I am terribly sorry!

To all my visitors that came this past year, I must say I am SOOO sorry! I came upon a great discovery of where I should have taken all of you (especially you Fran), and I found it with my last visitors from a LONG list of company. Oh what bad timing. It is a CHOCOLATE MUSEUM/FACTORY! Boy was it great! It is in a nice German town a little less than 2 hours away. They have the churches to see, and it is right on the Rhein, so you get to see all the neat German things, but then they have this cool chocolate factory. It is in the city of Cologne, Germany.

A friend of mine named Emily, who was actually a sister missionary in Germany when we first got here, was here in Europe touring with 3 of her girlfriends. On the last leg of their trip they came to stay with us, in our guest room. They were lots of fun, and it was so nice to have them here. Steve made them chicken curry the first night, and then roped them in to a game of Settlers. The next day they still wanted to see some cool things since they had 2 days left, so they invited the boys and I to go with them to Cologne. I had a lovely chat with Emily on the drive while the boys watched a movie in the back. Then when we got there, we had 5 women to 4 boys. It was fantastic to have the numbers switched like that. We went straight to the chocolate museum and all had a wonderful time checking it out.
{This is the machine that crushes the Coco beans. You could climb up on to it}

{This shows the little chocolate bars after they have been formed and cooled, and are now heading to be wrapped}



{At the end of the line there was this fabulous lady who stood at this chocolate fountain overlooking the Rhein river. She had endless amounts of wafer cookies and she would dip them in the fountain and hand them to whomever came within arms reach of her. The boys LOVED her. She kept giving them more and more as long as they were close. She didn't ask them or Mom if it was OK, she just put the wafer cookies in their hands.}

We of course got home in time to play a game of Settlers with Steve. :) We are so happy that Emily, Rebecca, Jessica, and Emilia, could come and stay with us.


P.S. Here are some pictures of baby Brandon, since you haven't seen him in a while. Unlike almost EVERYONE's babies that I know, Brandon is actually a wonderful sleeper. He is learning how to go to sleep on his own, and he sleeps for 1 to 2 hours at a time. Sorry friends and family. I wish I knew what to tell you. :)
{His lovely winter hat}


{This is the outfit Nana and Papa got him for Christmas. I love it! He looked adorable for church on Sunday.}