On the road: summer starts

Summer has really started around here! After the crazy rush of the past 2 months, there's a lot of news to report. Attending church in the countryside has been really great. The people couldn't be more warm or friendly. On our first Sunday visit we had 2, nearly 3, invitations to lunch! We were able to take up an offer with one couple who had been in the church for over 10 years, so it was nice to hear some history and get to know people individually.

(our balcony fruits)

It's definitely a long haul out there with the shortest route still taking us 35 minutes. I've been away the last 2 Sundays (see below), and Stefan was only able to attend one of those weeks, however, the service was held at a sister church an hour away, so it was even more driving! He said the cookout afterward provided time to really get to know some of the people from the church we'd been trying out. So that was good news. We're wondering how this distance thing is going to play out, but we're going to hang in there and keep driving for now.

Our second Sunday we took two guests with us. Sarah-Christine and her brother (and Stefan's godson), Ruven. Sarah is graduating from Gymnasium this year and Ruven will be starting 9th grade in the fall. We had invited them to come up to Marburg for a 4 day weekend and they were excited to visit. We really did have a blast having 2 teenagers visit! Teenagers are such easy guests; they sleep late and actually prefer to eat cheap food, ha!

We had a great time taking them shopping (Marburg is much bigger than their town), going out for coffees, walking all over town, biking, watching movies, etc. We felt so old when they were teaching us how to use the Bluetooth feature on our phones to 'beam' each other music clips! They're really great kids who gave the church a thumbs up (the church they'd been part of had to close and they're now just part of the state church) and really liked the people there as well. Sarah is quite the talker, so there was always something going on. We're hoping to get Ruven over to Gloucester for a month this fall, but are still trying to wrassle the German/American school boards into agreement. He's dying to go and we'd love to get him to Lanesville (he's already looked it up on Google maps a million times at home he says!), so prayers for this would be awesome!

The day after they left I did about 5 loads of laundry to clean the house and prepare our closets. Stefan had to pack for a week long trip to Rome and I was going to to the US. Stefan's tenth grade class is graduating (Realschule stops at grade 10, Gymnasium goes to grade 13) and their year-end trip was to Rome. A grand total of 52 students (3 classes) and only 4 adults took a 20+ hour bus ride down to Rome. While one student had to be sent home, the rest of the week went fairly smoothly. He was exhausted when he got back, but had to get up early the next morning to pick me up at the Frankfurt airport.

I flew to Indianapolis to visit with my family for 12 days. After a few days in Indy we spent 2 days driving down to Ocean Isle Beach, NC. We stopped in Seagrove, NC on the way, which was fantastic! I'll be covering the Seagrove pottery over on Zuhause later this week, so check back.

It was really great to see my family so soon after our last visit! My whole trip to the US was pretty last-minute, and it was really too bad that Stefan wasn't able to go, but it was fun to play with my little niece again =) It was really sweet watching her experience the ocean waves and the sand. She has the sweetest little smile (and a killer scowl) so of course the camera was snapping away! It was also nice to just hang on the beach, read books in English, and eat some good 'ole Southern food! There was fresh Calabash shrimp or eastern Carolina BBQ every day, both of which are my favorites =) But WOW was it hot! 97 degrees every day with a heat index pushing it to 105F (that's 40.5C!) and 84% humidity!

On my way back to Germany I had a 9hr layover in Washington, D.C. where I was able to use some of that time to visit with some old friends. Mike and Bethany went to college with me and their oldest, Ian, is my godson. It was the first time Ian met me where he could actually remember the event, so that was fun! He's fast, as you can see, and recently a big brother. I hadn't seen them since 2007, so it was truly a special treat to get to visit with them - and have a girl's lunch out with Bethany in downtown Bethesda.

Now that Stefan and I are both back in Marburg we're back to being busy again. Stefan will finish the school year next week, so the remaining time will be spent writing a commencement speech for his graduating class, handwriting diplomas and report cards, lots and lots of school meetings, farewell dinners, and the graduating class' dance. This year's dance theme is "Tropical Night", so I'm sure that will be interesting.

I have another editing project to work on before getting ready for another session of my Scientific English class. Students have been dropping out this time (as opposed to last time's group not doing their homework), so the course is in jeopardy again. It's pretty frustrating for me. I know these students each have solid reasons for needing to drop the class, but how it's organized as a whole is pretty sloppy and calendar-wise seems set up for failure. I've already been asked to help teach it again in the fall, but I really think some changes need to be made to make the class more sustainable. This will require some diplomatic maneuvering.

In other English news, I've been offered a teaching job at the university's Sprachenzentrum (Modern Language Institute). They heard I'd been teaching up at the Graduate Center and asked me to come in to talk about working with their department. They are aware that I have no formal training in teaching ESL, but say they have lots of internal support with staff meetings, training seminars, curriculum support, etc. They are confident that with the quality of editing work that I'm already doing, combined with the past academic year of experience at the Graduate Center, I will do fine. While the class would only meet once a week for three hours (starting in the fall), it would be great for a number of reasons: I get paid to get trained, I gain exposure as a freelance editor, it adds to my resume/list of references, and I'll get to work with people some more, which freelancing from home doesn't really facilitate. (not that I mind, but I DO need to get out a little more =)

We still have a lot going on right up until we leave for our summer vacation in Scandinavia, so hopefully things can settle down before then. We're both pretty worn out!