Adventures with Tosha and a Cap and Gown for Tanner

Last week tanner took off to Berlin for a few days with his friends and our parents were in Switzerland with our grandparents so Tosha and I were alone and I had a day off school.  We decided we would go to the mall so we got all ready and planned everything out and the bus didn't come so we had to speed walk to the train station.  We finally got to the mall and realized it was closed because of the holiday so we decided to head down to the city center. Most of the shops were closed.  So we took a train to Theresienwiese so I could show Tosha Lady Bavaria so here we are.

 Then we walked around a little bit and followed some paths to a park where there was this really creepy statue!

 And a ginormous snail!

 Then we finally found another train station where we could head back home!

 Luckily the weather was very nice and this is Tosha enjoying the sun as she emerges from the underground.

 FINALLY we made it back home and got ice cream.  This is our victory picture.  We felt so pro traveling around with all the trains!

 Then Tosha made us really good Japanese food to end a great day.

 We had leftover rice and so she wrapped it all up in these little bundles and they were SO WARM!  I just wanted to hold them on my face.  So I did!

 Today was Tanner's High School graduation and it was at avery nice theater and was a really good program.  This is a picture of Tanner and one of his friends giving a special thanks to the great music teacher who is leaving the school, Ms. Betts.

Here is Tanner getting his diploma.  As each of the students received their diploma, a little blurb was said about them regarding what they plan to do in the future.  Tanner's said that he will be serving a two-year full time mission for our church and then attending Brigham Young University.  His was definitely the only one to say that!

 We are so proud of him and love him SO much!!!

 Afterwards we had a lovely picnic in our backyard to celebrate. :)

Teeter-Totters to Slo-Mo and Everything in Between

We three amigos decided to walk around and we found this awesome little park

 And a lovely field

 I had to contribute to a bake sale for school, so Tanner did a wonderful job of making cookies for me.  :)  Tosha and I thought this picture was just priceless.

 I can't even describe how much I love having this girl home right now.  We have such fun times together and can finally just talk like we used to.

 We were investigating plants in Biology this week and we just walked off into the forest behind our school and had a blast.  It's really weird to be able to walk into the forest right off of campus, but I love it!!

 Definitely one of the highlights this week: Receiving a package from our cousins on both sides of our family with loving notes and small gifts.  It helped me remember that we have so many people at home who love and support us and filled my heart with gratitude and love.  I love you all!!!

(sorry for the blurry picture!)

And I just thought this looked pretty epic... :)

Day to Day Happenings in the Life of a Mission President's Daughter

Last weekend one of the Young Women leaders in the International Ward decided that we would have a "Glampout" or in other words, a mini girls' camp so that was really fun and it made my miss having girls' camp with my girls back in the Edgemont 2nd Ward!!!

(Juliette, Me, Tacie)

 (Tacie, Me)

 This week we got some good pictures of random things we see on our way to and at school.  So our school is kind of in the middle of nowhere and we drive through lots of fields to get there and in the middle of one of them is this GINORMOUS pile of wood.  It's so big!!!  But it only seems fitting because Germans love their stacked wood!

 We also pass this little stable that has this sign on the front and a matching trailer that also says "Flying-Horse".  I have always been curious as to what that is...

 Then the other day in Biology we decided to go outside to look at some plants so we walked off just outside of campus and this is where we were.  Our campus is so beautiful and I feel so blessed to be in that beautiful place everyday.

 Last weekend we also went to St. Gallen for a Stake Conference and we walked around a cute little place on our way there where Sister Kohler was enamoured with all these little gnomes.

 This was our cute hotel,

 Our nice little room,

 and the awesome soap that was shaped like the building itself.  Every hotel we go to gets more and more creative!

 Walking along by a beautiful park right outside of our hotel.

 Sunday morning was Mothers' Day so us three came out early and picked a bouquet of flowers to go with some little notes we had written and waited for our parents to come out.  When Sister Kohler came out she just burst into tears because she was so happy we were all here and together this Mothers' Day, so despite all misconceptions regarding this picture, she IS happy.  :)

 This last week we have been so glad to have our Grandparents here with us and have gotten to do some sight seeing with them.  This is us as Herren Chiemsee.  (Sadly this is the only picture I have of me with one of them so far)

 Classic Sister Kohler pose at the Chiemsee Palace. (Sorry for the blurry picture)

 Then just today we had a Stake Young Women's activity where we got to have  backstage tour of the Munich Opera House because opera singer Angela Brower is in our stake and she sang for us there as well; it was so amazing!  This is me on the stage with the audience behind me.  Maybe one day I will be able to perform on a stage like this!!!

Never a dull moment in the mission, but we love it all!

May Day! May Day!

May Day (May 1) this year was a very exciting day!  We had never celebrated it before, but there Germans celebrate it and have a really cool tradition that each town puts up a May Pole, or Maibaum in German about every five years so we decided to go watch one being put up.  This one was put up manually, as opposed to some who use cranes to put them up.  So the tradition is, the men and boys in your town go and cut down a tree and carve it and paint it and between then, which is normally sometime in April, and May Day, someone in the town has to constantly be touching the May Pole.  It can even just be a small child as long as they are awake.  If your May Pole is not "guarded" it can be stolen.  That doesn't seem very possible, but apparently a popular radio station here stole four May Poles this year!

So it was very rainy, but this is what it looked like about half an hour in.  the whole thing took about an hour and a half.

 It was a small town and everyone came in their Trachten with Beer.  We felt kind of out of place.

 Slowly going up...

 This was the church right behind us that had a bell that kept ringing.

 At one point someone came out with the big mugs of beer and all the men passed them around and started smoking while they worked.

 Finally it was up and a band began to play and there was a speech and they put up a flag.

 The final thing.

 Later that day we got to go to the airport and pick up the fifth member of our family!!! It was so weird, but amazing to see Tosha again and I couldn't believe how much she had taken on the Japanese culture, but was also so much the same.

 Teary-eyed, but happy to be together again.

 The family reunited!

 The three amigos!!!  Tosha said she kept looking down to see if we had weird stilts or shoes on because we both grew so much while she was gone.

We are SOOO happy to have her home!!!

No Shortage of Missionaries in Our Neck of the Woods

So there have been a lot of crazy emotions and things flying around here this past little while and this last week and this oncoming week are a bit insane.  Yesterday we had a HUGE meeting with our WHOLE mission here in Munich.  Elder Allen and Elder Teixeira from the seventies came as well as Elder Bednar.  (I didn't get a picture with him, so I thought this would suffice.)  But it was such an amazing experience to hear from them and just feel their authority, and I am SO grateful I had the chance to be there!

 The previous day Tanner had received his mission call in the mail, but was really tired from partying all night with his graduating class that he decided to wait to open it.  So by the end of the meeting, he was really excited to get home and open it.  So, for anyone who has not already heard, Tanner will be serving for 24 months in the Romania/Moldova mission speaking the language of Russian.  We were so surprised but are SOOO excited for him!!!  It was just the four of us together, so that was really nice and sweet, and even though I will miss him while he is gone, I could not be more proud and excited for this adventure ahead of him.

So the other exciting part of this week is the anticipation of Tosha's homecoming on Friday evening.  She has been serving a mission for eighteen months in Tokyo, Japan, and we are SOO excited to bring her back here to Germany with us.  She has had an amazing mission and really loved the Japanese culture, so stay tuned for more information!!!

Let's Make Things the Way I Want Them

Short post today, not much going on.  BUT, I am FINALLY getting my room into shape!  So it's been a long time now, but I got my bulletin boards and pictures up so my walls look pretty good. 

 Then I just got this adorable turquoise bookshelf!

 And Tanner assembled my new dresser!  So as you can see, I still need to get things in order, but I am really excited that things are getting into shape!  I am also waiting for a cute chair to come still.

 This doesn't have to do with anything, but we went on a walk today and it was fairly warm, and the sun was shining, and the birds were singing, and all the blossoms were out and it made me so happy!  In the words of Tanner, "Life is good everybody!"