Germany 2011 - Day 1 - Church and Kruen

This visit marks our 4th stay at Hotel Alpenhof in Kruen. http://www.alpenhof-kruen.de/hotel/

We attended the morning service at Garmisch Baptist Church http://www.garmischbaptistchurch.org where Missionary Ryan Johnson delivered a challenge to the fathers in attendance (since it was Father's Day). There were 20 in attendance including a family from Australia and a couple from England.

We stopped for lunch in Klais at the Sonnenhof Hotel. http://www.sonnenhof-klais.de/landgasthof.htm This was the first opportunity for the kids to have Spezis/Mezzo Mix to drink.

Prior to dinner, the kids swam in the hotel's pool.

For our first dinner, we had asparagus soup with strawberry sauce. What an interesting taste - not one that I will need to taste again!

We went on a nice walk around Kruen after dinner.

Germany 2011 - DFW to MUC

Our trip began at DFW airport with a Friday evening departure.

We did have a layover in London's Heathrow Airport.

Once we landed in Munich, we had about an hour drive down to Kruen. During the ride, we drove by the Allianz Arena (FC Bayern's stadium) http://www.fcbayern.t-home.de/en/news/start/index.php
and the Olympic Stadium (1972 Summer Games).

Alpine Friends

What a Nice Day!

Deer / Elk in the back yard....

Lunch on the mountain with church friends....

Beautiful views....

Durango - Purgatory

Today, we finished our second day of skiing at Purgatory.  www.durangomountainresort.com   The picture above shows the spectacular view that we enjoyed during our lunch with Luke, Amanda, and Andrew (picture below). The view reminded us of Psalm 19:1 which states - The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.

The evening ended with another controversial Scrabble game in the Hathaway/Doerstling house. The word of the night was "bigrig". Jane won again with her use of very rare two-letter words - ay, fa, and za (which was used twice).

Spring Break 2011 - Durango - Day 1

The weather was sunny and warm - maybe a little too warm for skiing, but the mountains were beautiful.

The Hathaways and Doerstlings spent a part of the afternoon sledding. Given the warmer weather, the snow was deep and soft resulting in us "post-holing".

The evening dinner was take-out -- absolutely wonderful pizza from Home Slice Pizza www.homeslicedelivers.com  This was followed by the first Scrabble competition of the trip. Jane won with words like "noddy" and "xi".

Ronald Reagan - 100th Birthday

President Reagan would have turned 100 years old today! What a great leader he was! One of his many famous quotes is below:

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

He also enjoyed using humor in his speeches.