Just a few more pictures
of the Thomas clan

Kenny recently bought the Rock Band video game, which comes with a guitar, drums and microphone. Logan is seen here using Kenny's old guitar to show me he knows how to play, too.

Kenny and Kate after watching Survivor on Friday night.

Kate and Lily on the cable car in Germany. Lily loves her pacifier. She is wearing her new coat and mittens and the Easter bonnet I brought for her. You can see the town of Garmisch in the background.

See you all soon.

Greetings from England!

My trip to England to visit Kate and her family has been going great. Below is Logan (17 mo.) pushing his Red Devil vacuum. It is one of his favorite toys.

Logan also owns a small doll stroller so Lily (4.5 mo.) got in for a ride. She is a little big for the seat but Logan had fun pushing her around a little. She has also outgrown her infant carseat so she will be graduating to the bigger one this week.

Before I arrived, Kate had planned a trip to Germany for the two of us (and Lily, of course). We left Sunday morning early (4 a.m.) to drive to Dover to catch the 8 a.m. ferry (NorfolkLine). With the time difference in Europe we arrived in Dunkerque, France at about 10:30 a.m. We drove through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany making the trip a total of 17 hours. Whew, that is a lot of driving for one person (Kate did all the driving). We arrived at the resort lodge about 10:30 p.m. local time. It is a military-run facility so Kate had me pre-registered to get on the "base." The lodge was the most wonderful place I have ever stayed.

The next morning we slept in a little and then headed out to see the Newschwanstein Castle (about 37 miles away but over an hour's drive through mountains). We passed into Austria and then passed back into Germany to get to the museum. We could see the castle in the distance and it was fortunate that I took this picture because by the time we reached the castle for the tour my batteries had died. I didn't have any extras and didn't want to spend the Euros at a tourist trap vendor. Since the climb by foot is very strenuous, Kate and I decided to hire the horse and carriage ride up and down. Below is our German driver. Great hat, huh?

The next morning we decided to ride a cable car up one of the Hausberg Mountain and to look at some lakes at altitudes of 2,500-3,500 feet above sea level. The cable car was scary! It was a lot like riding a roller coaster and I really don't like that. I lived through it; after all, Lily wasn't scared. Behind Lily and I is the lift for the skiers to ascend the mountain further so they could come down on skis. My friends, Donnie & Karyn and Eric, Ness, Ava and Eli skied on that slope in December. I couldn't do that!!! The temperature at that location was zero degrees celcius. The lake I pictured is Eibsee. It was still mostly frozen. We froze just looking at it.

This is just a picture from the car; don't remember where. As you can see it isn't spring in Germany yet. Not a tree was budding. There were little purple flowers (like we get spring violets early) out at the castle but that was it. We also didn't see any animals in Germany. Where were they?

Before we left the lodge on Wednesday morning Kate wanted a picture of Lily in one of the rocking chairs in front of the lobby fireplace. Logan had had his picture taken there last summer when Kate and Kenny visited the lodge for dinner during their Europe trip. Isn't she cute? She had been asleep three minutes before the picture but we woke her for the picture and she was in a good mood.

I will return to the States on Sunday. Have a good weekend. I love you all.

Happy March!

Well, the sickness continues around here. Joey was sick for nine days with the flu and now William and Valerie have it. The worst part is the sore throat. All of us have been achy and had a high fever. Valerie visited the doctor yesterday to make sure she didn't have strep. She doesn't. My dad emailed and said he has been sick with the flu this past week. I think even Kate had it a few weeks ago. Hers developed in pneumonia.

Drew has been busy covering sectional boys' basketball for Daleville and Highland High School (Class 4A) for The Chesterfield Weekly. Shenandoah (Class 2A) was eliminated in the first round as was Highland. Daleville will play in the finals tonight for Class A. They just barely beat Liberty Christian of Anderson last night.

I am busy planning in my head all that I need to pack to go to England in a few days; I leave Thursday morning. My first flight will be from Indy to Chicago at 12:50 p.m. I will then travel to New York's JFK at 2:10 p.m. I will leave JFK for Stansted Airport at 7:45 p.m. I usually travel nonstop from Chicago to London's Heathrow Airport but American Airlines is now offering a direct flight to Stansted, which is only about 45 minutes from Kate (Heathrow is about 2.5 hours away and I usually ride the tube for two hours and then ride home with Kate for another hour). I won't have to ride the tube or navigate through London. It will save Kate about 15 minutes on her drive to get me at the tube station in Epping. Unfortunately the flight to Stansted only originates on the east coast so it means two continental flights. On the way home I will travel from JFK to St. Louis and then on to Indy. I will return on Sunday, March 16.

Kate and I plan to take a four day trip to Germany by van. We will stay at a military-run ski resort. We may take a day trip to Venice (only four hours by car) if we are up to it. Kate hopes to be able to show me the castle used as the model for the icon castle at Disney World.

Kate reported this week Lily rolled over for the first time. She is about to outgrow her infant carseat, too. Logan is starting to use words—juice for one—but still can't decide if he wants milk or juice. He wants both.

Matthew emailed me this week by typing in his first name. He wrote to Joey and put JoeyCooper. He really enjoys his daycare school. It is helping him to come out of his shell a little and he is beginning to interact with a few friends.

The music director at church asked me to play my viola for the Easter services. I reluctantly agreed after I checked to see if my viola would function. It has been 18 years since I played it. When I opened the case, the shoulder pad had mushified. It was foam but it felt like the Stretch Armstrong man the kids had years ago. It was stuck to the neck of my viola, too. I was able to clean it off with rubbing alcohol without ruining the finish. So, I had to rig up a shoulder pad with a rag and rubber band. It worked ok. The director prepared a schedule to play on some of the Sundays before Easter as well. I played last week. Afterwards I was very sore. Now I remember why I don't play. I think maybe I will try to look for a new shoulder rest and maybe some new strings if I am going to play much more. I have a hard time making the viola sound good. I think the strings are dead. Some of my friends were very nice and complimented my playing. I was ok but I wasn't great. I do enjoy playing, though.

I guess I can't think of any pictures to post so you will just have to look on flickr this week. I can't put photos from my iPhone email into iPhoto (the email program downsizes them for screen use) so I just email them straight to flickr. Oh well, at least you can see them that way.

Have a good couple weeks and I will write when I get home from England. Love to you all.