Schnee, Karneval und so weiter....

You probably noticed that I stopped in the middle of telling you about Australia. I got bored. I figured if I was bored writing about it then you all were probably bored reading it too. I know what you really want are the photos but unfortunately they are still not ready. Soon I hope!!

Meanwhile, here in Stuttgart life has been crazy to say the least. My class is going well but it seems to be especially time consuming this time around. Last week I even had to prepare a short presentation about the USA. Now there are just a few more weeks before the course will finish so we wont be slowing down much anytime soon.

Life with my German family is still going well but also very, very busy. Sabine and I have lots of goals, projects and plans for Lara which is wonderful and exciting but requires extra preparation and planning on my part. Otherwise things are great. My relationship with both girls continues to get better. Lara still tries to be the boss with me but I'm not allowing that, which she is learning.

Last Monday was Lara's Birthday which made this a very interesting week. We had a party on Monday with a few of the boys from Lara's class and then another party Wednesday for all the family. It was a very busy week with preparations and people around and a very difficult time for Lara. Changes in her schedule and having so many people around who are not usually there is very challenging for her. It made for a challenging week for the rest of us as well.

This week is the start of Karneval here in Deutschland!! I haven't quite figured out the whole meaning of Karneval and it seems to vary depending on where you are in the country but basically I've established that Karneval means party, costumes, party, party, party and don't forget the costume!! I don't know what more to say except that Germans like to party. But the costume is definitely essential with this one. Very important.

In other news Stuttgart has been completely covered in snow since I've returned from Australia. I think we managed one week where the snow was melting and a few days without snow in sight. I think right now we probably have somewhere around 6 inches of snow in our garden. It doesn't look like the snow is coming down very heavily but I don't think it has really stopped falling in the last couple of days at least. Of course here life doesn't stop like it does at home. Buses and trains still run and don't think that you'll have a day off of school my friends. Life continues as usual around here.

These are some pictures I took last week. This actually looks much better that what is outside now. Here the street and the walkways are clear but that's not what it looks like now.

My house.





Our garden.


That's the cat, Giovanni, running to get inside before I close the door.


That's about all my news for now. I hope you are satisfied after such a long blogging hiatus on my part.

As usual, I miss you all!!

K.