It was so sweet and I just had to take a picture. Three will graduate next Friday and 3 will be back next year. Without a doubt they will all miss each other an awful lot...

Two firsts & a last

This was Bethany's first day of school in Canada. We were on furlough and she went to Living Waters Christian Academy for half a year of grade 1. Notice the lovely uniform!
This was Bethany's first day of grade one in Brazil. School starts at the beginning of March there, so when we got back to Brazil after being in Canada half a year, Bethany started grade 1 all over again! She then had a full year of grade 1 in Portuguese (and was the best reader in her class!).
The kids in Brazil only go to school half days. Bethany went in the afternoon, so in the mornings we did home-schooling in English in grade 2 so she wouldn't lose a year. (As it turned out, we left Brazil shortly after Bethany had finished grade 1. At her next school, which was here in Germany, she was able to go right into grade 3 due to the home-schooling! We were thankful.)
Notice again the uniform. (Katy was in preschool in a different school, thus the two different uniforms.) I have to admit, I enjoyed those years of school uniforms!
Here she is in her classroom. I likely really embarrassed her by taking this picture, but now I'm sure she's happy I did (I know I am!). The little girl beside Beth is Magdalena. Her family was also with our mission in Brazil. They came from Germany so when these two little girls met, they had no common language. They went to preschool together so they learned Portuguese at the same time, which then became their common language!
This was Beth this morning, on her way to last day of school! It was a sad and exciting day for her.

BFA's first art show

On Tuesday afternoon I dashed over to the school to take some pictures of the art show. There were some amazing pieces on display. What a feast for the eyes. I hope you enjoy it too!
This is Jason, the son of special friends of ours (Danny and Sherri). I believe their daughter Lindsey painted this.


This was a funky bit of art. There are several different types of medium used here. I took this a bit from the side to try and show the different levels but it's hard to see.
This is Meredith's self-portrait. She did an amazing job!

More strawberries

I talked to someone the other day who said the strawberry yields this year are phenomenal. We do not question this as our own little patch is absolutely bursting. This was my pick today!
Once they were sliced I had quite a pile.
Using only this jam sugar and 1 kilo of strawberries (and boiling for only 3 minutes)...

...this is what I made.
There were still plenty of strawberries left for everyone to enjoy them with ice cream once I had the jam cooked up. Last year I took a bunch of this sugar home to my mom and she was thrilled. Making jam with this sugar is so easy. It has all the pectin and whatever else is needed for jam already in the sugar so you only have to cook it and VOILA! We used to have a great peach tree in the yard so each fall that we've lived in this house, I've made peach jam. However, the tree was failing and the landlords told Howard to just cut it down. So much for peach jam...

Nautilus is launched!

Today the CDs for Bethany's band went on sale. Rachel (violinist, percussionist, great graphics) said sales were quite brisk and was very pleased. The CDs cost 3 Euro with 1 Euro of each sale going to help an orphanage in Romania. This was Bethany's idea. Pretty cool stuff.

She won!

You've seen this picture before, but today it's for a different reason. Katy won the 30 Euro given by the German teacher for the best scrapbook this year! The teacher gives each book created by her students to several staff and students to judge, and Katy's came out on top this year. So, it was worth all the hours and hours and HOURS of work, wasn't it Katy?!?! We are proud of you!

Todtnau

On Sunday after church we drove up to Todtnau which is a lovely little town nestled in the Black Forest. One of the "unnatural" attractions of this town is the huge Rodelbahn on the side of the mountain. It is a track which is used to careen down the mountain, in a sled of sorts, as fast as you can. You ride up on a chair lift and then get into the sled (fortunately it comes with brakes!) which is secured to the track by wheels underneath. First off, here are just a few pictures from the town.





On the way up to the top. The trip takes at least 10 minutes.


There was a shepherd on the hill with a huge flock of sheep. It was a beautiful thing to see.




The lift carries up the sleds and the passengers. It's quite an amazing system.
You can pay to go up, but not down. If you only want to pay to go up, you can walk down if you're ready for a vigorous hike.

The view.



At the top. The family, minus Leighton and Becky and plus a friend between Chantelle and Tiffany.
These are the sleds. You can see the track winding down the hill.


Ready to ROLL!



After the "run" we wandered to the town square to enjoy some delicious Italian ice cream.

Strawberries

Howard has been picking strawberries from our garden for few days, but today I went out to discover tons of berries ready to be picked. The slugs had already made lovely tunnels through several of them, but I did manage to rescue a few.

They've arrived!

The cousins (and their parents) have finally arrived! First came Josh.
Then Tiffany! Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of Ben and Dorcas at the moment of arrival. Just too much excitement.
Here we are in Europe and Ben (the lumber guy) and Josh (his right-hand man) are checking out plywood. Good grief! (That's Dorcas in the background.)

The cousins had a great afternoon together.





Switzerland and Austria are hosting the European soccer championships so Basel is alive with all kinds of nifty decorations. This particular soccer ball is made out of chocolate.