SIXTEEN

Woohoo! AJ is sixteen! A big milestone age for an American teenager, even one in Germany.

New hat from Auntie Meli!

Unlike his American friends, AJ will not be getting a driver's license or a permit at sixteen. The driving age in Germany is eighteen. However, AJ is now legal to drink, as in alcoholic beverages, here in Germany. It's an interesting road to navigate with teenagers...

AJ chose to spend the majority of his birthday with his girlfriend Livia. They went to lunch, watched a movie... Then he met Steve and Dominic at Starbucks in Munich. Steve and Dominic had spent the day at the BMW Museum while the girls and I took Tina, Laura and Adam (cousins visiting from the US) to the fairytale castle Neuschwanstein.

Since it was Good Friday, dinner options were a little limited. We feasted with pizza from our favorite corner pizza shop!

The rest of the evening was spent celebrating with AJ. He had requested Funfetti cake for his
birthday, so Steve brought that cake mix and frosting back from the US. Steve also made AJ's Block O cake. It must have been good luck since the Buckeyes made it into the Sweet Sixteen on AJ's Sweet Sixteen.

SEVENTEEN

Seventeen.

Dominic is now seventeen. This just seems so much older than sixteen. Of course seventeen is older, it is one more year; however, seventeen just seems so big, so close to grown up. In seventeen more months Dominic will go to college.

It was a school day so Dominic spent his day on campus. Luckily it was the last day before spring
break which meant he he had a pretty easy day.

As a special treat, his cousins arrived for a visit today. Exciting to have a birthday and fun visitors. Dominic was excited to have Laura and Adam and their mom Aunt Tina (Steve's sister) here to celebrate his birthday.

For dinner we went to Tutzinger Hof, a traditional Bavarian restaurant here in Starnberg. It was the best way to introduce our visitors to our new culture and celebrate Dominic's birthday. Laura and Adam both tried their first beers too!

The highlight of the dinner had to be the restaurant's birthday celebration. I told our waitress we

weren't going to have dessert because it was Dominic's birthday and we had dessert at home. When I told her, she said, "It's his birthday? You must wait. Do you have ten minutes?". Of course I said yes and I was so glad I did. About 10 minutes later loud music started playing, everyone in the restaurant was looking around and then we realized it was a country-western version of Happy Birthday in English! The waitress came out with a plate of scrumptious treats and a giant sparkler! What a fun surprise! I think we will always go here for birthdays now!

Once we got home we still had to eat our birthday "cake". Dominic chose apple pie. It was delicious if I do say so myself.

All in all, I'd say he had a good day!

Visitors and Herrenchiemsee

Frat Brothers!

Our friends Stan and Chia-Hui visited from Taiwan this week. It was so great to see Stan and to finally meet Chia-Hui. Steve and Stan went to college at Cornell together. Stan later moved to Taiwan, met Chia-Hui and stayed.  We were so excited when they decided to visit.

Stan & Chia-Hui

Munich is a bit cold in March especially for people used to Taiwan weather. But Stan and Chia-Hui were tough! We spent the day in Munich on Sunday. Amazingly we were able to find a table at Hofbräuhaus even though it was St. Patrick's Day! While Steve and I would say this is not the best brewery to eat at in Munich, it is a unique and probably essential experience! We walked through the city exploring churches, the city and of course
looking in the shop windows. Only window shopping on Sunday though, since all stores are closed here in Bavaria.

Monday, Stan and Chia-Hui headed to Neuschwanstein to view the fairytale castles. They had an extra bit of fairytale in their visit, snow. Chia-Hui said it made the castles look dreamy. Monday night we did a couples dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant. Come visit, we'll take you too. Tuesday, they spent the day shopping and touring the Residenz, the palace in Munich.

Every evening Chia-Hui also treated us to amazing piano performances. She is a concert pianist and it was inspiring for our girls to watch and listen to her play. Her students practice for at least three hours a day, I don't think our girls will be complaining about how long they have to practice anymore. (not three hours)

Wednesday, Steve was able to take the day off from work and the four of us ventured to Herrenchiemsee. This is another of the castles built by "Mad King Ludwig". This one is modeled on Versailles, King Louis XIV of France's famous palace. However, only the central portion was completed since the mad king died before it was finished.

This palace is on a small island so there is a short boat ride from the parking area. Beautiful mountains surround the lake, making for a pretty ride. The palace isn't visible form the water, it was built 2km inland. Herrenchiemsee like Versailles has its own Hall of Mirrors. The tour of the castle was excellent and it is quite breath-taking. Hopefully we will be able to compare it to the real Versailles someday.

The grounds are extensive and gorgeous. There are also elaborate fountains and gardens. However, since we were visiting at the end of winter the gardens were just being prepared for spring and the fountains were still empty and the statues were still encased in their wooden huts. Clearly we will need to go back!

We were so glad they were able to make the trip to visit! Now we hope to someday visit them in Taiwan!

Dominic's London Rugby Tournament

Dominic taking the ball down the field.

Dominic's rugby team traveled to London this week for the Rugby ISSTs (International Schools Sports Tournament). They left on Wednesday and returned late Saturday night.

It was more than a little odd to put Dominic on the train to the airport with friends. Once at the airport they met their coach and the rest of the team and they were off to London. Still, not taking him myself was a little disconcerting, even if it is the norm here.

The other thing that was more than a little unsettling? Knowing that I was sending him FAR away to play five rugby games. Rugby is not a gentle sport. I had to work hard to not spend too much time thinking about what might be happening on the field.

Dominic's facebook post on Saturday pretty much sums up why I was worried. Rugby is rough.  For the record, he is fine.

Dom DelRosso

Yesterday via mobile

Can't chew, hands don't work right, and walking is difficult.

A great time!

The weather in London was typical from what we've heard. Rainy. Very, very rainy. This of course led to muddy fields and muddy boys. I'm pretty sure Dominic brought home half of the field with his uniforms. Thankfully the family housing them did wash their uniforms each night so they started clean and dry each day.

While their team didn't do well in the tournament they did still have fun. A big contributing factor to the team not being as competitive as the other teams? They haven't played since November. They have been working out but the other teams in the competition played all winter long. I think kudos go to these boys for getting out there and competing!

AJ's Basketball Team Takes Third

Munich International School JV Basketball - that's AJ with the pink headband

AJ's JV basketball team played in the end of year SCIS (Sports Council of International Schools) this past weekend. It was a great two days of basketball, five games for each team and lots of fun to watch. AJ's team took third place which is of course terrific. They squeaked into third place by scoring the winning basket with five seconds left in their last game. It was very exciting to watch!

Here is a great series of AJ scoring.

If you're wondering about the pink headband AJ is sporting. It was a Valentine's Day present to replace the gray one he had been wearing. He wears it for every game.

The tournament took place here at our school with seven teams visiting. This means that all those visiting kids needed a place to stay. Families at our school "house" them. The kids spend the night and we feed them dinner and breakfast and provide them with lunch. We had two great kids from the American International School in Vienna. Noah is an American who has lived all over the world and Sebastian is from Austria.

Sebastian, Noah & AJ

This was our fourth set of housers. We have really enjoyed housing different students. The kids have all been super and so polite and well mannered. Surprisingly the boys have been more social than the girls. It's fun learning about different places and families. It is also great to see our kids interacting with them and learning to be good hosts. Also? Apparently the movie "Anchorman" is a great connector among teens, they have watched that movie with all but one set of kids. Why didn't they watch it with them? They were too busy playing monopoly!

Friday night after the first day of play, three other families came to our house with their housers for pizza. This meant six adults (Steve was in the US and missed all the fun), nine basketball players and six siblings and friends. I really wish I had remembered to take a picture of all those different kids from different schools and different countries. I did remember to take a picture of the pizza damage. We ordered 19 pizzas and there were only two left over. Luckily our pizza place is a five minute walk from our house and we just sent four of the boys to pick up the pizzas! Such a fun night.

TWELVE

Rachel

Today is Rachel's birthday!!! She is twelve, the age where you earnestly start practicing to be a teenager. And she is especially lucky since she has three examples to watch. So lucky...

Her siblings started her morning with Happy Birthday and a brownie in bed. We firmly believe breakfast in bed is never a bad way to start the day. In fact, Rachel had a pre-birthday breakfast in bed courtesy of Steve. He had to leave for the US two days before her birthday so she got breakfast in bed that day too!

Although she still had to go to school it was not a bad day. First, our school here in Germany has not banned bringing in homemade treats to share for your birthday. We have gone back to our pre-birthday-treat-ban-tradition of cupcakes in ice cream cones. The difference here is I can only find teeny, tiny ice cream cones. Just a little more than a bite, but they look pretty darn cute. Rachel started the day sharing treats with her homeroom and closest friends. Her trio of best friends decorated her locker and she was sung to six different times throughout the school day! Also? Rachel has a friend who would like to be a special friend who gave her a silver chain to go with the silver R charm she received for Valentine's Day. Where does this special friend shop? Why Tiffany & Co., of course. Really. We live in a bit of a different world here.

He who has yet to be named

I met Rachel, AJ and Stefanie after school for a big birthday surprise. As I mentioned Steve is in the US and what I didn't mention is Dominic is in London for a rugby tournament (different world!). Anyway, Rachel's surprise was her very own hamster. Yes, you read that correctly, I have caved in the furry animal pet department and have allowed her to get a hamster. She is beyond excited. We think our new little pet has a name but we will wait and see if it sticks. By the way, this purchase as well as all of the necessary pet items was taken care of in GERMAN. Between me and Stefanie I think we understood most of the information.

Rachel, Aj & Stefanie

In other news this may be a clear sign that I am losing my mind.

Once we got the hamster home, the cage (käfig) assembled and the hamster settled it was time for dinner. Rachel requested an Italian restaurant so we tried a new restaurant (to us) here in Starnberg, Simpatico. The girls both had pizza and decided it was the best they have had in Germany but still not as good as in Italy or America. Interesting.

Then it was home for birthday pie. Our kids are learning to step outside of the box and request something other than cake for their birthdays. Rachel's request was Chocolate Silk Pie. We all approved!

What is this and why are we eating it?

This leaf/plant/flower was in our salad tonight. It's called Lamb's Lettuce and it tastes good. AJ however just saw something that looked WAY different than what he normally finds in his salad so he picked it up and said: "What is this and why are we eating it?".  Always good for comic relief, he totally cracked up his siblings.