Knorr Family Adventures

Chris planned our little getaway as an early 10 th anniversary and he chose Tallinn and Helsinki.   It’s easy to get to from Frankfurt – 2 hour flight, and we haven’t been to either location and both sound exciting.   My mom was super in staying in a foreign country with 3 little hooligans.    Tallinn is an absolutely lovely city.   Estonia is not exactly known as a big touristy destination but I am guessing that most people who do the Baltic and Scandinavian tours or cruises make it to Estonia.   As for me, I spend many summers in a village outside of Narva as a child and have great memories. We stayed at the hotel within Old City (Tallinn’s Old City is a pretty small) and were able to do and see pretty much everything Tallinn has to offer in the 48 hours that we spend there.   When we arrived Sunday night, it wasn’t clear that while restaurants were open many do not serve food after 8 or so; the restaurants just function as bars.   Thus, at nearly 10 o’clock we finally

Andrei turned 9 yesterday.  It was a pretty crazy day but he is super happy with everything - lots of presents that include DVDs about how things are made, his own Star Wars headphones, a big water gun (that we have to exchange tomorrow because it kind of sucks), $10 ... Last year Andrei requested mac and cheese with lemon cake for dinner.  This year we had Indian with homemade lemon cake for desert.  Current favorite food includes naan with mango sauce.  My boy is growing up :)  We also listened to the soundtrack of Evita for a big part of the day ... It's hard to believe that he is 9 years old already and such an awesome kid.  He is absolutely the person you want to have next to you when you are having a crisis, he is quick and smart, he is the best big brother to his younger siblings and his love for his older cousin is out of this world.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg! We've got an amazing kid on our hands :) July 25, 2007 probably not long after 3:25PM

It has been a really interesting experience to compare lunches served at American (more specifically Avonworth near Pittsburgh) and German schools.   Full disclosure – most of the time that Andrei went to Avonworth he preferred to buy lunch and we didn’t mind because it was easier and fairly cheap.   We are fully aware that it is not healthy, good for you, and etc. In German schools (and we have 3 different schools to compare it to) if you ARE at school during lunch time, you are required to pay for your lunch. It is actually not called lunch, it’s called Mittagsessen which literary means "middle of the day meal". If a child doesn’t want to eat it, well then you are wasting your money but you still have to pay it.   Bringing a lunch is not an option.   We do send snacks every day but that’s for a different time.     Also depending on the school, snacks might be required to be sugar free.   For example, Ilya is not allowed to have chips, cookies, juices and many other

Life is still crazy, but I am hoping to get back to updating. Ilya finished first grade last Thursday, Andrei finished second grade last Friday.  I was told last week that camp that I signed them up for is cancelled.  I was under false impressions that Anton has school this week and next only to be told that this is his last week at the current kindergarten.  Not more 3 hours after finding that out, I got a phone call saying Anton is sick so our summer break started early. Today I took Anton for 2 hour orientation at his new kindergarten and he seemed to like it.  Me ... I am not sure yet.  It seems like kids do whatever they want, running around the whole place as they wish.  Jury is still out on that but good news is that I no longer have to pack any food since they provide breakfast, lunch and snack. Lusha's birthday party at school *yes, I baked the cake!

Yes, we are still alive!  Life has been extremely busy in the last month – we traveled to many places including Prague, Amsterdam, Tallinn, Helsinki and many more.    More pictures to follow on those ... Many of us have also been sick; thus, the amount of time spent at various doctors is ridiculous.   I might have mentioned this before but it’s kind of crazy how much paperwork is needed to get stuff done here.   First I have to go to pediatrician to get the referral for the specialist (paper #1 ), then after we go see the specialist doctor I have to hand deliver the report (paper # 2) back to the pediatrician, then I have to drop off the prescription (paper #3) at the pharmacy   (yes, paper again!) and finally a day later I have to go pick that medicine up.   So at least 2 trips to pediatrician and usually 2 trips to pharmacy on top of the actual doctor!   Multiply that times 3 kids … Rant over; things are kind of looking up and we are looking forward to finishing scho