Kalynn's last day at school

Today was Kalynn's last day at her German Kindergarten. The had a little party for her. It was cute. (I had one of her teachers use my camera to take to some pictures.) They had some American flag print napkins and arranged their tiny tables and chairs in a festive setting. It looked so cute. Tonight when I put her to bed she prayed for God to help her German friends not be sad when she left. (awwww) They made the cutest card for her with a thumbprint from each of her classmates on it. Each child drew a face/arms/legs/etc on his or her thumbprint to make it look like themselves. The director of the school gave her a pig (one of Kalynn's favorite characters right now is Waldemar the pig and she talks about him ALL of the time). The director told her that every time she plays with her pig she will thinks about them.

Tears...

My dear friend, Irena, just left our house and I am in tears because it was likely our last time seeing each other. (She had planned to have breakfast with us today or coffee later but her 3 year old is sick and her pre-teen son was at the hospital all evening long yesterday because a school-mate sprayed some type of cleaner in his eyes). Tonight is our last night in the house, which is just some 50 yards from Irena's apartment, and we will stay in company housing until we fly out Sunday morning. Irena took off a beautiful necklace from around her neck and handed it to me to remember her by. I was very moved by the gesture and even more so when she told me I was one of the best friends she has ever met. I'm really going to miss her.

Oh Dear... And the relocation begins...

This morning the guy from the relocation service came to pack up and take away the items we chose to put in air freight. These things are supposed to make it to the United States in about 2 weeks as opposed to the bulk of our things that will go on the sea container and take about a month and a half. We are very limited on the amount of stuff that goes by air so I had to choose wisely. Needless to say a bit of my craft things are going, lol. I miss my glue gun already and the guy just loaded it on the truck (yeah I'm writing this as he packs/loads). It is starting to feel real right now and I must say that I am a bit sad. I am going to miss Germany.

A Happy Halloween

Last night we had a small Halloween party for the kids (Kalynn and her buds Joshua and Jessica). This will be our last "major" holiday celebrated in Germany as we will be returning to the United States a few days before Thanksgiving. We had a great time and delicious treats. Melissa made some yummy Frankenstein cupcakes and Marco cut up some cute Monster Mouth apple bites. We played "pin the face on the pumpkin". Kalynn's came out pretty good, to be blindfolded! The kids decorated spooky sugar cookies and made haunted scenes from foam, stickers, glitter glue, and lots of giggles. Speaking of giggles, check out Joe wearing a pink cowboy hat and Marco wearing Kalynn's princess earring (with his Frankenstein head topper)! Now that was funny!!! Also funny was the fact that Kalynn had mini meltdown because she did not want to wear the skirt that came with her Princess Tiana costume but instead wanted to wear her old ratty pink skirt that besides being waaaaay too overused is getting waaaaay too short. After "arguing" with her that it did not match I finally relented after the crocodile tears came and she was a happy camper after that! Who knows, maybe she will grow up to be a huge fashion designer. Who am I to stunt her creativity!? LOL
We got quite a few more trick-or-treaters this year than last year. We even had some come to our door the day BEFORE Halloween! That was hilarious! They insisted that it was Halloween. Anyway, we *gasp* ran out of candy and had to shut her down around 8:00pm. Marco discovered that the T-o-Ters had taped a sign to our gate that they had handwritten on a sheet of paper that said "Süßes oder Saures", which is a German equivalent to Trick or Treat, to let others know that our house gave out candy. Since trick-or-treating has not really caught on big in Germany, it was nice to see the youth helping out the others by directing to the folks that are participating. However, we still had people buzzing our gate for about another hour after we removed the sign and turned off the Halloween lights! One set of revelers, after learning we had given out all of the candy earlier, told Marco "But we got dressed up. Give us anything... crackers, fruit, whatever." I had to laugh at that.