Fun inside, and out!

Blowing bubbles on the balcony

And the newest addiction... Playing "Legend of Zelda". They're playing equally, but most of the pictures below show Clara playing because I just love Oscar's emotional involvement! But the other thing I now remember is how annoyed and upset I got whenever my parents made us leave our friend's place, and we couldn't play it anymore... We've unfortunately got a bit of that going on this evening!

I bought a retro NES controller for them to play. It's maybe not the best controller ever, but I thought why not go for authenticity?

Clever kids

Last night we had a funny experience walking down the street after dinner. I was walking ahead with Clara, and Oscar was talking (loudly and in English) while he danced in circles around Tanja. Among other things, he was talking about math. After he said "508 plus 508 is 1016" an elderly man stopped, and asked Tanja "What did he say"? Oscar repeated it to him, saying the numbers in German this time. The man was so astounded that he reached into his pocket and said "I don't know or care how much is in here, but I'm giving it all to you", and proceeded to offload a huge handful of change in Oscar's hands! He told us that he's never seen such a small child able to do that level of math, and that we should be very proud (we are, of course).

But the story is made even better by two events that happened earlier that day. The first was that on the way to school with Tanja, Oscar worked out that 8192+8192=16384. (He was interested in knowing what came next, because the day before I had gotten to an 8192 tile in the game 2048.) So on the scale of what Oscar is able to do, 508+508 is really not the hardest question.

The other thing is that yesterday we went to a celebration of Oscar's 100th day of school. During an event for the parents, one of the teachers asked all the kids what they've learned in their first hundred days, saying "for example, have you learned to count to 100?" Oscar put his hand up, and when she called on him he said "I've learned to count to 100". Tanja and I cracked up, because first time I heard Oscar count to 100 was when he was 3 or 4 years old. I was walking with him to pick up Clara from school (in Berlin), and he started counting and just didn't stop. When he got to 100, he counted by 100s to 1000, then by thousands to 30,000, at which point he decided that was high enough.


Clara has liked reading for a long time, but recently she's been tackling a few longer stories. For the last few weeks, she's had her nose in Harry Potter books. She finished the first and second, and was planning on holding off until next year to read the third. But it turned out that she was too curious to wait to find out what happens next, and over the last three days or so she's made it halfway through "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". We went to a party today where the kids were invited to dress up (it's nearly Karneval), and while Clara walked along with the book in her crossed arms I decided I needed a picture!

Christmas in Alberta

Somehow it seems like this was never posted. I think it's from Christmas (in Alberta) 2014. The rides are at a huge indoor amusement park.

Birthday party!

Clara has been taking climbing classes for the last year, and this year she decided to have a climbing party. Here are some highlights:

It's been a long time since we climbed. We've only been twice in the last 8 years, and it was Oscar's first time. What was kind of interesting is that in order to remember how to make the figure 8 knot I needed to look away from the rope. My hands could still do it, but only if I wasn't looking at them.

Happy Halloween!

The kids dressed up today and went trick-or-treating in a part of Potsdam where there's a much larger than normal ratio of houses that give out candy (trick or treating isn't really a thing here). Clara was a witch, and Oscar was the witch's cat:

Clara designed and made her candy bag on her own several weeks ago. She painted a piece of paper black, put on star stickers, and then rolled it into a cylinder. She made a bottom out of paper and tape, and then we helped her put a plastic bag on the inside to make it a bit more stable.

October 31 is a holiday in Brandenburg, so we went to Berlin to get Clara's birthday present (her first climbing shoes!), and on our way back we stopped at the swimming pool.

This summer Oscar got more serious about practicing his swimming style, and it's really paid off. Already during the summer he swam several lengths of a 25 meter deep pool, but we still weren't really comfortable with him being in deep water because when he gets tired he would start to paddle (and sink!).

About a month ago, we let Oscar try swimming a length in the 50 meter pool in Potsdam (I think for the first time). Unfortunately, he wasn't swimming so well, and the lifeguard came by and suggested he needs to spend a bit more time in the training pool. But last week we tried again, and on Saturday he swam the 50 meter length with two pauses. On Sunday, he swam with only one pause. And today, he swam the full length without any breaks! Since he could swim the 50 meters in lane 1 (next to the edge of the pool), he immediately wanted to try lane 2. But we convinced him to take a break in the warmer pool, and then he came back and swam lane 1 again. Oscar has always been a better diver than surface swimmer, and already this summer he could get a ring from about 150 cm depth. If he can learn to swim 200 meters in one go, and get a ring from 180 cm, then he might be able to get his Bronze certificate before he turns 7!

The other thing Oscar really wanted to do now that he could swim in the deep pool was jump off the diving board. So he did. This is something that Clara had been working up to for ages. She doesn't mind jumping from a 1.5 meter height (she did it in a lake and pools in Sweden this summer), but the wobbling of the diving board has always bothered her. Last week on Sunday (when Tanja was traveling), Clara suddenly walked the board and hopped in - easy as pie! She was really proud of herself, and I wasn't allowed to text or tell Tanja about it: Clara wanted to show her herself the next time we went swimming. So today, Clara got to finally show off for Mommy! She now just loves jumping off the board. And running the full length of it and running off. And doing small hops at the end and then jumping in. She also wanted to climb up the 3.8 meter platform to see what it's like today, but it was closed, and she didn't want to ask the lifeguards to open it just so she could see how high it is (but not jump).

Big kids!

Einschulung

Time flies...

Oscar had his Einschulung (start of school ceremony) last weekend. We had all of our direct family from Germany visiting for the event. After the short ceremony, Oscar had his first short class, where they mainly met each other. Then they came out, we took lots of photos, and then went for dinner at Oscar's new favorite restaurant in Potsdam.

On the way to the ceremony

A group of older children sang two songs to start the event

Waiting for all the kids to arrive 

Happy for her brother!

Getting his nametag

Big accomplishment!

Very proud of this guy!

Month after month Oscar has gotten better at 2048, and he made it to 2048 for the first time today. (I think he had a 1024 and 512 before he got stuck). After a few disappointments, he followed it up with another 2048 about a half hour later!

For weeks he's been telling me he's as good at it as I am. Give it another month or so and I wonder if I'll have to concede...