So I guess I can start blogging again now that ski season is over! As much fun as we had hitting the slopes each weekend, the pictures didn't change very much from week to week. Spring is officially here now and the fake snow can no longer survive the beautiful weather. So on to the new. A couple months ago my brother, Matt, found some cheap tickets to come to Europe so he bought a couple for him and my nephew Ryan. They flew in to Germany first, so we met them at my parents place in Nuremberg. I made the six hour trip on my own with the kids, which I was pretty nervous about given that the whole German stretch was on the autobahn (i.e. no speed limits). It is a little unnerving to be cruising at 150 km/hr and have someone speed past you on the left at 220 km/hr. But I held my own and didn't stay in the truck lane the whole time like I thought I would. Plus the kids were amazing and it was the first time I had experienced a completely whine/cry-free long distance trip with Jonas.
I hadn't told Jaxon that we were going to see Matt and Ryan when we got there; it was a big surprise for him. When we got there and Jaxon saw his cousin he got his most excited expression he gets on his face, which is kind of a big nervous grin and the two ran off to play like they hadn't been separated for a day. It was so cute to see how they could just pick up again like that after a year and a half and soon we were hearing about how they are B.F.F.s and how they want to live together when they are in high school (which is a real possibility if either set of parents dies in the meantime:)). Jonas immediately warmed up to his Uncle Matt, who he promptly called "Apple Matt." The name stuck.
The day after getting there we headed to Rothenberg, a medieval town not far from Nuremberg.
And this is one of the reasons I love Germany. This entire, delicious family meal cost (my dad) only 25 Euros. You could barely feed one person for that in Switzerland!
It was fun to be in Germany with Matt, as we had spent two years together here when we were teenagers. We had a great time getting together with old friends. We headed to the zoo with them one day.
We all piled in our car to head to our place in Switzerland after five days in Germany. On our way day we stopped at Schloss Neuschwanstein. I hadn't been back since I was a little girl. It really is impressive.
They had a little wrestling match in the courtyard while we were waiting for our tour to start.
We took the horse-drawn carriage on the way back down. That was a fun treat for the kids. Jonas was pretty mad when it ended, however.
On the Saturday that Ryan and Matt were at our place we took a boat across the lake to the French side to Yvoire, a charming medieval village. We had a great time. I'll let the pictures do the talking.
After that we only had one more day together and spent it in Geneva. They were only in Europe for 10 days, not nearly long enough, but we made the most of every moment. They were our first visitors from the U.S. in Switzerland and besides our big outings, it was just so much fun to be with them and be able to share our new little world with them. I took Matt on an early morning bike ride (not quite early enough to see the sun rise over the Alps, like I love, but we still had them as a backdrop) on our bike paths one morning and we spent a wonderful afternoon our the creek just next to our house where we caught some tadpoles. Matt showed off his rock skipping skills and Jonas his rock throwing skills. Jaxon and Ryan were together non-stop for 10 days and did not have a single disagreement and never got tired of eachother. We ate lots of regional specialties and the three kids cleaned up (ate) 24 snails between them. We were really sad to see them go, but luckily we didn't have time to show them everything, so they will have to come back!
