April 2021

Easter Egg Hunt 

Left: Zoe and Tessa at the outlet mall in Saarbruken.

Right: Our friends at Melkerei invited us over for a Covid friendly Easter Egg hunt.

Eggs, prizess and drinks were hidden along a mile hike.  

It was amazing to see how a community comes together for the kids.

EASTER DAY

    We decided to have the hunt in the field behind our house for a change.  It was awesome to have the field of cows right next to us.  

Hike in Luxembourg

We got wind that you could finally cross the border so we tried it.  Luke and Tessa had the day off from school and Sam said that he would prefer to go to school.  The kids were so tough and hiked 11 miles without complaining.  We made it to a castle and a boulangerie.  We got French bread sandwiches and pasteries.  It was incredible to drive a two hours and cross a border into another country again!

LUXEMBOURG

I told Jayne and Ashley about going to Luxembourg with the family and they had never been to Luxembourg City so we promptly planned our day trip and went to Cora for some French salted butter.

Our girl is growing up

BROKEN ARM

We were riding bikes up at the ridge above Oberarnbach.  Tessa's chain came off at the end of the ride which was downhill and she couldn't stop.  Luke tried to get her go into the field but she went right into our van (which was much better than going straight right into the street).  Tessa wailed like her arm was ripped off.  Her arm was not deformed or swollen.  She had gymnastics later that evening.  She kept going on and on and so I said I would take her to the ER.  The problem is that she has cried wolf many times and so Ryan said, "You better hope your arm is broken."  When I called him to tell him that it was broken, he said, "I am the worst father."  

HEIDELBERG

There is a pretty hike in Heidelberg that we wanted to do called the "Philospher's Way" and so we took a train from Landstuhl with the Harshbargers.  We hiked to an old arena and ruins of a cathedral on top of the mountain, walked around the city and got some doners. 

RAPE SEED 

We love it when the Rape Seed is in bloom.  Yellow fields everywhere.  This field was right outside of Landstuhl base.  We just pulled over for a little photo shoot.  
 

March 2021

Mattie turns 1.  Crazy that when she was born was right when Covid started 

and everything locked down.  We couldn't even come to visit.  

She is such a cutie and crawls on us when Ashley, Jayne and I exercise together.  

CHURCH

Ryan had to take pictures to show distancing and who was sitting near whom.  

The azalea bushes were beautiful this year. 

Spring time in Bville is so pretty.

There was this cool marble run up near the Rhine river.

You buy a big wooden marble for 1 euro and then they 

made a run all the way down the hill.  And there were these

hamster wheels along the way. We brought a picnic

and had a great time with the Harshbargers.

My birthday

Singing time via Zoom and out on the trails

Lukey's bench

STOCKSCHEIFERN

There is a hike up near Bingen with tons of carved little 

funny faces in the trees.  It is like a truly enchanted forrest.

We went with the Harshbargers and ran into some of their friends 

from church so we all hiked together to the Rhine river and to see

the Rheinstein Castle.  The hike was a little longer than we thought it would be

 and the kids wanted it to be over and some couldn't walk another step until

Ma we got to the stream and then they could run and play.

RHEINSTEIN CASTLE

 

February 2021

Frau Sehlinger was Luke's teacher for 1st, 2nd, and half

 of 3rd grade.  I thought she was a little stiff but Luke adored her.

Sam did remote learning for the 1st semester and went live for the 

second semester.  Germany was legit with their COVID testing 3x a week. 

Luke and Tessa would do it themselves and got to be pros. 

      Fun pictures around the house. 

 Bottom right: a playdate with the Paynes. 

Luckily they were all able to come over at once. During lockdowns, 

only one person outside of your household was allowed over, so we would do swaps.  

Take one kid and leave one kid.  We had to get creative around all of the "rules".  

 

Birthday party for Tommy and Soren

with yummy German pastries

Vincent VanGogh during Covid-19

I helped distribute vaccines with the Red Cross.

It was nice to finally be vaccinated.

MORE of Ryan's meals

AROUND the HOUSE

Trippstadt, Annweiler am Trifels, Frankenstein

Trippstadt

Annweiler am Trifels hike with the Harshbargers

                                                    Frankenstein hike with the Christensens