This year is filling up with lots of travel and visitors! 

January:  Susanna's mom Ursula and Keith were here until January 8th. We had a nice time celebrating Don's birthday, Christmas and rang in the New Year together.

February: We found out what carneval is all about in Germany! The biggest celebration takes place here in Cologne. It drew over 1.2 million viewers to the parade on Rose Monday. The parade lasted 4 hours and they tossed out 150 tons of candy, flowers and chocolate bars. Everyone dresses up, so the three of us found pirate costumes! 

Then the Texas in us needed some sun so we headed to Mallorca for 5 days and played in the sun. 

March: Don's mom Patti came over for a 12 day visit. We took her and Ava to Disneyland Paris for 3 nights. It was the first time either of them visited a Disney park! We also showed her our surroundings and took day trips into Bonn and Cologne.

Then the 3 of us headed to Dublin for six days. We spent a night in Kilkenny at The Butler House and the following four nights in Dublin. We participated in the St. Patrick's Day celebrations!

April: Don spent a week in England for work.  So Ava and Susanna visited friends in her old stomping grounds .. Kaiserslautern for a few nights.

Then Susanna's former roommate from Oregon State came over for a vist with her husband.  Amy and Corey arrived on the 17th of April and stayed until the 28th. We all traveled down to Venice for 3 nights and then they headed to Paris on their own. In between trips we sampled lots of German beer with them.

May:  We took a 14 day cruise that departed from Barcelona on May 17th.  From Barcelona we cruised to Nice, Pisa, Rome, Naples, Cagliari, Malaga, Gibraltar, Cadiz, Lisbon, Vigo and ended up in Southampton, UK on May 30th.

June:  No big plans ... we turned on the grill whenever the weather allowed and made a few trips to the pool.

July:  The annual conference for all exchange officers and their families took place in Garmisch, Germany.  We enjoyed a week long stay at the Edelwiess Lodge!

August:  Ava turned two on the 16th and Niels joined our family on the 25th!

September:  Susanna's mom, Ursula came over for 4 weeks and helped out with the little ones. 

October - November:  We tried to take it easy ...

December:  We'' be spending the Christmas season in Germany. Enjoying the Christmas markets and advent season. Then on the 28th we'll fly to NJ and visit family. We fly from there to OR ... do more visiting and eventually come back to Germany on the 28th of January.

Ava:  Is running thru the house these days.  She started talking more in November, some in English, some in German and some in Eng-man / Ger-lish.  She is a great little traveler; Portugal was her 13th country! Too bad they don't stamp passports when you travel from one European country to another. She and mama still go to a German play group on Friday mornings for two hours. On Wednesdays she goes to tumbling with one of us.

Don:   He is enjoying his time as an exchange officer in the German 'Bundeswehr' military. He is working with the Sku Kdo which is short for Streitkräftteunterstutzüngskommando! He was told after the 2nd day by Colonel Erdmann that was his last conversation in English. He works from 7am until 4:30pm Monday thru Thursdays and comes home around 1pm on Fridays. He gets to travel quite a bit .. this year we may all be going back to England for a week in April and a week in Garmisch in July!

Mailing address:

Meeks

USDAO-Bonn

PSC 117 Box 285

APO AE  09080

Cell phones:

Don 011-49-177-860-7237 from the US, 0177-860-7237 within Germany

Susanna 011-49-177-860-7236 from the US, 0177-860-7236 within Germany

Home phone:

011-49-2241-148-4670 from the US, 02241-148-4670 within Germany

We are 6 hours ahead of youse on the east coast and 9 hours ahead of all you on the west coast ...

When we are visiting in the states we will still have my current cell 503-381-7496

E-mail:

donaldmeeks@hotmail.com

susannameeks@hotmail.com