The 2017 Sikorski Seasonal Saga
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| These cards are being mailed today 12/8/17 so you can see how long it takes to mail your card. |
The 2017
Sikorski Seasonal Saga
CMR 489, Box
914, APO, AE 09751
Home:
+49 71157098136, Tim: +49 1629543374, Kyla: +49 1629543593
https://sikorskisaga.blogspot.com
Frohliche
Weihnachten! Merry Christmas from Germany! After 16 years in the Army, Uncle
Sam finally decided our family needed an overseas assignment to Stuttgart,
Germany. We moved here the last week of June. The girls attend a DODEA school,
which is a school on the military installation taught mostly by Americans for
Americans in English. We also live on post which means we have a little bit of
America within Germany. We are slowly learning German, with our “restaurant
German” being the best we speak by far. We’ve decided to shake up the Christmas
letter this year and let everyone have a paragraph to themselves instead of a
month by month replay.
KATJA
– is currently 9 years old and in the 4th Grade. She was diagnosed
with dyslexia in February and received extra help while still in Texas. She
went from reading the Bad Kitty series to Harry Potter and now she is a “pot
head” and proud of it! Germany does not have anything for dyslexia, so she is
struggling a bit more here. Katja competed in Texas UIL Listening (University
Interscholastic League – like Speech and Drama) where she had to listen to a
story, take notes, and answer questions. She took home 1st of all 3rd
Graders in Georgetown. Katja also was the top cookie seller for our Girl Scout
Troop (with help from Luella) and she won a cookie lottery for a Build-A-Bear. With
Girl Scouts in Texas Katja enjoyed being in parades, camping, and earning her
Brownie Summit Award before she bridged to Junior. Katja loved showing Grammy
and Granddaddy her singing with the McCoy Music Express at the Austin Spurrs
basketball game. She ended Taekwondo as a Red Belt, which is the last solid
color before Black Belt. In Germany Katja continued with Girl Scouts, earning
most of the local patches and completing one Junior Journey. She tried
cheerleading and had fun, but once she realized she had to stay for an entire
football game she decided it wasn’t for her. She also joined the Drama Club and
was the main character in the school play, What Could Go Wrong the Night
Before Christmas? Katja now wears orthodontic retainers to hopefully
prevent the need for braces and help with her speech therapy. Katja’s favorite
vacation was to Paris, France to celebrate her 9th and our friend
Mackenzie Welsh’s 10th birthdays. Katja enjoyed the Eiffel Tower and
the Mona Lisa best, but the farther we walked into the Louvre without food and
water, the less impressive the Mona Lisa became. Katja also loves FaceTime and YouTube
– especially for keeping in touch with her friends back in Texas.
LUELLA
– is currently 11 years old and in the 5th Grade. She is
overinvolved in everything and loves it! A huge accomplishment in February was
when she competed against her fellow 4th graders in Block Kids,
making something with Legos and three other items, including a presentation to
a panel of judges. She made our house in Monterey and took 2nd place
earning a Kindle Fire. Even more impressive, we forgot she was going to do this
as it was during school hours, so this was all Luella’s work and imagination! Speaking
of imagination, as part of Luella’s Gifted and Talented class, she designed a “Wildlife
Warden” to help combat poachers. She presented her idea in a Shark Tank format
and her teachers thought it should go into production. Luella also competed in
UIL Oral Reading. She came in 7th of all the 4th Graders
in Georgetown. Luella excelled in science and loved being part of Girl Start –
a program designed to inspire girls to love science and earn science degrees in
college. She was on a three person SeaPerch team that built an underwater robot
designed to do obstacle courses. Her team did not advance, but they learned a
lot and gave Luella a love of soldering metal, leaving her with a cool burn
scar in the shape of an arrow. Her 4th Grade class studied famous
Texans and Luella was Ovetta Culp Hobby in a Wax Museum presentation. Luella
became a true Texan in her speech and mannerisms. We’ll never forget the night
we went out for tacos and Luella (dressed in jeans, camouflage t-shirt and
blaze orange hunting hat) asked, “Y’all gonna finish your fixins?” Luella loved
performing with the McCoy Music Express, especially performing with Broadway singers
for a weekend of concerts. Luella also enjoyed Girl Scouts as a Junior and the
service projects they did. Luella really shined in Taekwondo! She competed in a
tournament in Houston, earning a Gold medal for Forms, a Bronze for Kicking,
and a Bronze for Group Forms. She also did a TKD routine for the school talent
show and took 3rd place. She ended in Texas as a Red Belt and can’t
wait to find a dojo in Germany to continue in 2018. While in Germany Luella
joined Girl Scouts, Gifted & Talented, and Drama Club. Luella was cast as Owen
the Mouse, who is a surfer bum that waxes poetic in the same play as Katja.
Luella was also cast as a Who in the Stuttgart Community Theater production of Seussical
the Musical. Working with all ages and nationalities to put on 10
performances over 3 weekends after 2 months of rehearsals really helped Luella
become a much better actress. Luella’s favorite trip was to Florence, Italy to
jointly celebrate her 11th birthday and our 12th wedding
anniversary. Her favorite part was not seeing the David, Uffizi Gallery, the
Duomo, nor even eating the best gelato; it was playing with our AirBnB host’s
cats!
KYLA
– started the year in excruciating pain. Her L5/S1 (lower spine) was herniated
in and to the left, so the pain radiated from her back down to the toes in her
left foot. After trying physical therapy and cortisone injections, she
eventually had a discectomy in February to fix the herniation, give her nerves
more room, and remove all the excess fluid. Kyla’s parents Dan and Karen came
down from Minnesota to help get the girls to and from school, worked many cookie
booths, and even took over Kyla’s position as Room Mom for the girls’ Valentine’s
Day parties. They were invaluable with all their help! As a thank you, when
Kyla could move again, we went out for BBQ, toured the Texas State History
Museum, and the ladies went to Waco to the Dr. Pepper Museum and Magnolia
Market and Bakery. Spring Break was one of Kyla’s dream road trips to Nashville,
TN where she got to see her college friends, the Grand Ole Opry, Graceland, and
a date to the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg. We also took a side trip to
Kentucky to see Mammoth Caves and Tim’s former First Sergeant. That means Kyla
only has 4 more states to visit before she hits all 50.That was a great week
with the RasGruSki clan, and we got the chance to say earthly good-byes to our out-law
Gail Grunnet (Kyla’s brother-in-law’s mother). We had spent many holidays and
vacations together with her in the last 19 years. Kyla spent her remaining time
in Texas volunteering with the school, chaperoning field trips, chauffeuring
the girls to taekwondo and many play dates and sleepovers, leading Girl Scouts,
and handing off Troop 179 to her co-leader. We even had last minute visitors
Uncle Phil, Aunt Becky Rasmussen, and Michelle Rindal from Virginia come stay
for a week. Most of June we spent in Minnesota for Kyla’s niece Maren Grunnet’s
high school graduation and spending time together. Since arriving in Germany,
Kyla applied for and accepted a part time job working at the girls’ school as
the IEP Coordinator. It is a GS position which means it is a government job
with all the bureaucracy that goes with the hiring process. It took nearly 3
months to the day from offer and acceptance to getting the email to start the
background check. With the background check it will take another 6 weeks to 6
months to process before Kyla can start working. Consequently, she hasn’t
volunteered at school as much as she’d like because she didn’t want people at
the school to get used to having her there “for free” all the time. Kyla did
fill her days and nights volunteering as the Assistant Costume Designer for Seussical
the Musical, helping to make 85 costumes for a cast of 40 people, 3 of
those costumes she made from scratch. She also started yet another Girl Scout
troop in Germany. This time it is only a troop of Juniors with 6 other girls
besides Luella and Katja. She led this troop to finish a Journey so they can
work on earning their Bronze Award in the spring. She has also been pushing the
girls to earn the local patches and learn German customs and culture with Sankt
Martinstag (Saint Martin’s Day, the Roman soldier not the Reformist) lantern
walks, Weihnachtsmarkts (Christmas markets), assisting the USO collect food for
their Thanks for Giving baskets and dinner, and singing at the post tree
lighting ceremony. Another favorite once-in-a-lifetime trip was with our church
group going to see Martin Luther sites during the 500th Anniversary
of the Reformation. We saw Wittenberg where Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses
on the Schloss Kirche door, and the Stadt Kirche where he preached and was married.
We went to Erfurt where he entered seminary and was ordained as a Catholic
priest, even staying at the abbey where he lived. We ended the trip at the
Wartburg Castle where he was hidden after the Diet of Worms and spent his
seclusion translating the New Testament of the Bible into German.
TIM
– started the year still working at III Corps in Fort Hood for the G35 Future
Operations shop. His big project was redesigning parts of the Corps HQ to be
more mobile, which meant a lot of time away at Fort Bliss and on Fort Hood for
exercises and training. The highlight of that project was having a helicopter
pick up his “Field Office” and move it to the other end of Fort Hood. While we
were still in Texas, Tim kept busy with fishing, hunting, and getting involved
in the girls’ Girl Scout activities. He stood at multiple cookie booths and even
took first place in the No Rules division of the Powder Puff Derby,
obliterating track records in the process. Since our arrival in Germany, Tim
has been absorbed in work, learning his new job at the U.S. Africa Command J39
(Information Operations) directorate. This is his first time working at this
level and assigned to a joint command, so the learning curve is steep. Tim does
work with a great team, so even on long days, he comes home happy. While not at
work, Tim is often the one pushing us to get out and explore, or he’ll help
volunteer (when he can) with the Girl Scouts or at the theater as a bartender
or usher during shows, and playing with his new smoker/grill.
Other
notable highlights – Tim’s dad Mike is retired and spent the summer going to
baseball games in every MLB stadium. We were lucky enough to attend two games
with him. We saw the Astros play in Houston, along with a day trip to NASA and
Galveston beach. We also saw the Twins play in Minnesota. Mike came up for
Father’s Day and for the first time ever the girls had all of their
grandparents together at the same time and place. No one even had to die or get
married for this special weekend! For Thanksgiving we went to England to stay
with Kirstie Phipps, Kyla’s co-worker from their Broadmoor, Colorado days, and
her roommate Simon Talbot. We had a great time meeting a Girl Guide Brownie
troop, seeing Harry Potter sites at Oxford University, touring Stonehenge and
London, having tea, taking in a traditional pantomime to start the Christmas
season, and watching Phantom of the Opera in the West End. We’ve decided
we need at least another month of visiting to see all the highlights England
has to offer. We are enjoying exploring all Germany has to offer as well. We
have been blessed having Dan, Lisa, Mackenzie, Dominic, Madison, and Patrick
Welsh (friends from NPS, California) also stationed in Stuttgart. Our two
families love going places together! So far our favorite places and activities
include dinner at biergartens where the kids have the most phenomenal
playgrounds and spaces to roam after dinner while the parents sit back, relax,
and drink beer. The Wilhelma Zoo in downtown Stuttgart is the most amazing zoo
where the animals are awake and interact with the people, and there are
playgrounds every so often meaning we didn’t really hear the “I’m tired” whines
all day. Stuttgart also hosts the second largest Oktoberfest in Germany (behind
Munich). We went once with the kids who enjoyed riding all the rides and eating
schnitzel. We went a second time with the adults during school and enjoyed lunch
and bier in the fest tents. We are looking forward to a second big fest like
Oktoberfest in the spring! We love exploring the castles especially during
Christmas when they host Weihnachtsmarkts for shopping, drinking gluhwein and
kinderpunch, and sometimes even ice skating! We love seeing historical places
we’ve only read about or seen in movies. We are amazed that we can see so much
in a short drive, train, or plane ride. We plan to see as much of Europe as we
can in the time we have at this duty station.
If
you make it to Germany before June of 2020, we’d love to host you, please keep
in touch! We would love to hear what is happening with you and in the USA. Email,
FaceTime, Skype, and Facebook work the same. Mailing letters and packages are
the same as mailing to New York. We will also be updating our blog with this
letter and activities starting in 2018 to give you an incentive to login and see
what’s new with us and where we travel to next. The Vatican for Easter Sunday,
Rome, and Pompeii/Mt. Vesuvius are officially up next!
We hope you all
have a wonderful Christmas and Blessed New Year in 2018!
Love: Tim, Kyla,
Luella, and Katja
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