The Squirts: 2020

Dear Family and Friends,

we are late, as always, but not less from the heart we wish all of you a Merry Christmas! Hopefully you could and can spend the holiday season with your loved ones despite all the corona rules.

For us it is our first Christmas in our new home. And as a Christmas present the house is finally done!!!! There are still many To Dos on our list, but we already feel comfortable and cozy. It is very nice to be near my mom and share special moments with her.

After months of cleaning and renovating the house, and after the move and corona and all that, we took a little time to get away from it all on a short one-week vacation at Bodensee.....

On the monkey mountain....

On the way back from our trip, we were very excited to pick up our new roomies, Mara and Harry, who turned the world on the construction site upside down. They brought so much fun and excitement to the house and soon discovered the garden - the higher the better....

Julian turned 10! A big reason to celebrate. His godparents Nicole and Oliver came over for a barbecue in the garden and his aunt Isabel baked a gopher-cake. Julian officially opened our new tent in an outside sleep-over party with his friends. We bought the tent for our next trip to the US, which will hopefully soon be possible again.

The summer break went by so quickly and it was time to start the new schools. Julian takes the bus to Ludwigsgymnasium and Noah walks the same way his Mom and his Grandmother walked to his Elemantary school. They soon felt comfortable there and made new friends.

As long as it was possible we enjoyed little get-aways from the construction site during the Indian summer.....

Noah turned 7! And of course there was a soccer party outside.

In November we finally moved to our place on the 1st and 2nd floor and we won't miss our picnics in our bedroom and the mattress camp-out in the boys room, although it was pretty cozy....

Eating breakfast in our bedroom, our bedroom was the all purpose room for three months.

Marc and Harry testing out the new couch....

Nikolaus came by on the 6th and brought some treats....

And here, just a few more pics of our first Christmas in our new home.

We wish you health and happiness for the new year, in which it will hopefully soon be possible to see friends and family again, because we miss you all!

Stay healthy!

The view from Noah's school

Dear family and friends,

the world changed so much since we last wrote in our blog. And we hope so much that all of you are healthy and making your way through this crisis in a way where there is still room for happiness and laughter.

Like for everyone else, our life was also shaped by home office, home schooling and finding a way to work and be there for the kids at the same time these last months. Aside from our actual construction site, everyday life felt like a construction site as well and we tried to find a new rhythm.

Fortunately, the construction site wasn't so much affected by the corona crisis, but it still slowed down. That is why we moved into a construction site two weeks ago and we cannot see an end to it yet.

Back in our old home town Gröbenzell, we had to say goodbye several times: Julian ended is four years at his elementary school and goes on to high school in September. Noah took leave after four years of Kindergarten to start with elementary school in September. All that is less sentimental for the boys than for Mama, as you can imagine (always had a tissue handy). Well, and then last but not least, we had to say good bye to our nice apartment that was our home for the last seven years.

Now I am sitting in the old bedroom of my parents, which right now serves us as living room / storage room / office; the boys sleep next door, where we also camp out. The only room that serves its purpose is the kids playroom:) The rest is still under construction or filled with boxes. And even if it is really annoying that workers are walking through our apartment every day and use our restroom, that it's dusty everywhere, that we have to move the car every night and so on, it already feels like coming home. I only have to go in the backyard on a sunny summer morning and take a deep breath and it's all worth it. We enjoy having cake in the yard with my mom while the kids are playing outside and being close to her. It is like coming home. Although it also is a trip down memory lane - wonderful and sad memories pop up here and there. In September we will accompany Noah to his school to which my parents brought me on my first school day (after we moved to the house when I was 6 like Noah) and my grandparents walked the same way with my mom. I see my father working in the garden while my mother is singing in the kitchen (which she still does, just in a different way). When I first took the bus, I felt like the teenager, that took the bus to go downtown shopping. And I hear the five of us laughing at the dinner table together. Now Marc, Julian, Noah, my mom and me sit at this dinner table with her caretaker and laugh and talk about our day. It is nice and it feels right and I am so thankful to Marc, that he takes this big step with me although I am sometimes unbearable. I am also very thankful to my sisters who make this possible for us and support us in every way.

Ok, but before I take out my tissues again, I will send you some pictures....