Rosengarten

We stayed at the hotel Rosengarten while in Zwiebruken, it was a very nice place with wonderful people and food. Attached to the hotel was a "rose garden" It was a nice little place, Andy and I had planned to go through together but got busy and we just did not make the time for it. So on the last morning while Andy was at work I went through the garden. It was raining so you can see all the moisture on the pictures. This place was large. I was told later that it is suppose to be one of the top five botanical gardens in Europe. I thought it would take about 30 minutes but after 90 minutes I was hurring to get out so I could meet Andy for lunch. It really was beautiful. If you are ever in Germany you should go through this. Here are some of the pictures I took. I though about a lot of you as I was walking. Andrea and Rosa I actually found. The rest I just thought about as I saw certain plants. Everything was labeled. There were trees, flowers, grasses, and much much more that a seasoned gardner would have appreciated.
Enjoy the View!!

Still more coming

Andy just looked up and we will have internet access in Madrid!!! I am so glad to hear that. I am still posting things from Germany and now we have a lot from Paris as well. We leave in the morning and head to Ireland for a few hours then on to Madrid for four days. I will try to get caught up on posting then. Thanks agian Andrea and Karl for keeping up with the boys. We are ready to see them again. Skype is wonderful but those hugs are even better. More to come . . .

To Eat Adventrously

Okay so on Thursday Hans and Michael took us to eat at a "special place" - I was excited and ready to go. I really wanted to try some new things here in this country and to be adventrous. So we drove, and drove, and drove some more and when I went looking for the next town there was not one. We were literally in the middle of no where. We pulled in to a drive way and he parks the car and we get out. We start walking down the hill to this home/resturant, and the story begins.
We are here because this place has a special menu on Thursday nights. They do this because Thursday is slaughter day. So on Thursday evenings they serve a meal with A LOT, A LOT of meat. I was told that I would not go meat hungry tonight, and that a vegetarian would not like this place - I should have know then that there was more coming. We find a place to sit and start looking at the menu.
This is a family farm and you can tell that the people who own the resturant also live in this house and there are a couple of barns surrounding the "parking area." It was a delecious meal and I would go back again, but I must say a couple of times that evening I was a little skeptical.

Hans, Andy, and Michael walking down the hill to eat.

Finding a place to sit

The menu - Andy choose the special at the top a variety of meat, and I choose Moli - it is like the 3rd one down. We tried to get enough varitey that we could try a lot and I think we achieved our goal. The only thing we did not try and were advised against was Leberknodel. We agreed when we found out that it was a liver rolled up in a ball and boiled. I think Andy might have tried it but I advised against and so did the others.

Here is Andy's plate, look at that large helping of Krout. Andy had a variety of meat and it was all very good.

This was mine. It was a large pork burger of sort. It was very good
Thanks guys it was great - we look forward to returning the favor in a couple of weeks.

Zwiebruken

Okay so while Andy was slaving away at work I took at stroll in the town of Zweibruken. It is a nice size town we were told about 25 to 30 thousand people. It really did not feel that large at all. Andy was working and I went shopping. There is not a lot of things to do so I decided to see some culture. It is a quaint little town and the people were really nice. They did their best to try to communicate with me and likewise I with them. If I ever come back to Germany I am definatly going to learn some German.

This lady ran a stand in the middle of town selling Bratworst on a bun. They were only 1 Euro and were delecious. She got a little excited when I asked if I could take her picture. She was really sweet.

Here is her stand from the side also showing the street market here.

Most of the business open around 8 am and close shop around 7 pm. It reminds me a lot of Mexico in the small stores that are speciality shops. The people were really kind and did not push at all like in some places.

Here is more of the streets.

This last on is a little random and should have gone on the last post but since it is the same town and I had room I just added it here. An art statue in the middle of the triangle.

More to Come

I have quite a few more photos to posts and stories to tell but right now I am tired and going to bed. More to come from Paris - FRANCE!!!

Randon Germany

Andy had a meeting for two days at the city hall in ________ - I can not remember the name of the town. But we at lunch at eh resturant next door both days with a bunch of engineers. It was a lot of fun to sit and listen to them talk shop for 3 hours. They were all very polite and did all the conversations at the table and while I was around in English.

Another picture of the resturant. The thing here is that most all - 90% of the resturants have a place to eat outside. They open it up around 5 pm and you can eat your evening meal outside. Did I mention that there is NO AIR CONDITIONER in Germany. I have not seen one in any building - just open the window or door.

This is the market - grocery store that I visited everyday to get milk and water. Another side note - most all of the water 80% is carbonated. So you have to be careful what you buy. That suff is grose!

Andy at the Schlossphatz - this is the one place where we found interent in Zwiebrucken but there was a catch - no where to plug in and the internet had a firewall so that I could not update my blog. But it was still nice to check e-mail and blogs.

This is the castle where the plaza was - it is now the city hall for the town.

We're in Paris

We made it to Paris tonight and we are in our hotel with internet!!! That is very exciting because I can get one and get some updating done. It is late here and I am ready for bed but I wanted to get some of this done before I forget.

Back to Germany. We stayed in Hochst and the hotel there was very nice and the food was excellent. Here is a article in the paper showing the cook to be one of the best in the country. It really was that good. We were able to eat outside and enjoy some time with other people who were there for the conference as well. Andy did shine. He is really well respected by a lot of men - I mean I knew that but it is really humbling to see just how much they respect him - even in other countries. I should do a lot more of that at home - but I digress!!!

This hotel and resturant were in a very small village, here is the outside of the house/hotel/resturant. Everything here is village style and families live in houses that are all connected. There are a lot of small villages and a few medium size towns. I think coming over here we stepped back a few decades. In a lot of ways that is really good and in others I wish I had more access to the internet. But things are more laid back and relaxed. Thing around here close up around 7 pm and everyone goes home. There are a few pubs that stay open but for the most part things are closed.

Andy outside the Krone - Crown hotel

Here is a picture down the main street of the town where the hotel is located.

And the other way

It really is just one house after another and then boom the town ends and countryside. It is kinda wierd. But I am sure they think the same thing about us. There are so many little cars here. They said everything is BIG in America and now I know why they say that.

Andy standing just inside the hotel.

internet again

while I can not promise what this will look like when i am done all i can say is that i am excited to have internet access and put something out here. we did find access in zweibrucken in the town triangle but there was not where to plug the ciomputer in and it would not allow me to sign in and post so it was nice to check other blogs but upseting that i could not update my own.
things are going well here. we are in germany for a few more hours and then this evening we will head to france - paris. we will be there for about 48 hours and then we are headed to spain - madrid. i have a lot of pictures to post but that will have to wait until i can use my own computer.
the keyboard here are a little different from the ones we use. the z and the y are switched and a lot of the additional things we use are in different places as well.
but for now all is well and we are having a great time. we have gotten to at least talk to the boys everyday and that has been a blessing. we will be ready to see them and i am sure andrea, karl, colby, and lisa will all be ready for a break.
thanks everybody!

Day two

This morning we got up and headed somewhere - I am not sure what direction to plugfest - part of why Andy is here. We filled out car up with gas before we returned it. I took a picture of the gas prices - it looks great until you realize that it is per liter.

Look at that

Our new found friend - the gps in the car. It was great not to have to worry about where we were going. If we made a wrong turn - it would say please make a u turn.

Andy in our room here in this town - I can't remember the name of it.


A look out our back window - we ate supper out in that garden - it was great. The resturant is here in the hotel and is considered to be one of the top ten here in Germany. It really was great. Thanks to some very nice people from Denmark and TeeJet for translating the menu for us.

Andy checking his e-mail right before we were able to talk to our kids on SKPYE!!!! Yea!!

All the men at dinner - thanks for the smiles. These guy are from Denmark, Sweeden, Scottland, Germany, and the US - they were so kind and spoke in English all evening so we could understand.

The menu


Sorry this one is sideways but I have the second option under the bold heading. It was beef cheek of some sort - it was very good.
More to come.

Dinning out alone - our Hotel

We walked the streets of zwiebruken yesterday - I think yesterday we walked about 10 miles. We walked a lot. It was a good but a little stressful day. We finally found a place to eat last night was was kind enough to speak English to us. The food was wonderful. We had snitzel. It was really good. Andy was so patient with me.

Andy ready to dig in

Me and my stinzel

Andy outside the resturant

Me in front of our hotel - it is connected to a rose garden. We will get to go through that tomorrow.

The entrance and widow to our hotel. It is a small little clean place. Very nice and the breakfast was wonderful. I had some sort of cinnamon nut bread - it was great.

We are here and off to a good start

We are in Germany and things are going well. We got in almost a hour earlier than expected. The flight was good and smooth and everything went off without a hitch. The largets problem we have right now is finding internet access. Tonight we are in a different town and this hotel has access and we are very thankful. We were able to talk to the boys earlier on Skype - it was good to see them and their smiles. Thanks Karl for getting it all set up. So thanks everyone for your prayers and thoughts keep them coming they are working. Andrea seems to be doing okay with all the kids. Thanks y'all for all the hard work.

Because we got here early they did not have our car ready, but they worked fast and in a matter of about 10 minutes we had a car. Here is Andy waiting in the Hertz gold area.

And we have a car a BMW none the less. We were thankful when it came with a navagitational system. We were able to get to our destination with out a hitch. Andy did a great job driving on the autobaun.

We stopped at McDonald's to eat - we were alone and thought we could get through the menu without a lot of questions. Here is Andy in front of our little car. All the cars over here are this size or smaller. Really - we have seen only one or two jeeps and 1 suburban

McDonald's -

I just thought that this sign was funny - Einfart

Birthday Boy turns 4

So Braxton had his big day about two weeks ago and I am just not getting all the pictures posted. He had a couple of really good days. This year he really knew that it was his birthday and was excited for days. He is really getting to another fun stage and has the memory of an elephant. Here are some pictures from our days of fun.

Braxton wanted to go to cab shack for supper. He loves it because it has a playground. So we went. They sang happy birthday to him and dressed him up as a knight. He was not as excited about that part. We came home and had cake. He had a big day and enjoyed all of it but kept asking about his party and when it would be.

The next two pictures are from his party. This boy did it up in style with a whopping 41 people in attendance. It was a lot of fun and he is already asking about more presents.


Here are the kids playing in the water and just enjoying some time outside. The kids acted like they had a blast. I think they did.

Here are more pictures of people eating and having fun. The cake is in one of these as well. you will have to look at it - Karl and Andrea did it and they did a great job. I am so blessed to have family around here.
We had a great time and Braxton made it through it all.
Happy Birthday Bud!