Returning home for vacation after 1 1/2 years in Germany...

Coming home to Skaneateles, New York - May of 2009.

Time seems to be flying by ... Sheila returned home for 7 weeks to enjoy our Jess, Mike & Kristin, Nate & Tra, and Derek & Tess, the rest of the family and to prepare our home for our new endeavor, "House Renting" ... ahhhhhhh!

Upon arrival, Sheila headed over to Megan's First Communion and enjoyed a day with the family ... What a beautiful day ... First Communion has always been so special for the kids .. Sheila may have cried at every one of ours and, of course, this one was not different ...
Eating lots of great food at Ames' and Steve's ... As always they put on a fantastic spread!!! So wonderful to be back in the states!!! There's no place like home!!!

The next week, Sheila picked Jess up from Cornell and headed out to California for the weekend!!! Just a quick trip, yet a wonderful one ...

A fantastic time with Mike & Kristin, just enjoying each other's company!! Plenty to catch up on!

Los Angeles is a really neat place, great sunshine, and always something new to see and do. This was one of the restaurants we had eaten in,during our stay.

Headed out on a bike excursion down along the beaches of Marina Del Rey, Venice beach and made our way to Santa Monica for lunch ... of course ... more food! That's whatI love most about LA is the fantastic, authentic food (especially the Mexican!) ... and especially the beach cruisin'


So happy to hear the news on Kristin's new job and their plans to travel in 2010. Looking forward to their visit over to Germany during their travels ....

On the next weekend, Jess (I might be a little bit spoiled) and Sheila traveled to Hartford, CT. This time we drove and arrived at Nate & Tracy's beautiful house in Wallingford. Upon our arrival, Nate & Tra cooked up a delicious dinner!!! We just relaxed, hung out, and caught up ...


On Saturday, we went to see "Cold Play" in concert. They are on top of the charts on Sheila's list ... Great show and large tokes of fun ... Great to party with Jess, Nate and Tra. Derek and Tess arrived later in the day.
Sunday, we watched Nate play soccer (kid's still got it!) and headed back to Syracuse ... Glad we've got family in Connecticut!!!

The next 2 weeks Jess and I went shopping preparing for her 10 week trip to Peru. The sleeping bag had to be returned so she got just the right one (hope it's keeping the Peruvian winter out, Jess!) Rich arrived in the states at the end of week number 4. Upon his arrival we joined our Skan town crew Rapasadis, Kraus', Gaffneys, we missed the Tierneys at the Sherwood Inn for dinner ... Rich found himself sitting in front of the Yankee Pot Roast ... classic!

Derek & Tess arrived that evening ... so nice that they came in for the weekend. On Saturday we proceeded down to Cornell for Rich's 30th reunion ... That's right ... 30 YEARS!!

Hung out with Rich's Best Man, Kevin, and his wife Cindy McEachron, so nice to see them.

We both thought we looked pretty darn good in comparison to the rest of the crowd of 30 year alums!!! (Wonder if all the other old, fat, bald, people were thinking the same thing?!)

On Sunday, Jess headed out into the wild blue yonder ... to Peru (classic pose, huh?) ... and Der headed back to Boston ... our time in the US was just flying by ...
After we dropped Jess at JFK (and getting to see 500,000 of our best friends over the George Washington bridge!) we proceeded down to Baltimore for Ethan's graduation. We got to hear Ethan speak at the graduation (smart kid!) and had a wonderful celebration with Scott, Sheri, Ethan, Dani and their friends ...

For the next 2 weeks we enjoyed our home, more family, and all of our Skan-town friends. This was a shot of Mom and Frank out on the boat for cocktail hour ... our first meeting with Frank ... what a great guy and beautiful evening.

We continued to have oodles of lunches and dinners with everyone. Here's some pictures of the Kraus' before we headed down for dinner at the club. We just can't stop laughing when we're with these two ...
We had a fun dinner with the Gaffneys and Tierneys back at the house (no pictures ... sorry) and even managed to have a "dinner by boat" one night with the Rapasadis. It was a beautiful evening and a great chance to catch-up on a year's worth of "stuff" ...

The last weekend of our stay we headed to Canandagua Lake for Lauren's and Scott's wedding ... another great event with tons of good food. Nate arrived from Connecticut that evening for the weekend festivities ... popular demand, you know, for his wedding break dancing (Yo!)



After the wedding, we headed off to the Canandagua winery ... "flights" of beer and wine tasting for everyone there ...

On Father's Day (and after a great breakfast at home!), Rich headed back to Germany, Nate, Der & Tess all headed home and Sheila got ready for ... the "Haswell B&B" (now open for the season)! And the first guest (fittingly) ... The Strodel Family Sister's Trip ... beginning on Sunday evening!!

Ame and Jan arrived with dinner from around the world!!! Delicious!! Loads of laughs and great food .... (though Rich suspects it was a bit more like "Girls Gone Wild") ...

Monday we headed off to Mir Beau for a little R&R In the afternoon, we headed up to Anyella's winery across the street!! What fun ...

The next morning we went by boat down to town for breakfast and some shopping. Everyone managed to find something ...Our time in the states was fa-a-a-a-ntastic! So wonderful to see everyone!! Only problem was it went by sooo quickly ...

Heading back to Germany to satisfy our European wanderlust ...

And after we were safely back in our Bonn bungalow ... next stop ITALY ... and the Amalfi Coast!