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?!

Beautiful Spring Saturday

It's been a busy week once again at the Area Offices.  We love being busy!  I drove out to the Bad Hamburg office a couple of times, once for a retirement party for a fellow employee in the Finance department that is retiring, and another to meet with my boss about the work I've been doing for them.  They have given me a bit more work.  I not only enter all the data each month for the travel of Priesthood leaders in all the European Countries but now they would like me to analyze the information I enter so that they can better train.  I love what I do and realize it is important work for the finance department to better serve the church and it's leaders in Europe.  

Tony is always busy.  I think he is just as busy as he was working in Austin for his law firm.  He is still busy working with missionary visa's and residency permits.  Without this work, we would have no missionaries in Europe at all.  The last couple of months has been rather taxing for him because the Roberts and the Thomas's have both left, leaving him to be the only "seasoned" person to help with the work.  The new missionaries, the Call's and the Fager's have caught on really quickly and once again the office is working smoothly.  We miss the Roberts and the Thomas's a lot.  It's difficult when dear friends go home but we will be in the same position to leave good friends behind as we depart this great mission.  We now have 7 1/2 months left.  It is FLYING by!

We have planned a trip with the Johnson's (new couple working in the publicity dept. who are taking Orlowski's place), and the Lindsay's to the Netherlands (Holland) in May.  I have had this picture below saved for many years on a pinterest board of mine, never dreaming that I would actually ever get there......this is where we are going!  I am so excited. 

 We work hard during the week and then we usually take off on excursions during the weekends, this is why it seems that we travel so much!

 Yesterday, Tony and I took the advice of the Sabin's and walked to Bornheim, a small town just east of Frankfurt.  We enjoyed the outdoor market there and then walked down to the Zeil for some more shopping, taking the train half way home (had to stop at EIS Christina's) and walked the rest of the way home - going thru the beautiful cemetery on the way.

 I saw this tree right as we walked into the cemetery.  I've never seen such a huge weeping willow tree!  A week ago, it had no leaves.  Everything is so beautiful and green in just a weeks time.....it's quite amazing!

 I realize that this does not look like a cemetery as we would know it, in the United States.  It is so beautiful and so peaceful to walk thru.  Tony and I just love it!  You can see water buckets on the bottom left of the picture, these are for people who take care and maintain their plots where their loved ones are buried.  They are very strict on keeping the plats beautified and even leave notices on headstones if they are not kept up.

 Since we arrived last July, I didn't have a lot of time to allow my porch garden to blossom so this year I was able to start earlier.  Yesterday I drove out to Hornbach (home depot-German style) and bought my flowers.....it made me happy.

My sister Debbie has been here visiting......Dan came after 10 days and they took off for Berlin, Munich and Paris and will return this coming Tuesday and head back to the states on Wednesday and then Thursday we head out for our trip to Holland.  We don't usually take time off of work for a trip like this but we've been here 9 1/2 months and I convinced Tony to take two days off for this trip.  The work will be waiting when we return.  We are grateful that we are working in the Area office and realize what a privilege it is to be here and have this wonderful experience.