Our North Sea Vacation and Visits to Family, August 2-17

Yahoo! We finally made it through the crazy month of July and were ready and raring for our two weeks in the north! We split up the drive to the North Sea (all the way at the other end of Germany) into two days, stopping Saturday, Aug. 2nd, in Bielefeld (6 hours north of Munich) for visits to Andy's Oma Krause and his mom's first cousin, Lothar and (wife) Heidrun Gross. It was great to get caught up and introduce everybody to our quickly growing Joshua!

Sunday afternoon, after brunch and a walk with Oma, we continued northward, passing through Oldenburg for a short visit to Daniel, Andy's brother. He was threre for about two weeks as an organizer for "Teen Street", Europe's largest Christian camp for teens taking place at a huge convention center there. Daniel works for Operation Mobilisation, the organizer of this event.

Then it was "Vacation, here we come!" Sunday evening we arrived at our destination in East Friesland near the North Sea coast. We rented a vacation appartment out in the country 15km from Norden and about 30 minutes from the ocean. My first thougths were, "Boy, it's flat here!" Indeed, the scenery was very different from the rolling, Bavarian hills and farmland surrounding Munich. There were lots of windmills new and old, and wide, green fields of Holstein cows, juxtaposed with sea grasses, red brick houses, and then, getting closer to the coast, dikes, harbors, and vast sea! Here are some impressions of our first week:

Dutch-style houses in the town of Norden.

The beach at Norddeich -- ahh, the open sea!

A walk on the dike at Dornumersiel. What wonderful shades of green!

Baby Joshua stops for a break.

The harbor at Dornumersiel, where we had the freshest, most delicious fish of our lives at Fish Rinjes (in the background) - straight off the boat!

Joshua's nocturnal adventures -- amazing what a charmer he can be in the middle of the night! In the past few weeks, Joshua has begun spinning about and moving to the opposite end of the bed. How, we're not sure! When he got stuck one night and woke us up to let us know, we grabbed the camera, and he turned on the charm!

The church at Dornum displays typical East Frisian style.

The inside of the church almost evokes the feeling of a ship.

Setting off on our day-trip to the island, Langeoog. To be continued . . .