Every first Wednesday of October the entire French school gets together for a run called L'Enduro. It is not a French thing but something created by the French school of Budapest. I don't completely understand the entire thing but I do know that it is organized by the graduating 12th grade class. It's their way of inviting all the classes below them (all the way down to the 3 year olds in the Petite Section - aka Pre-pre K) out for a morning run. They set up a track in the open field across from the school, blare on music, provide snacks and refreshments and run in groups based on grade. They divide the 12 grades plus 3 Kindergarten grades into 4 running groups. The 2 oldest groups run for 20 minutes; the third group which Terence now belongs to runs for 10 minutes and Mia's Kindergarten group (5 classes of about 24 students in each) run for only 5 minutes. Parents and teachers are encouraged to run alongside their children but it is not mandatory. Unlike past years when each class was a color, this year they changed it and represented different countries. Probably a great idea as the colors ended up repeated many times. Now that Terence is older (in 2nd grade) he has to be reliable for communicating these messages back home. Responsibly he came home and announced that he had to dress in blue and white. Curt and I made guesses 'Egypt?' or 'Scotland?' or? He kept replying, 'I'm not sure. I don't think so.' Not until I was at the event this morning did I figure out that it was Finland. I'm sure if we had guessed Finland, he would have said yes as it is 'la Finlande' in French.
Finnish Flag
Mia's colors were not so simple. Her class was India and the colors were green, orange and white. I must say, these are not popular colors in our girls' wardrobes. White is in the summer but I couldn't really send Mia to a race in October weather in a white summer dress. Anyhow, I found a green top at a store near my office, matched it with a pair of white warm up pants and Terence's Texas Longhorns baseball hat and called it a day!
Indian Flag
One of the newest rules (as of spring 2008) is that parents are not allowed to photograph at any of the school events. Apparently, some older boys filmed a boy getting beaten up on school property, posted it on YouTube, it got around and sent the parents of the students into an uproar. I totally understand the director's situation and glad it's him and not me having to deal with all these upset parents. So, at every school function they elect a certain number of parents (with big fancy lenses) to do all the photographing. The photos are then approved by the faculty and the disks are then passed around school for the parents to copy. Fortunately one of my good friends was one of the three parents who were today's official photographers so I'm hoping to get a few good shots of T and Mia in action. However, it may take a month before the disk(s) ever gets around.Here are the shots I do have from the day.These first 2 are at the house before leaving. They both got their favorite breakfasts. For Terence it was a big pancake souffle and for Mia it was cream of wheat. They both ended up having some of both (as did Ali) so they went with plenty of energy!
Snuck a few shots at the end of the event. I did end up running with Mia's group for the last run of the day. It was only a 5 minute run around a smaller track so not too challenging. I carried Ali the whole time so it was a good work out...
All of the kids in Mia's class got to make their own Indian flag in the morning before heading over to L'Enduro. The gym teacher was clever enough to hold them all during the run so no one got jabbed in the eye! The photo on the bottom right is Mia holding hands with one of her best friends, Emma. Emma is a sweet little Belgian girl with a big sister who is Terence's age and a big brother who is 9 years old. So, the family dynamics are quite similar.
And, doesn't she look like she is feeling better. Yeah!
Below photo of Terence after school. Who doesn't love a half day of school? Especially when the half of the day they were there was a fun day like today.
By the way, he did so well running today and ran very fast, didn't seem to be effected (there were a lot of kids wheezing and having difficulty running the distance) and was quite competitive. He told me that for every student of every class that crossed the start / finish line their class got 1 point. He heard that his class got way over 100 points and they'll announce the winners either tomorrow or on Friday. Sounds like a great idea to do group teams / points but I'm also skeptical about how they accurately calculate the points. I guess the 12th graders try and count each one that crosses by color.
Must also point out that straight from school I took T to his 1 hour group tennis lesson from noon - 1pm. Then, today he started his private lesson (unfortunately at another venue) from 2 - 3pm. From Nov he won't have any school on Wednesdays so it won't be so hectic.
For those of you who have (and want to again) or haven't seen the photos from last year's l'enduro then you can check out my post from last year. Cannot believe I've been blogging for over a year now...
