Family family everywhere

July 9 to July 11, 2005

Hello All,

Two weekends ago I visited Owingen, near Bodensee, again. This was the last chance to see
my family (on this trip) before I head back home on August 31st. Also, Uncle Hansel,
Auntie Rita, David, Lousie, Joey and Danny, family from Canada, were going to be arriving
on Sunday and I thought it would be great to see how their travels had been so far.
Ariane was nice enough to come pick me up on Saturday morning and she was nice enough not
to tell anyone how messy my room was (or was she ;) )...don't worry Oma, I've cleaned it
up since then. We agreed that she would come at about 10 am but she ended up driving like
a real German and got to my place at 9:30....poor Ariane had to wait for me since I was
expecting her a bit later.  We had a nice drive down and after tanking and stopping for a
bite to eat it was already afternoon when we got to Owingen.

That same day I got to ride Ariane,s horse. I was able to walk with the horse for a bit
but supposedly she can be quite sensitive so I spent most of my time on the lunge line. I
trotted and got to gallop as well.....definitely not as easy as it looks. The horse
(sorry, can't remember the name now) is gorgeous and was very patient with me even though
I am still a beginner.

That night I went with Ariane to a BBQ that one of her friends had organized. The group of
people were partly getting together to start planning a dance routine for the next
Fasching (kind of like Halloween/Mardi Gras) party. We played a game of German
charades....of course I didn't understand a word since they try and think of obscure
things that no one will be able to guess. It was a lot of fun seeing people act all crazy
and I was able to guess a few English movies.

On Sunday morning I had a nice big breakfast with Sylvie, Manfred and Ariane. Later we
went to Affenberg, a large fenced in area where you feed popcorn to monkeys. There is only
one species of monkey there but they are all different ages and seem to be very
friendly....when you have popcorn.

When we stopped by Adela and Uncle Kosteka's (my Oma's sister and her husband) we noticed
that they were both very excited about Uncle Hansel and the rest of the group's arrival.
Adela was busy in the kitchen and Kosteka actually set up a bench outside at 1:30 pm so
that he could keep an eye out and open the gate when they came. Of course my Canadian
family (Hansel) did not arrive until around 6 pm....what patience. It was weird seeing
people from back home but we had a lot of stories to tell about eating, eating, and more
eating. I was doing some translating between German and English and then the Canadian
family would talk amongst themselves in French. I could understand the French but as soon
as I tried to speak French, German would start coming out. Language overload!

On Monday Manfred drove me back to Stuttgart just in time for work. He was also working in
the area ... the same as last time.

THANKS again to everyone in Owingen!

Gruss,
Steph