Tea Time!

The girls in Palmgarten dorm invited the girls in Blauen dorm over for a Tea Party! It was a grand time of remembering their own childhood tea parties with their friends.

These two ladies created these lovely hats for the occasion. Their creativity was put to good use!

These girls enjoyed dressing up like they would have if they were five or six and attending a tea party with friends.

The girls and RAs dressed in many different styles! Look at that pink dress! Doesn't it remind you of proms of the past!

Tea time is not something to be taken lightly and these girls dressed in their best!

The girls enjoyed tea and cupcakes as they sat at the beautifully decorated tables.

The RAs also enjoyed tea time. Here are Ellie, Vangie, Lizzy, and myself having tea!

When tea time was over we all enjoyed a couple of episodes of Full House! Oh the wonders of childhood!

The Palm girls dressed to the nines for the tea party! We had a great time and really enjoyed having Blauen dorm over for tea!

Goodybe Ann, Bob, Eli, Mom, & Dad

Ann and Bob and Eli took me out to say goodbye. They also took Mom and Dad out for their 38th Anniversary that they celebrated on January 1, 2009. That is pretty impressive in this day and age to stay married to the same person for 38 year. Way to go Mom and Dad!

Bob and Ann enjoy the tasty meal. Check out Ann's sweet new doo and a new outfit to boot!

Here is Mom, the ever proud Grammy! She loves her grandsons, Eli (above) and Julian.

Eli says goodbye to Auntie Bonnie. He is so sweet. Look at those big gloves on his little hands. I had such a wonderful time with my family.

Goodbye Steve, Amy, & Julian!

Steve, Amy, and Julian were able to come and stay at Mom and Dad's house until January 2nd. It was wonderful to have them stay around for most of my time in the States.

One of my favorite things to do was tickle Julian. It became quite a game of chasing him around and sending him into fits of giggling while I tickled him. He would often as me, "Bonnie, you want to tickle me?!?!" So the rest of the family would roll there eyes as I loudly chased him down.

We did enjoy some calmer time of coloring here and there as well.

Amy sports here new doo! Ann, Amy, and I all got hair cuts as presents from Mom. What an awesome gift!

Steve and Julian say good bye to Auntie Bonnie. Julian hopes to travel to Germany with Auntie Bonnie in her suitcase. That would be an interesting time!

2009 Echo Ranch New Years Party

This year for the Annual ERBC Reunion we were again in Findlay, Ohio at Denise Pritt's house. It was a smaller group this year, but we had a great time. Part of the ERBC Reunion tradition is to have a gift exchange....which usually means inter sting and entertaining gifts.

Jon-Michel got a pair of Myles' boxers. How lucky is he?!??!?!? I think the rumor on the street is that these delicate undergarments were given back to the original owner!

Erin got an armadillo! I mean she got a stuffed armadillo that once roamed the earth! Too crazy. Actually her brother Josh got if for her when he was in Texas in the Air Force and then Courtney and Natalie re-gifted it to her!

Myles received the Pritt Families prized singing trophy fish. Love that! Can you believe he opted not to take it back to Sudan! I mean that is a great way to use some of your precious luggage pounds on! Just kidding!

As for me...I received this lovely piece of artwork. It is of Denise when were were in Hawaii last year. What a treasure! I have it here in Germany with me! Hopefully Denise will get to see the world as I travel around! I am pretty sure she was ready to KILL Erin, Brynden and Leah for this schanigians!

Here are the Brown House Girls. All of us at one point or another have lived in the brown building at Echo Ranch also refereed to as the "Nurses' Station" or the "Office." From left to right: Erin Clegg, Bonnie Spallinger, Denise Pritt, Brynden Wiens, Leah Boeschling. We all also fit into the "Old School" category at ERBC!

Here is Mama Denise and her baby Roxy! Yikes she really treats this little dogie like her child...well except she leaves her alone during the day.

Here is the whole crew of us:

Back row from L to R: Denise, Bonnie, Leah, Courtney, Paul (?08 Counselor), Erin, Myles, Jon-Michael

Front row from L to R: Caleb, Amber (?08 Counselor), Kathy, Tara

It was a wonderful time to see friends from Alaska!

Christmas Break!!!

It was so WONDERFUL to be in Ohio for Christmas. I left Germany on Dec. 22 and got to stay with the family until January 9, 2009. What an amazing blessing!!! My highlight would have to be my nephews! Julian and Eli are just the cutest little guys ever....I might be slightly bias, but you know that is the privilege of being an Auntie! LOVE IT!!

Here Julian and I are having a good time hanging out. This is before Christmas and he was very impressed that I got to fly in an airplane! Whoohoo!

Grampy reads to Eli. Aw www, how cute is that! It has been so fun for me to see Dad interact with the boys!

PRESENTS!!! At 1 1/2 Eli is slightly overwhelmed with the gifts, but he figured it out and had a great time.

Julian proudly shows his gift from Grammy and Grampy. He got his own special hand held thing for the Wii. Now he won't mess up his parent's Wii controls.

Amy is possibly the silliest sister-in-law I have....oh yeah she is my only sister-in-law. What a great thing to love the girl your brother marries!

Look! I caught Bob smiling for me. This is a rare moment...well at least in front of a camera. He does have his faithful cup of coffee with him.

Julian poses with the trash after Christmas. Notice that the bag of trash is actually bigger than he is! Yikes!

Christmas wore Caleb out. He was the greatest and willingly slept on the couch when he was at Mom & Dad's house so I could have a room.

But sleep is always hard to come by at our house. Julian enjoys waking up uncle Caleb! I asked Caleb if he had a sleep disorder. He said "Yes...it is called DAD!" Every morning at 7am my Dad would announce the current temperature of the house! "Look, today it is 70 degrees in here!" This is what we all woke up to...even Ann and Bob who got to stay in the basement!

Bath time! You know it is the end of the day when the kids take their baths. Here Ann is with a clean little Eli! What a wonderful Christmas day!

A Real German Christmas Tree

On Monday Rachel Stuckey, a former RA who now works in the Janz Team offices, invited some RAs over for smores. Now this sounds innocent enough until you realized how she wanted us to make smores! She decorated her tree in the typical German fashion with REAL candles on the tree. (I am not sure I am okay with this having experienced a house fire, but hey if she wants to live life on the edge that is up to her!)

The way Rachel suggested we make smores was to literally roast our marshmallows over the Christmas tree flames! It did work and we ate our smores!

Here I am with fellow RAs Julie & Stephanie. Good times on the day off!

What do you do when you are tired of studying for mid-terms?

When the girls...and Brandon (the dorm brother) were tired of studying for their finals they went outside to play in the snow. What do you do with snow...well you make snowballs-Of Course! Well this group of girls...and Brandon (with the Santa hat) made the biggest snowball they could imagine. I am not sure how they will throw it. In fact the staff has to watch out when we back up the vans that we don't hit the "snowball."

Dorm Christmas Party

On Sunday evening we had the dorm Christmas party. We enjoyed amazing food, awesome fellowship & fun, and a time of celebrating each other at this Christmas season. Above is a picture of the Palmgarten dorm around our tree! We are a good looking group.

The girls had a good time of relaxing and lounging around as they waited for the food to be finished.

Finally they could eat! We had onion rings, shrimp, cheesy bread, punch and hot apple cider. It was a feast of appetizers.

Then the girls gathered around to make gingerbread houses. Well, not really ginger bread houses...more like graham cracker houses.

Finally we gave our secret prayer pal a gift. Each person spoke of what they appreciated about their secret pray pal and then they gave that person a gift. It was a wonderful bonding time as a dorm.