Happy Father's Day and Christi Himmelfahrt!

Once again, the German's have off today and everything is closed. The official holiday is call "Christi Himmelfahrt" (the day Jesus ascended into heaven). It is also Father's Day here (rightfully so, based on the religious holiday). It is so funny though, what Father's Day entails.... it is the day the Men go out with their friends to drink beer. No families, just friends and wagons of beer being pulled around to various breweries. Mother's Day is on Sunday, and that is more of a family day. Poor Bryan doesn't get to take part in the celebrations, but lucky him - he will get LOTS of family time on our Father's Day in June - so funny!!!!

Half Marathon

Yesterday, Bryan ran the "Weltkulturelauf" half marathon here in Bamberg. He did great, even though the race started late in the afternoon and it was in the 70's and sunny (ugh - not ideal for such a long run!). We had fun riding our bikes and meeting him along various points throughout the race. It is a very hard run - running first, to the top of a huge hill up to the castle, and then perfectly flat for 5 or 6 miles, and then a sharp, steep climb at the end. It was a great day though, with lots of energy and inspiration :-). It was super cute too, because as we were wishing Bryan good

Bryan - around mile 8 (Bailey ran with him for a few minutes and provided a gatorade refresher :-))

Last turn before the finish line!!!!

At the end with his biggest fans :-)

This was taken from our bikes on a bridge - I thought it was such a pretty picture

luck before the race, Mia says, "Daddy - I hope you win"   - Not quite a win yesterday, but just proud to have finished and beat the last time by about 10 minutes :-). We are super proud of you Bryan!!!!

*Bryan's friend helped him sign up to be sponsored for the race (it was the first time he had ever worn a tank top :-)). The company that sponsored him is called Neprosport. They didn't care about race times, just wanted to support some runners - it was a very nice treat for Bryan to have his race entry paid for - kind of neat! 

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag Mia!!!!!!

Mia is officially 8 years old! It is crazy to think how fast she has grown. I absolutely adore this little girl - she truly brings so much happiness to our lives. She is also a very unique little thing - she is Chinese, growing up in an American home, yet living her entire life as a German - kind of crazy! She is smart, thoughtful, caring, precise, funny, adorable, and most of all just a really nice kid. She is type - A, (just like her Mommy) and the German in her makes her all about the rules. She is hilarious (just like her Daddy), pretty (like her sister) and playful (like her brother). She celebrated her birthday with 13 of her closest friends - yikes! (O.K. it was all of the girls in her class - and I had promised her this when we weren't sure if this might be her last year here). They were great girls though, and for 3 hours we played old fashioned games at our house - a little chaotic, but really a fun time !

Mia - my birthday wish for you is a lifetime of happiness and fun, and for you to always know how much you are loved! Alles Gute Zum Geburtstag!!

*as a funny side note of differences in culture... of the 13 girls who came to Mia's party, only 3 RSVP's came to me. The rest of the kids just told Mia that they were coming. Luckily, we know that the German's would trust their kids to relay this message - so I knew to expect all 13 - such a funny difference though!

**another cultural thing...on birthdays, for both young and old, the tradition here is to go up to the birthday person, shake their hand, look them in the eye, and say "Alles gute zum Geburtstag". It is always so cute to see the little kids doing this :-)

Kein Pub jetzt!

Not a Pub anymore...

I have been horrible about blog writing these last few weeks. It seems like life has taken over and there is not quite as much time to write! We have been busy trying to get our apartment ready to rent. We decided to go ahead and furnish it and try to rent to international students or guest professors that need a furnished apartment for a few months at a time. We thought that way, we can make a little money, but also be able to use it when we want to. I feel a bit like a college student/hotel worker/time share manager.

 It was kind of interesting... I recently found out that the bottom of our building used to be a pub back in the 50's  and 60's.  It is one of the funny things around here - when buildings are so old, they often have served many, many purposes over the years.

It is quite time consuming, trying to think of all of the details that one would need if they were coming to stay for any length of time in the apartment - almost like starting from scratch (dishes, silverware, coffee maker, sofa, rugs, bed linens, and the list goes on etc.). Luckily, we do have many "extras" in our own house, so we don't have to start totally from scratch. Trying to furnish it economically, yet somewhat cute, adds to the time for sure.  It is fun though, and hopefully it will be fished soon! 

Imagination Movers

A Disney group called the Imagination Movers came to the base in Bamberg to put on a show for the kids. Apparently they have a TV show on the Disney channel. I had never heard of the group, but not wanting to miss an opportunity (especially for free) I thought it would fun to bring Mia. They put on a great show, and I'm sure if we had known this TV show, it would have been especially fun. Mia was tired from the night before, and wasn't in to it very much. I think I was more excited than she was (It may have been a little over stimulating for her, compared to her calm "German World" that she lives in). It was a small little atmosphere, where you could wait in a very short line after the show and meet the "imagination movers", get their autographs, and have a photo taken with them (Mia didn't really have any interest though :(). They even came up to us during the concert, but again, not too much interest on Mia's part. It is so funny, how things change as your kids grow older. I remember when Bailey was small - she LOVED Barney! We went to Universal Studios, and must have seen the Barney show 5 times because she loved it so much. Mia may be a little too old for that now, and there are certainly many things that she does enjoy, but it is really funny to me how life changes - I guess we are getting old :-)

. It was a nice treat though on a Saturday afternoon :-). They seemed like really nice guys, and had lots of energy and enthusiasm!

Keeping busy...

Our family, after Bailey's National Junior Honor Society Induction

Camden reading his poem at the luncheon (it was funny, because my little comedian even managed to crack a joke to loosen up the crowd :-)

Bailey lighting the candle as part of the induction

The inductees....

Silly Mia - just happy to be staying here for 1 more year:-)

We have been fairly busy these last few weeks with lots of different "stuff".  We were super excited to find out that Bryan got an extension to stay here for a little bit longer. Next year will truly be the end of  our time in Bamberg though, as the base that Bryan works on is actually closing down for ever :-(. Not sure what the future holds for us after that, but as long as Bryan has a job and we are together, that is all that really matters. It is refreshing knowing that we have one last year to really cherish all of our favorite things here though. The Spring has just "Sprung" and the; bike rides, hikes, bier gardens etc. eagerly await!

Changing subjects a bit, I had a few "proud mom" things to share... Camden entered a poetry contest, last month  through the Spouses Club, and won 3rd place. He was invited to read his poem at a special luncheon, and won $25 to boot - his poem was about Bamberg :-). Very proud of you Cam! Bailey was inducted last night into the National Junior Honor Society. She has had straight A's all year, and I was so happy that she was recognized for her hard work. She also received 3rd place in the Middle School Science Fair last month. We are extremely proud  - B! Mia is doing great too - no big honors, but doing well and having fun. It is about the cutest thing you have ever seen, to see her and her friends walking to school. They travel in a pack; gossiping, giggling, and being just so darn cute. She was beyond excited when we told her that she could stay in her school for 3rd grade!

Lots of things considered....

Our family in Florence

The other day, I read the blog of another family that is living in Europe. It struck me so funny, because she posted about what you don't usually get to read about on travel blogs. I had to laugh at her brutal honesty, because I totally "got it." She talked about the "planning of the trips" and the fact that a successful and fun trip can take hours and hours of planning and thought - especially when you have; other people to worry about, only so much time to see what you really want to see in a city, a budget to consider, transportation, hotel, parking, food, entertainment etc. Even a 3 day get-away can consume hours of time. Hotels don't fit our family, parking rates at airports vary considerably, not all cities have easy public transportation or parking, not all hotels have refrigerators, you can't pack too much or too little unless you want to pay extra costs on airlines or spend extra money on buying things that you might have forgotten etc... When you go on lots of trips - you learn to do things economically - my thinking is that I would rather go on 10 vacations economically than blow all of our money on a one time, no costs considered, 1 week vacation (but of course, that takes loads of planning). You always see the fun photos from travel blogs and everything looks effortless, yet the "behind the scenes" preparation is enormous.

I often enjoy the planning of a trip, but it can be a lot of work. When we leave Europe someday, I don't want to have any regrets with regard to "places we wish we had gone." One of the reasons we love to go on a cruise is because we don't have to worry about cooking, cleaning, picking restaurants, grocery shopping etc. You still have to consider the sightseeing and getting there, but at least the food and accommodation is taken care of. If it were just Bryan and I to consider, of course it wouldn't be nearly as time consuming, but to make sure our 3 kids are; having fun, entertained, and even somewhat educationally stimulated (and they are also extremely picky eaters to boot) can be a big task.  

In all of our traveling, we have only had a couple of screw ups: the time in Athens when the Greeks went on strike, and we were stuck in the city center without a train- we ended up hiring a taxi - which of course was much more expensive. The time in Barcelona, where it was 9:00pm, and we had to hire 2 taxi's (Bryan and Bailey in one, and Camden, Mia, and I in another) to get to our hotel and ended up at the Police Station because they couldn't find the hotel (they thought it was a scam, but after 120.00 euro - we finally found the hotel). Had I planned the transportation from the airport to the hotel, it could have been alleviated (to know that we could have paid 20 euro to go by train, if I had planned better - was so frustrating). The time in Egypt, when we were stuck in the backroom of a "Perfume Dealer" on a less than desirable street (picture Indiana Jones going through the old town - no kidding), but we didn't want to offend our guide and ended up feeling extremely pressured to buy something - we could have avoided that one  (one of our friends ended up in the exact same situation, so it was a known issue), or the time on top of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where I shook the hand of an extremely reluctant Palestinian Man (had I done my research, I would have known that this is total taboo for a Palestinian Man - especially in such a religious setting (our guide later told us, that he considered me to be Bryan's "property", and it was against everything in him to shake my hand) - again a little research would have helped :-)

I really enjoyed the lady's honesty on her blog. When my kids are adults, and read back on their travels, I want them to remember that the planning (behind the scenes) was not always as easy as the traveling seemed :-).