Here's a note just sent to family - 

 

I believe the last time I sent out any form of update was when I was whining about our kitchen not being done.  Well, now that seems like ancient history.  Our fire-engine-red kitchen is up and running, in spite of having a smaller sink and stove (only this place could downgrade by upgrading :).  But we are very happy with it.  Next was getting couches after sitting on the floor for three months (which was kinda nice too).  I designed some shockingly unusual Moroccan couches (i.e. - they're comfortable) which had the carpenter and tailor completely mystified, but we are happy with the results!

Gerald is surviving-  though he needs a haircut, some cold medication, and is bracing himself for the end-of-semester onslaught. His classes have gone better this time (his mostly-engineering class is proving to be smarter than his mostly-business major class), and they have just reorganized the master's program which has been a lot of extra work. 
Katrina's new passions are cheetahs and ripsticks.  We had a cheetah b-day party a few weekends ago and raced around as much as possible.  Ron, Nakoma, and Melody came up.  One of my students reported that she enjoyed watching my brother 'beat me up' in a race.  Next ESL lesson:  The difference between 'beat' and 'beat up'.  Katrina's  favorite b-day gift was a ripstick which she rides every afternoon thus inspiring lots of other kids who are either begging their parents to get one too or begging Katrina to let them use hers. 
Kendra is into strawberries (the whole elementary knows to hide their strawberries at lunch from Kendra), and dropping not-so-subtle hints that she, too, needs a ripstick for her birthday.  She loves after-school activities like drama, art, and cooking class.  We'll see her 'debut' in a few weeks in a skit as Pippi Longstocking!

My half-time job continues to be more like full-time, but I do love it.  I have a new Australian student who has fit to our 'class ecosystem' (as the kids call it) amazingly easily.  He has come to school several times with his shirt inside-out and backwards.  I told him when we have a backwards day he should wear his shirt the right way around!  Next, I got a new Korean student who speaks almost no English.  This has been a huge challenge both for him and for us all.  Poor guy!  This week we had Earth Week and I foolishly chose to do the messiest possible art projects with the kids who rotated daily through my class.  The worst was when I had parent-teacher conferences while there was wet, recycled paper goop all over the floor!  Yesterday the whole school went to the woods to have a picnic and then pick up trash.  Then our class stayed a bit longer and built shelters in the woods as a follow-up to reading a book about survival in the wilderness.  Gerald's conclusion?  We would not have survived past the second chapter!

We had an extremely mild winter followed by a cold, wet April.  We had snow cover April 17 and it snowed a little again today.  Spring is going to be beautiful once it gets started.  Last week one of our friends took us on a hike to a plateau with over 10 sinkholes which he 'discovered' a few weeks ago.  He's named it "Reimer's Realm" due to my love of the odd geological formations.  I've never had anything named after me - much less a plateau :)

For Spring Break we went with the Smith family (our pastor, husband, and daughter) to northern Italy.  Venice is truly a beautiful and amazing place and we loved hopping on the water buses, wandering the 'cute alert' passageways, eating gelatto (Italian ice cream), and just marveling at a city with water for streets and built entirely on wooden piles driven into clay in the middle of a lagoon!  Next was Verona which Katrina declared to be way too "kissy" - well, considering we were in the setting of "Romeo and Juliet" in the springtime, we shouldn't have been too surprised!  Then back here for a crazy, non-stop month.  This labor-day weekend has come at a great time!

The girls are heading out ripsticking in high winds.  Hopefully they won't blow away!