Extended Family

A wonderful day celebrating with some of our extended international family. As hard as it is to believe, our exchange daughter from 2004-2005 turned 25 this weekend. We've maintained an especially close bond with Janna and her natural family since the year she lived with us in Maryland. She and her boyfriend, Helge, (both pictured here) visited us often after her exchange, her younger sister, Mareike, then spent a summer with us, and her parents visited once as well. When we learned we were moving to their region of Germany, Janna's parents insisted we stay with them until we could find a place to live (over a month!) and they were enormously kind and helpful. The whole family are just wonderful people and we're very lucky to have them in our lives!

To celebrate Janna's birthday we gathered at her parent's home. Mareike was up for the weekend from Uni and both of Helge's brothers and his parents joined us as well. Essentially, Janna's three families :) Only Janna's brother didn't make it in from France. We began by eating copious amounts of cake and then barbecued into the evening. Such a lovely time catching up with fantastic friends!

We got home just in time to join some other American friends for the Champion's League finale, where we watched the sad defeat of Dortmund by Bayern. I suppose we can't have everything - at least we had an awesome day with loved ones!