Posted by: livelovethinkexist | May 11, 2010
Photos – Hahn AB, Germany – 1989-1991 (Set Thirty Nine – Moving to England from Monzelfeld, Germany – May 1991)
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This was David’s Kindergarten photo in Monzelfeld when he was three years old, and now it was over a year later – and we were moving to Oxfordshire, England.
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David (middle) plays with his two young friends in front of our house, as my wife and I start to organize the house in order to get ready for the movers.
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David (right) with his two friends in our driveway with their tractors prior to our moving; and even though David was brought up bilingual in both English and German – being with my wife’s family, going to the German Kindergarten and playing with his German friends provided a total immersion in the German language for him.
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Although we were able to adapt as a family wherever we lived – it wasn’t always easy; and David (here left) at times struggled to fit in and adapt to new towns, languages, accents, spellings and grammar – and to new kids…which was probably the hardest task of all for him.
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As David (left) grew up we figured that a child really didn’t know that he was doing more than twice the work while learning two languages and living in different countries, and we thought it was a wonderful opportunity for him to experience – which it really was.
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David (left) and his friends pose together in our yard in Monzelfeld; and this move to England uprooted David for the first time in a way that it would really matter to him – and would be the first of many moves ahead alternating between going to school in Germany and England…each with a different language, spelling, sentence structure and grammar.
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In the end, David (here left) would do well in the different schools and languages – even switching languages at the half-way point while crossing either over or under the English Channel for the country we were traveling to – but there were a lot of difficulties as well along the way adapting and fitting in.
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Here David sits on one of our chairs as the furniture is staged for the movers; we used to do as much prior to the movers showing up as we possibly could – to help ensure a good move – and it always worked out well for us and for our furniture.
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David’s friend surveys the pre-moving logistics – that we were very used to by now – and would get even better at with future moves to Ramstein AB, Germany; Spangdahlem AB, Germany and RAF Mildenhall, UK – all still yet to come.
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The stress of all of these moves would impose a lot of pressure on David (right), that was very difficult for such a young man to have to deal with – but we always worked very hard to provide the very best possible environment for him wherever we lived.
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David (right) and his mom were planning on spending the next 3 or 4 months at her parent’s house in Bruch while I was away for F-111G upgrade training (RTU) at Cannon AFB, NM – before returning to fly the F-111E at RAF Upper Heyford, England, north of Oxford.
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Here David says goodbye to his aunt and uncle before our moving day; and just as my wife didn’t understand why we had to move again so soon…she wouldn’t understand the next bit of news that would turn her and David’s world upside down.
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