Happenings

The last few weeks have been quite busy celebrating birthdays, work, normal life etc... Here are a few pics :-)

Bailey - heading off to London for her 18th birthday present. She had a great time!!!

Bryan, Mia, and I went to see the Harlem Globetrotters on the base. They do such a good show and it was a  really fun time 

Instead of 3 points - they give 4 points :-)

Mia has such a great laugh - because she literally laughs outloud. Her smile (and laugh) was priceless watching the show!

How did I end up here?

They have constant audience participation

And after the show, they took time to sign autographs!

Mia really enjoyed it!

This was "Too Tall" (he was the same size as Mia :-)

On the way to Munich to pick up Bailey, Bryan and I had a nice "Date day". We went to Kloster Weltenburg (the oldest Monestary in the world). This writing carved into stone on the outside of the gates was sombering...

The Monestary sits on the Danube River and is surrounded by this Gorge. So pretty!!! You can see the river boats that go right through it....

The Monestary (on the right)

This was a photo of the flooding in the region. I guess it happens quite often...

The marks on the building show how high the water has risen and in which year it flooded. Amazing!

And a goofy selfie :-)

 

The Monestary from the back...

We climbed a hill for a better view, but the darn trees were in the way...

The tiny canoe at the bottom shows you how big this gorge really is!!!

so pretty (even on an overcast day)

Beautiful!!!

This is a picture of the Monestary from the sky (which of course also brews beer). 

The brewery is quite famous

Since 1050 - Yes - almost 1000 years old!!!!!

And this was adorable...There was a stream in the water where the ducks would quickly float down, eating fish on the way. When they got to the end of the stream, they would fly back to the beginning just to immediately float down the stream again in order to get more fish. They were clever little fellas!!! 

The town had a cute little St. Martins Day festival that we went to. Beautiful old Buildings too!

In remembrance of those who lost their lives in WW1 and WW11

Interesting mural????

On the way to Munich is perhaps the largest Hops growing area in the world. So interesting to see!

And as we were waiting to pick up Bailey, we went to the Airport Visitors Park (yes they have one of those!!!). It is a huge hill in the middle of the Airport that you can climb up and see the action. On a clear day, you can see the Alps in the distance, but of course we had lots of clouds. We did get a glimpse of the Super Moon on the way home though :-)

Surprise!!!

Bailey had a surprise Birthday Party at our house on her Birthday. Her good friend Nate organized it all. She hadn't had a "birthday party" with friends since she was 10 years old, so she was super happy and definitely surprised!!! She had cheering practice after school, but luckily the next day was a teacher work day, so the kids all had off. We secretly picked her friends up after school and their various practices and then brought them to directly to our house. Bailey took the bus and walked home from the bus stop and it was super funny, because as we are all waiting for her to arrive, her friend's phone rang - he answered the phone and we could all hear Bailey say, "I am bored" :-) He got her off the phone and a few minutes later, she walked through the door. Definitely a success! The kids all went out to for dinner in the city and then they all spent the night at our house. Such a fun night, such great kids, and so happy that Bailey had such a fun Birthday!!

Such great kids!

It was special too, because the next morning when the kids were all getting up, her official acceptance letter was delivered by mail (it came via e-mail originally). Anyway, I loved the old fashioned wax stamp (reminded me of something you would see in Bamberg). Her school was a University before Canada was a Country, so it probably is a really old tradition - very cool!

Happy 18th Birthday Bailey!!!!

18 years ago today, you arrived in this world! Bailey - You have brought us so much happiness. I truly can't imagine life without you! You make us so happy and it is so much fun watching you grow into a young adult with dreams and ambition. We are so proud of the person that you have become. We adore you and wish you nothing but happiness and fun in the year ahead!!!

We had to celebrate our family party one day early. Mia made Bailey a delicious cake:-)  She said that the "B" is for Bailey, Birthday, and Bishop's :-)

Happy 18th Birthday!!!

18 - The freedom begins!!!!

We adore you Bailey!!!

Can't believe you are 18 years old!!!

And just trying to cherish and enjoy spending this day with you, especially knowing that next year, WE will be the ones that you will be facetiming with from so far away! We LOVE you so much!!!

Fall

The time changed here last weekend, the leaves are in full color, the nights are much darker, and the cold air is quickly coming. I can't believe how fast this year is flying by! The Football Team lost in double over time in the Playoff Game, so football season is officially over for Bailey.  Mia doesn't have school this week, so we spent some time at our apartment in Bamberg. Here are a few photos from the last few weekends.

Mia has the best restaurant and was open for dinner one night (with very good prices, I might add :-))

Her Restaurant is called MXR - and she specializes in international cuisine :-)

Delicious!!!

Mia and I spend way too much time together :-)

We were so excited to find out that Camden was chosen to go to a STEM symposium in Wiesbaden for a week in December. A really cool opportunity!

Learning French via German is not so easy. Mia scored a 1 (which is an A and not so easy to get) on her first pop quiz of the year. Even the accent marks have to be written perfectly or it is marked wrong.  You also have to know when it should be capitalized or not. In our experience, the teachers don't usually  - ok NEVER - give smiley faces, so a "Tres bien" and 2 smiley faces was huge!!! Mia was so excited! Her dialect is so cute too! *I wouldn't usually post this, but it is really interesting to me how different it all is. They haven't had any grades all year and this was the first one (and over 150 vocab words already memorized) - which was a surprise quiz.  No word box, no multiple choice or true false - they just have to come up with the answers all on their own! There are lots of red marks, but it is only to tell you how many points you get for each question. All of the teachers grade the same way, so it is VERY consistent. It is amazing that this is the 3rd language for all of these kids (German of course, English, and now French). In 8th grade they can choose Spanish and then later Chinese if they wish!

We went for a hike looking for fungi (aka mushrooms). We found tons of different ones, but this certainly took the cake as the most unusual. Not sure how quick I would be to test this one out???

The forest is so pretty!!!

The sun peaked through the branches and lit up the colorful trees

My camera doesn't do it justice, but truly beautiful!

As we were walking, a couple of horse back riders came through...

and a biker too...

Fall is definitely here!

Bryan went to see FC Bayern play in Augsburg. I told him to take lots of pictures...

...and of course, this is what he gave me :-). He had fun though and FC Bayern won!  He said it was neat to see them play in such a small stadium (Augsburg is a much smaller team, but is playing in the same league this year as FC Bayern)

And Frank celebrated "Gotcha Day" One year with us, but 3 years in age! We adore you Frank!!!

Mia had a costume for Halloween, but did not go trick or treating. It is getting to be a little bit more common to trick or treat in Germany though, but many people are unprepared (with no candy). Our German friend went, and came back with 7 euro (because the people had to scramble to find something to hand out). So funny!

And I spent the Holiday on Tuesday (The Catholic version of All Saints Day) painting the trim from a natural wood color to silver gray. This almost 100 year old apartment has to try to keep its youth :-)