Family, friend's and Farewell's...The Goodbye Tour

More from our Farewell tour..... Visiting my family in Illinois. Thank you to everyone who came and to my Aunts and Uncle's for throwing together a family reunion. It was so awsome to see cousin's and friend's and loved ones.... I only wish it could be more often.
Dave and Liz even drove down to see all of us again ! Finally after 3 years we have a picture with Sam in it !


This was the first time my family had a chance to meet the twins. Twins run in our family I have twin cousin's , my grandfather was a twin....etc. My Grandma ( the kids call her little grandma she's only about 4'9 tall) was of course thrilled to meet them and see T & H too.

Like many of our family gathering's the "party" went on into the night, we had a fire and great conversations. I remeber as a kid loving staying up late hanging out with all my family thinking this is perfect..... it isn't any less magical as an adult. We may not see each other often but when we do it is full of laughter !


My God Mother Aunt Gale ( we have the same birthday !)

My Mom and her younger brother...Uncle Bob ( Uncle I have talked about with cancer please say prayers for him), My Mom's older sister Aunt Syl, My Mom....It was so nice to spend time with
everyone.
My cousin Jane...who has a wickedly great sense of humor...and the red hair I always wanted :) her sister ( my cousin) Sarah is a riot too I had so much fun seeing her kids .... Jane and I both have 3 boys and a girl.......I can't believe how much Sarah's daughter looks like her.
My kids LOVED having cousin's to play with. I know all of you have all kinds of families large and small....... so I hope this makes you smile and think of them no matter how quirky they maybe or near or far. It is just great to be with them.

Nod to the New

In the spirit of new things..... my new move...new house...new friends..... new life...... new experiences..... new frustrations with trying to get settled in Germany....... NEW is everywhere !

I especially want to let you know my friend Jessica from CA is New to the blogging word ( see Jessica's blog on the left side of my blog under Other blogs) Go check out her New blog !!! Way to go Jessica.....

hugs and love to all those I love and Miss back in the US!!!!

Family, Friends and Farewells

The kids and I were fortunate enough to be able to stop in Wisconsin and Illinois to say goodbye to family and friends for our "farewell tour". Thank you to everyone who hosted us, and thank you to those of you who drove to see us. It is often hard to be so far away from those we love. I often miss the everyday chats the birthday's and special events. Know no matter where we roam we think of all of you near and far scattered through out the world.

I had a chance to visit my friend Sarah's new gallery . Sarah has a beautiful framing Gallery in the lovely Third Ward district of Milwaukee. Full of fun treasures and unique artwork it is a must see for my Wisconsin friends.
Sarah has a website for her gallery. SB Gallery please check it out :) Sarah is also a quilter for my other quilting friends.

While visiting Dave and Liz we had an amazing time at the lake....another Wisconsin must ! this is the lake front in Racine and the park was beautiful. There is the Kid's cove a cute nautical themed park excellent for little kids with cabin craze !
Adjacent to the park is the wonderful beach right on Lake Michigan !!!! Chad the kids loved seeing the road to your old house.....and of course everytime we passed the chart room in Racine we waved !

Leaving L.A.

We traveled to LAX to begin our journey out.....to ship our car......and say our goodbyes to sunny California.........

We sailed through airport security...despite all the stuff..... yes that is really what we carried on the plane along with 6 people..... headed for "home" to Wisconsin and Chicago..... excited to see family and friends.

I even flew an airline I vowed never to fly again.... and yes Jenny it was wonderful:) They were so nice and the kids so good. 4 hours and 50 minutes later we landed in Chicago and started another adventure...

Finally !

Finally I have had a chance to figure out how to upload and retrive pictures !!!! so I apologize there will be like 4-5 posts just catching you up on our move......


THE STORY OF A MOVE.....
We have moved border to border and ocean to ocean.......
Now begins the tale of moving across the ocean to another continent.......



The movers came one sunny day to pack all our worldly goods...... I worry about it arriving in one piece I worry about it all finding it's way to Germany. I woried if they wrapped my shoes in paper ( a girl can never be to careful with her shoes) I worried about all the containers holding everything perfectly.... Can you see control freak Heather out on the lawn gawking at the mess !
The movers took everything off it went.

Planting a Seed...Spring will come

I have always been amazed that industrious gardner's can plan and plant gardens in the fall. Even more impressive is that these seeds/bulbs planted in the cool fall survive cold winters to turn into these beautiful plants and flowers come spring. While some of us are just begining our garden planning we have the privlage of viewing all their gorgeous spring blooms...which really cements the end of winter for the rest of us less industrious folks.



When Istarted this blog it was with the intention of this blog becoming a colorful site, with whiyy posts and fabulous ideas and tips . Maryam from My Marrakesh ( see other blogs on the left side of this blog) seems to make this look effortless. Beautiful pictures that transport us away and whitty posts about the exotic life. Rachael with life's moments to make us smile and sigh together.



Now I am here in Germany, and fall is starting to emerge. The trees have leaf tips alive with the starting colors of fall, yellow ,orange and red. I am excitingly taking a page from my gardner friends book. I have started plotting and planning my garden for spring. With this post I am planting the seeds for spring to make thes posts come alive with color and whit..... to bloom with the spring. I hope you will enjoy the evolution with me.



Today has been a challenging day in the "dirt" I still can't get spell check to work and I am dying here with out it. I want to change text add wall paper have music post better pictures and have whitty fonts for my stories. Tomorrow i will settle for spell check and the ability to add a link into the text for you to click on! Keep your fingers crossed that I can be a gardner in my heart and make it all work. Someday I hope to transport you to a beautiful garden full of spring flowers !

We are here in Germany !

We finally made it here to Germany !!!!! The flights over went well. I know I have had a lot of notes curious about flying with the twins. Surprisngly everything went "smooth" Security was my biggest worry...we went through security at LAX, Chicago, and then again at Heathrow..... I was pleased we moved quickly and efficently. I am sure from the outside looking in it looked like orgnized chaos. On all three of our flights the flight attendents made a point of telling me how well behaved and well mannered my children were .... A delightful thing that every mother wants to hear !!!!! I asked twice if they were talking about my kids..... with a smile..... Seriously they were excellent kids. T & H have flown several times before so they knew what to do when and the twins were very quiet on the plane and there was no kicking so that made me very happy !!!! We left on Sunday and of course landed on Monday at night. Mondy we went straight to sleep we arrived at 9 pm Germany time. The kids woke up at 2 am wanting dinner......which made sense it was 5 pm California time. We have had to be up early there are 4 parts to the base here and they are 30 minutes apart. We spend a lot of time shuttling between offices are scattered. I am exceptionally please today we have internet for a few hours ( where we are you pay by the hour) I can blog !!!!! and e-mail I finally feel like I have contact with those I love :) I am also very excited to report that we are among the exceptionally fortunate to have housing !!!!! Yes it is true on friday we will move into a lovely brand new 5 bedroom apartment/stairwell house on the 3rd floor !!!!!! Here because of the new command and the ongoing renovations of base housing most families have to wait up to 6 months for a house. Here at our hotel there are families that have been here for 30 days just waiting for temporary housing on base. Our stuff which was boat shipped won't be here until November along with our car so we will have some renatl furniture until then. I am excited. so far the German people have been wonderful nd welcoming. the scenery is beautiful very lush and green the trees are only beginging to turn colors. the weather is foggy and cool most days yesterday we had some late day sun though. Yesterday we walked to a small village called Moreghen it was really nice full of yummy bakeries. I will have pictures here very soon !!!!!

at the moment spell check isn't working......
( it took me a few minutes to get this site in english) I will come back and correct this later.....