Leila and Harald

Saturday, May 18, 2013

One evening in October, our family rode our bikes to the other side of the Innenstadt to help move a colleague of Tracy's into a fourth floor apartment. Close to 80 stairs to climb. I counted. We hoofed it up and down those four flights of stairs many times that evening. Desiring to thank us for the help, Harald and Leila wanted to cook dinner for us once they got settled into their new home. We planned to go one evening in January but alas, we all got sick.

Though it rained all day the 18th, the skies cleared off just as we were leaving to
go to their place so we enjoyed a lovely sunset from their balcony. This is
looking back into the Innenstadt - St. Johannis' steeples on the left and St.
Jacobi's steeple on the right.

Joj and Noah played soccer in the garden area behind their house.

The garden area is shared by all of the residents of the house so it was nice
for the boys to be able to play there for a bit after dinner.

~ Harald, Leila, Beth, Tracy ~

St Paulus Kirche is just a block from their place and can
easily be seen from their balcony.

Lilacs are one of my absolute favorites and are VERY prevalent in
Germany! I love how often we smell them when outside b/c of how very
many bushes there are.

Noah wrote a paper on St. Johannis Kirche for school so
is a wealth of information about this church! He was to
bring a 2-3 page rough draft to school that was going to
be edited during class. He worked a lot on this and only
had a page and a half. Without showing his teacher his
work, he asked if this would be enough. Frau Frank
insisted that he do more writing. He was quite stressed
out finishing this draft and then, when he showed her
his work, Fr. Frank told Noah that he used the wrong
paper! The 2-3 pages was to be on a special kind of paper
they use in class that has extra spacing. Noah ended up
having about eight pages worth of material!

A closer shot of the steeples as the sun began to set...long about 9:30! We
allowed the boys to go home and watch a movie while the adults visited
longer. As they were preparing to leave, I told them to head to bed around
9 or 9:30. Harald and Leila laughed as it was already that late! I haven't
gotten used to the long days and am sure it will feel like returning to winter
when we go home. The days are really long as we approach June 21st! This
has made bedtimes difficult as it just feels like we are sending the boys to
bed so early. Makes waking up nice though - birds are singin' early these days!

When Tracy and I got home, this was on Noah and
Josiah's bedroom door handle. He made this in class
but hadn't shown it to us yet. His teacher found these
photos for Noah's project! I love how she has gone
above and beyond these last few weeks for him!