1. I got the job! Most of my friends and family already know, but I accepted a teaching position at an American high school here in Germany. I will be a part-time teacher of drawing and humanities. And I'm more than a little bit terrified. Teaching high school is going to be a completely new experience for me, and I'm not at all sure what to expect. Thankfully, I have a bit of a grace period when I'll be shadowing the current drawing and humanities teachers until the new semester begins. Until that happens, I'm just going to do my best to take things slow and easy. I suppose that's all I can do.
2. Matt and I got to spend some much needed time with our families. This very unexpected, but very welcome two-week trip to Texas gave us both the chance to be with our loved ones at a great time of the year. I stayed with my parents and, although he had to work for most of the time, Matt was able to spend a few days at the back end of the trip with his family as well.
One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to see my grandmother, nephew, and brother and sister-in-law for a few days. It's amazing how fast my little nephew is growing!
He's already over a year old now, but it seems like he was just born! Now he's running around stealing things out of kitchen cabinets. And he loves to knock down block towers. He's ridiculously adorable. One day with him just wasn't enough, but I'm so glad that I got to see him at all. I was worried that I wouldn't see him again until he was at least another year older. We spent the day building block towers, watching Rocco knock them down, and playing with his peek-a-boo bear toy. Too much cute to handle :)
At the end of our trip, my parents and I drove up to spend time with Matt and his parents all together. What a blessing it is that we both have families that are so completely wonderful in their own ways, but also get along so well with each other. And being with them all at once at this time of year was an incredible gift that I wouldn't trade for anything. It's funny, but returning to Germany was much harder this time than it was when we first traveled out here in July. Back then the whole thing seemed more like an exotic vacation. It seemed temporary somehow. I was still running on adrenaline from the wedding. We had three days after returning from our honeymoon before we left for Germany and we never had time to stop and think about what was happening or how we were leaving our families for such a long time. There was too much to do, too many other things that we had to focus on. But we didn't have any of that this time, and it made getting on the plane much more difficult.
However, Matt always knows the right thing to say to cheer me up. He said that although it's hard to leave them, we're very blessed that we have such loving families that we can always come home to and miss during the in-between times. So true.
Merry Christmas
Rachel
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