Springtime in Germany

We got all of our bags...no small feat loaded and arrived early in the morning in Frankfurt.

We loaded up our rental car and headed for our friends house.  Everyone was on the countdown to seeing our buddies...all happy to pull up in front of their house!  They cooked us a great lunch and we all sat outside on their deck to enjoy the nice day.

 They were wonderful hosts and kept all 11 of us well fed for our entire visit! No small feat!

 The bigger town next to them has a claim to fame of the narrowest street in the world...here Katie is right in the middle of it!

 We try real German food, pretzels everywhere, great beer and sausages!  

Charlie is in love with the YouTube videos of this crazy Scottish bike rider named Danny Macaskill.  When I looked at Danny's website I saw that he was in Zurich for the Urban Bike Festival the same weekend we were only 2 hours away in Germany, so we loaded up our rental car and headed for Zurich.

 Charlie's hero Danny is the middle guy, he signed his toy bike ramp and his hat...Charlie also says he touched his left shoulder!

 We learned that food was SUPER expensive in Zurich, luckily the festival was free, our burger lunch was more than a nice dinner out in South Africa!

 Danny getting ready for the show, setting up a jump ramp for the end.

 They did a bike high jump contest among the three riders...here is Danny going over.

Charlie checks out the pump track...

Our friends knew all of the great places to take us, here we visited the city of Tubingen where they had gone to college, it has a beautiful river and we rented paddle boats, look at the view!

Katrin and I had the little paddlers, the big kids all got a different boat and the Dads stayed at the local beer garden to sample all the brews.

Our friends also took us to a very cool old castle, what made it even cooler was that there were beer gardens at the top of the castle hike and at the bottom, tough to go wrong in Germany.  I did take some photos but can't find them yet...will try to add later!

Here is a final photo that Greg snapped, called Couch Meeting...the kids really had a ball and enjoyed each others company, so fun for everyone! We were sad to say goodbye, but happy that in a few months we can all visit again somewhere in Europe!

I am happy to report that I'm writing this post from the good old USA...we landed last night and we are all super excited to be home!  We can't wait to see all of our family and friends!  Next stop our NH place!

A Flurry of Farewells to Finish a Wonderful Three Years

The last few weeks have been crazy busy from a logistics side, and hard emotionally, as we say farewell to so many wonderful friends we have met.  We hope to see many of them again in the US one day or in Europe.

Here are some highlights of the fun stuff...we will leave out all the tears!

Kelly's Friends that attended her Sweet 16 Birthday party.

I always wanted to do a movie night for the kids at the orphanage and my amazing neighbor Grace said she would cook for the kids.

 Her daughter Naledi helped all day and they made a traditional meal for over 100 kids.  We helped where we could and taught them some American shortcuts.  These ladies work WAY too hard, for instance to make gravy the shred the tomatoes.  Katie and I shredded a few then we busted out the blender and pureed the rest!

The kids LOVED the movie and the slideshow Kelly made, the slideshow had all pictures of them from previous visits, very sweet!  One boy said, "It was more than just a movie"...all because we brought popcorn and candy!

Athletics day at Charlie's school, or Chariots of Fire day, as Greg refers to their outfits!

 Last rugby game at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg where the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup in 1995.  We saw the Johannesburg Lions play the Durban Sharks in a close match.

Charlie wouldn't be in the picture because he was sad his Sharks lost in the final minutes!

We did a final egg hunt for the orphanage and had our best turnout of volunteers yet. The morning before we stuffed almost 1000 eggs in our empty house.

They had a master plan to hide eggs in various places and sent the kids to different areas based on age.  Guess how that plan worked?  CHAOS!

However the kids LOVED it and we loved seeing them enjoy all their treats.  We left happy to know that a wonderful group of Americans will continue to stay involved and assisting them with fun activities for the kids.

 Charlie got to perform in his Grade 2 Play, Kung Fu Panda, and he was Crane.  The boys are so sweet and do such an amazing job with all of their lines, I am still in awe of what the teachers can get them to do!

We have had many wonderful dinners with friends these last few nights and we are sad to go but thankful for all the great people that we have gotten to know these last three years and for all the amazing adventures we have been on as a family.

There is a rugby song that goes "South Africa we stand as one, we stand together with the green and gold."  I know that our family will always stand with South Africa and think fondly of our friends here and we sincerely hope that wherever we are in the world we will get to see many of them again!

We will board the plane in a few hours with fond memories!