A Long Overdue Report

Wow! I can't believe how fast time has gone and that we've been at Storch Dorm for two months now. Life here is so busy, intense and concentrated that there is little time for the luxury of writing a blog. Tonight is the Christmas Banquet and as Jim and I opted to go to the train station instead, we have a little quiet time in the dorm until we pick the girls up.
The intense learning curve we have been on has plateaued somewhat as we have a better handle on the day-to-day running of the dorm; however, events such as Banquets (can you imagine primping and preening 20 teenage girls at the same time for the same event? The dorm still smells like hairspray hours later!), home basketball games where everyone comes to the school to eat dinner and cheer, and exams, will present new challenges and stresses.
To back track a little, Niall enjoyed celebrating his 15th birthday here in the dorm where the tradition of "troughing" the birthday person was graciously extended to him. He was able to toss in a few girls himself, including his sister.
In early November, Jim and I celebrated our 25th anniversary with a long weekend in Athens, Greece, where we met our friends from Vineland, Dave and Rhonda Gossen and Karl and Julie Stobbe. The men ran the marathon and two of the women ran the 5 km race. It was a wonderful weekend to be refreshed, see some sites, eat outdoors and enjoy some warmer weather, and be encouraged by folks from home.
The rest of the month has flown by with much of the focus on who was going to the banquet with whom, late night essay writing, basketball practices, grocery shopping, paperwork, baking, laundry, tending to sick children, and getting to know the girls better. There are 3 weeks left of school, then a flurry of airport trips to deliver our charges home for Christmas and then we fly out on Monday, December 22, Jim's birthday.
We are looking forward to being at home with our boys and our extended families. We hope to do better at keeping you all up to date on how we're doing.
For now, "Tusch", local German dialect for "See you"