New Year's in the Bavarian Forest

After all of the Christmas and birthday festivities, we took my parents to the airport (they had a 10+ hour delay in Frankfurt) and had a few days of work before we headed to the Bavarian Forest for New Year's with Eva and her family - 12 of us in total.

We took the chance to experience the joys of packing one last time without children. Read: we packed way too much. The caption for the pic below would read: and where's the room for the kids?


I was wanting to go cross country skiing in the Bavarian Forest...but there, unlike Colorado, was no snow. So, Eva being the great wife she is, suggested that I bring my mountain bike. Perfect idea! Even though there was no snow, there was plenty of mud.


Pic during one of our afternoon hikes along the 'klein Arbersee'. I give Eva tons of credit: even being 8 months pregnant, she has the energy to do some hiking. Next year, I'll carry our child during the hikes...

For New Year's, we did a sort of While Elephant Gift event (Wichteln). Everyone brings and wraps something that they don't want, and through various rules of the game, you end up with someone elses 'junk'. Below, Eva's cousin Sebastian with a new apron.

I forgot to mention...we stayed in this really small village right next to the area brewery (which makes 3 million liters of beer a year)...literally 50 meters from the brewery...which was right next door to the village church.

...how cool is that ??? Part of the brewery is on the left...and the church is on the right.


Another picture...from the bottling part of the brewery with the church in the background.

Not to make you think that we sat around and drank all day, but we did take a brewery tour one morning. The tour guide was one of the two brothers that owned the brewery. The brewery had been in the family's hands for about 150 years.

Even though his age made it difficult to walk, his mind and heart was full of the history of the brewery and the family.

After the tour, he invited us to the little cafe next door, we had a few beers, and he told stories of the area, the family, and the family business...of course, with a half liter of beer.

All in all, we had three hour tour, led by the owner, with a half liter of their beer. Cost: Free.

Below is a picture of me with 10,000 of my new best friends.


Some of the winter scenery during one of our hikes.

The half bald man in the pic below is me 'kegeling'. It is a German form of bowling. 9 pins instead of 10, and the goal isn't always to knock all of the pins down. Similar to bowling, however, is that beer is never very far away.

Göttgens and Lümmer family photo. Believe it or not, but all of us are standing on the same level. If our child is lucky, our child will get some of the Göttgens and Lümmer height genes.

Despite the lack of snow, I did make it out one day for some cross country skiing...the routes weren't that clean, but there was just enough snow. I went on one route that took me to the Czech border (border crossing sign in the background).
On our last day, the whole family went on a hike together. Below is Konstantin and Eva's dad playing 'baseball'. Eva's dad had some issues hitting the 'ball', so Konstantin just made the snowball bigger and bigger to help out.
As with just about all German hiking trails, especially in mountains, there was a mountain 'hut' (Berghütte) along the way. It was particularly foggy that day, giving a particularly eerie feeling.
Inside, however, was warm and cozy...a perfect chance to warm up and to get a bite to eat before the hike back to the valley.
The next day, we headed back home. It was a great and relaxing week in the Bavarian Forest. Eva and her family have been going there for almost 20 years, so it is a very special place for the family...and a place that we'll continue to go to as a family.

... next time, we just need to leave room for our child...

Eva's 30th Birthday Party

The time had finally come for Eva to turn 30. We had the celebration at Eva's parents' place - in the basement where the bar is. We brought in as many tables as possible and decorated the tables with small Playmobil figures and assorted Duplo blocks.

Eva took the whole turning 30 really well...it also helps a lot that she still looks about 24!

We had a nice brunch - stocked with lots of cake, coffee...and later a real meal. Below is a quick snapshot at one table, with Konstantin and my dad in the background talking about politics and heavy metal music.
Unfortunately, there aren't many more pictures...I was too busy trying to film the whole thing, that I didn't have much digital camera action going on.

Hopefully, when Eva and I figure out the digital video camera, we'll post a few snippits of the event.

...with all of the digital capabilities these days, I thank God that we didn't have digital cameras when I was in college...

The Annual Christmas Pics

As with previous years, here's our 2006 version of the 'Christmas next to the tree' pictures...

ok...this one doesn't have a tree in it...but a good picture of Eva nonetheless.

Pre Christmas Cheer with the Schmidt's

While my parents were having their week of fun by themselves in Berchtesgaden, we were keeping the cheer rolling...and had a nice dinner with Tanja, Rene, and their son Henrik at our place.


Here's Henrik hamming it up for the camera in our chair. Actually, Rene was getting ready to change his diaper, and I was to keep him busy. He was just learning to sit up, and he almost fell over shortly after the pic was taken. I need to get used to watching out for those things.

These kids are quick these days...

For the Pi Kapps (and especially for Ize), under the white covering is the orange chair that was in Ize, Krier, and Bull's room in the old house (the original old house) that Ize gave me for graduation.

Henrik was having fun unpaking his father's gift...

Berchtesgaden with the Parents

After coming back to Erlangen and having a few days to rest and relax, we drove to Berchtesgaden with my parents. Eva and I would only stay one night, and my parents would stay for almost a week.

This way my parents first time in Germany, alone, without us paving the way for them. Needless to say, Eva and I were both a bit worried that something bad would happen, but they did a great job, had a great time, even made a side trip to Salzburg, and made it home safe.

The day that we were there, we had fantastic weather. We were hoping for some snow, but sunny, blue skies are always welcome.

Above is the view from near the center of the city, looking into the valley.
After bumming around in the city for a bit, we went to the nearby lake, Königssee, to get a bit of fresh air and to go deeper into the national park.
Alongside the lake, there is a bobsled and luge track. We were stoked that people were actually riding, and after about 30 tries, we finally able to catch a pic of a bobsled racing by. From the sound, it sounds like they are going relatively slow, then they whip around the corners really fast.
You can actually pay to ride the bobs through the track...but we'll do that next time when Eva is not pregnant. Despite not having ridden the bobs, we still felt compelled to take a pic on top of the podium (with my parents on my left).
The two of us on the edge of Königssee.
On our ride home, we stopped by to see Keith and Manuela in Munich. It was great to stop by their place and to spend a few relaxing moments with friends during Christmastime.

They had prepared a 'Weißwurstfrühstück' - typical of Munich and even Bavaria - which consists of pretzels, white sausages, sweet mustard, and most importantly - Weißbier (Wheat Beer).

Eva drove the rest of the way home...

Nürnberg's Christmas Market (Christkindlesmarkt)

On Friday after work, before heading to Hattingen for Christmas Eve, we headed with my parents to the world famous Nürnberg Christmas Market (Chriskindlesmarkt). Tourists come from all corners of the planet to see Nürnberg all decked out in its Christmas Spirit. The Christmas Market of Nürnberg stemmed from the middle ages with Nürnberg acting as a trading center for the region allowing the local woodcrafters and bakers to sell their wares.

One of the advantages of going on Friday evening: the tour buses are gone and there are mostly locals around...which makes it much easier to find food at the food stands, and, more importantly, some hot mulled wine (Glühwein).

Above is the famous fountain of Nürnberg. If you find the ring and turn it once, it will bring you good luck and bring you back to Nürnberg. But, beware, there are two rings on the gates of the fountain. Just a hing: the ring that has a huge line of tourists behind it is not the right ring!

A view of the Christkindlesmarkt with the Frauenkirche in the background.
A view of the markets. Each one of the lighted posts represents a row of small buildings selling Glühwein, foodstuffs, and Christmas goodies.

Christmas Baking

Before all of the Christmas festivities got started in full force, Eva and my mom took an afternoot to bake some cookies: some American and some German style. You see Eva below making some very fancy chocolate cookies - with a thin layer of jelly and dipped in chocolate.

Here's my mom in action preparing a fresh batch of white chocolate cranberry cookies for cooling.
Here's a quick view of the results. It is a good thing we took this picture...since there are now no pieces of evidence that they baked at all! Ohhh...I love home baked cookies!

For a great recipe for Lebkuchen (German Gingerbread cookies) that Eva used, please see the site of one of our friends, Daffy.

*** note to the English speaking community: if you want the receipe, let me know and I'll translate for you. The Lebkuchen are awesome!

60th Wedding Anniversary

On the 11th of December, Eva's Grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. In the morning, there was a short church service followed by cake, coffee, and lunch at Diergardts (the same restaurant we had our wedding reception).

It was great to hear all of the stories from Eva's grandparents and their friends about the 'old days'. When I asked about the weather on the day they got married, Eva's grandfather said that it was so cold that the water in the flower vase froze.

Here's Kurt and Inge Göttgens with their three sons (from left to right) Wolfgang, Rainer, and Uli.

Congrats on the 60th!

Meet the Fokkers - Pre Christmas 2006

Pardon the reference. Having both of our sets of parents together with us is truly a great experience...but I still laugh at these movies to think how bad it could have been. Brings great holiday cheer.

Meet the Parents // Meine Braut, ihr Vater und ich
Meet the Fockers // Meine Frau, Ihre Schwiegereltern und ich

On the 10th of December, my parents began their almost 3 week German Christmas vacation. They had originally wanted to come in order to celebrate Eva's grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary.

As luck would have it, as my parents completed the planning and when they realized that it was so close to Christmas, we talked them into staying a bit longer so they could celebrate Christmas with us as well.

Here's my folks on the day they arrived. We wanted to keep them active to keep them awake...so we headed to a Christmas market in Hattingen and had some obligatory mulled red wine (Glühwein) and some sausages.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

In the tradition of my family, I travelled deep into the Bavarian Forest to pick out the best christmas tree that could fit in our apartment. I spent hours finding that perfect tree - absent from any tarnish or blemishes. I cut it down using my trusty Swiss Army knife and carried it on my shoulders for miles through feet of snow back to our car to bring back home to my pregnant wife as a trophy of my efforts and a symbol of my love...

... or maybe I just drove the 400 meters to the lot selling trees and brought it back. Regardless, I think I found a good one, and we had fun putting on the lights and ornaments. With the Christmas music playing on the stereo, we were definitely getting in the 'Christmas Spirit'.

While we were decorating the tree, our 'art' arrived. As a 'Thank You' for buying the condo, the builder gave us art. The artist actually came by and we discussed a bit what we were looking for. She then made for us a custom piece of art that goes perfectly with our condo.

We were a bit giddy of getting real 'art'...since both Eva and I are basically artistically inept.

If you like what you see, please visit the Andrea Zimmermann's website.

Above is our Nativity Scene that we got last Christmas as a gift from Eva's family. The figures are hand carved from the Bavarian Forest.
Gould Family photo 2006. We wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas!

The Wishbone

After waiting a week or two, I got to introduce Eva to yet another American Tradition: the pulling of the wishbone. After carefully letting the wishbone dry out, I explained the rules...leaving out the strategy of "the pull" in hopes that I could win somehow. After all, I had years of experience.





Despite my efforts, the result was as follows:

The middle part was literally hanging by a thread of skin. Eva won and got to make her wish. So much for strategy and experience!

I can't say that I've ever seen a wishbone break like this...I guess I didn't let it dry out long enough.

Thanksgiving 2006

Well, Thanksgiving 2006 started out innocent enough. We wanted to invite a few friends over for an American celebration - Gould style. We sent out handwritten invitations to 10 friends...now the work could begin.


Unlike previous Thanksgivings, we were in our new place and had enough room for 10 people + Eva and I. I also wanted a larger turkey than the 12 pounder I got the last time. Unfortunately, I couldn't find one large enough in the store, and ended up ordering one from a turkey farm close to Erlangen.

When I told Eva that I ordered an 8 kilo turkey (about 19 pounds), she thought I was crazy and told me it would never fit in our oven. My mom even went to the grocery store in Borger and measured (with a tape measure) the dimensions of a 19 pound bird (in a small town like Borger, this will get you some funny looks).

At the end of the day, the turkey was 10 kilos (about 22 pounds). It barely fit in the oven.

We had to do some rearranging to get it to fit in the fridge. With all of the other food we needed for the feast, it was tight in the fridge. If it were a bit colder outside, we could have stored the other items in the garage.

I really don't like cleaning turkeys. It is a pretty gross task. Having a fresh turkey that was slaughtered only two days prior sounds pretty cool in theory (and it did taste really fresh), until you have to cut out the heart of the bird. Thankfully, it didn't bleed all over the place.

Anytime you are in a foreign country, you have to improvise with ingredients from time to time. I couldn't find molasses and just used extra sugar for the sweet potatoes. (After a heated discussion with our guests after the fact, I know now where to find something like molasses).

Even in a sausage loving country like Germany, I couldn't find any Italian sausage for the stuffing (kinda like Jimmy Dean)...so I did what any good German would do and used bratwurst!

Four and a half hours to go...

This farm raised, free range turkey was great! It had a huge layer of fat on the neck section and tons of dark...signs of a slowly raised turkey. It also produced a lot of juice, which was almost overflowing from the pan.

When I was taking the bird out of the oven, all I could think of was how embarassing it would be if I dropped the thing on the floor.

Eva and I posing with the turkey...

Eva did a great job setting the table and making a very festive Thanksgiving atmosphere.

At this point, everyone is thinking: 'Rob, hurry up and take the picture...we want to eat!'

We had a great time with our friends and our German version of Thanksgiving. While some things are different, the basics and the important things (friends and thanks) remain the same.

Next time I need to make some more sweet potatoes, more gravy, and get a bigger turkey (just kidding).

Also in good Thanksgiving tradition, for the following week, we ate turkey sandwiches, turkey leftovers, turkey soup...