Sparklers, Bullets, Roller Coasters, Falafel & Kinderstube

At the GAI German Festival















4th July had sparklers with some of the neighborhood kids.


















Gregor's godfather, Joachim, visited us earlier this month. If you were there, you might remember him as the organist for our wedding in Gladbeck. We had fun at the park. Entirely missed the drive-by shooting that happened less than 100 yards from where we were.





































We repeated last Summer's visit to Valley Fair. This time, Gregor was large enough to ride in some of the kiddie rides. Peter also took him on one of the big-people rides.
















In the front row of the roller coaster. I think this was Michael's favorite ride. The ride (The Mild Thing) gave the kids 3 round trips. After each time around, the cars came to a complete stop, and each kid had to give a thumbs-up to indicate that they still wanted to ride. Occasionally a kid went around once, realized they didn't want it, and could easily get off. Michael, as seen in the photo, wasn't even waiting for the trip to stop or be asked if he wanted to keep going. As soon as it hit the turn into the station, his thumb was sticking right up. As he repeatedly cried throughout the day "more! more! more!"















Our little adrenalin junkie. Right most with blue hat.















playing mechanic



















Sunday afternoon: Falafel & Mr. Giraffe













At GAI Familientag / Family Day. It was a celebration held by the Germanic American Institute, which runs the German immersion schools (2 preschools & K-8). Michael is going to the Kinderstube (preschool). His German has been getting markedly better in the past 3 months. It is more often complete sentences. And it's separating from English a bit more. This evening, he was speaking with Peter on the phone, and when Peter didn't understand the German, Michael repeated himself in English. Papa, ich will dich nicht da bleiben. I don't want you to stay there.

It's been great for Michael making new friends. He is sad that a couple of his new friends are leaving in a couple weeks to go to kindergarden. He wants to go with them. Since they're going to the German kindergarden, we're hoping that he can, indeed, go. We are struggling with getting him to understand that he can't go right now with them. "you need to wait until next September" just isn't really temporally comprehensible to a 4 year old.

In the clip, this is a group of children from Michael's class & his favorite teacher, Frau Anna. The audio is poor. Poor to mediocre video.




Gregor