Visitors

Well, I haven't mentioned all the fun visitors we've had the last couple of months.

The day after we arrived home from Florence, we picked my dear friend Marcy up at the airport. I was so much happier than I even realized I would be to see one of my girls. Marcy was here for Sylvester, or as we like to call it, New Year's Eve. We were invited to spend Sylvester with a couple in our neighborhood that we've become friends with - he is Belgian and she, Turkish. They had several of their German friends over as well, so with us Texans, it was quite the multicultural celebration.

The fun thing about New Year's here is that it is the one time of year (or one of a few) that fireworks are totally legal - within the city limits even. So at midnight, the sky went nuts with all the fireworks. We walked out into the street and had such an amazing show just from all the neighbors.

Here we are with the city of Heidelberg behind us...
















A couple of weeks later we had my cousins Carolyn and Ryan in town for a quick weekend trip.
Ryan just turned 12 and it was time for her to catch the European travel bug.

We visited the Cologne cathedral, one of the largest in Germany. We climbed the 509 steps to the top of the bell tower and saw 24 ton St. Petersglocke, the largest free-swinging bell in the world, along with some really amazing views of the city.

Then, Mark came to visit for a quick weekend. We had a fun time in Miltenberg and the Kloster Engelberg.
Last Saturday, Steve's cousin Jessalyn who is studying in Oxford was in Heidelberg visiting some friends for the weekend. We picked her up, stuffed her full of schnitzel and strudel and sent her back to England. :)

Today, we are headed to Austria for a little skiing...hopefully. The weather forecast is not so great right now, but I'm hoping for miraculous blue skies and powdery snow when we arrive. Happy Leap Day.