A few days after we got home from London & celebrated Lorien's birthday, my Aunt Sharon, Uncle Dale, cousin Whitney, & Whitney's son Keaton flew into Frankfurt to visit us for a few days. I woke up early & drove to Frankfurt airport to pick them up. Whitney works for Delta Airlines & gets free flights all around the world. They couldn't miss coming to visit before we move back to UT this summer.
I was SUPER excited to see them. It's been years since we've been together & I practically grew up with Whitney. She's a little younger than me, but we did a LOT together as kids. It's crazy to me that she brought her son that was the same age I remember her being. Man, time flies.
I picked them up & then we immediately went from the airport to Burg Nanstein in Landstuhl. I feel like Burg Nanstein gets overlooked sitting there on the top of the hill near the base. It's such a beautiful little castle. They LOVED it. Every time we turned a corner they "Ooh"ed & "Aah"ed. I loved seeing their faces light up.
Burg Nanstein was built in the 12 century & was destroyed & rebuilt several times. The current condition is what is left over from the 1600's (which is still SUPER old). I love taking people to this one. It's small, but really fun to navigate. There are tunnels, rooms, balconies, cellars, & more. It's a lot of fun to explore.
After we visited Nanstein, we drove down through Landstuhl Village which is one of my favorites. We stopped off at Kaufland (a grocery store), so I could show them some fun German foods & help them pick out some goodies to take home to their families.
We literally filled up a cart with CANDY. It was SO funny. The lady checking us out probably thought we were crazy. They bought every kind of German candy you could imagine, all the different Dr. Pepper flavors we have here, & a bunch of different juices & Fanta. It was fun.
After shopping, we ate at the mini cafeteria in the grocery store. Dale got a bratwurst, Sharon had a schnitzel with gravy, I had potatoes, & then Whitney & Keaton got some baked goods from the bakery. Everything was delicious.
After that I brought them home to see the kiddos. The kids were SO excited to meet them & talk to them while they got settled in our guest rooms in the house. Once we were all settled, I had to run to the church for a seminary training, a meeting with the stake presidency's wives & the general authority visiting, & then stake conference adult session where Trek spoke. While I was tied up there at the church, Lorien & Taya took my family to the mall in Kaiserslautern. They got some yummy gelato, shopped at Primark (where everybody bought a TON of fun things for barely anything. That store is SO inexpensive!), then they came back home.
The kids spent the next hour trying to keep them awake. Jetlag hit & it hit hard so they decided to walk to Istanbul (the Turkish restaurant in our village) for dinner.
They LOVED the döner kebaps. My boys ate pizza while everyone else tried the Döner. Yum.
They spent the remainder of the night trying to keep them awake until 8pm. They played some board games, gave a music recital (piano, cello, viola, bells, & french horn), & did all they could. Finally at 8pm, we let them go to bed.
It was a wonderful first day of their trip.
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