Family Mellmann

Beautiful weather.  Beautiful views. Sunset over the Caribbean. (Patrick's the one with yellow fins.) Our non-diver (she sits on the boat reading). These two fish practically ran me over they got so close.

Patrick sang with the Youth Choir at church tonight.  It's so fun to see him up there, and to hear him sing.

Early (very early) tomorrow morning Patrick and I, and all the junior and senior high students of Trinity, will be driving to Merrimack New Hampshire for the annual Academic and Fine Arts Competition among New England Christian schools. Students compete in academics (math, science, history, language arts, etc.) and art (acting, instrumental music, vocal music, speaking, photography, drawing, fiber arts, woodworking, etc.), and can compete individually or in groups. Patrick is helping his friend put the finishing touches on his competition piece.

I used to ponder the divine humor in my first child being a boy.  I'm a girl; what do I know about raising a boy?  Like a cat bringing a dead rodent home for show-and-tell, Patrick would bring me bugs, worms, snakes, and all manner of creepy, crawly, and slimy.  Then came puberty...and driving...and dating... And through it all is woven a fantastic sense of humor and a grand fascination with all sorts of oddity. Such as, "Why do you get dizzy when you stand up too fast?"  "Why are there no 'B' batteries?"  "Why is vanilla ice cream white when vanilla extract is brown?"  "If you are bald, what hair color do they put on your driver's license?"  Or, today's treasure,  "Why does this magnet stick to my arm?". (answer: there's a BB in his arm) My favorite part of the video (aside from "cool" factor) is the goofy grin on his face at the end.

It has been a somewhat disappointing winter, so far. It's either cold and grey with little/no snow, or it's snowing beautifully only to give way to a warm snow-melting day. Today we get this beautiful, large flake, snow.  Perfect timing for this afternoon's snowboard lessons for Katherine, and Patrick's ski day with friends, planned for tomorrow.

Vermont winter is finally here. And with that comes ski and snowboard season. Today, Katherine started her third year of snowboard lessons. Since Patrick has graduated from the ski program (it only goes through eighth grade), Katherine brought a new mountain buddy, a classmate from Trinity.

It's our last day of Christmas break. Patrick is enjoying his last moments with a friend, Katherine is enjoying a little screen time, and Jörg continues his work with taxes and all things accounting. I have accomplished a few projects (or parts of them) over this break, but I will bid a sad farewell to this Christmas break knitting in front of the fire while I watch a TV show and enjoy the smell of beef stew wafting from the crockpot.

Christmas in the Mellmann house was quiet and relaxed; a nice change of pace to the long days and busy schedules leading up to the break.  Joerg took about two weeks off from work, and the kids had almost two weeks off from school. Our Christmas break was spent decorating cookies, playing games, sleeping in, staying up late, and enjoying the lack of schedule and obligation.  We did manage to get a few little projects done, and Joerg spent a couple of days working on finances in preparations for tax season, so we weren't complete slouches the *entire* time. :) So, from our family to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Frohe Weihnachten und Frohes neues Jahr!

After fifteen years of celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve (in the German tradition) we're mixing it up a little bit this year. Patrick has been singing a lot this past year.  He has participated in youth choirs over the years, but anytime a choir performance conflicted with our Christmas Eve activities we would keep him out of the choir.  But since he's been enjoying singing so much this year we decided it was time to give him a chance to participate...even if we had to rearrange our traditions a little. So, this year we did something different for Christmas Eve.  Most of the day was spent relaxing and preparing food for tomorrow.  Then we brought in the tree and decorated it.  For dinner, we took advantage of our unseasonably warm weather and had burgers on the grill.  I even sat outside on the deck while the burgers were cooking.  After dinner we got dressed and went to the evening service at church where Patrick sang with the high school choir. ...