Together again!

I arrived in Germany on July 2 (eight years to the day after I arrived in the USA!), so Clara, Tanja, and I are reunited! I was insanely busy in the last week in Philadelphia doing the final packing, cleaning the apartment, helping Yehuda and Olivia move, and then moving in with Yehuda and Olivia (on the day they moved too!) for my last two days in Philly. I've registered with our local Amt (German registry office) and tomorrow we will go to the auslaender Amt (the regional office that deals with foreigners) to try to get my permission to live in Germany. Hopefully all will go smoothly!

Clara grew a lot taller (but didn't gain much weight) and her head became more child-like and less baby-like while I was gone. Here she is sitting in her Oma and Opa's back yard:


As Tanja has mentioned, she's also eating all kinds of foods now. I think her favorite must be strawberries, though!


A few days after I arrived we went to a village near the city of Halle to celebrate Clara's great grandfather's 80th birthday! Here are Clara and me dressed up for the occasion.


We went to the birthday party by train (about 4-5 hours) and came back by car. Clara was fantastic for both trips. She wasn't really able to sleep on the train (announcements and people coming through kept waking her up), but she was friendly and happy, and when she gets bored it's easy to distract her by taking a walk. She was so exhausted by the train ride and party that when we rode back the next day she slept for almost the entire car ride! We took a lot of great photos on this trip, you'll have to come visit us to see them! Here is one example of Tanja and Clara on the train.

I hope to follow up this post soon with some pictures of the area that Tanja's parents live in, and maybe a few more pictures from the party and visits with the grandparents. Wish me luck tomorrow!