Happy 19th Birthday AJ!

Today AJ turned 19! When I asked him to send me a photo from his birthday the picture above is what I got. Apparently for his birthday celebration the "neighbors" all wore one of his jerseys. Looks like it was probably a fun night... 

We also sent him a cake and balloons but I only got a picture of a partially eaten cake! We missed celebrating birthdays with our boys!

My facebook/instagram birthday post for AJ's birthday

Happy 20th Birthday Dominic!

Today Dominic turns 20! Once again we didn't get to celebrate with him, but we did send him cupcakes and they were kind enough to send a photo of him when they delivered! He did a pizza dinner with some company friends - two other cadets in his company share the same birthday!

My facebook/instagram collage for his birthday

We also celebrated when he was home with us two weeks ago - so we are glad we at least got to do that!

Rachel - JV Basketball MVP

Rachel had a great season this year on JV basketball. She is the starting point guard on her team and is really fun to watch.

The end of the season was exciting for her too since she was picked as her team's MVP! This was a team voted award, so to her that was even a bigger honor.

Cadets in the House!

We were lucky and Dominic got to come home for Spring Break this year and he brought three great friends with him. We were so excited to have them here.

They had a super busy week, but I think they had a lot of fun too.  We of course started their visit with a trip to Andechs.

They of course spent a few days in Munich seeing the city and sampling the local specialties.

Then they branched out and one day they took the train to Salzburg and another they took the train to the famous castles - Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. These were two long days but they certainly enjoyed what they saw and really made the most of the trip.

While they were here it was Starkbierfest. Stef and I were able to borrow enough lederhosen from her friends so that each boy was outfitted in proper trachten.  We had such a fun night with them at Lowenbrau.

Meeting some of the performers

Traditionally each night at Starkbierfest a "Miss Starkbier" is chosen by the crowd and there is a strong man contest.  When the girls were on stage the boys were picking favorites, although only Alex (the one without a girlfriend) was really paying attention. He chose lovely #5, well it turned out she was sitting at the table next to us. Her friend came over asking our table to vote for her and one thing led to another and later Alex was dancing with Anita!

Dominic tried for the strong man contest but you had to qualify by lifting 250kg (a little over 500 lbs) As you can see from the pictures, he did a little over 200kg but just couldn't get there.  You can also see from the size of the guy running the contest that it would have been great if Dominic had been up on the stage competing, the three finalists were BIG guys.

We also took them to Herzogstand. After a fun night at Starkbierfest the boys preferred riding the bahn up the mountain but then they did climb to the peak. Steve and I didn't join them - too much snow - but they were happy to climb their way through it. I was glad we didn't go when they showed me the videos of them jumping and sliding through the snow to get back down! Afterwards we had a great lunch in the hutte enjoying the view!

They spent their last day in Germany in Munich and then we had a great dinner and celebrated Dominic's birthday a little early. We're so glad they could all join us for the week.

Happy 15th Birthday Rachel!!!

Happy Birthday to our fabulous Rachel! It's really not fair to call her the baby anymore - at FIFTEEN she is a beautiful, talented, young woman and we are so glad she is part of our family!!

Rachel had fun celebrating with friends with bowling, basketball game - they are all on the team together - and then another classmate's birthday party. She even managed to get two cakes out of the deal!  A chocolate chip cookie cake with her friends and chocolate silk pie with us!

The Gutenberg Press - Mainz

Mel's first view of the museum

For Melanie's last days two days in Germany we squeezed in a super quick trip to Mainz. There was a very specific reason we chose this town. For those of you who know Mel you know that much of her art is based around a printing press. Well Mainz is the home of the Gutenberg Museum and the first printing press.

Mel & Gutenberg

We headed out on an early train and while we had a close connection in Augsburg we made it easily to Mainz, found our hotel, dropped our bags, and headed to the museum. Mel was psyched. She was so happy to be there. We did the full audio tour, watched a press demonstration and watched the movie. The full experience. Afterwards we walked around the little town of Mainz appreciating the architecture.

Mainz Cathedral

The next day we just had a little time so we visited St Stephen's Church. The stained glass windows here were done by Marc Chagall who is one of Mel's favorite artists.

We had a great train ride home and a nice last evening with Mel and then she was on her way back to the US after nearly two months in Europe.

Auntie Meli - Part II - Big (HUGE) news!

Sisters

So I guess I can't title a post with BIG news without saying what it is right away.

My sister and her boyfriend got engaged when he came to visit during her last week in Venice. She is so psyched and of course we are too! When she arrived back in Germany she hoped we would just notice the big ring on her finger but I am ashamed to admit we needed a hint, but not a big one. Once we knew we were in full on be excited for a wedding mode. We went and bought wedding magazines and found a bridal fair in Munich (how lucky was that?).

Watching the Bridal Show

While we had planned on doing a few more touristy things in Munich while she was here; instead we just squeezed in a quick walk by the lake and dinner at a favorite Bavarian restaurant. That left us time to attend a bridal show and visit bridal boutiques and try on wedding dresses. So fun!!!