Well today we were awakened to a 3am call from school informing us that we are on a two hour school delay. Grrreat! I was surprised since the German street crews are usually on top of things and although we went from 0 to about 6-7 inches in a few hours, they seem to handle such things. Well when the time arrived to drive in I was very disappointed. The roads were declared red and they were! It was trecherous in several places and most roads were not cleared, even main roads!
The real kicker was arriving into work and receiving and email from our boss that stated though the students were on a two hour delay, the teachers were NOT. Evidently she was upset that teachers were not at work at 7:55am. AFN (our local radio program) announced the delay and stated red road conditions. They followed that up by clarifying that any non-emergency, non-mission essential military and civilian personnel were to be on the roads. Normally the message only applies to military but they did include the term civilian today. They even joked about how happy this would make the teachers.
Needless to say that the staff was extremely upset. Why call us at 3am if we are expected to report at the normal time? The tone of the message implied that we were not doing our job. This was offensive to all. As anyone knows teachers are not given enough planning time and often are found coming in early and leaving late. We have however noticed that our boss leaves before we do. Interesting... We were also expected to remain after school for committee meetings even though the weather has only deteriorated. That said, this is her first year in her current capacity so she is sure to learn by trial and error. As it is still snowing and doesn't seem to be stopping, I do hope she uses better judgement.
As for my own homeward travel, the throttle cable clip broke on my way home! This means that my car would only idle, no gas! Fortunately J was almost back from Schweinfurt and was able to pick me up. What a day! I will have to upload more photos.
I took Jakob to the doctor today and it is possible that he has chicken pox! We will know for certain in a couple of days! When is snows....it storms!
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Back to Normal???
I have found that recovering from the holidays can be as overwhelming as preparing for the holidays. This year our break lasted two weeks into January. It has been difficult to get back into the swing of things. We find that we have less time for relaxing without worrying that something needs to be done. Rock and Roll both returned to school and are doing quite well. Roll has been very busy with Boy Scouts. J and I returned to dancing on a different night. We also returned to bowling but also no a different night. We still have some holiday decorations up that need to be packed away but by the time the weekend arrives, J and I just want to relax and haven't found the energy required to get the house back in order.
Just after Christmas I found that my Christmas tree had been home to a few spider nests and the warmth of the house tricked them into thinking it was time to hatch. We had hundreds, possibly more, of spiders covering every available limb of the tree. A friend kindly rushed to my house to get it outside since J was at work with no desire to come to my rescue. I was alerted to the problem when Rock began screaming while I was cleaning downstairs. I ran upstairs to his frantic yells that a spider was in his plate. I couldn't understand how a spider got into his food until I looked down and saw several walking around on the tree skirt. Anyone knowing me, understands that this is my worse nightmare come true! J wasn't sympathetic then or now.
On a different thread....Roll has his first loose tooth!! Unfortunately it doesn't appear to want to come out on its own. The permanent tooth has aready come in behind the baby teeth with another soon to erupt as well. I was hoping that the baby tooth would come out on its own but now I worry that if it doesn't come out soon, the permanent tooth will remain crooked. I need to make an appointment this week.
We had a terrible wind storm this past week. J and I laughed with the way the locals were reacting as we have had some pretty bad wind storms on the WA coast. I have since revised my opionion as over 40 people were killed due to accidents caused by the storm. I was called during the day Thursday and told that all German schools had been closed due to the upcoming storm but that my Nanny would get the kids until I could get home. Next we heard that the American school in Hohenfels was closing early. We ended up canceling all afterschool programs in order to keep people off the roads. Teachers were told to leave as soon as the busses pulled out. I picked up the kids and and storm was still not here but the wind was picking up. We called out dance studio to learn that they didn't expect people to come so we should stay home. We cancelled out babysitter. The storm arrived that evening and while I was on the phone with my family the power cut out. The boys started freaking out although they were supposed to be in bed. After getting them calmed and getting settled in bed ourselves J came running in yelling that Roll was sick to his stomach. We used candles to try to avoid the mess and get him cleaned up and resettled in bed. Fortunately he had made it out of his bed but what are the odds that he would get sick after the blackout? The power came back on around 10ish but went out again for a shorter period about half hour later. It stormed severely all through the night. All German schools were cancelled on Friday so our Nanny once again took the kids. The drive to work was interesting. There were many trees that had fallen in the night but the city had obviously been hard at work and most was off the roads already. There were two trees that had fallen on the newly built section of the church next to our school. They considered the wind storm to be equal to that of a hurrican force and named it Kyrill. It is now Sunday and there is still much to be cleaned up but not a lot of damage to be seen here. Still terribly windy though!
I do hope that everyone else has recovered nicely from the holidays. Give me another week or too and maybe I will feel more caught up on things!
Just after Christmas I found that my Christmas tree had been home to a few spider nests and the warmth of the house tricked them into thinking it was time to hatch. We had hundreds, possibly more, of spiders covering every available limb of the tree. A friend kindly rushed to my house to get it outside since J was at work with no desire to come to my rescue. I was alerted to the problem when Rock began screaming while I was cleaning downstairs. I ran upstairs to his frantic yells that a spider was in his plate. I couldn't understand how a spider got into his food until I looked down and saw several walking around on the tree skirt. Anyone knowing me, understands that this is my worse nightmare come true! J wasn't sympathetic then or now.
On a different thread....Roll has his first loose tooth!! Unfortunately it doesn't appear to want to come out on its own. The permanent tooth has aready come in behind the baby teeth with another soon to erupt as well. I was hoping that the baby tooth would come out on its own but now I worry that if it doesn't come out soon, the permanent tooth will remain crooked. I need to make an appointment this week.
We had a terrible wind storm this past week. J and I laughed with the way the locals were reacting as we have had some pretty bad wind storms on the WA coast. I have since revised my opionion as over 40 people were killed due to accidents caused by the storm. I was called during the day Thursday and told that all German schools had been closed due to the upcoming storm but that my Nanny would get the kids until I could get home. Next we heard that the American school in Hohenfels was closing early. We ended up canceling all afterschool programs in order to keep people off the roads. Teachers were told to leave as soon as the busses pulled out. I picked up the kids and and storm was still not here but the wind was picking up. We called out dance studio to learn that they didn't expect people to come so we should stay home. We cancelled out babysitter. The storm arrived that evening and while I was on the phone with my family the power cut out. The boys started freaking out although they were supposed to be in bed. After getting them calmed and getting settled in bed ourselves J came running in yelling that Roll was sick to his stomach. We used candles to try to avoid the mess and get him cleaned up and resettled in bed. Fortunately he had made it out of his bed but what are the odds that he would get sick after the blackout? The power came back on around 10ish but went out again for a shorter period about half hour later. It stormed severely all through the night. All German schools were cancelled on Friday so our Nanny once again took the kids. The drive to work was interesting. There were many trees that had fallen in the night but the city had obviously been hard at work and most was off the roads already. There were two trees that had fallen on the newly built section of the church next to our school. They considered the wind storm to be equal to that of a hurrican force and named it Kyrill. It is now Sunday and there is still much to be cleaned up but not a lot of damage to be seen here. Still terribly windy though!
I do hope that everyone else has recovered nicely from the holidays. Give me another week or too and maybe I will feel more caught up on things!
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