New Year's 2012 in Bayerwald

Almost two weeks after the fact, I'm finally getting around to posting the pics from the week before New Years.

We decided to have a mini family get together in the Bavarian forest.  While we to go Bayerwald relatively often (it is close to home), we were there last as an extended family 5 years ago (when Eva was super pregnant).

We had snow in the high country.  While it was too wet for sledding, it was perfect for snowball fights.  Quinn had a blast throwing snowballs at people.

Eva invited the family for a round of German bowling (Kegeln).  Both Quinn and Emily LOVE rolling the ball.  For those of you that have never kegeled, it is definitely different than bowling (9 pins with various types of goals / games...and the pins are on strings to let the machine reset the alley).

Like bowling, it is a blast, where one can have fun ... and chat with friends and family.

Eva and I went on a few hikes ... and searched for a few caches.

We had to come back to this one twice.

Of course, even with a great GPS, you don't always know where to go next.

More sledding.  Near our condo, we didn't have enough snow...and it was a bit too wet.  But, at least we tried.  Emily didn't want to get out of the car.

Amazingly enough, we were able to find the cache (at Maria Hilfskirche) in the snow.  Or, better said, Eva found it.

The pic above proves how difficult it is to get a nice pic of your kids where both of them are smiling.

Emily and Kocka.

A few from the Arber's base station (where we found some great sledding trails).

The big event of the trip was, of course, the New Year's gala, where we decided that the kids were old enough for us all to get hussied up and to stay up late enough to enjoy the event.

The kids did great, and I think they even had fun, despite being up late (the event was geared more towards adults than to kids).  The food was excellent, and I loved all the marzipan figures for dessert.

They even had an artist that did black & white silhouettes of people.  I remember the silhouettes that my parents have in their house of my sister and I (when we were kids).  Of course, this sort of thing brings back a fair amount of nostalgia, and fortunately the kiddoes did a great job sitting still for the 10 minutes.

...even Emily.

What can I say:  2011 was a great year for our family.  While it wasn't without its struggles, we would be complaining at a high level if we said otherwise (this is perhaps poorly translated from the Germany saying:  Beschweren auf hohem Niveau).  When we look back at our pictures, blog posts, and memories of 2011, we can only say:  WOW!

While perhaps a bit cliche, we feel truly fortunate to have been able to have had the chance to experience so much with our friends and family in 2011.  We hope that 2012 will bring even more fun, love, and adventure.

Stay tuned!