Who says I'm far from family?

Second cousin Philipp and his family were in the area from Augsburg last week. What a treat for the boys to spend time with their third cousins, Johann and Marie. We also met Philipp's wife Christiane, an artist, for the first time and had a lovely afternoon with cake, apple pie, tea, castle building, iPad, and playground. Nick and Patrick were quite the conversationalists finding out about what Philipp does at General Electric putting together computers for "special purposes."

Five-year-old Johann had so much fun building up the Playmobil castle with Michael during his visit last year that we brought it out again; Michael's Friday friend Lukas helped with putting it together. We then took advantage of the gorgeous weather and walked the two streets up to our playground where all the younger cousins played until it was time to go home.