So, is anyone still reading this?!?! If you are, thank you! And if not, I don’t blame you, because I haven’t written anything in a while. At some point last year, our ‘two-year adventure’ morphed into something else entirely, and I don’t yet have a catchy name for it. Up until April of this year, with so many differences in how the U.S. was handling things vs. Germany, there was a lot of weirdness. We got to do so many fun outings and experiences and even a few more trips, but during the (many) days in between those opportunities, things were still pretty rough. At the same time, being ‘over here’ for such long stretches, and not being able to travel back home at all, forced us to really find a sense of home and belonging here in Germany, that I don’t know we would have otherwise sought out. So here we are, with 3 years living in Germany under our belts, and the only way I can describe our life at the moment is to say that now, it feels like we have two homes – one in the U.S., where we have so many people we love and cherish, people we have known all our lives and/or for significant times in our lives, people whom we miss dearly; and another home here in Germany, where we love the culture, the balanced way of living, the kindness and patience we see every day by the people in the community, and of course, the proximity to Frankfurt International Airport (at least, when we get a chance to use it more). So we continue to feel really lucky and thankful that our hearts have expanded to encompass lots of love for both of these amazing places!

In terms of news, we are just cruising along like many of you are, with Rowan starting 8th grade this year (with the growing shoulders and hair length to prove it!), Cara starting 5th grade (continuing to jam on bass and entertain all of us), and Matt still enjoying his job and the people he gets to work with on Oral-B. This fall, I will be starting a couple of new things as well. First, I took a job with Lufthansa’s data science subsidiary, zeroG, where I’ll get to focus on business and team growth, which is similar to the role I left at 84.51° when we moved here. I’m excited! I’m also serving on the FIS Board of Trustees, which has been a good experience thus far, getting to know more about the inner workings of the school and partnering with some really great folks. It’s going to be a bit of a change, and I’m sure quite hectic at first, but it feels like we’re all ready for it.

And, as far as recent adventures in and around Germany, we’ve been trying to squeeze in a lot of fun prior to school & work starting up – here are some recent pics:

Visiting home after another long year – 4th of July Fireworks and Nananne:

Exploring Norway – Oslo, Fjords, fishing for sand whiting, Viking Stave Churches, and beautiful Bergen:

Welcoming the Pedraza family to Germany:

Hitting up the barefoot hiking path, canoeing through locks down the River Lahn, and escaping from a ticking time bomb in Frankfurt:

And finally, my personal favorite, a bucket-list-crossing-off item that I really wanted to squeeze in before starting work up again – a 45-mile Rhine River (e-)bike ride on a beautiful summer day from Bingen all the way up to Koblenz:

Thanks for reading, and we miss you all so much!! We’d love to see you all over here, so let us know if you have any future plans to travel to Europe, it would be great to welcome you to the greater Frankfurt region, or to meet you somewhere out and about if possible!