yikes! 6 months later!

Oh dear, I am sorry! I haven't posted since June, and it's December! I for one blame facebook, I put my pictures up there and update often, so I just stopped here. New Year's resolution! I'll post here at least once a month. Lets do a super fast update of the big events since June...

June- Went to London with Bethany, saw a parade with the Queen and the awesome show Wicked! and then school ended.

July- Aubrey came! Such a FUN time together. We did two weeks of summer school here. We also went to the largest carnival on the Rhein, showed Aubrey delicious korean food, and explored Koln a little. We went to the awesome kids museum, and even took a cable car ride and a couple river cruises. July was pretty much about exploring our local area.

August- We started off August in Venice! It was a fantastic family vacation. We camped near the beach, and went swimming almost every day. We took a ride on a real pirate ship and had a water fight out at sea. We rode bikes to the ferry to Venice, and had a nice day trip exploring the city on foot and by taxi boat. It was a lovely week.

September- School started again, Aubrey left, Chris turned 33 and Keira turned 5. We had a party for her at a real castle! We called it the "Princess and Queens tea party" and it was a blast. Some of my teacher friends were there, and a few of the little girls from the neighborhood and my school also came. The memories we made there will last a long time! We also met up with Becca for lunch when she was in Munich, and got to see Stuttgart when we visited Heather for a day.

October- My birthday treat to myself was a week long trip to Mallorca with my trusty travel partner and friend Bethany. We stayed in a great hotel near the beach. Our usual daily activity was "get book, get beer, go to beach, lay" with a little shopping and swimming thrown in. One of the highlights was the day long boat cruise we took to Formentor. The views were AMAZING, the water was a little rough, but surprisingly warm when we jumped in for a swim. We spent a little time on a private beach, it was a very relaxing week.

November- Nothing really memorable about November.. just chugging through to winter break.

December- Well, this is the fun part, we are going back to the states TOMORROW for 2 weeks! The kids are thrilled, Chris and I are excited to see everyone. We'll be ringing in the new year with our families, and coming back in 2010. At which point I will update about how the trip went.