1. Grade - NC

 1. Grade in Camp Lejeune, NC

August 2008-November 2008

First day of School!

Good Bye! Last day in school before the move.

Mrs. Parker & Mrs. Wittman

Kindergarten teachers

Mrs. McRacken - PE teacher  &  Ms. Hookstra - Music teacher

         Mrs. Santiago - Art teacher

Mrs. Willeford - 1. Grade teacher

We had a good bye party with cupcakes and all the children got to say good bye to Cassandra with wishing her good luck and all the best. Before leaving the classroom for the day, they all lined up to give her a hug, which was very sweet. It was a very sad day, we had enjoyed the Tarawa Terrace II Elementary School so much with all their wonderful teachers and staff.

http://www.am.dodea.edu/lejeune/tt2/

Preschool and Kindergarten!

Preschool

Cassandra could only attend Preschool for two months. Those two months made her more secure to speak English and prepare her for the "real" school to start in the fall.

It was Military Appreciation Day in School that day!

 Kindergarten
August 2007-June 2008
Cassandra 5 1/2 years old

First day of Kindergarten!!

The Kindergarten class "The Bees"

 Cassandra and special boyfriend Julian. <3

Water - Fun - Day!

Cassandra and friend Kyle.

 Cassandra and Julian.

 Graduation day!
The last day of Kindergarten!

Cassandra and Kyle.

 Cassandra with her wonderful Kindergarten teachers: 
Mrs.Vivian Parker and Mrs. Melissa Wittman

 

Parent/Teacher/Student conference!

This morning I'm sitting here preparing for the parent/teacher/student conference that will take place tomorrow. This is a wonderful opportunity to get to know the teacher and also to ask all the questions that you might have regarding your child's education and progress. So far we have only received good feed back from our daughters teachers, and I always leave there with the warmest heart filled up with pride!!

Of course we already know that we have a wonderful, beautiful, warmhearted, kind, hardworking, great student at our hands, but to have it noticed from the teacher and to have them praise her and her hard work is always very nice - also for her! She is now 8 years old, and just started 3rd Grade here. They have grades here three times a year, so it's hard work from day one to keep your tests and scores up! They also have weekly homework with tests on Fridays, and it requires that she plans her work ahead and that she works every day, otherwise it will be a very hard and long Thursday evening..

I have always tried to be very involved in my daughter's education and school, and have tried to volunteer as much as possible in the class room and in and around school. That was easier when we lived on the Marine Base in North Carolina, as she then went to the DOD School on base. The Department of Defense schools are known to be very good, and we liked it very much. Cassandra was 4 1/2 years old when we moved to the US, and she missed most of the Preschool year. It still was very important to me to introduce her to the English and to the school system, as she in August that year would start Kindergarten. That is to compare with the year in school the children go to before they start 1. Grade in Sweden. She picked up the English very fast, and by the end of Summer when she started school, she did great already and had no problems with speaking and understanding. We had already worked hard over the summer with reading, so she was very well prepared for Kindergarten.

I loved to volunteer, not just to be involved in her education, but also to get to know the American school system and when they learn what. It is of course very different from what I'm used to growing up in Sweden and also from what I hear from family and friends that have children in school there today. One big difference is that here they get grades from the very beginning and they thrive to reach the top scores. In Sweden they don't get grades until the 8th Grade I believe, which I personally think is too late, but there is of course many different opinions on this matter.

Cassandra loved her teachers and it was hard to leave the Tarawa Terrace Elementary School and move when she was in 1. Grade. That was one of my big concerns for the move, that she would find it hard to connect with children and the teachers in a new public school, where they might not be as military friendly as they of course are on a military base. I did a lot of research online about the schools and knew which one we wanted to choose for her, but it would require that you live in that district. We were very happy when we found our house to rent not just in a good neighborhood, but also in the "right" school district so that she could start in the school that we wanted.

She has so far done wonderful here, good grades and is keeping up the hard work. I haven't been volunteering that much since we came here, it is a little bit different from the DOD school, and when I got pregnant with the twins I didn't feel up to it, as the pregnancy took all my energy. Now with them born, it will be no time for volunteering in class, but I still will try to stay involved at the PTO meetings and activities in school as much as I can.

If you are interested to read more about Cassandra's school:
http://www.usd308.com/graber/

Bye Bye Daddy!

This morning it was time to say good bye. Chris has to go away to Dallas, Texas for training for his work. He will only be gone for 10 days, but still it feels very long. This is the first time that he will be gone since the babies were born, and we will miss him! He will not see the children for 10 days - that's long! He will be very busy - but I'm sure that he will enjoy some good nights of sleep.

I spoke to a friend yesterday, her husband is also in the Marine Corps, and she happens to be in the Army. Well, with all the training that she also has to do, they sometimes have to send their little son with soon 2 years to the grandparents. The longest have been for 2 months she said! I don't know how she does it!!!?? This spring she will also deploy to Iraq, and then be gone for 9 months...so she said that now everything was like weaning off...it gets easier every time. It's hard for me to even imagine to be away from my children that long. I haven't ever been away from my daughter, and needless to say from the twins. Cassandra is now 8 years old, but I haven't been away from her more than for a day/night sleepover. Never longer...

I know that this is what she has to do, and I don't judge her or anyone else by no means if they have to leave the children with their grandparents or other family/friends for longer for any kind of reason - I just know that I would be heartbroken after a day, or wait, stretch that to maybe a weekend! How long have you been away from your children the longest? What would be too long for you?

A romantic weekend get away wouldn't be bad at all.... The question is if I would be so much fun, I would probably fall a sleep early in the evenings tired from sleep deprivation! Talking about get away or vacation, I got a phone call the other day about a vacation package that I bought for us for our first anniversary...

Well, the first anniversary we just had moved to the US and were getting our house ready. No extra time or money for vacation. The second anniversary me and Cassandra went back to Sweden for the summer vacation when she was out of school - no more time for vacation that year. The third anniversary - we had visited London for our good friends wedding, and my husbands 10 days of vacation was over....me and Cassandra made the trip longer by making a short stop in Sweden. When we anyway were in Europe, we couldn't go back without going back to Sweden for a visit! So, here we are now, this year we had no vacation, and no chance to use the package either..

So the phone call was a kindly reminder of that we only have one more year to use this package! And I sure would hate this go away unused:

7 day Florida Fun Pack Vacation Package:
4 days/3 nights in Orlando
3 days/2 nights in Daytona Beach
2 night Bahama Cruise
Multi-Park Multi Day Attraction Package
2 adults 2 day passes to a Universal Studios or Walt Disney World Theme Park
Access to Universal Orlando Citywalk or Downtown Disney
2 passes to Kennedy Space Center
5 days/4 nights Special Offer Stay in Cancun, Mexico

Of course I didn't think at the time of booking that we would have such a hard time to get away and for my husband to take leave from work, but well, here we are and haven't been able to use any of this so far. One more year - how would we be able to do this next summer with the twins being just 1 year old? Maybe a little bit too much! And, as we are going to move toward the end of next year, I don't think that we will be able to take vacation before that....

But - I could still dream about our Bahamas Cruise, who knows, maybe somehow we will be able to go!

Baby A and Baby B

About a month later, on October 22, 2009 I had the surprise of my life!! I was happy to be pregnant, and had an appointment with my doctor and also a check up with my first ultrasound. My husband that has a hard time to get off from work, was actually going to be there and we were both looking forward to the appointment.

Unfortunately Cassandra came up with high fever just the day before, and as I didn't want to re-schedule the appointment, my husband stayed at home with her. As we said, there will be plenty of ultrasounds and this was just going to be a "confirmation" of being pregnant and not such a big deal......We had actually joked around the days before that "What if it's more than one?" and "Maybe it's twins"..The reason for this being that good friends of ours just recently had found out that they were expecting twins! Well, jokes aside, what would be the odds that we too would be pregnant with twins?!
 I went to my appointment and at the ultrasound the technician told me that she was just going to check for a good picture before she put on the big screen. After a minute or so, she said, "Well, it is not hard to find a good picture here - there is Baby A and there is Baby B.  8 weeks pregnant and two picking heartbeats!!"

Big tears started to fill up my eyes and I think my heart just stopped for a second. Tears of joy but also because of chock!! I got a couple of pictures where I could tell that there were two babies, but still, it was very much unreal. I visited with my doctor and everyone was so excited and lots of information and lots of questions came up. The appointment took longer than expected, and my husband had to go back to work before lunchtime, so he had asked me to call when I was on my way home. I didn't want to tell him the news over the phone, so I just said that I will be there soon.

When I came home, Cassandra came running excited to see the pictures as I had told her that I would have pictures of our baby to show her when I came home, and I just handed over the pictures to my husband and he looked and saw the first picture and the words "Baby A and Baby B". He could hardly believe it either and we just hugged and laughed and we all were so excited. He had to leave for work as he was already late, but after a while he called back and wanted to meet for lunch. We had a nice lunch and talked about the twins and how life changing this would be!

After that he had to go back to work, and I had the afternoon to call family and friends about our wonderful news!!! A lot of laughing and a lot of "No way!"

The following days and weeks were filled with lots of researching for information and lots of questions came up that might seem silly now, but were big then, like: What kind of stroller? Do we need a bigger car? But also a lot of worries. Is the pregnancy going to be alright? Will I be able to go full term? I also tried to read up a lot on the internet but also took frequent trips to the library for information on twin pregnancy and twins in general.

And most of all - I felt just so unbelievable happy and special to be able to get this wonderful gift of not just one - but two babies!! Like a child on Christmas morning...waiting filled with excitement!

 

A picture of me days after finding out that I was pregnant - still not knowing that I'm carrying two babies!! 

Old memories and new beginnings...

When is a right time to start a blog? Well, I've wanted to document the past year and keep all the exciting happenings as a diary, for myself and for our children, but still be able to share it with family and friends. Now one year later, I feel ready to start writing more on a daily basis and hopefully be able to update with frequent photos! To begin posting this blog on a special day felt like a good start!

Why today?

Today is a very special day! If it wouldn't have been for this day - nothing of what I have today would ever have happened and my life would have taken a very different journey. September 26, 1992 I met the love of my life for the very first time and our journey together began. Then living in Switzerland we never could have dreamed of where we would be today, 18 years later! So many years have gone by and so much has happened, and I'm happy to say that I today am still very much in love with the person I then met! Over the years we have celebrated this day over and over again and even if we have another day for our anniversary, as we got married on August 26, 2006, we still never forget this day.

Today, one year ago, another journey began - The journey of pregnancy! We found out that we were expecting, and we were thrilled! Happiness and excitement filled this day - never could I have thought that it was going to be even more exciting....