The Weekend

I can hardly believe the girls started their second week of school today. I know they felt the weekend flew by as they were busy with their first soccer match, meeting more relatives for the first time and their first full morning at church with Olena and Julia in children's church and Aimee sitting with us during the service.
Saturday morning was Olena and Aimee's first soccer game. They lost but had a lot of fun playing in their team jerseys. Following the game we had lunch at Stan's parents where the girls met Stan's Uncle Hank and Aunt Sally. A highlight of the visit was touring the RV that Hank and Sally came in. I can't remember how many times the girls simply said, "Wow!" (Aimee also said "Oh, my head!" a couple of times, an example of some more colloquial English that they are picking up.)
Sunday morning the girls met my parents for the first time as they had just arrived from India. They bounded right into Grandma and Grandpa's house and started exploring right away. When I first pointed to my mom and asked Olena who this was, she immediately came up with "Grandpa!" She had learned to say "Grandmother" and "Grandfather" in English class in Ukraine so these abbreviated names were a bit confusing at first. When we came back later for lunch, they cleaned out the play house and tried out the bikes they found in the garage with much enthusiasm. Olena has already ordered her birthday cake from Grandpa with "Aslan, Peter, Edmund, Lucy, and Susan."
She has become quite a fan the Chronicles of Narnia films. Another big hit in our home are the Anne of Green Gables movies. They love to recite with much giggling the scene where Anne is rescued by Gilbert (whom they call Yogurt for lack of better pronunciation)from under a bridge after her rowboat sinks.

First day of school

Yesterday spring break ended for most kids and school started for ours. There was a little whining the night before, but they seemed ready to go in the morning. I think a lot had to do with the fact that they had been there 3 times already. They went once to meet their teachers. We all went on the day before Spring Break to watch a fun-filled limbo party (and Julia actually sat with her classmates on the floor near the action, three of which came up to us in the bleachers to get her -- you can see her on the right with sunglasses and a pink flower). Afterwards, we stopped at McDonald's for an ice cream and a quick visit to

the playland. Julie and the kids also went once during spring break for Aimee to explore her classroom.

(Maria had been introducing herself to new people as Aimee since her second week here, so we eventually had a talk and it seems pretty clear that she wants to be called that; we are actually pretty happy about that.)

So yesterday we all got in the car early enough to arrive about 15 minutes before the other kids and drop all 3 off in their classrooms before anyone but the teachers was there. They all seemed just

fine with letting us go.

In the afternoon, Julie got there early enough to pick them up in the foyer, get a quick report from each teacher, and help the kids to the right bus. Then she drove home alone so they could experience the whole bus ride as it normally would be. When they got home, there were lots of animated smiles and stories. In Aimee's words, school was "super, just like High School Musical". When I asked Olena how many friends she had, the count was 9. And Julia's first words were, "I ate ice cream today!" When she happily showed us how big it was, she sized it about a foot tall, although Aimee, who has lunch hour at the same time, assured us that this was not true.

This morning was rough though, probably because there had been some

talking and even switching beds until too late last night in the younger girls' room. Aimee was ready early and even reviewed words for a spelling test scheduled for

tomorrow, but the other two were pretty recalcitrant. Julie

had to dress Julia, and Olena spent enough time whining

instead of getting

ready that she had to

settle for flipflops when the bus arrived. A stressful morning for Mom (and Dad), but probably it will be a useful lesson and reference point. And... it turned into an awesome

day for the kids! There was nothing but positive comments today, and even more excited stories. All three of them have obviously better English than they did at

the beginning of the week; probably the immersion is bringing out a lot that they had already absorbed earlier. Olena asked me after supper to help her with a project: on her first try, she was able to read the names of about half of the 21 kids in her classroom, and we quickly narrowed the rest down to 4 and worked on those for a while.