Happy Homecoming

Karl arrived home a bit after 7:00 p.m. last night, and we were so happy to see him! He and I managed to keep it a secret, so the kids were overjoyed when he just showed up. Their little faces lit up with delight, and the boys came running. Hailey, being ill, stayed on the couch and waited for Daddy to come to her, but I know she was happy to see him, too. She perked up a bit, and sat up more so she could see him. :) I have to admit, I couldn't quit looking at him either! It's just so nice to have the family all together again.

AND, he came bearing gifts. He brought me a t-shirt from England-made by the company Glorious Britain (heehee).

He also brought me some specialty chocolates made by Hotel Chocolat. Now, I am very much a Coca Cola fan, so he also acquired some coke products for me. Two cans, and a bottle. They are, of course, measured in ml. One is very tiny. Very special; I plan to save them and display them, although I did consider drinking them.

For the kids, he also brought a chocolate bar; Belgian Dark Chocolate Orange Cream, from the JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel, (he says none of them felt 'fancy' enough to stay there!)which is where he stayed while in Romania. He did admit later that he actually brought two of those, but ate part of the other one! I guess he's entitled. The chocolate bar actually reminds me a bit of the chocolate Aunt Charlotte used to bring home for us when she would go visit her family in Germany. Although, I remember those being longer and much wider. The other items Karl brought for the kids were some breakfast bars called kat kat tat. There's one with strawberry filling, one with hazelnut cocoa cream filling, and one with apricot filling. We may all have a taste of those after dinner tonight.

I'm hoping that Karl will get to post some more pictures soon. He said things were so busy in Romania, he really didn't have time to do any blogging. So, check back here later, you may get a glimpse of a bit of that country.

In other news...the kids and I began reading The Magician's Nephew last night. C.S. Lewis is such a great writer; we absolutely loved The Lion, the Witch , and the Wardrobe, and made sure we read the book before the movie came out. And this one is proving to be another great story. Now, I've been told that it won't matter if we read all of the previous books before watching Prince Caspian when it comes out in May, but I'm just that way. So, we are going to try to read The Magician's Nephew, The Horse and His Boy, and Prince Caspian, all before May. Ambitious, I know, but I can't stand to read things 'out of order', even when it wouldn't really matter. ;) That's what we'll be doing for our pre-bedtime reading.

For school, we just started studying the Middle Ages, and our literature selection right now is The Door in the Wall. I've never read this book, so I'm enjoying it immensly. Our next selection is Adam of the Road, which I am not familiar with either, but I'm sure it will be great. We will also read many books about the Middle Ages, knights, castles, and the Vikings, to become familiar with the history of this time period. We will be memorizing the books of the Bible, and learning about the history of the Bible; how our Bible came to us. In Science we will study plants and trees and their life cycles, learning to draw and label different ones. Music and art will consist of learning about, and possibly trying our hand at, whittling, and listening to Medieval music if we can find a CD. We will also be spending some time trying to learn a bit of calligraphy.

Corbin just began his Kindergarten curriculum this week. We will be working through it very slowly to begin with. However, he is enjoying it, and asks me every day, "When am I gonna do school?" We are going to learn the continents over the next couple of weeks, and work on writing numbers 1-5. We will read many books, practice the letters, and begin learning their sounds. I hope to have some pictures of our first week ready soon. He can already spell and write his name, name most of the alphabet, and is familiar with some of the letter sounds. He likes to do "copy work" and adores books and being read to. We are both very excited about this new stage in our lives. :)