The 1st Day of 5th Grade

MK is a 5th Grader. Apparently, this is a real milestone at Hohenfels Elementary School. 5th and 6th graders are in a separate building called "the Atrium" and they also have lockers! This year, the 5th and 6th grade classes will have a home room teacher and rotate around to the other teachers for the different subjects. Just like in Middle School. MK has been anxiously awaiting for school start for at least four weeks. We've been buying "5th grade" clothes and she is wearing a women's size 6 shoe! She's been practicing "5th grade" hairstyles and spending hours in front of the mirror practicing her smile for her "5th grade" school photo. She is carrying a grown-up lunch bag this year and has her American Girl backpack. Now, if mom and dad would just give to her her very own cell phone life would be complete for this Tween Queen! Sigh, look at our little girl growing up.

October came early this year

October came early this year. Like, on August 15th! Actually, we had a few days of sunny, warm weather in Germany but August has been mostly cold and dreary. It started raining last week and on Friday, it rained cats and dogs most of the day. MK and I were supposed to leave on Friday afternoon to go camping and canoeing in Grafenwoehr with our Girl Scout troop. But, my co-leader and I decided to postpone our trip and held a sleepover at the GS Hut instead. Saturday was sunny but cold. And today is Sunday and I am still freezing. When we headed to Mass this morning, the temperature was 56 degrees Fahrenheit and hasn't gotten much warmer since then! The bushes in my yard can't decide what to do. Some of them are already starting to turn colors and drop their leaves. Some bushes just want to keep growing. So, really, we are already experiencing October. I wonder what October is going to be like this year.

The Sad Times We Live In

Matt and I have been watching the news very closely the last few days. As you know, he was in the Republic of Georgia for most of July for a multi-national training exercise and came home only one week before Russia invaded this small country. We are thankful that he is home and feel great concern for the handful of our soldiers who were still there wrapping up the end of this exercise. They are safe but I am sure their families are anxious for them to come home, too.
We, too, feel great concern for those Georgian soldiers that Matt came to know during the training and wonder and fear for their safety as well.
Please pray for a quick and peaceful resolution for this hot-little area of the world. And also remember all of our soldiers, sailors and airmen serving in dangerous places around the world.

Everyone should go to Chiemsee

We spent our four day weekend at Chiemsee in Southern Bavaria. Chiemsee is one of Germany's largest lakes and is absolutely gorgeous. Everyone stationed with the military in Germany should try to go to Chiemsee at least once. The last time we were at Chiemsee was the summer of 2003. The Army had announced earlier that summer that they would be closing the Chiemsee Resort -Lake Hotel at the end of the season in order to build one large, modern resort facility in Garmisch, Germany. Matt and I still have a hard time trying to understand why the Army would choose Garmisch over Chiemsee. Don't get me wrong, Garmisch is a beautiful area and is a premier place to go skiing in the winter. And I am sure there are more Army politics than we know about involved in that decision. But, the Lake Hotel was right on the Chiemsee and offered summer lake activities as well as winter skiing and snow activities. Being a water person, we much prefer hanging out at the lake during the summer.

We drove over to the area where the Lake Hotel was. For us, it was very sad to see this magnificent hotel, built in the 1930's, deserted, fenced in, and overgrown with vegetation. This hotel was one of Hitler's first Autobahn hotels. Remember, Hitler invented the autobahn system which we know in the states as the Interstates. The US Army took over the resort after WWII and made it a recreational facility for Americans stationed in Europe.

This is not the Lake Hotel but our hotel for the weekend, the Sport Hotel Achental in Grassau. The hotel was probably triple this size. German breakfasts are the best! Notice the multi-colored petunias. They were pink, white and purple, my favorite colors! And smelled wonderful right after the thunderstorm we had on Thursday night.

Also on the Chiemsee is one of Mad King Ludwig's unfinished castles called the HerrenChiemsee. It is located on the HerrenInsel and was designed to look like Versailles in France. King Ludwig never finished this castle. He ran out of money and bankrutped his country trying to build his two magnificent Shloss'. This one and the Neuschwanstein. He lived here for 10 days in the Fall before he died.

We took a ferry ride from Prien to the FrauenInsel and HerrenInsel. The Fraueninsel (ladies Island) is home to a convent from the 9th century and a monastery was built on the HerrenInsel (men's Island). Images from the FrauenInsel below:

Of course, being Germany, it rained on us for two days. However, the sun came out on Sunday and we were able to spend the day at a lakeside beach before heading home.
MK on the slide at the pier. The water was FREEZING but didn't deter her any. I went in up to my waist and Matt took a refreshing swim.

Lazy Daze of Summer!

It has been awhile since we have posted. We have been enjoying some really lazy summer days. Last week, we had five days in row of above 80 degree weather. Mk and I made the most of the sunny days and headed to the Parsberg pool. Parsberg has a really cool pool with a wave pool. MK's favorite thing however, was the diving boards. Although she doesn't dive she had a great time jumping. She started with the spring board, then moved to the blue diving board that was about 10 feet higher. She experienced a little nervousness but managed to fling herself off into space eventually. That accomplished, she wanted to move onto the high dive, about another 10 feet in the air. She stood at the edge for a veeerrryyy long time looking down, everyone below yelling words of encouragement. And finally, jump! The first words out of her mouth when she came back up: "that was fun, I want to do it again!" So, up she went again. This time, she stood for just a minute, looking down, and then leap! However, she did not hold her arms in and the inside of her arms slapped the surface of the water. You could just hear everyone around the pool with their, ooowwww's! Such sympathy. This time, when MK came back up, she was done jumping. She sported a nice bruise on the inside of her left arm from the wrist up past the elbow. Ouch. Alas, the weather did not last and we are back to the cold, dreary, rainy Germany again.
Matt came home from the Republic of Georgia on Wednesday. He was participating in a multi-national training exercise. He also brought back a little of Georgia with him. 500 soldiers came down with some form of dysentery. Unfortunately, the living conditions were pretty harsh. His building barely had running water and only had Turkish toilets. If you don't know what Turkish toilets are, then do a Google search. Basically, they are holes in the ground that you have to squat over to do your business. Not a good thing when everyone in your building is having stomach problems. I can tell you that Matt has never been more thankful for porcelain in his life! It's the simple things, folks.
And next on our list of things to do: a possible trip to the beaches of Slovenia! Slovenia, not to be confused with Slovakia, has 30 miles of coastline and is adjacent to Italy. In fact, its about 60 km from Venice. We'll let you know about our next adventure!