Back to school

Took some time to write a quick update. If you haven't read the previous updates yet you can find them linked below:


​So it's been 3 weeks since the last update which I updated to point out that we did find Robbert in the end.

Back to school

On the 5th of September, the day had arrived for Lucie and Marcel to go to their school. Now normally there would be a bus coming to the town to pick up the kids, but obviously (this is Spain) it turned out that that wasn't fully arranged yet.

So Annelies and I drove the kids to school where they'd meet their teacher and this years classmates.

First day at school
First day at school

They had a wonderful day although they barely speak any Catalan. They have been enjoying school so far although the teacher has raised some integration/language/behaviour issues with the youngest. He'll come around!

Robbert had a slightly longer summer break but on Wednesday it was his turn to go back to school. Sadly he was forced to go back two years 😞 as the school system here did not accept all the (official) documentation we provided that Robbert finished his 2nd year in Belgium.

Although the school provided an out where they could upgrade him 2 years after they ran some tests we do not have any guarantees that they'll come around. We keep pushing and lobbying to get this fixed...

Every day when I pick up Robbert from school I ask him to score his day. We went from 5/10 to a 7/10 in the course of almost two weeks. As the schools both finish with a 45- minute difference, we have some quality time. It's great to find him in a good mood, and I can see him making new friends. I'm sure he'll be super fast at learning the language having to listen to the teacher talk all day.

I'm so proud of them

Sheep everywhere

The ride up and down from our village is awesome. The sun is out almost every day and today we hit almost 30 degrees.

One day I was late to pick them up as I was caught up behind 300 sheep waiting for them to clear the road.

We spent some more time with the farmer who uses dogs to guard the cuddle and move them around. The kids are enjoying the time with the kids. Marcel told us he might not become a DJ when he grows up but is trading that for becoming a sheep farmer.

Today we watched a lamb being born.

 

Home Progress

On the home front, there is nothing spectacular to report on. We're trying to make small progress every day which is getting a bit easier with the kids going back to school.

Some stuff we did:

  • pumped gasoline tanks to a new location
  • turned the gasoline storage room into a chicken coup
  • cleaned up the garden and installed a chicken fence. They still escape though
  • reinstalled most of the electricity
  • cleaned up the basement as a working shed
  • restored an old table to use in the living room
  • bought and installed a washing machine
  • more firewood
  • took out more trash (10+ drives to the waste facility)

The next step is to prepare for winter as our heating system isn't functional yet. We're trying to figure out what the best and most realistic way is to heat the house during the winter. This will the most important project for the weeks to come.