Hello Again!!

It seems like forever since my last blog entry, but we have had a lot going on. We finally got our phone and internet working today, so I am again connected.

Since we closed on our house late last month, things have been pretty non-stop. John was still in Germany until last Thursday, so it was me and the kids here trying set up shop. As I just mentioned, John was in Germany until last Thursday wrapping up things at work, packing and seeing a few sights. During his last few weeks there, he was able to take a quick trip to Munich, Normandy, and Obersalzberg. Obersalzberg is located in the German Alps and is home to the "Eagle's Nest", which is a retreat located high in the mountains presented to Hitler for his 50th birthday. He also visited Dachau, one of the few existing concentration camps in Germany. Most were destroyed after the war, but a few were left intact as a memorial to those killed. He visited Normandy with our good friend Nick, but did the rest of the tour himself. Below are a few pictures from his travels.

Here in Iowa, the kids and I have been busy unpacking and trying to establish everything that comes with a new home, i.e. phone, internet, cable. Next week we are on to another project - finishing the basement. Just when we thought we were ready for a little peace and quiet, we decided to finish the basement in our home right away. Hopefully, if everything goes according to plan, the basement will be complete just as our sea shipment from Germany arrives, again, if everything goes according to plan.

Henry has been taking a few fun classes at the Family Museum this week -"Dirt Diggers" and "Bug Hug". They were only a couple of hours each day and he had a blast. It was really good for him to get into a group setting again, I can tell he really misses his school in Germany. The other day he asked me when he could return to school, I felt terrible for him. He has managed to stay busy here at home though. We spend a lot of time exploring our yard, finding fun things in the empty lot next door, and watching all of the construction taking place around the neighborhood. The other morning, after a hard rain, we found a tiny frog in the driveway. After a few minutes of investigating him, I finally convinced Henry the little guy had to find his mommy. After a long goodbye, Henry finally let the little guy go into the grass. I thought we were going to have a new pet for a minute. The good news is he will be starting preschool in August and has a pretty full schedule until then. Swimming lessons start in July and he has a few more classes at the museum.

Beatrice is doing great. She just celebrated her 3 month birthday on Wednesday!! I cannot believe she is 3 months old already, what a 3 months it has been - she is certainly well traveled. We want to give a big birthday hug to her little friend in Germany, Eliana Keeler, who had her 3 month birthday on Tuesday!

As for me, I am happy to have John home and our family together again. When John arrived home, we were able to tour the jet he flew home on, Henry even got to go into the cockpit - which he thought was pretty cool. Father's Day was great, the kids made John stepping stones, like Henry has every year - our collection is growing rapidly. I am planing to return to work part time in August, hopefully by then we will be completely settled.

Congratulations to our nephew Will, who made the All Star team in Dubuque - he has always been our "All Star"!!!

Below are pictures of John's travels, our new home, and day to day fun stuff.

Enjoy.

Home Sweet Home

We have officially moved into our new house on Westminster Road. Our belongings from storage were delivered on Monday and after a couple of hectic days of unpacking, we have found enough to start living in our home. Our belongings in Germany will be packed up in a couple of weeks and sent home via boat, so we are expecting everything to be in one spot by August (we hope).

Although things are a mess right now, we are happy to be home and are anxious for John to join us. I will post more later - I have no internet or cable service yet, so I am blogging quick from my parents.

Home Again

Bea and I arrived back in the States on Tuesday evening after an uneventful trip. We are so happy to back home with Henry - we missed him terribly!! John will be joining us in a couple of weeks.

We closed on our new house this morning. Our new address is:

3195 Westminster Road
Bettendorf, IA 52722

I will post pictures soon!

Bea's Baptism

Sunday we had Beatrice baptized. Our church has become like a second family to us, so it was important to us to have Bea baptized by Father Betz at Mark Twain Chapel. Mark and Lisa Dickson, another JD couple and good friends, stood in as godparents and we had a small ceremony after mass. Beatrice looked stunning, of course, and tolerated the baptism well, except when she got water in her eyes. Below are a few pictures of the ceremony.

Later that day, the Keelers hosted a farewell party for us. We were sad to say goodbye to the many friends we have made while living in Germany. This experience was truly unique (especially for Amy and I), thank you to all who made it wonderful!! We will miss you and hope to see many of you soon back in the States.

Bavaria and the King's Castles

On Friday we hopped in the car and headed south to Bavaria to visit King Ludwig's castles. King Ludwig II ruled Bavaria for 22 years, from the time he was 18 until the ripe old age of 40, when he was declared insane. Suspiciously, the day after he was declared insane, he was found dead in the lake surrounding his residence in Munich - along with his psychiatrist - hence his nickname "Mad King Ludwig".

There are two castles, Hoenschwangau and Neuschwanstein. Hoenschwangau was actually King Ludwig's parents home and Neuschwanstein was the palace King Ludwig built for himself after he was named King at age 18.

We were lucky enough to find a hotel room at the last minute in a quaint hotel in downtown Oberammergau, where the castles are located. The town sits in a valley of the Alps, so our room not only had great views of the mountains, but of the castles as well. The town also overlooks a large lake, the Alpsee, which was ice cold and crystal clear. The hotel room itself, as you will see in the pictures, was not much to write home about, but the quaintness and the hospitality of the staff made up for what the room lacked.

On Friday afternoon/evening we walked around town, had a nice supper, walked around Lake Alpsee and then hiked up to the first castle, Hoenschwangau (the yellow one in the pictures). Hoenschwangau ("High Land of the Swans") was a summer home for King Ludwig's parents, King Maximilian II and Queen Marie, the main house for the royal family was located in Munich.

Later that evening we enjoyed viewing Neuschwanstein Castle from our hotel. It is illuminated at night, making it even more beautiful than during the daylight hours. It is hard to imagine someone actually living there at one time.

The next day we picked up our tickets for touring the castles. We had to tour Hoenschwangau first according to our tickets. The tours are divided into groups and each group is given a specific time and number to tour. It is a very well organized operation. When our tickets were reserved (the hotel did this for us), they must of asked for a language preference because the tours given in different languages according to the time assigned.

Hoenschwangau sits just across the valley and a little below Neuschwanstein, which is nestled in the side of a mountain. There is a telescope that remains (under glass) in the castle that is pointed directly at Neuschwanstein so King Ludwig II could view his "dream castle" being constructed. The rest of the castle was filled with original paintings, gifts, and decor original to the castle. Hoenschwangau is still privately owned by descendants of King Ludwig's uncle.

After touring Hoenschwangau, we were scheduled to tour Neuschwanstein next. Instead of taking the 40 minute hike (at a significant incline) we decided to go by horse drawn carriage, money well spent. Neuschwanstein was unbelievable. It took 17 years to construct, and after seeing it I understand why. Even after 17 years only 1/3 of the rooms were complete. Unfortunately, King Ludwig II only was able to live in his castle 172 days before his untimely death. However, by that time he had already drawn up plans for his next castle, Falkenstein, which was to make Neuschwanstein look like a tree house!

We had a great time, the only downside of the trip was our little H-Man was missing. I kept looking over my shoulder the entire trip to tell him to stay close! Beatrice did great, even though she won't remember her stay in Germany, I am sure she will appreciate the pictures of her birthplace!

Enjoy the photos from the weekend, unfortnately, there were no pictures allowed inside the castles, but I made up for it with numerous landscape and Baby Bea pictures!

Time to Catch Up!!

John, Bea and I just returned to Heidelberg this morning after a night of flying. We have been in the U.S. for the last 2.5 weeks visiting family and friends, house hunting, buying cars, and trying to coordinate our move home. I will return home in one week to close on our house, so we decided to leave our little man, Henry, with Papa and Nana - the flight and time change are brutal, especially for a 3 year old. Although we miss him terribly, I am sure he is having a blast hanging out with Papa and anxiously awaiting for his cousins to visit - Henry and Booker have really become buddies too.

While we were home we celebrated Will's 10th birthday on May 8th (I know, he should not be 10 already!), Joshy's birthday on May 11th and we even managed to squeeze in a very belated Easter egg hunt, along with another bunny cake! Henry thinks everyday is a party! We visited with Grandma and Grandpa Archer, my Aunt Mary Jean, and many great friends and neighbors. Fortunately, we will have the entire summer to catch up with everyone.

This week will be equally as busy here in Heidelberg. The movers are coming, we have to say our goodbyes to several people and we are going to have Beatrice baptized. Today I visited Henry's school to clean out his locker. Needless to say, his teachers were very teary about Henry not returning to school there. He loved that school; hopefully we can find something similar in the States.

John and I would also like to take our little princess to the original "Cinderella Castle", Neuschwanstein, located in Bavaria. The weather is supposed to be nice, so hopefully it will work out.

Below are a few pictures of our trip home. Enjoy!

Prague

This has been a wild week in the Archer house. As many of you know, we are planning to return to the United States for a visit this Thursday, well, it is now going to be a house hunting trip as well!! We were informed earlier this week that our stay in Germany will be ending much earlier than planned. Due to the struggling economy, we will be returning home this summer. John and I are finding the news bitter sweet. While we are happy to return home to family and friends at home, we have made many wonderful friends here, enjoyed countless sights, Henry has a wonderful school, I and have actually adapted to the German culture - which I thought I could never do!! John has also enjoyed the work he has been doing at Deere and everyone in the law department in Germany has been like a second family to us. So, our already busy visit home will be a lot more hectic as we look for a new home and prepare for another international move!

To take our mind off all we have to prepare for, we decided to head to Prague for the weekend. It is about a 4.5 hour drive from our home, so we left early on Friday, stopped for a nice lunch, and arrived in the city in the early afternoon. After checking into our hotel, we headed out to explore the city. We started out with a boat ride on the Vltava River. We had wonderful views of the Charles Bridge, the Prague Castle, and rooftops and spires of "Old Town" and "Lesser Town". After the boat ride we walked through the city and enjoyed looking at the beautiful architecture, jewelry (especially the amber and garnets), and spectacular glass pieces the city is known for. After a great dinner at a local restaurant, we headed back to the hotel for a rest.

On Saturday we did some more sight seeing, shopping, and of course - chased pigeons. European pigeons will be so happy to see Henry Archer move back to the United States. He has made a sport out of chasing innocent pigeons just looking for a bite to eat, although it is quit amusing to watch.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel to check out the pool. John and Henry had a great time swimming. Henry learned how to do a "cannon ball" and has not stopped talking about it since. After a nap, we headed out for more walking and sight seeing. Henry managed to find a John Deere tractor for sale. John ended up buying it for him - like we need one more tractor!!

Bea had fun on the trip as well. She is such a trooper, I cannot believe the places she has been since she has been born, and she never objects! We are very lucky to have such a little princess in our family.