Dear friends and family, (hier geht es auf 🇩🇪 Deutsch weiter!)
Another year zoomed by, and once again, more has happened than can fit on this page.
More soccer
This year all three kids played soccer, now that Anton (re-)joined AYSO. Daniel joined them on the field as a referee in the AYSO U8 and U14 leagues. Running up and down the field for 90 minutes twice a week was some welcome exercise. Julius and his team won a local tournament.
Canada
For the third year we took a spring break trip to Canada to ski in Banff and Lake Louise. This time we traveled with our friends Sarah and Aaron and their kids. Much fun was had and Daniel had his first ever roadside breath test (he passed). Highlights were the secret swing in Lake Louise, a short hike in Banff National Park, great company, and great skiing!
♫♪ Total eclipse of the sun ♫♪
After seeing the eclipse of 2017 in our backyard we knew we had to find a way to see this year’s total eclipse. Flights, hotes, and rental rars were booked out way in advance, but we had a plan B: our van! This turned out to be extremely fortuitous, as it afforded us the required flexibility to pivot last minute from going to South Texas, where we had planned to meet up with Daniel’s college friends who had flown in for the eclipse. The forecast for that area stared to look worse and worse and so we changed course heading first for Nort Texas and ultimately for Arkansas. There we met up with friends from New Mexico, too, and ended up in the tiny town of Shirley somewhere in the Ozark mountains. The weather was perfect and the small-town hospitality was great. This turned out to be a 3000 mile road trip (but - at least according to the adults - it was worth every mile!).
Summer
Anton spontaneously decided he’d like to spend the summer in Germany with his grandparents and attend a few weeks of highschool in Germany. He ended up being there for almost three months…
Our summer trip took us to Germany (briefly) where we reunited with Anton and then to Italy together with Katrin’s brother Thomas and his two kids. There we spent four nights in Rome, taking in the sights in sweltering heat. One highlight were definitely the free public drinking fountains, some of which even dispensed chilled fizzy water!
We saw the Colliseum, Forum Romanum, the Pantheon, catacombs, and many more things, and enjoyed tasty food. On day three we went to the Vatican (which was way overcrowded by … German pilgrims). In St. Peters basilica we lost Julius and enlisted the help of Vatican police to find him, which only took about 20 mins.
After our time in Rome we drove down past Naples to the Amalfi coast, where Thomas had organized a stay in a house above Atrani (which looked like an MC Escher drawing - and it turned out Escher had visited there). We hiked, went to the beach, did an excursion to Pompei, and enjoyed more delicious food! We visited the hotel Daniel’s mom interned at in the 60ies in Amalfi, and enjoyed a sunrise concert with the locals in Pontone.
Miscelaneous
Other than that we celebrated Nikolaus with friends and at Vitus’ school (guess who’s dressed up as Nikolaus…), attended an indian Diwali celebration, rode the Cannibal coaster at Lagoon, visited our friend Dave in St. George, saw a whale, enjoyed our backyard, got Lego at work, saw the northern lights, and became US citizens.
The kids also played in threee theater productions, “Captain Bree and the Lady Pirates”, “Aladdin”, and “Shrek” but I think that’s enough pictures already!
Not bad for one year!
If you made it this far, we wish you happy holidays and all the best for 2025!
Katrin, Daniel, Anton, Julius, and Vitus