Ronnie's First Judo Tournement

Ronnie participated in his first judo competition. It was just against other kids in the same club.

Even though Ronnie lost all three matches, they all got metals and took photos. Ronnie only started a couple of months earlier so this was expected. He also kind of falls into an awkward position. Competitors are chosen by height and weight, putting Ronnie with some very experienced players. I was glad that he at least gave them a run for their money!

Sisters cheering him on!

Bunny and new cousin

We are borrowing the school bunny. Way back when I first started this blog (on the old address) one of my first posts in February 2005 was about borrowing the school bunny, at the time Pom Pom for the winter break. 

http://calgirlinalsace.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_archive.html

Pom Pom has since gone on to the Great Rabbit Hut in the Sky and now they have Hasi. A very unoriginal name in German ("Bunny" basically). He's very sweet but he has a problem with his teeth. The two bottom ones have grown in too long and it looks weird. When he gets hair stuck on his bottom buck teeth, from grooming, he looks kind of gross. He's still cute though. You can see in the photos that he can't really groom himself too well because of the buck teeth. He also has to lap up his water from a dish like a dog. He can't do the bottle. It's kind of cute to see a bunny lapping water instead. 

Usually kids take the bunny for the weekend but given the distance and the fact I have to make a separate trip since my car is too small for the cage, plus my kids, I took a long weekend. When I saw that they didn't have a volunteer for the previous weekend, I took both but stipulated that Hasi would stay with us in the interim. So we have him a whole 11 days. 

Today I had to clean the cage. My sister-in-law is coming on Saturday and I know she's going to make some comments about sharing upstairs with the bunny. No, they do NOT have to stay in the same room, thank goodness. 

He doesn't like the flooring but is happy to run around on the carpet.

You can hear Davina asking "Can you put it on YouTube?" I did.

The teacher was actually pleased to hear that we were taking him for so long. With the teeth issue and the fact he's handled so much, she thinks he needs a break. She asked if we had a yard and when I said yes, she said "Great. I think he needs to hop around in the grass". Yard yes, grass no. She thought that was odd but I explained that it's a tiny yard, all bricked in, which we didn't do but keep so that the kids can play in it even when it's wet. 

What we do have is bushes with tan bark. That seemed to be the trick and while we had the one nano-second of sun (in the last two weeks) we took him outside. He was really happy running free. It kind of got me having to snatch him up and put him back in the darned cage. 

He's kind of showing his Wild Side here.

On Sunday, we went over to Daniel's cousin to see their new grandbaby Abigore. It's a problematic name, event the mom admitted. They gave him the middle name "Victor" so that he has a fall-back if he runs into too many problems. 

The kids loved seeing a new baby, especially Ronnie. Davina got bopped in the head as he's trying to hold his up and swinging it all over the place! Newborns are dangerous creatures!! 

The baby's grandfather is on the right. I love Davina's hair like that but she rarely lets me do that with it.

Dominik's visit

Ronnie's exchange student from Rostok came for a week. Ronnie stayed with his family last year. This is similar to our exchange with Alex, except Dominik was Ronnie's actual exchange student. We had volunteered to take Alex because the class above Ronnie's didn't have enough host families.

They didn't have great weather that week. I accompanied them on the day excursion to the park on the border.

Ronnie and Dominik playing a treasure hunt game in the park.

The group shots on the actual French-German border. It's a bridge over the Rhine.

The two boys, one French-American and the other Polish-German.

The last two were taken in the park next door, in Kehl.

Talia's excursion to Xronupt

Yes! Our Talia is back!! She had a great time. 

We were supposed to give the kids disposable cameras. I found this kind of expensive, since my kids will take really silly stuff and I didn't want to pay for it. A better solution was to give Talia my old camera, which often doesn't focus. I figured that this would not be a big deal and instructed her to take multiple photos of each scene. If she lost it, then it wouldn't be a big deal. I gave her a 2gb memory card and fully charged it before leaving.

Thank goodness they had good weather. I'd see the other parents at school during the week (those who had siblings and I know) and we'd be all smiling, looking up. It's kind of a cliché that you send your kid away on something like this and it does nothing but rain. 

There was a meeting a few weeks prior. We parents were very pleased with the look of the site and they seemed very organized. We were well assured that they could handle these kids in bad weather or whatever. 

We're lucky the Vosges are so close. It allows the kids to go on excursions like this, not so far away but a change of atmosphere, from the Big City.

Here were her digs, Monday through Friday.

They had a sink in the room but only three showers for everyone. They were restricted to 5 minutes each. This is not ideal with Talia's hair and the result was... she didn't wash hers' the whole time! It seemed to bother me more than her. 

She shared her room with two other girls. Yousera's parents (the one in pink on the left) are from Algeria and Kenza's parents are from Morocco. Kenza lives down the street from us and is also attending St. Jean for the bilingual program. Yousera's two brothers are also in the program, going to two schools close by.

This is Andrea, whom I don't know!

This little girl Syrine has a little sister in Davina's class. She's also North African background. She's very curious about me, the English, etc. and keeps coming up to me, asking questions.

Being American, I overpacked. They said three pairs of pants. I packed 5 plus sweats. Kenza ended up borrowing a few things she had forgotten, this purple jacket as well. 

The only scenery picture she took! 

Outdoor games of some sort.

They did circus school and climbing. Also dance, theater and some other activities. 

Usually these excusions have some kind of dance night. 

The whole hair deal was a challenge. She basically came off the bus with a rat's nest. She could only put it in a pony tail or let it loose.

Here are Yassine and Cesar. I put the funny video of them. Yassine's mom is Alsatian and his dad Algerian, and he's one of four boys! 

The return was a big chaotic. They said 5pm, then 5:30, then 6 and finally it was 6:40. Ronnie's judo class got somehow overlooked. Daniel, by coincidence, arrived at almost the same time so I picked him up from the train station (he had been in Paris for the day).