What a week!

I was remiss to not share about our school's Invention Convention we held a little over a week ago. The students were invited to come up with inventions or new games to share with each other. We were quite surprised by the really clever thinking of some kids. One 4th grade student (pictured below) was so excited about his invention that he brought it two days early - it is a shoulder mounted book holder. You can't quite see it, but the book rest back folds down flat AND it has a small metal bar that comes up to hold the pages open. If you knew this young man, you would understand why he would want a book holder that fits him standing up - he is a whirlwind of energy and activity, as well as a blessing to have at Rhein International Academy.


The students at RIA also hit another significant goal this last week, but more about that later... (OOOOOh! building anticipation)

One of our joys in living here is the ability to take short day trips to sweet little towns like Laufenburg, Switzerland/Germany. You see, there is this quaint town of Laufenburg that lies on both banks of the Rhein river about 30 minutes east of Basel. We had been promising to go explore it someday, so when we woke up Saturday morning to the promise of a nice day (according to the weather forecast) and no major chores to accomplish, we determined to take the train to Laufenburg to see what we could see. We rang up our friends, the Barbours, saddled up our backpacks and set our eyes for adventure.

Our first adventure was when we arrived in Laufenburg, we got off the train and strolled around the Bahnhofplatz looking for the train schedule so we would get a feel for the departure times. When travelling by public transport, it is always prudent to know when and how late trains will be running to get one home. The ticket office was closed, but they had a schedule posted outside. After about three or four minutes of just wandering around the station, my friend Cam realized that we did not have our rucksacks - THEY WERE STILL ON THE TRAIN! Well, we scurried back to the track and jumped on the train. Cam went right and I went left, running through the cars to find our packs. The train could have started back toward Basel at any second. Cam found the packs and jumped off, I looked back and saw him, so I scooted to the nearest door and departed. The train left the station for Basel 3 minutes later (we had plenty of time...)

As I said, Laufenburg sits on both banks of the Rhein river, however in about 1800, Nepoleon ruled that the Rhein river would be the border between Switzerland and Germany (Not quite sure how the French got involved...) thus the town has been separated by nationality. A solid stone bridge connects the two sides making the passage pain-free (the border/customs houses are generally unstaffed with the border gate barriers raised.) The German side boasts the very nice Heilig-Geist Kirche (Holy Ghost Church) - a red stone building that dominates the hill. The Swiss side has more of the original wall along with the tower ruins shown below.


As you can see, the day turned out perfectly. Blue skies, temperatures in the mid-teens and lots of winding streets to explore. The only odd thing we noted is that just about all commerce concluded at noon. In Weil and Basel, most shops stay open until at least 1600 (4 pm) but in Laufenburg, we found only a couple of places still doing business in the afternoon.


Here are Delynn and Michael standing in two different countries (Delynn was in Germany at the time) with a little "hands across the border" thing going on. You might notice that Michael's hat is fitting a little looser than normal. Has his head shrunk?

Uh, no. Michael got an Extreme Hair Makeover when the RIA students made their Reading Challenge goal of reading 50,000 pages. By the way, that is us at the top of the tower in Laufenburg (CH)

"I regret that I have but one head of hair to give for my school"

This is the winning team of students at RIA, along with their very short-haired librarian. We decided to leave a little bit of hair (couple of millimeters), for which I am grateful as it is still a bit cool at times. I had to wear my wool cap (which Delynn knit for me) Friday morning at work while waiting for the heat to come up. But it is all worth it! The students really outdid themselves. One 5th grader read over 9,000 pages alone!

Whew! What a week. Love to all.