Sam is next to the boy playing cello. Most of the kids in strings were beginners, so the teacher had the 4 who had more experience shine in a quartet.
Sam was so excited when we moved here to find out they had a strings program. She hadn't had an orchestra experience for 2 years, and nothing with school for 4. Unfortunately, the strings/band teacher was offered a job with the international school in Belgium and has left us. The school was unable to find a certified substitute, or a sub with any kind of strings experience, so the class has been dissolved. The kids had to be moved into a different class in the same period, and with a small school, there isn't a lot of options. Sam was smart enough to be sure that she got into another music class since this was to be her fine arts credit. Hopefully they will be able to find someone for next year.
I was lucky enough to chaperone Sam's Italian class on a field trip to Caltigerone. We started the day at an Italian Catholic school where we picked up their 10th graders. Then we headed into town and had a nice tour from their English teacher and the students. Fortunately, their English teacher was from England, so there were no problems with communication breakdowns.
After a tour around the town. We went back to the school where the kids who didn't come with us had made and set up food for a social.
The Italian kids were much more social than ours. I think we had a bout 10 kids and there were a lot of Italian kids. Ours got food, sat down on the chairs around the room and then were surrounded by Italians practicing their English. It was a little overwhelming for our kiddos, but a good experience. I believe the kids we met will be coming to our school sometime in the next couple of months. We don't really have a tour for them, so it will be mostly social and then spending some time in classes to see what school is like for Americans.
Finally, Christmas. We decided to head out for Christmas this year, and flew to London on Christmas Eve. That meant that Santa had to make an early stop at our house.
This is the first time we haven't had a fire place to put up our stockings, but we found a way!
Tommy was very excited to be able to set up his Christmas village. He loves every piece and we didn't really have a spot to set it up for the past 2 years. He takes a lot of time thinking about where each piece will go.
And our tree. I hadn't set it up for the past 2 years either. Again, we didn't really have a good spot, and we had a tree in NY waiting for us. Since we weren't going home, I took the time to set it all up, but it was down the day we opened presents. I had no desire to come home from vacation and have to clean up Christmas decorations.
Just a couple of photos of the kids opening presents.
So that was our semi-traditional Christmas. Next up will be Christmas in London.
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