Healing power of being home and travelling

Hello everyone who reads my blog (all two or three of you). I'm at the airport- a very familiar place to me. I've been here in PA for 4 weeks- I am so lucky. My family is so great and I'm so glad that most of them live here. I was so homesick when I came here in late November and now I'm feeling better. I only feel a slight tang of sadness that I'm leaving to west for some skiing, job interviews and to visit a lot of friends.

My girlfriends in Salt Lake City are the ones I am most looking forward to seeing. I wish they were closer to Germany and I am looking forward to moving back to the states so that I can visit them and have some adventures with them more often. I still need to make them a CD for christmas.

Today I went on a ten mile bike ride with my baby brother. He is planning on biking 300 miles a month for the next 10 months. I think he can do it. Then in October he plans to bike across the United States. This year I bought myself pedals and shoes. If he wasn't in such amazing shape I would seriously consider going with him on the trip. Maybe he'll let me do a week or two with him through the states I'm most interested in.

I wish I had a photo of Danny on his bike- but just for a good laugh here is a photo of me on my bike. I'm wearing my skiing helmet (it kept my ears warm) and some random warm clothes. :) This photo makes me laugh! :) I'm glad I am still somewhat of an athlete- and I still haven't changed since I was a kid... I like bikes and the outdoors and I sometimes dress like a goofball! :)

Still at my sister's house

I have had a really relaxing week! :) I've played with William a lot and I went to Pittsburgh to visit my friends Laura and Kim. I also met a lot of people at CMU.

My sister Lisa arrives from Florida tomorrow. I have all my gifts taken care of (except for my grandparents) and all I have to do is finish my photo album page that I'll give out this year. Making the page reviewing 2008/2007 for me reminds me of all the amazing places I've travelled and the great visitors I've had in Germany.

Tonight I want to post a video of little William. He is so cute. When you blow him a kiss- it is so great- he smacks one back in your direction. Not only that, but he also does it if you just say, "Betty loves you".

Here is one of him enjoying looking into himself in the Mac.




I'll also add a really great photograph that my brother-in-law Ryan, William, my little brother Danny and I took the other day. :) What fun times. I'm so glad I have such a great family.


Right now, Nate, Eric and Ryan are siting here watchign the Giants vs Panthers game. It looks like a nice game. I think I'll join them now.

Hanging out at the Gajecki's House

This year there is a new Gajecki: William. Last year this time my sister Becky was close to 9 months pregnant and little william came to join the family on Jan 1st, 2008. This year I get to see him hanging out and he hardly cries- though he is at the moment. Oh- now his dad just gave him his bottle and he has stopped. :) No more tears- milk is yummy.

Anyway, My brother Danny and I are sitting here relaxing and I have some photographs to share with everyone. The one photograph that isn't me showing William my love-so that he can remember his favorite Aunt from abroad- is my brother Daniel and brother-in-law Ryan. :)

My sister Becky has a great little baby boy and Ryan is a great dad- it is a real pleasure to see them together. ;)

Home sweet home with my grandparents!!!

This is my Pop Pop hunting up at the mountains. I told him he looks like an orange monster! :) I thought the snow looked great and as he showed me the photographs tonight- I imagined skiing in Utah and in the Swiss and French Alps this year! Below you'll see some photographs of me and my Pop Pop checking out his photographs and looking at his computer. :) Okay, that is all for now. It is football time and then dinner.

New photographs.

I'm feeling pretty lonely in Germany tonight. I just ate dinner and I'm gonna relax and watch a movie and then go to bed. It is only 19:00 so that is pretty good. ;)

I decided to upload a bunch of photographs from the last two years. Most of these photographs Oscar took. :)



I think this photograph is in Trier.




Here I am skiing in France. Oscar and I went on a ski tour and it was spectacular scenery. I'd do it again any day.



Here I am again and you can see our path ahead of us- and down, of course.



Here is a photo of me once we got done the path you see above. The mountains are beautiful. I am really excited to get back there and be in the mountains again.



This photograph is of me in downtown Tuebingen by the StiftsKirche. I like how Tuebingen puts up such nice flowers in the city- they are beautiful.

nice day

I played a guitar today- I think I will try to get it all fixed (I need two more strings). Also, I caught up with some old friends. A good friend of mine from the east coast is moving back to europe this spring. That will be great to get to see him more. :)

Today I bought my plane ticket home to PA. I am really excited to see my family. I gathered a bunch of photographs at work to post online, but lets see what photographs I could dig up here on my laptop.

September and October

These top two photographs are some of my favorites from when Danny visited me. Above Danny and I are on top of a very high mountain. Danny beat me by 45 minutes and the trip from where we slept was something like 2000 meters gain and it took him 2 hours and 45 minutes. A revolving restuarant waited for us at the top- and also some James Bond movie clips. It was great to show danny some proper mountains, not to mention a few of some of the highest peaks in Switzerland. It reminded me of the time we went to the Wind Rivers in Wyoming. However, the mountains in Switzerland are somehow more impressive to me than even those moutains. I guess it is the shear height difference at points (see later photo). It seems the mountains rise up out of nowhere and go to such extreme heights! I love Switzerland. The photograph below is when Danny and I first met. I picked him up at the airport and then we had to take the bus home. At least I think this is where that photograph was taken. We both look a bit tired- so I'm assuming so. I wish one of my siblings from PA could come to visit me every weekend! :) That would be awesome. I especially enjoyed playing cards with Danny and Oscar.


I wrote the below part first, and then went back and added details for the photographs:

Fortunately in late September and early October my baby brother Daniel was able to visit me. It was great. We went to Switzerland and did a really nice hike and via ferrata. We also went to Stuttgart's festival, which is similar to Oktoberfest in Munich. :) Danny took a ton of photographs and we had such a great time. I was happy that he didn't have to spend too much money and that we got to do a lot of outdoor events.

Oscar is in the states on a job interview this weekend and I don't feel too wordy- so I'll just post some photographs and videos from Danny's trip.

On other news with me- I have to apply to jobs again this fall. It is a lot of work, but should hopefully pay off this spring with a job back in North America and closer to my family and friends.



Above is a photograph of Danny by the town I live in- Tuebingen, Germany. Sehr Schoen!



Here is a photograph of Danny finishing up the most exciting part of a via ferrata that Danny, Oscar and I did that ended in Gimmelwald, Switzerland. It was really exciting, but rather easy-- other than the constant fear of heights issue. ;)



Here is a video of Danny and me on the Nepal bridge. Fun times! :)

Some cool photographs of Tuebingen

Lately I've been feeling really swamped with work and I feel like I've forgotten how to have fun. I am not sure what I need to do, but I think I need to relax a bit more over the next coming weeks and I think I need to get a few things done for myself at work. I have a journal publication that I've been needing to get done for some time, and I have another one ready to start writing.



I am excited about trying to go biking this coming weekend. I want to go mountain biking in nearby Freiburg. This is a place where we travelled with Oscar's family a few months ago and I really liked it. They also are said to have nice mountain biking nearby. I am hopeful.

I decided to post some nice photographs that were taken by a visiting professor, Jack Loomis. I edited them slightly- but here they are. The first one is Tuebingen's main church from an airplane and the second one is a castle that is nearby, also from an airplane. :)

Relaxing month of August and September

Above is a photograph of the building I work in. It is called the cyberneum and is the greenish building that is hiding behind hte tree. Some afternoons we grab a soccer ball and play a bit up in that grass field that is to the left of our building. This is from the balcony of the very sophisticated and also new building to the south of our building. It is where we had a party recently for a friend who left for Canada. What a traitor! :(

So- recent news for me. Lets see. My mom got a new computer. I'm really excited about that. I decided recently that I won't come back to the United States until I'm happy with the politics in the US. This may take some time, but I don't want to live in a place where the politics make me sick. I also don't want to be disliked anymore but all these other countries. So- this means that most likely I'll search for jobs in Canada this coming fall and a few in the states on the slight chance that by next year this time- politics will be a bit better in the United States and looking up! :)

I've been impressed lately with Obama's speech and also the democratic party lately. I hope they keep up the good work and continue to be a party I can respect. I also like McCain well enough- I just think he is really old! I'm also not so thrilled about his pick of a running mate. I'm a woman, but I wouldn't want to be vice president and I think the person he picked is only moderately more experienced than I am.

Anyway, what do I know. And this isn't supposed to be a blog where I state my politic opinions- but just where I keep up with my family and share photographs of my experiences here in Europe and at work.

Lately, work is going pretty well- but it is a slow month. The last two days I have come into the office and NO ONE is here. And it is 10:30. It is a bit strange although actually it is kind of nice, too. I have a huge office to myself. I like that. I better get to work though on some motion capture stuff. I will try to take some photos of what I am up to lately. I'm doing some animation stuff and I am enjoying my job most of the days.

Last night I went to all you can eat pizza for 5,55. That was good. My friend Mirko is way into American diners- and since I like american diners... I usually try to go with him. :) He is funny. Yesterday he was in a good mood and it made me a bit happier- which I appreciated.

Okay- so for a photograph for today. Lets see. Below is a photograph of me and Mirko at a going away party that we through for a friend of ours from the cyberneum. I was pinching Mirko's bicep. I treat him like an older brother- because I miss my brothers from the states! :) Mirko doesn't seem to mind most of hte time.

Working on experiments again

Hello all,

In the past few months I've published some new results. Mostly I've been working on avatar research- and we submitted some work to a conference in Japan that my boss suggested to us. My student, Laura, will hopefully attend that conference and enjoy seeing some companies in Japan. We'll continue that work and submit it to IEEE-VR in early September. Also, my work with organizing conferences is fortunately coming to a close soon. EGVE 2008 was pretty successful and I was happy with that. APGV 2008 is coming up in early August and I'm excited to go to LA and check out Disney as well as some other universities while I'm in town. Mostly, I'm excited to stop off in Pennsylvania on my return flight and see the family. I'm tired of living so far away from them. Most of the time I don't want to return to PA-- it is too humid there for me and there are far too few mountains to view on that side of the United States. However, I miss being home and sometimes I think it would be so much better if I never left home. I could hug my mom more often and I could go to the lake with my dad a few more times a year. I wouldn't have to talk to him every so often and hold on to the funny things he says. I would get to see my nephews and nieces age and I'd learn more about my sisters and brothers and their marriages.

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. I spoke with my sister Becky the other day and she was saying that she could never be so brave as to leave PA. I don't think she was at all thinking that she would want to leave PA- but I can imagine that my "being brave" has lead to a lot of good things. I always think of it as being mostly carefree. I trust that all things will work out in the end and I have a high tolerance for pain- usually when you move you don't experience pain- but you do experience a lot of aching for the old things to come back and surround you. I've managed to not worry so much about those things and focus on the good things.

That being said, the reason I'm writing about this is that this week I've had an especially hard week with work and feeling like I don't belong here in Germany in general. It makes me want to leave and find a place where people know me really well and trust that I mean well and value the qualities I can bring to the table without always asking for more from me. I generally just want people to be satisfied with the work I do- as I think I work quite hard. I also want them to recognize that I'm very far from perfect- and I know it quite well.



I always thought getting your PhD would make you feel very qualified for something and confident that you knew something fully. Well- I thought that up until about the last two years of graduate school. Now I know that getting your PhD is the most humbling experience in academia. Some people respond by being arrogant- terrified by the idea that someone might find them out that they know nothing. I hope I always fall into the catergory of people who are the first to admit that they know very little in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway, I miss my family and I'll post a few photos here quickly- before I have to run off and run an experiment today.
The first one is of Oscar taking a scuba diving lesson from my brother Rob. Rob just started his new job and I'mlooking forward to hearing how it is going.



This last one is my brother danny walking across a log near Tucquan Glen in PA. We had a great hike there- even though the rains came down on us when we were walking back along the railroad. I enjoyed being with my brothers and taking Oscar to one of my favorite places near my hometown.

Paris, past and present

It was pointed out to me recently that I very rarely write in my blog anymore. In fact, i never really wrote that much. However, I'm going to try to start again. :) I'm leaving for Paris this Saturday to see the end of the Tour de France with Oscar and his best friend, Brian. I'm excited to see the bikers and the finish of such a cool event. It would be even cooler to see a mountain terrain, but hopefully this will be nice too. I'm looking forward to the break.

Here you can see a photo of Oscar and me at Notre Dame a few months ago. I really liked Paris and I think Oscar did too. This time we are staying really close to the Eiffel Tower and I'm excited to relax a bit more- as the last time I was in Paris we were with four additional friends and I had a grant deadline, so I was not so relaxed.

So, a lot has happened in my family over the past several months. They just got back from a family vacation in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Before that my brother got married! Crazy that he is two years younger than me and now has a wife. My brother, Danny, decided to go biking across the country. He doesn't start for a while, but I'm happy for him that he is still full of adventure. I'd plan things like that, but then get down on my idea and quit. He is much more obsessed with the need for adventure. I only hope he is safe always! Then, well quite some time ago- the beginning of this new year- my baby sister Becky had a little one herself! I'm really excited to see William again in August.

Okay- I better get to work.

Biking in Germany

I am so happy for the weekend this week! The last four or five weekends I've had to work and this weekend I feel like I have earned every last drop of relaxation and doing nice things for myself. I went to a games night last night with 6/7 people- I was still feeling exhausted from the week, but I had a great time just watching them interact and laughing at them. They didn't seem to mind that I'm so weird- and sometimes I can be really socially awkward. For example when I'm nervous around someone I just try to get out of the conversation as fast as possible and I hate that--- because I'm usually so nice to people.

Anyway, today I woke up pretty early despite not going to sleep until 1am or so. I got the flat cleaned, some laundry started and I biked downtown to get some groceries. Monday is a holiday, so all the groceries until tuesday need to be bought today. Wednesday I fly home to the states to see my family! My baby big bro is getting married! It is amazing, I'm telling you! I always knew he'd get married and to a girl he was madly in love with--- he's got a lot of principles and is a dreamer like some of the other Mohler's so- I knew he'd settle for no less. But that he has found it and that they are gonna start their life together a week from today--- just hard to adjust to without feeling ancient!! Steven will always be my little brother who I could boss around and he would mostly take it. Boy- it got bossed around from both sides, from Becky & me. It must have been hard on him growing up. However, Katy, if you ever read this--- you should know that you owe me and Becky for both the easy things-- like how easy it is to boss steve around for some things--- and the hard things-- like how tricky he became in order to not do what he doesn't want to!! :) He was always very good at being sneaky and it makes me laugh to think about his annoying, then immediately fading to super cute laugh when he knows he did something mischeaveous.

I am so excited to see Lisa, Deb and their families too. I'm only sad that I can't meet the twins. It makes me think that I'm gonna need to see what I can do about getting a flight back early in July to go to our family outing this summer. Oscar encouraged me the other day to really think about it- and he was right. I should think more about how I can get to Tennessee with my family.

Anyway, I started the title of this blog with while Oscar is away I get to bike ride. I'm so excited about it too. I have a friend who is coming to my apartment in 30 minutes to borrow my bike. I'm gonna assume that Oscar is okay with me borrowing his- so that one more girl can join us on the bike ride. There will be 8 of us or so and I haven't ever ridden into the forest for a barbeque, but it is fairly common here in Germany!! I'm getting so excited for Oscar's family to come here. I just think that he will be relieved when he can hug his mom, dad and sister again. It is awesome travelling and living in Germany--- but it sure can be one of the loneliest and scariest things for country folk like Oscar and me. Surely, I could live here for a long time- but not without going home every six months and not without making better friends than I currently have here. In academics it seems hard to make friends- because people are always shifting to a new position. Also, in Germany I am always left wondering how I could fit in more and why I can't just learn Germany more easily. I have been doing the lessons on-line with BBC and they are fun- but still I am not doing so well with deutsch.

So today- we are biking into the schoenbuch forest- there is a photograph above that Oscar took in the fall of Bebenhausen- which is in the schoenbuch:). Bebenhausen is just a 10-15 minute bike ride form our place.

Then tomorrow 5/6 of us are going to take the train from Tuebingen to Ulm and then bike 50-80km. My friend Frank, who also was my partner in crime for the grant that I was just working on- will be going and a colleague from work who is super cool-- is also attending. His name is Reinhard (and he celebrated his 60th birthday this past year!) and he plans a 80-90 km bike trip each year for the our work outing- which I might miss (the bike trip, not the work outing) this year, because I will want to be with Oscar and his family for his last few days here in Europe before he heads home to go sailing with his dad.

Then.... I am so excited because after a long day of bike riding tomorrow I will catch the bus to the airport and meet Oscar because he will be back from his travels!!! and.. he doesn't go on any more long vacations without me until... June- when his parents will be here and his buddy Brian might be coming over the big pond to see his best buddy and some other friends here in Europe.

Okay- I better get going. I decided to be super nice and push the my bike and O's bike up the hill so that my friend doesn't have to come down and get it. Don't worry- it will be good for me and just help me to get back into shape! :)

I am so happy and excited to see my family this week!

working too hard and now taking a long vacation with a little bit of work throughout

Lately I have been extremely busy. I now have four students. Two of them only work 10-20 hours a week, but still I feel like I have to make sure they are progressing so that they can learn some stuff and also so that they can help out with experiments and move towards a point where they will get their masters if that is their plan/path. My friend who went with me to IEEEVR in Reno and who has been here a lot of the last 18 months I have been here- will be leaving for Pittsburgh, PA in late July. I will be super sad when she leaves here. She is really sweet and takes good care of me by listening and giving feedback. Oscar is travelling right now. It feels like he has been travelling a lot lately- and I think he has. I'm so happy for him that he can get some travelling in- but I think by the end of this coming summer some normalcy would be nice for both of us. Travelling makes you tired sometimes- even if it is really exciting!

Anyway, today I finished a project that I have been working on since mid-January. My boss decided he wanted a grant written on a really cool topic and I volunteered to help out. I sure hope that the grant gets funded as I haven't seen him more excited about an idea and I think he's had a lot of good ones. I also think he chose some really good Universities and Industry partners to help get the work done.

Just like my work and how crazy futuristic some of it is- virtual realities training people for everything!! and evaluating all human activity at the lowest level, well this idea for the grant is even much more futuristic.

The basic idea is one that has been in many science fiction books, movies and cartoons; and from what I've learned over the last three months it really may be come a reality in my lifetime. One day a normal person should be able to fly a private vehicle. What that vehicle will look like is unclear, however it is pretty clear that a lot of flight will have to be autonomous and that it would have to be pretty appealing and comfortable for people to make a huge jump to flying vehicles.

I'll add two photographs in here which I think are really interesting. One is from a company in Israel, Urban Aeronautics, and the other is the Jetsons! :) I loved that show when I was a kid. Lets all keep our fingers crossed that this grant gets funded, because it will likely mean that I get to go flying a bit- if not in real aerial vehicles (helicopters, planes) definitely more in simulators! :)

Though I'm always so sad that I'm so far from my family and where I feel at home-- I am so glad that i like my job and I'm so grateful that Oscar came to Germany to be with me for the last 5 months. It has been a lot nicer with him around!!

He is really sweet and I can't wait to see him this coming weekend and introduce him to my family next week at my younger brother's wedding.

Grant Writing

Hey all,

Well for the last month I've been just barely staying afloat with work and a crazy over-committed schedule. I guess I didn't realize how easy it is for a post-doc to get overloaded with work. I'm writing this really exciting grant and I'm organizing two conferences- and they are both good for my career. However, sometimes I wonder why anyone would do such things for their career. I guess they are in some ways intrinsically a lot of fun- but mostly it is a lot of hard work and humility.

I am really excited for May 8th when my schedule decreases and I can take off some days to go for some bike rides and enjoy myself. Also, May 14th I leave for the states to go to my brother's wedding. It should be a lot of fun, though, like usual I wish I was going longer.

Oscar is in London right now- hopefully enjoying his time with our friends. He leaves tomorrow morning for a really cool sailing trip. I'm excited to see some photographs and I hope I get to sail with him this summer on the bodensee. It would be great! :)

Anyway, I better get this deadline finished. Here is a photo of me in Venice that I wanted to post on-line for a while. I was thinking of my mom when I took it- as I thought she would like to see how happy I was. ;)

Travelling a lot in Europe (now the UK)

Hello everyone,

So- Oscar and I are the travelling experts lately. For the last almost two weeks he has been in Italy, Austria and even Lichtenstein (I think). This past weekend I flew down to Venice to spend 24 hours with him and his friends. It was great and relatively inexpesive too! :) So that was good. Now today (in an hour) I leave for the UK. We are flying to Manchester for business. This is my first time to the UK. I'm pretty happy about that- we are going to see some one's lab at the University of Liverpool. My colleague Frank has asserted that we have to go out to get a drink at the very least- because we will only be there for less than 24 hours and I guess he is hoping to get some enjoyment out of being in the UK. Mostly- it will be business as usual.

In the next month I still have very little travel plans. I'm happy about that. I will travel to my brother's wedding for a week and then after that I have to travel a lot.

I'm excited for Oscar to get back! :) He is really great and I miss hanging out with him.

Happy Easter

I really can't believe it is already Easter weekend. It is great to have some relaxing time and recover from jetlag. This seems to be the story of my life recently, but I'm pretty happy that I won't have to travel over the ocean until May and then again after that until early August.

:) I'm going to make myself some quesadillas now for lunch- but first wanted to say Happy Easter to all my family and friends.

I thought also that I would post some photographs on line. I haven't posted much on my blog for some time- so now that i have some time to relax- here goes. The first photo is of the two mohler's that have yet to be married (me and my baby bro- Daniel). Then you can see below my brother steven who is getting married this summer to his fiance Katy. I'm really looking forward to their wedding and to see their married life begin! :)

Long time.. no blogging.

It has certainly been a long time since I have written anything on this page. It isn't because I haven't wanted to, but mostly because I've been extremely busy. I am right now in Salt Lake City getting ready to make the flight back over the ocean. I visited the states for a research conference, IEEE-Virtual Reality. The conference was really enjoyable and I met a lot of fascinating people. Also, a student I have been working with presented a research paper and it was her first big presentation. I was impressed- she did a great job. She is the same student/friend I visited in Romania this past summer. She is back in Tuebingen enjoying the German life.

My trip to Salt Lake City went really well. I got to see a lot of people this time and I felt like I really got to talk to a few people in great depth. It is nice to be among really good friends and people that I just really admire a lot. Also, I have had some great food while I was here. I went for mexican food, vegan food, japanese food twice and well- other than that I guess I can still say I ate very well.

I also got a lot of work done. I'm helping to organize two conferences right now. For one I feel as if the work is picking up the pace and the conference is the end of May. For the other- the work is really just getting started and that conference will be in LA in August.

I miss my family. I thought I'd post a photograph of Oscar and me on-line though for those of you who actually check this page still and would like to see a photograph of Oscar and I when we recently visited the tallest mountain in all of the European Union. Oscar is great at planning trips and we have managed pretty well to see some cool places without spending a ton of money. ;) This specific photograph I am posting is of Oscar and I in Italy with Mt Blanc behind us.

Working on a paper submission and conference work

I feel like it has been a while since I posted. I am working on a conference deadline for a conference which I am helping to organize. It will be in late May in the Netherlands. It has been fun so far to work on organizing it, but it is amazing how much time organizing things (I'm also organizing another conference, and I've taken on two students) takes from your research. It is a major juggling act. I am happy to be gaining experience though, since very soon I would like to move on to become a faculty member where there are a lot more tasks/topics to juggle.

I have some cool photographs from my recent research. I'm working on wrapping up the avatar work so that I can move on to using the avatar for psychophysical experiment. Here are some photographs that my research assistant helped gather for my current experiment:



These two images are when you are looking down at your left hand and right foot, respectively. :) In these images you see a visual representation of yourself within a virtual world.

Scuba Diving in January

While i was home in PA my brother Robert and his wife Jen took me scuba diving. We finished all the book work to be scuba-diving certified. We also went diving twice. So for me, now I have gone diving three times with them and we had a great time. Jen is an excellent and patient teacher- and Rob is also really good at teaching. I felt really happy to have them both teaching me and it was great to spend that time with them. I am working on a sunday and should really get back to work so that this coming week is not so stressful for me- but I wanted to post a photograph of me under water. You can see that I have my new subscription mask and I am not using the water tank, but instead I'm practicing continuously blowing bubbles. It was quite fun! :)

Back in Germany... Home Sweet Home?

I made it back to Deutschland today. Wow the last three weeks were a whirlwind of people, work, and travel. I first went to PA where I was so happy to see my family and catch up with them before going to spend Christmas with Oscar and his family in Oregon. Oregon is such a beautiful place and it was really nice to get to know Oscar's family more and see them when they are together for the holidays. They did a great job of making me feel at home and O's parents can really cook well- so that was also really enjoyable. Mostly, I thought it was great to get to know O's sister better and to see how happy Oscar's father is because he found out that Oscar will return this coming July to sail with him in an annual sailboat race. Christmas was really nice to spend with them. Then I went to Salt Lake City where I was able to catch up with some of my friends- some of my good friends were out of town for the holidays. However, my friend Kristi who we just learned a bit over a year ago had Luekemia- is doing remarkably well and I'm so happy for her and her, now, fiance! :)

Then I returned to Pennsylvania, just in time to celebrate my brother's birthday and the new year! ;) I also returned to PA just in time for the newest edition of our family to come into the world. William, my baby sister's first child, was born early afternoon on January 1st. ;) I was so happy to meet him when he was just a few hours old. Becky and Ryan seem to be settling in to being mom and dad really well. ;) I am also glad to know that she has my mom nearby. My mom has got to be the most amazing and practiced!! mother ever- so I think Becky will get some good advice over the next coming years. ;) Then the week seemed to fly by right up until my grandmother and grandfather's wedding celebration. My grandfather, or PopPop as we say it, surprised my Nanny on her 80th birthday with a huge party and he planned an entire wedding for her (well, for this he had the help of all his children and their children). It was definitely the most romantic thing I ever saw. It is really cool that they have been together for so long and that they look after one another so well.

Then I traveled to Washington DC to visit my friends Milan, Bettina, Mendel and Melushka. That was really nice- though I wish I had been there longer. Then I had to rush back to PA to spend some time with the family and now I'm awake in the middle of the night due to jetlag. ;)

I'll post a few photographs from my trip. I thought I'd say thank you to all the people who made my christmas holidays so enjoyable!!! Also, I'm so glad to be back in my apartment, at home in ways, but being back in Germany makes me realize that Home Sweet Home will always be where my mom and dad are living. :)

I miss all of my brothers, sisters, grandparents, and especially my parents already!

Last days in Lancaster County, PA

I am sitting here with my grandfather and I just got back from DC where I was visiting some university friends. I'll post a picture of them as soon as they send it my way. My christmas and new year's holidays were a lot of fun. I went out to Oregon to be with Oscar's family for Christmas, stopped in Salt Lake City to see my friends from Utah, played poker with my brothers on New Year's Eve. Then the big event occurred. My nanny and pop pop got remarried. I made a movie and I bought my mom and nanny some nice clothes for the event. It was one of the most romantic events of my life. :) They really love each other and my mom is a really good role model. I wish I was as good of a daughter as she is to her parents!! :)

I'm not too ready to leave PA, but I sure am ready to see Oscar. We both fly back to Germany this coming weekend.

:) The photo is me when I was a baby. Also, that reminds me, my sister Rebecca had her little baby. Some photos of them will be posted soon.