Visitors of the Year

As many of you know, we've been in Munich for just over a year now and counted 16 total visitors from July to July! So we thought it'd be fun to do a wrap-up with pictures *hopefully we got it right*.

Lee, Leif and Greg in July 2009 - these two just welcomed a little one to their family a couple months ago!

My aunt Smadar in November (although she didn't come to see just us :-)

Jessica and Chris on their honeymoon (!!!) in September

Robin and Ryan spent a night with us in the fall

My grandma, Safta Rachel, in December

Oren and Erin happened to overlap their visits so we had plenty of pretzel and beer time together.

My other grandmother, Safta Tzipi, came twice to visit my aunt and cousins as well.

Santhi and her boyfriend, James, stopped over before a conference in March for a few days.


And of course, we just had Greg's parents and Aunt Kathy in from Wisconsin.

With all these guests, you may be wondering if we have any others lined up. Yes, we do! This week, Greg's friend from high school, Trisha, is in town and will head to Prague for a bit. Then, my parents come in for a few days. And we just got word that Greg's college buddy, Sarah, and her boyfriend, Davidian, will be here in October. Surprisingly, no one is coming for Oktoberfest or the strong beer fest in the spring. We love having visitors so these are definitely exciting times!

One Year in Munich

Last night we celebrated Greg's dad and aunt's birthdays (more on their trip to the region later) as well as our one year mark of moving to Munich!

Birthday girl and boy celebrating early with some mackerel and beer

We decided a couple days before that there was no reason not to go to a biergarten with whichever friends were still in town. So the Chinese Tower biergarten in the heart of the Englischer gartens it was - with just a little "spitting" of rain as my Loahfer friend Emily labeled it. Side tangent: the Brits, Irish and Kiwis really know how to categorize rain and the different forms of it - the rain has done everything from spit on me to lash out at me according to my buddies!

Chinese Tower with the lights on and the oompah band gone *thankfully*

It was great to see the wide variety of people we've gotten to know this last year all in one place and some new faces, too. At one point, I looked down the table - Greg's family were talking with the New Zealand husband of my friend; my German co-workers were laughing with Greg about some disgusting story from his good ol' days in central Wisconsin; and I was thinking about the chocolatey cupcake/muffin that my co-worker (who I've only known a few months in fact) gave me that morning to celebrate the anniversary of our  move. It was easy to see that taking the risk of moving abroad was well worth it for us!

Walking back to the metro at night, we passed by the water fountains all lit up -
excellent way to end the evening!