Hohenzollern Castle Home of the Emperors of Germany

 This weekend we decided to visit another castle......Hohenzollern.   We invited the Call's, the Nelson's and the Johnson's  along.  The trip was about 2hrs 45min just to get there, with a few pit stops and traffic along the way.  Below is a picture of the castle taken from above.....The view from the castle is second to none!  The valley was absolutely beautiful but the mist from a storm that was rolling in blurred my photos.  

The castle of Hohenzollern is a dynasty of former Princes, Electors, Kings, and Emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenburg, Prussia, the German Empire and Romania.  

 Below is the Grand Ballroom 

  This was called the Blue Room and has pictures of the different wives of the castle over the centuries

 The view from the south side of the castle

This is the actual crown worn by one of the Kings of Hohenzollern.  At one time, the diamonds around the bottom of the crown were real,  they were stollen and replace with glass.

A few of the Emperors of the time period

My King leaving the dungeon

This is Kay Johnson at "BurgerKing"......yes, an American store!  Sometimes ya just gotta have American fast food!

 Carol Nelson

 The Courtyard

 Every Castle has it's own chapel

 I was being goofy and jumped out from behind the wall to frighten Elder Nelson (mission Doctor).....but he wasn't scared at all.....joke was on me!

 The eight of us....such a fun day!

 See description below

 Such a great picture to end our visit to the Castle......Love these ladies!

3rd Zone Conference and Rindi Lynn is born

Time is passing so quickly.  This is our third zone conference.  Tony was asked to sing in a quartet between speakers.  He sang "Abide with me tis Eventide" with Elder Jim Nelson, David Monson and Jon Van Hoff

 Elder Sabin and his lovely wife Valerie both spoke at Zone conference and afterward we had a group photo and then a luncheon put together by the wonderful sisters of the Frankfurt 2nd Ward.

 Something VERY odd is happening to Tony!

 Rindi Lynn Goodall was born in May 10th... 8lbs 3oz and 20 inches long.  That's the exact weight that Hunter was.....such a nice size baby!  She's beautiful and we are so glad she is here!  This is Hunter introducing Paisley to her new baby sister.

 Paisley and Rindi (look at that face on sweet Paisley!

We now have three new babies in our family that we cannot wait to meet in December!  We love them already!

Birthday dinner for Sister Lindsay and Long walks

Marlene Lindsay had a birthday and we were honored to be asked by Jim to go to dinner to celebrate with them.  They knew of a little sweet restaurant not far from our Apartment so we walked together and celebrated with them!  They are from American Fork Utah so they live pretty close to us.  This is their fourth mission.  They served in Egypt, Phillippines, Salt Lake City and now Germany.  They are our assistant Zone leaders and work in the Welfare department of our mission.

 We have been talking with Elder and Sister Lear (Phil and Doreen) about going for a walk out in Friedricksdorf where their apartment is......so this Saturday, we called them and met up and had a great "9" mile hike thru the woods to Saarburg Roman Fort.  Phil told us it was a "5" mile hike, and we said "sure"!!!!  Wow, it was "4.5" miles ONE WAY!  But, we loved it.  This is what it looked like all the way there!  Just gorgeous forest!  We walked right from their apartment....one of my favorite days!  When we got to the fort, we toured it and then went to lunch at this sweet restaurant right by the fort.  I had one of the best salads I've had since I arrived in Germany!  We ate outside, it was wonderful.

 This is the restaurant we ate at.....

 The four of us at the Roman fort.  The Lear's live in New Port Beach California and have a home in Deer Valley Utah.  Such great people!  We enjoyed getting to know them better.

 Our walk home, after a great lunch!  Phil Lear, Doreen Lear and Tony

 We now have just under seven months left on our mission.  When we talk about going home, it seems like so much time has passed already!  We can't believe we have such little time left.  We want to take advantage of every minute, especially with the beautiful weather of the summer.  One of our favorite things to do is ride bikes (as long as I don't fall!)  AND, we love to walk to EIS CHRISTINA'S..... this is about two miles from our apartment.  Tony LOVES Schoconugat Ice Cream......he even looks it up on the website and when they have it, we ALWAYS go for a walk to have a chocolate cone!  YUM.....some of these memories I will really miss, but will always be grateful to have had them!

Keukenhof Gardens Netherlands

The Lindsay's had planned a weekend in the Netherlands with a new couple that just arrived in the mission.  I asked Sister Lindsay if she wouldn't mind if we tagged along and she was happy to have us join them!  I am so glad we did!  We had a wonderful time and Holland was wonderful!  Of course the drive is always beautiful in the spring time, the pictures just don't do it justice!  Here we are still in Germany, the Netherlands is pretty flat.  I took this while Tony was driving.  The blue car ahead of us is carrying the Lindsay's and the Johnson's.  Look at those green hills!  Just gorgeous!

 On the way to the Netherlands, we drove thru Koln and stopped for lunch and to see the Catholic Cathedral on the way.  This Cathedral was declared a World Heritage Site in 1996.  It is Germany's most visited landmark and is the tallest twin spired church.   The construction began in 1248 and was halted in 1473 leaving it unfinished.  Work was then restarted in the 19th century and completed in 1880.  The cathedral suffered 14 hits by aerial bombings during WWII.  It was badly damaged but remained standing while the city around it was flattened.  Unfortunately, the twin spires were and easily recognizable landmark for Allied aircraft bombings.  Repairs were completed in 1956 although repairs and maintenance take place continually so the cathedral is rarely free of scaffolding.  

 In this picture below, you can see on the front of the Cathedral where it has recently been cleaned of soot.  They are presently cleaning the Cathedral and as we walked around it, we could see some of the pieces they had removed for cleaning and will attach them back where they belong afterwards.....and enormous job!

 Tony being Tony......helping Gary Johnson move the tree.......?

They had these wooden shoes all over the park/gardens and we had fun taking pictures in them....Here Tony is doing a Dutch Jig....

Kay Johnson and Marlene Lindsay have quickly become dear friends.

This was my favorite place in the gardens

 We had some time to spare so Tony suggested we drive the 20 minutes to the North Sea....Here we are at the North Sea....beautiful!

 We had to touch it, just to say we did!

 Marlene Lindsay is one of the special people in our mission.  She's quickly become a wonderful friend.  She and Jim live in American Fork Utah, which is just across the lake from our home.

 Tony loves the beach so much, he couldn't wait to get his toes in the sand!  If we could afford it, we would own a beach house.

 Lunch at the beach.....Fried fish, what else?

 We had time to do a session at the Hague Temple. 

 My sister told me this picture makes my legs look thin, so I kept it in the blog!  What would Holland be without wooden shoes?!