And it's the first day of school!

Again!

The first first day was back in August.

They went to school for three whole days, and then we left for England-Germany-England.

Here they are on their second first day. Don't they look so smart in their uniforms?

Kathryn is in Year Six, which is really 5th grade, and so I guess she's repeating a grade. If she were to go on to Year Seven, she would have to go to the high school in Grantham, and it's just easier to have her in the village school (less than a mile's walk away) with Rebecca.

Rebecca should really be in Year Two (1st grade), but that class was full so they placed her in Year One. They 'tested' her today and decided at she might be bored in Year One, and so she's going to Year Three, as long as it works out socially. They told her all this beforehand, and when John went to pick her up from school, she explained the whole situation and declared, "So I'm going to give it a go!"

Didn't take her long to pick up a little British!

We had some special guests at the manor today

A group from The Old Vic came and performed some scenes from Romeo and Juliet, using the Great Hall's balcony for the balcony scene. No pictures, unfortunately.

But afterwards, there was a question/answer session, and we WERE allowed to take pictures. It's not a great shot, but I think you can tell who came...

It was a brilliant evening.

Opening convocation and the High Table dinner

We processed down the Cedar Staircase behind the bagpiper, Billy James:

Here's a better picture of Billy:

Listening to the convocation speech in the Long Gallery:

That evening, we missed the principal's reception in the Great Hall, because our fancy academic robes were locked in a closet and there was a little trouble finding the key...

But we did make it to dinner in the Long Gallery

complete with more bagpipes.

Classes started today. Pictures of me teaching wouldn't be particularly interesting, so there aren't any.

August 14-15: Germany, day 1

Day one was loooooooooooooooong. In retrospect, we were a little nuts. Or I was, since I made the crazy decisions. It was a planes, trains and automobile day.

Automobile: Drove to Evansville airport.
Planes: Flew from Evansville to Detroit. Sat around for 3 hours. Flew from Detroit to London. Sat around for 6 hours. Flew from London to Frankfurt.
Trains: Caught the train from Frankfurt to Bingen, which is on the Rhine.

The stretch of the Rhine that we were interested in seeing doesn't have any bridges, so it can be slightly convoluted to get from a town on one side to a nearby town on the other. Since the train we were on goes on the 'wrong' side of the river, we needed to change to a train on the 'right' side. We got rather confused when we arrived in Bingen, and convinced ourselves that the train sitting RIGHT THERE couldn't possibly be the one we wanted. So we didn't get on. It was. The next train came an hour later. It was a long day - we arrived in Bacharach at 7:30 pm on 8/15. We had left Evansville at 1 pm on 8/14. The entire trip took 23.5 hours.

But worth it, because this is Bacharach.

Bacharach has a castle. Today it's a youth hostel. We didn't stay there; I couldn't imagine climbing to it laden with luggage.

Dinner was Döner and pizza. Not traditionally German, but yummy, and more importantly, still open.

I can't believe I'll be teaching in this room this semester

I think the students are going to be a little distracted. Heck, I think I'm going to be a little distracted. I mean, the view out the windows is something like this:

And the building looks like this:

Unfortunately (not really) I sleep in a different building.

Happy birthday to me!

I shopped for myself this year, and told everyone else not to bother.

With perfect timing, both packages showed up on the doorstep this morning.

That's one summer top for me (teal), one backpack for Kathryn (deep blue, from a pattern that's in the book), one summer top for Becca (the rest of the blues and the green), and one pretty dark red something - maybe a shawl - for me.

At least, that's what they'll be someday.

Trying again...

A little randomly for now, until I get caught up a little.

No, I haven't managed to take a picture every day. Either my life is rather routine, or I have little imagination. Probably some of both.

On April 6 or so I cast-on for a little shrug for Kathryn. She wanted it for Easter.
By late evening I had made good progress!

No other interim pictures, but I got done for Easter dinner! Didn't make it in time for church though.

It fits!

(Pictures were actually taken on Mon, Apr 25. Easter was a tad busy.)

No. Time.

It's the crazy part of the semester. Who am I kidding? It's all crazy. But this week is worse, since my spring break (two weeks ago and too short) doesn't coincide with the kids' spring break. It's been a fun-filled week of dragging the kids to sit in my office. Or John's, for a change of scenery.

Someday I'll catch up on the pictures. I've only missed a handful of days - I think.

But for all of you who are eagerly waiting, here's a good one.

Friday, March 18. The first lost tooth!

It's official...

I think it's ok that this photo isn't in order...

Look what I got in the mail today.

And yes, John got one too. And they only had to change about 4 words on it!

Time to breathe...

The past 2 weeks, more or less:

Sunday, 2/6: Kathryn singing in the choristers choir. She glared at me, but I took the picture anyway.

Monday, 2/7: Kathryn and Becca opened a restaurant! Here's the menu. Unfortunately, I came home after the restaurant had stopped serving for the day.

Tuesday, 2/8: You should read this book. ALL of you.

Wednesday, 2/9: A bit of workplace 'harassment'. I was just the photographer; I was totally innocent...

Thursday, 2/10: Rebecca's love note to me:

Friday, 2/11: Valentine's Day party in Rebecca's class. I have never seen such a well-behaved group of 5 year olds. Kudos to the teacher!

The craft project - a Valentine's hawk, for the school mascot.

Saturday, 2/12: We watched Gnomeo and Juliet, but it was dark in the theater, so no pictures. Rebecca LOVED the 3-D glasses. I didn't love the $3 upcharge per person quite as much. I'm cheap.

Sunday, 2/13: Kathryn had a gymnastics meet in Indianapolis, but Rebecca wanted to stay home so she could go to church and choir practice and see her beloved teacher, Judy. I did have to get up at 6 am to do Kathryn's hair. And she scored her first 9 of the season - a 9.1 on the beam!

Monday, 2/14: Kathryn and Rebecca came to my office to bring me a V-day present, and left a present on Ann's whiteboard next door too.

Tuesday, 2/15: I deliberately didn't take the picture of my present till today. My game, my rules!
"And mommy, when you kill these, you can still plant the bulbs in the yard!" Ah, my family knows me well.

Wednesday, 2/16: Kathryn finally got to be in the 9.0 club picture at gymnastics! I'll save my thoughts about whether this is rubbing it in for the less successful girls for another time.

Thursday, 2/17: Darwin Day lecture. I (in a moment of insanity) volunteered to participate in the panel discussion and give a short presentation on how Darwin's work relates to the stuff I think about. I think my preparation time to presentation time ratio ended up being about 30 to 1. And that's only because I went about 15 minutes over time. But the story of how butterflies make spots is just TOO DARN COOL.

More catching up

Sunday, January 30: Rebecca singing in the cherub choir at church. Thankfully, this was just the rehearsal. She was (slightly) less grumpy during the real thing.

Monday, January 31: After procrastinating for weeks, I finally opened the package of student evaluations from last semester. This was one of the TWO comments I got for my majors' class. Sigh.

Tuesday, February 1: Out of focus, but since it's the only picture I took today, it'll have to do. Kathryn bringing the team trophy (3rd place!) to the coaches.

Wednesday, February 2: Frogs? Yes! Frogs (Xenopus laevis for the geeks among us) that my students will be working with this semester. I've never worked with 'real animals' before. They are big. And need care. I think they should've stuck with the fruit flies.

Thursday, February 3: Happy Chinese New Year! I'm going to cheat and use this picture, even though it was taken on Saturday. Thanks to PoPo for sending lucky money! (How funny! This was file number 888. Lucky picture!)

Friday, February 4: Seems like I'm getting in the habit of forgetting to take pictures on Friday...

Saturday, Febrary 5: Talent show day! Kathryn's group did a wonderful job, and Rebecca loved the whole show. I couldn't get a good picture of the show, so here's a backstage one. The halo around Kathryn's hips is the hula hoop.

First gymnastics meet of 2011

Saturday, January 29. This was the Judges Cup, at the State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis. I actually took a few pictures this time - usually John takes all of them. These were all during warm-ups; Kathryn says that it makes her too nervous if we take pictures during competition.

Back walkover (I think):

Cast on the bar:

Dismount:

Full turn on the beam:

Handstand dismount off the beam:

And two 10th place finishes!