Family Comes to Stuttgart!

It’s not cheap to travel overseas. It’s definitely not easy or relaxing, especially with a two-year-old. And yet, that’s just what our family did! Matt’s mom, Matt’s brother and his wife, Erin, and their son Lincoln, and Erin’s mom flew from Charlotte to Germany to spend two weeks with us.

That sacrifice was not unnoticed!

We picked them up in Munich very early in the morning and, so that they’d be forced to adapt to our time zone, we kept them busy. First we stopped at Dachau to give them the humbling opportunity to see a Nazi Concentration Camp. Then we drove home and let them get settled into their hotel. Grammy stayed with us.

The next two weeks were spent watching toddler cousins get to know each other, lots of eating, and some fun sight-seeing. Much of our time was spent just chatting and hanging out.

Anna liked having another lap to sit on! Uncle Brad… perfectly patient!

We took them to the Stuttgart Fruhlingsfest, Europe’s largest spring festival.

We took Grammy to one of Parker’s soccer games and literally got snowed on. IN MAY! (I admit, I was loving it.)

We dined at two African Restaurants in downtown Stuttgart. I tried zebra, ostrich, and found that I really like couscous. (In the group photo, the man on the bench is not with us, but he was super nice! He knew we were obviously not fluent in German and when the back door of the bus (where strollers enter) wouldn’t open, he communicated the problem to the bus driver… who was less than thrilled to have to try to get it open… which he couldn’t. We had to fold it down and enter through the narrow front door! But anyway, that guy is just a random, kind citizen.)

Hayden turned 18 while the family was here so we had a mini birthday party for him. (Why yes, that is a homemade angel food cake that I mastered just for the occasion.)

Before they arrived I asked if there was another destination they would like to see… Amsterdam was the first pick but because it is seven hours away we decided on a day-trip to Zurich, Switzerland. That day was wonderful!  An easy three hour drive, a bus/walking tour, and then the easy drive home. We saw stones that had been there since the Romans were in control of the area!

Lincoln had never been to the zoo so when we had a day with nice weather we loaded up the Truckster and visited the Wilhelma Zoo. It really is a nice zoo, even for a non-animal person like me. I think Parker had been to the zoo once in his life before we moved here and in the 18 months we’ve lived here, he’s been at least four times. There is a really fun park in the middle of the zoo where we had a picnic lunch. Lidl lunch for the win!

The nice weather left and we were back to rainy, but at least it wasn’t cold anymore. (Icy cold, anyway.) We did some shopping and we were excited to be able to show Stuttgart off, now that we’ve acclimated and really begun to love it. Of course, we took them to see the open-air elevator!

I added more chalk-paper contact paper to the wall finally! It arrived just in time for our family to sign the Munich and Zurich spots!

I wrote earlier this week about the fact that it’s so rare for a military kid stationed overseas to have his family in town for his graduation. I couldn’t resist scheduling his graduation celebration for the time when our family was here, and so that’s what we did!

It’s pretty much impossible to sum up a whole, two weeks’ visit with family in a single blog post but I don’t have time in my life right now to do it the justice it deserves. The visit, however, deserves to be commemorated in a timely fashion so here it is. Too short, for sure, but the visit is a treasure in my memories that will last. {Something else that will last? The multiple tattoos Hayden gave while they were here! Brad got a few, Erin got one, and even Grammy got a cute little heart on her right wrist!}

I really was worried that these family members, who live quiet lives, would be overwhelmed by the sheer number of people (AKA: noise!!) but they were incredibly gracious guests. From what I can tell they had a nice visit and I can certainly say from our perspective, we are very thankful they came, glad they had fun, and feel blessed to have had such good, deep, quality time with people we usually only see for a few hours a year.

Come back any time y’all, ya hear?

(PS… why do all of my pictures have the subjects looking at SOMEONE ELSE?!? Ha!)