One Year

Feeling sentimental this weekend. It's our one-year mark in Germany.

Some of our accomplishments and lessons so far:
-- Lots of German vocabulary
-- Little German grammar.
-- That it is fun, fun, fun auf der Autobahn (except in Stau because Germans do traffic jams as well as they make cars).
-- You can overdose on castles
-- You can overdose on Schnitzel, but it's harder
--There is no statute of limitations on homesickness
-- The French are nice but they won't speak German, even if you could throw a rock across the border
-- German bread is great, and if you trip, you land on a bakery
-- Making friends is good but hard
-- The parks and the chocolate here are excellent
-- Our mechanic here speaks better English than our mechanic back home, even though it is his third language
-- Roses and lavender are just as beautiful here as they are in Chestnut Hill
-- Care packages have the Midas Touch. They can turn everything, even Cream of Butternut Squash Soup, into gold
-- Kids hike better with a small but steady supply of Gummi Baren
-- If there were a kiosk selling key chains in the darkest center of the Black Forest or the highest alpine peak, my kids would find it

We still wake up and pinch ourselves that we can be here. It was hard for me to leave this summer. I have two new nephews I haven't cuddled yet and family/friends I never want to be this far away from. All the same, it still feels like a roller coaster that we're having a great time riding.