Establishing Routines--Woche 31

It seemed like we cleaned, then left for hockey, did laundry, then left for hockey, played, then left for hockey, cooked, then left for hockey. . . The good news is, that we are finally starting to get our schedules figured out!!  Things did not seem as stressful this week.  We're finally getting the hang of things.

I took the opportunity to start to teach Danyon how to clean.  He took to vacuuming the best.  He is a natural!  We played, read books, and he spent a lot of time napping this week.  He has so many teeth coming in all at the same time (4 molars and 1 canine all in the same week), I think it's easier to handle it all while asleep.

Deagan and Dyllan are continuing to like school.  Dyllan has math and reading homework every night.  Deagan hasn't had homework yet, but I think that reading homework is coming soon.  They are both progressing in hockey.  They both scored some goals in their scrimmages at practice on Saturday. 

Dane is stressed about school.  He has a fair bit of homework and getting it done seems to be challenging.  He is learning, though, as we can already see a difference in his German.  He will have math, reading, writing, German, and science homework on a regular basis.  He is liking the saxophone.  He seems to be able to play with some good tones.  Although, only one song. 

He started hockey this week.  He had 3 practices, and getting to know a new coach, coaching style, and team was difficult, but he did well.  We're still trying to work out the best schedule for him.  We feel like this next week, we should have things pretty much figured out--just in time to get a new schedule next month!

Dan had a very busy schedule at work this week.  The kids thought he was on a business trip because he left before the kids got up and came home after his late dinner meetings.  He was hoping to make it to some of the kids hockey practices, but usually didn't make it.  Saturday, though, Deagan and Dyllan had a 2 hour practice.  He was able to get out on the ice with them.  They really enjoyed having their Dad out there.  Dan enjoyed it too.  He feels like this will help him to learn German faster.  We already have learned a couple of hockey vocabulary words. 

The kids normally get home from school at 3:50.  Well, on Friday, we had to have Dane at the hockey rink at 4:20.  There was enough time to get them home from the bus, grab a quick snack, then head to the rink.  Well, I got the car all loaded.  Then I waited anxiously for them to get home.  I waited until 4:00.  Then I went outside and pulled the car out of the garage, buckled Danyon in, and got it all ready to just head out, the second the kids came home.  Well, 4:00pm passed.  Then 4:10.  By 4:15, I started to get a little worried.  I thought that maybe the kids were waiting at the school for me to pick them up.  I called the school secretary.  No one answered.  Then I checked the school website to see if the bus was running late.  There was nothing posted.  Next I called Dan to see if he had heard from the school.  I started wondering if something happened at the school.  Then I wondered if the bus was in an accident.  4:20 passed.  Then 4:30.  By then, I was really getting worried and almost panicked.  Still no answer at the school.  Still nothing.  I heard sirens down the street and wondered if one of them could have been hit by a car during the 2 block walk home.  All these thoughts entered my mind.  At 4:32, I decided to take Danyon down to the bus stop to see if we could find them.  Just as I unloaded Danyon from the car, and headed out the gate, I saw the kids running down the street.  I was relieved to see that they were all safe.  Of course, after I hugged them all, the first thing I asked was, "What happened???"  The answer, very underwhelmingly was, "Oh, it was just Friday afternoon traffic."  I was a little unimpressed that the bus would drop off kids 50 minutes late and there was no communication from the bus company or the school.  Thus, on Saturday, we bought the kids a phone.  Dane will now carry it in his backpack and I hope to avoid all kinds of problems in the future.  I'll save a lot of time from worrying.  It's a good idea to have them carry one anyway, since they walk home from the bus stop on their own now.  If there is ever any problem, I'm just a phone call away.

We also had a school BBQ on Saturday.  The kids had fun playing on the playground with friends while we ate hamburgers and chicken wings.  They had face painting and a bouncy house for them as well.  I tried to stand in line for the face paint, but they didn't take me seriously.

We had a neat find this week.  After our last ice cream outing for summer (ha, ha, ha--we've had several "last ice cream outings"), we decided to walk to a pizza parlor for dinner.  We found Penguinos Pizza.  (Yes, a penguin).  It smelled good as we walked by, so we went in.  We ordered a large pizza, to go.  The guy made it for us, and put it in a huge box.  The family size pizza filled the box and was overlapping the sides.  We haven't seen a pizza that big before.  It was fun to try to get it home in one piece.  We did manage it however, (although we had a close call with a dog).  When we got it home, we measured it.  It was just over 57 cm in diameter (that's 22.5 inches!)  We ate one piece each and it was enough.  For under twenty bucks, the one pizza fed our entire family for 2 complete meals.  We will be stopping there a lot more often.  It's fun to find new things in our city.

The walk home with a huge box, helped to spark ideas for Halloween costumes.  Normally this time of year, I am spending lots of time at the sewing machine creating costumes.  This year, with not having a fabric store readily accessible, I was worried that Halloween would have to suffer.  I was even beginning to think, "Austria doesn't celebrate it anyway.  Costumes are not needed."  Well, I have given in to that way of thinking for us adults, but the kids will still have a Halloween party at their school, so costumes are back on for them!  You'll have to wait and see what cool things we came up with.  I can get started on them next week!