Merry Xmas to all! I'm afraid that this will probably be the last of our family updates. I can find nothing funny about living here anymore. I have resigned to the fact that all Fall, Winter and Spring it will be cloudy with high chance of rain, near freezing, and dark at four o'clock everyday (in fact Mr. Sun decides to stay in bed most of the day or hide behind the clouds if he even dares peek out!). Even our dog goes to bed at 7 p.m. and refuses to get up until 8 a.m. or so. I used to hate going into the grocery stores for fear of the self bagging process whereby the clerk scans all the stuff and the fastest possible speed, leaving you to manage the chaos of goods flying your way. The other day I found myself nearly ripping packages out of her hand as I was managing to load the groceries faster than she could scan. I was thinking to myself, "I guess I made it through this adventure...".Also, the other day I was waiting to pick my daughter up from a school trip at about 10 at night. It was freezing out (of course). One of the parents walked by and we both laughed as we commented on our desire to be in any other country whereby we could sit with the car turned on to keep warm, but not here, where we all did "the German thing" and turned off our cars to save the hole in the ozone and contemplated death by freezing. I digress... The big news is that we are expecting another (planned - in case you wanted to know!) addition to our family (and yes this is of the human persuasion even though Conner is certain that it is his turn for a dog as Kailah is not his dog but Kira's). The next member of the family is due Friday May 13th (a good day - Kira was born on a Friday the 13th and this is Jaq's bday!). We just got back preliminary results from the amnio and all looks well. For those who have never had children or are not yet old, the amnio looks for genetic problems, and in our case, Downs Syndrome which increases in likelihood with the age of the mother (yes, Dianne I know you are still 29). Anyway, all results came back with no issues. From about the first month of pregnancy Dianne predicted that another girl was on the way and began to compile names. She was spot on with Kira and Conner. While getting a very cool ultrasound (technology has come a long way, even since Conner), with the amnio tests, the doctor asked if we wanted to know the sex of the baby. We said of course, and she proudly honed in to the uniquely male part of the anatomy and said, "no questions here, it's a boy!" I think Dianne had a small tear in one eye, but I can't be sure. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that next year's clothing budget just dropped by 90%. We are back to square one on the naming process and have spend hours on http://www.babynames.com/. We are trying to come up with something Dianne, Kira and I all like and still won't give our parents a complete heart attack for weirdness. No luck yet, but we have definitely ruled out Conner's suggestion of "Spiderman".
For those of you asking "Tom, do you plan to make this birth?" the answer is yes, I absolutely plan to be there, but timing is everything! We have decided, for various reasons, that Dianne will return to the States early with Conner, and Kira and I will hang out until school ends in late June. It would be a legal nightmare if the baby was born here to a couple of Canadians with permanent residency in the US. The baby would not be German by birth as we are not German. It would probably be Canadian and then we would have to fill in tons of forms to bring the baby into the US. We also fear the German name police. Of course, you can't just make up any name for your child, it must come from a approved government list, as we came to find out from someone who tried to give their daughter a middle name of "Bonn" to commemorate the time they were here...it didn't fly, not approved. Anyway, I digress again. With Dianne going back around the end of March, my plan is to fly back to California for a two week window near the birth (Kira will stay with friends) and be part of the birth process from afar. Dianne is saddened about this as Kira was the stellar coach in the last session!. Timing is everything, but I have no fears of missing this one .
Conner just celebrated his 3rd birthday and he was sure he grew four or five inches in the night. We had a small party with a couple of the kids in the neighborhood who came for cake and ice cream. Conner had a small list on the birthday wish list and got almost all of it. He beamed ear to ear when he pulled out his Sponge Bob boxer shorts. The book, "Trucks at Night" has now been read nearly 100 times. After opening his new doctor kit, he immediately asked the two girls if they wanted to play doctor. Of course they said yes, and the surgery was begun. He didn't get anymore more swords, as I feel sword fighting an hour or two a day is quite enough for me at this time. However, I feel he is approaching the desires of his cousin (the proud owner of what appears to be dozens of swords) who asked for one thing only for Xmas, and that was a real sword, that could really cut something. Conner thinks Everett is the coolest guy on earth - he has so many swords and shields and knight stuff. Maybe next year.
Kira is a growing teenager. Several weeks ago her first report card of the year came home. There are two marks for each class; a number from 1 to 7, 7 being the highest, and then an effort grade, marked from "A" through "F". In grade 6 Kira got pretty much all 7s and "A"s. Last year it was split between 6 and 7s, and all "A"s. This year it was mostly 6s, some 5s and a couple of "B"s. Of course we went off the deep end, suspending her non stop phone access during the week, cutting off MSN, requiring more homework be done and if she didn't have enough, we'd assign it. We went to parent teacher conferences expecting to hear about Kira talking in class, drooling over the boys, not doing homework, inattentiveness and other such new problems. We heard nothing but glowing things from the teachers, telling us not to worry, that her marks would improve and that they loved having her in the classroom. Every one of her teachers said that she was one of the hardest workers in the class, a treasure to teach, and always, always, always willing to offer an answer. We went home, told Kira what we had heard, and loosened the noose (slightly) that we had put around her neck. She is still on track for one boyfriend per year, with Trenton in grade 6, Kyle in grade 7 and now Lenny in grade 8. Of course, things change by the minute, or so I'm told. Everything with her is a drama and the age of 25 is far too far away for me. We got busted trying to pick her friends this year, and after getting an earful at very loud decibels, we are working on being more discrete.
Dianne is doing very well, with her traveling for work nearly done. She is counting down the days until repatriation to the States, and is trying to manage the strange food cravings that pregnancy brings. With Kira, every evening at around 8, it was "Tom, WE need ice cream" and I would head out to the neighborhood 7-11 for Ben & Jerry's. This go around, it's non alcoholic beer, which of course is totally bizarre, because she normally doesn't drink beer. We have a couple of 6 packs sitting outside our back door (the fridge is too small - remember?) when the urge strikes, I make a dash into the cold, and return with a frosty cold one (I can't stand the stuff). Conner has told all the preschool teachers that he has a baby brother in mommy's tummy and that mommy wears really big pants. Things are going well.
Conner keeps me busy most of the time, but I still mange to make time for my athletic training and still have a goal of doing a major triathlon in the Spring. I'm getting in pretty good shape again (hold on.... Dianne is looking over my shoulder and just asked if this e-mail was fact or fiction..."Fact", I snapped and asked her to keep further comments to herself). Someone who hadn't seen me in a couple of years discreetly asked a neighbor if I had a major disease or illness causing me to look so thin. I can assure everyone that I am not only alive and kicking, but at around 165 pounds, I have no fear of fading away anytime soon. I'm starting to think about work again and have ordered educational training materials to get my CPA license current again. We shall see what the summer brings.
We just came back from Prague. We tried to do a "German" vacation, but were not so successful. When deciding on a location to visit for the weekend, most people here go to the web and look at cheap flights by these discount airlines that are everywhere. Destinations are dictated by cheap tickets. We were torn between Rome and Prague, both with tickets for under 30 euro per person. We did a bunch of research on the web over the course of an hour or so to see what there was to do, before deciding on Prague. We also felt that we would someday return to Italy, but may not ever be back to Prague. We found a cheap hotel and made reservations. We then flipped back to the airline web page to book the airline tickets and found out the tickets had just doubled in price. We still went, but have become a little smarter a long the way. Prague is a beautiful city that is incredibly cheap and very western. Everyone speaks English and there are more jazz and blues bars than there are in New Orleans. I thought it was much more western than most cities in Germany. We had a great time, even though we all got the one day flu (yes, Conner threw up all over Dianne again. I think this has happened seven or eight times now and it wouldn't be the same if we didn't go on a trip without Conner blessing her with the contents of his stomach. Dianne has been honored on planes, trains, automobiles and now restaurants!).
We have decided to spend our last Christmas here in Europe and are planning a ski trip to Austria with friends from Danville. We leave this weekend and are excited to be off. We booked this in the Spring, so Dianne had every intention of joining us on the slopes, but now we shall all wave to her in the chalet as we attempt to keep from breaking our legs on the ski hills. Good news for Conner is that mom and him can make snow angels everyday (which he practices nearly every night) and better news for Kira is that mom won't be bugging Kira on the slopes to slow down so mom can catch up!
Kira is planning another snow boarding adventure - she learned how to snow board this summer at a family style camp we went to in the Netherlands. Yes - a country that is extremely flat, no hills and Kira learned how to snow board in the hot summer months (hint: indoor ski hill). She is really looking forward to practicing her skills for another upcoming ski/snow board trip to Austria with her friends from youth group in February. Kira is also off to her first long distance travel adventure in early February when she will travel to see Grandma Kershaw and her friends in sunny CA for a week during winter break. Mom is already worried about her travelling alone and is making this a very comfortable experience for Kira by donating her mileage points (Kira has flown more business class trips than me!).
As always, I've spoken for far too long, so "Merry Christmas to All" and we look forward to seeing blue skies and happy people in the not to distant future. Love to all Tom. Dianne, Kira, Conner, Baby "X" (name suggestions are always welcome!)
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