Last glimpses of Germany.

   Putting this post together nearly left me rocking back and forth in a corner crying.  I miss my life in Germany so SO much.  So much more than I could have imagined.  Now that the excitement of all the things that we missed in America has worn off, all that is left is an aching heart for the people and places I love in Germany.  I'm sure things here in Oklahoma will be a lot better when our house is finised being built and we are finally out of this spider infested apartment.  I'm talking about spiders the size of small dogs.  Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating.  Only a little though.  Anyways.

I miss Germany and miss our friends and miss the farmers market in Sittard and miss our house and our local ice cream shop and Geilenkichen Elementary School and I could go on and on.  You get the picture, I miss it.  These pictures are the images of our final couple weeks in the country we came to love so so much. 

 Our friends the Barkers threw us a going away party with just a few of our closest friends.  It was such a nice afternoon to spend eating yummy foods with the kids playing out in the sunshine.  I love all of these cute little faces.

 For Chase's last day of preschool I brought in cupcakes and a camera to get a few shots with all of his buddies.  He really loved his preschool and these kids were all so much fun for him to spend time with.

 I also brought cupcakes to Hallie's school for her last day and got a few shots with her class.  She cries when she thinks about or talks about her teacher that she misses so much.  I cry when I think about class sizes of 11.  We miss that for sure.  Although she is doing really well at her new school and loves her teacher and has made lots of friends.  She has a knack for making friends which will serve her well living a life as a military child.

 This is Hallie and Justice.  Justice was Hallie's NOT boyfriend.  She knew that 6 year olds were not allowed to have boyfriends, but they are allowed to have crushes.  So they agreed that they both had crushes on eachother.  I have a feeling that my life is going to be full Hallie's mutual "crushes".  She still talks about how she loves Justice and she misses him so much.  Ah, young love.  Much much too young.

Moving right along.  We took one last trip before we left Germany with our good friends the Barkers.  We spent a few days in the Bavarian Alps staying in some cute cabins next door to eachother.  It was a slightly rainy, but really great weekend.  Relaxing, swimming, hiking, playing settlers (I'm pretty sure I won....I mean, I ususally do), stoping for random photo shoots, going to Church in Innsbruck, etc. We miss the Barkers.

 I just want to eat her up.

 I've noticed a pretty serious lack of castles for backdrops in Oklahoma. 

 Just a bouquet of wild flowers from the Bavarian alps.

 Like I said, delicious.

 Baby tricks.

 

 We went and hiked a gorge in the alps that was gorgeous.  It was supposed to be a 1 hour hike that turned into a 4 hour hike because of taking a wrong turn.  (The men decided they knew a better route back to the cars...haha).  I didn't mind though, because it was gorgeous.  We all had a death grip on our children for this part of the hike though.

 Now THIS is my kind of camping and my kind of settlers.  Can you see the clash of healthy/caffeine/sugar?  It all balanced out to equal zero calories.  Trust me, I did the math.

The kids at Eidelweiss.  Love this resort.

We are flat Stanley failures.  If you are ever considering sending us your flat stanley, don't.  We never sent him back.  May have even lost him.  But he lived a good life, even though it was short. Sorry Owen.

In the hot tub at Eidelweiss.

 Another important event that happened before we left Germany was Chase learned to ride his bike.  Two years younger than Hallie did.  Over achiever.

 I think these pictures are the ones that hurt my heart the worst. This was the walk from our house to the local icecream shop that we went on a few times a week.  It was a stroll through farm land and horse pastures and it's all I want in life.  I mean, just look at what my life looked like!  It's hard for even me to believe.

 All the horse pastures around our home were filled with these Norweigan horses.  They were just gorgeous and were always up for a little petting from the kids.  Or our old apples.

 We loved the spring time when the babies were out with their Mothers.

 Chase and cute little Norah. 

Oh my heart...aching.

 

This is the final image of Germany that will forever be in my mind.  When I think of Germany, this is what I see.  Germany friends: We miss you.  Know that we think about you everyday and miss you every minute.  I'm so grateful for the impact that each one of you have had on our lives as a family and my life personally.  At a time when we were so far from family, you were our family.  And remember, our house in Oklahoma is going to be awesome and it has a guest room with YOUR name on it!