Camping in Germany

A busy tent day

Tiny naked girls

We busted out of Berlin for a little nature and camping for the first time with both girls.  The tent was great and the girls had fun.  Unfortunately, we decided to camp right by a lake, so we were gobbled up by mosquitos, despite 100% DEET application.  We camped on a Friday night because the prediction was for rain on Saturday night.  Our friends borrowed my old tent from high school and our tiny Japanese two-man (read: one tiny person) tent.  Around 2 am, the thunder clapped and the rain came pouring down.  Lizzy woke up and starting talking like she hadn't been sleeping, in her tent inside our tent.  Mommy was worried about the friends in the potentially leaky tent.  Katherine happily snored on.  And Daddy pretended he couldn't hear anything through his earplugs.  Happy Days.  The next day was sunny and we spent a few hours with the girls naked swimming in the lake.  A standard German Saturday.

The title has changed

First day of new preschool for Lizzy (day 6 for Katherine)

I changed the title of the blog to "The Year of the Octopus and Zebra" because Lizzy and Katherine started at a new kindergarten last week and this week.  Katherine's symbol is the Octopus, which is on her cubby, her out-box for artwork, and her toothbrush cup.  Lizzy is the Zebra and ditto for the locations. They will be attending a bilingual, German-English Kita, which we hope will help them continue to learn German, as well as make communicating with the school a little easier for us!  So far, so good.  In Germany, they have a "settling-in" phase, where the child attends with a parent for one to four weeks, depending on the clinginess of the child and parent.  I spent breakfast with Katherine two days, and by the fourth day, she was staying from 8:45-3.  Lizzy has spent the last two days getting acquainted and really didn't understand why I picked her up so early.  I told her that I had to pick her up at 2 today and she said, "Well, tomorrow it will be 3, then 4, then 5." So I guess she feels comfortable, which is what is important.