Citizen of the Month

Tyler came home from school Monday and told me that every month teachers can pick students that they feel made the most improvement in their school work and displayed being a good citizen by helping those around them, being friendly, etc. For the month of January Tyler was chosen! He was very excited. He gets to have his picture displayed on the Citizen Board and yesterday he had a pizza party with the principal. I am really proud of him. He had a bit of a struggle when we first got here since the curriculum is quite a bit harder than what he had in Germany, but he managed to pull all of his grades up into the 90's and he continues to do better on tests and quizzes. His teachers told us that this new curriculum is all about a higher level of thinking and this age is hard for kids to move on from the concrete way of thinking especially those that have not been challenged that way. There are some quizzes they take a couple times each week that work on this skill and Tyler is getting 100's on almost every quiz! That's a huge improvement! He is also learning to study for his tests even if he thinks he knows it all! He has worked very hard and it was great to see him so excited about being chosen as Citizen of the Month!

Jersey Shore

Since we moved here people keep asking if we have been to the beach! Uh it's winter so no we have not.....until now. The bug museum was pretty close to the water. Actually we are like 30-40 minutes from our house to the water so we decided why not go check out the Jersey Shore. Now the beach we went to is not one I would go back to even in summer. It was pretty dirty and just not very pretty. There was a boardwalk with closed stores of course and an amusement park right on the water! I am excited to go to Atlantic city, but that will have to wait until it is warmer.

Bugtropolis

I think that was the name of the museum we went to this past weekend. Originally we wanted to go see the Battleship New Jersey, but due to funding they were not open. So Zach searched on the internet and off we went to a bug museum. We started off with a demonstration of live bugs. The kids got to touch them and learn how they defend themselves. Then we wandered the rest of the museum learning about lifecylces and all sorts of stuff. They had a beehive in glass so you could see the bees making honey. There were tubes that the bees could fly through to go outside so they weren't trapped in the thing. It was a short little stop, but gave us something to do instead of errands and Saturday cleaning!

Please Touch Museum

 

We have been trying to meet up with out friends, the Dehns, since we both moved back to the states so finally we were able to with the kids out of school! Philadelphia is about halfway for them in Deleware and us here in Jersey and I was told the Please Touch Museum was a really neat place to take the kids. It was awesome! It was also PACKED! THe kids had tons of fun and we managed to keep track of the 6 boys without losing any......well losing them for good anyway! We had our helper, Ally, (the only girl) who was great keeping track of who was missing. Pretty much the museum is set up for the kids to do whatever! The water area was a huge hit as well as the area with the cars. It is pricey though so I got a one year pass. We are close enough to get our money's worth. There is a lot to do in Philly so we will probably be spending a lot of time there!

Florida December 2009

 

Since our leave was denied at Thanksgiving we decided to put in for time at Christmas. We didn't get the exact time we wanted, but enough to go to Florida to visit Zach's grandma. And of course to add to the fun a snowstorm decided to hit the day we left! So we drove through the snowstorm which added about 2 hours to the 16 hour drive. We had a great time in Florida. No we didn't go to Disney and yes many I tell are shocked! Honestly I don't have a big desire to spend tons of money to go somewhere you end up spending more time standing in line than anything else. Plus Cody is not always the best in those types of environments so why take the risk of spending all that money to end up leaving becuase it's too much for him. We did go to the Sanford zoo and that was just the right size for Cody. As we were checking out the last few animals, he was done! We also went to Monroe lake to watch the boats, but there weren't any out that day. We also got to see some friends that we were stationed with in Alaska. We met up for lunch at a playland McDonalds and the kids had fun running around. I wish we had more time to spend with them especially now that they have orders back to Alaska! It was a short trip, but well worth it. We opened some presents with great grandma but had to get home for Zach to get back to work. We hope to make it down again next year and maybe have a little more time. The drive home was much easier and with three stops took right at 16 hours. In fact we crusied along with clear skies and little traffic until we hit the toll for the Deleware Bridge. Then things slowed way down! Cody saw a bright light in the sky and just knew it was Santa so he kept telling us to go faster so he didn't skip our house. We listened to Christmas music the whole way and Cody sang all the songs he knew! He LOVES to sing and learned many at school this year. It was a fun trip and we were very glad we could take the time to go.

Christmas 2009

 

I think it is time to replace our camera since most of the pictures came out blurry. I guess 5 years is pretty old for a digital these days! Here are the ones that came out decent. We had a fun day. The kids were up at 6am, but after driving 16 hours on Christmas Eve Zach and I weren't as eager to get up! We did and within no time the disaster of cardboard, paper and all was everywhere. What really made Christmas fun this year was Cody. This is the first year he has not cried all morning or thrown a fit resulting in him falling asleep. He actually wanted to open presents and even opened some that weren't for him! It was so much fun to watch him and in a way felt like his first Christmas even though he us 5! I made homemade cinnamon rolls like every Christmas then after breakfast and clean up round one I took a nap. I woke to more cardboard and such and Cody building his new fire station with Zach, the older two happily putting together their new legos. I had a ham for dinner, but honestly we were fed so good at Zach's grandma's house that we really didn't care to have a big Christmas dinner. So instead we opted for spaghetti and meatballs. By the end of the day the mess was partially contained, the garage was full of trash and cardboard. I contemplated taking it out and beating the rush to the dumpters, but decided it didn't matter. Zach and the boys played out in what was left of the 24 inch snowfall we were in Florida for. They made a very tall snowman, but it started raining later in the day and rained the entire day after Christmas so he melted very quickly.

The day after Christmas Zach and Tyler went on what was supposed to be a 5 mile hike with the scouts, but they got lost so guess they hiked closer to ten miles! They did all of that in the pouring rain on a trail that was washed out at points! Needless to say they came home tired, hungry, wet and cold! I decided that was a great day for our big Chrismtas dinner! So we did eat the ham, potatos and other yummy stuff.