Entries categorized as ‘Family Journal’
Oliver & Ocean on top of Mount Avala
Fill 'er up.
Categories: Family Journal · serbia
Tagged: Avala, gas, Mount, station
Ocean with a bad hair night.
Perfect Fundamentals
We had a babysitter for the kids and Ocean fell asleep in the arms of Sophie. She sweats a lot and is shown below with the crazy hair. Her hair is growing slowly and she has beautiful curls in back. Much of my time at work has been with basketball. I am shown below in a faculty versus student game.
Categories: Family Journal
We don’t have Thanksgiving off here at the school. We do have a holiday dinner party at the Austrian Ambassador’s residence tonight. It was a busy day at school with a community service fair, admin team meeting, SLC meeting, and a Principal - Parent Coffee.
Categories: Family Journal
The car is in excellent condition as the Swiss take good care of their cars. We are happy with the space and comfort of the car. With three kids, we needed something that we can all fit in. We hope it is a good car for us. It cost $6,800 and cars are generally more expensive in Europe than in the USA.
A nice aspect of working at ISB is we get diplomatic plates and status. The “CD” sticker indicates Corps Diplomatic and the 144 M on the black and yellow plates indicate we are part of the USA mission. The US Embassy has been very nice to us here. They allow us to shop in their commissary, invite us to many functions, and we get the diplomatic plates.
Today Nadia and I are not feeling that great, Nadia worse than me. Tough to be sick with kids. All I feel like doing tonight is a bit of school work, read a book, and go to bed. We have to feed, bathe, and put the kids to bed however. We ate lunch in Zemun, I had a great fresh water river fish while Ocean at a lot of pasta. There was a light dusting of snow that collected on windows of cars and so I taught the boys how to make a snow ball. We also went to Delta City Mall to by a GPS so I can figure out where to go. Belgrade is a big city and we need it.
Ready for another week of work! Happy that basketball is starting!
Ollie throws his first snowball!
Ocean likes the new car too.
Categories: Family Journal
Tagged: edelweiss, car
It was a shopping Saturday as we ventured out in our new car yesterday. Despite the cold weather, we were warm and comfortable in our car, a 1996 Honda Odyssey. After 4 months of taxis and buses, it was a welcome change and instilled us with a sense of freedom. We drove around Belgrade Saturday morning and eventually ended up at the US Embassy Commissary. Nadia picked up her order of turkey, 2 hams, yams, and cranberries. She also bought three baskets full of that good old American processed “food” that we can’t live without. Lucky Charms, Tostitos, fruit roll-ups, and Mac & Chees. Long shelf lives, packed with preservatives, and a good helping of corn syrup…
We then drove to the largest supermarket in Belgrade, Tiempo. It is like a Sam’s Club or one of those big warehouse bulk shopping places in the US. As you can see from above, we stocked up on everything. We finished our shopping day by going to Galerija Podova and buying a carpet for our basement. We have transformed a room in the basement as a guest room. We are anticipating more visitors over the holidays and want to make it nice for them. It also gives us another room for the kids to play in.
Nadia’s ear was bothering her and she is still battling a cold. She went to the clinic last night while I watched the kids. Went to bed early.
Two of Serbia's Winter Staples - Cabbage and Potatoes
Categories: Family Journal
There was frost on the grass a couple of mornings this week and I also saw a flock of large birds heading south - winter is on its way! Today it is warm and raining.
Ocean is walking all over the place. She prefers to walk than crawl now. Gotta run.
Categories: Family Journal
November 19, 2008 · 1 Comment
I remember that my mom had all of our school photos posted on the stairwell. She started from age 1 and went all the way to our senior photo. Perhaps we’ll do that with our children.
Below is Owen’s kindergarten photo. Once again he is in kindergarten as we wanted him to be with his own age group. He has been a little bored, but we try to supplement his learning and his teacher, Ms. Vicki, gives him some extra assignments.
I’ll be sending photos to Grandma and Grandpa! You can see how much they have changed this past May when we had photos done at Escuela Anaco.
Owen's 2008-2009 School Photo
Categories: Family Journal
Tagged: school photos
TIE goes out to almost every international school in the world. It is read by all international teachers and can be found in every teachers lounge. It is also used to advertise for open positions.
Categories: Family Journal
Tagged: Andy, cotopaxi, TIE
November 11, 2008 · 1 Comment
Both young men were very well behaved all weekend and it was enjoyable getting to know them. It is a reflection on their families and school. It was a really nice weekend and a positive experience for our community. I hope we can do more of these in the future.
Categories: Family Journal · International School of Belgrade
Tagged: CEESA, darren, lubo
As I posted earlier, the vote at the party was a landslide. My real vote, absentee I did in my home county of Iron in the state of Michigan helped Obama win by 133 votes. The final tally in Iron County was 3,080 - 2,947. An amazing 7 counties in my region of Michigan, the Upper Peninsula, went for Obama this time, finally making Michigan, truly a blue state.
I met the Ambassador, Cameron Munter, who is a nice guy. The Prince of Serbia was there, as well as some other big wigs in the country. We laughed and had a great time. I awoke to hear Obama’s speech, wonderful! He made me proud to be an American. I really hope that this will move all of us to be better people and begin again to be a beacon for the world for individual freedoms and excellence.
Kirsten, Janna, & Nadia With the B92 Cameras
Serbian President Tadić had these things to say:
“Your election paves the way for opening a new chapter in the long history of relations between Serbia and the United States, during most of which we have been allies and friends,” the Serbian president’s message read, Beta reported.
In his words, Serbia is staunchly determined to improve bilateral relations with the U.S, while contributing to stability and the European future of the Balkans.
Tadić added that he hoped the new American policy would demonstrate more understanding for Serbia, which is defending its legitimate interests in a peaceful and diplomatic way.
Categories: Family Journal
Tagged: elections, obama, serbia
