We’ve been having a lot of fun with Krista’s family here. Sorry, we haven’t posted but I did upload a lot of photos from several of our day trips:

Opening Presents on Christmas Eve

More photos like this can be found here in the Photo Album

Mom on our trip to Colmar, France for the Weihnachtmarket

More photos like this can be found here in the Photo Album

One of our favorite trips is to Haut Koenigsbourg in France

More photos like this can be found here in the Photo Album

Krista and her sister in front of the largest waterfall in Germany (Triberg in the Black Forest)

More photos like this can be found here in the Photo Album

Hope ya’ll have a wonderful New Year’s Eve. We’ve got our fireworks and we’re ready to go. Tschuess.

More family has arrived. Krista’s sister, her husband and three girls all arrived yesterday. We now can say we have a full house. Two of our nieces we have never met before so it is exciting getting to know them. Alex and his oldest cousin have been having a blast playing together and running around playing dress up. This morning they were dressed up as king and queen when Alex told her:

Above is Alex holding his newest cousin: she’s only 2 1/2 months old.

Women, can’t live with them, can’t live without them

Yesterday we were in Basel and went to the church where Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus was buried (that’s his tombstone pictured to the right - all in Latin of course). He was the one responsible for the quote above. Here in Germany, a friend told me of a similar phrase:

Die Frauen sind zu mir gleich die Luft aber ich muss immer die Luft atmen

(please forgive my German here - I’m trying to remember what was said). Anyway, for those that don’t know German and for those that do and are saying to yourselves - WHAT? This is translated (or should be in English) - “Women to me are like the air (i.e. “nothing”) but I must always breathe the air.”

As men, I guess we should never forget the importance of women in our lives (wives, daughters, mothers, sisters, etc) as it seems we usually forget the importance of air.

Krista’s parents arrived yesterday and are staying here for Christmas and New Years. It exciting as we haven’t seen them since they left Charlotte to move to Kenya. That was almost 2 years ago. Grandma is having fun giving Alex airplane rides (she lays on her back and lifts him up by her legs) just like they did when Alex was younger. Only now he’s much bigger so be praying she doesn’t hurt herself.

Today, we took them into Basel to check out the Weilnachtmarket (Christmas Market) and hit some of the tourist spots. You can check out my camera fun in the Photo Album.

Have a Merry Christmas!!