Friends with friends

Triny and Mike generously offered to host us and our friends from Germany for an afternoon and evening together. Maik, Barbel, and two of their children, Konrad and Marlene, drove up from Cape Coral to be with us.

Barbel and I started our friendship as penpals 32 years ago when we were both 14 - I in my German class in my high school in Alabama and she in her English class in her school in Wolfsburg. She always wrote better English than I did German. Over the years we continued to correspond, occasionally sending each other packages. Then 15 years ago Barbel and Maik and their two sons, Robert and Konrad, came to spend two weeks with us. We lived in upstate New York at the time. Robert was 5 and Konrad had just had his 3rd birthday. In our family Tom was 5, Jacy had just turned 4, Sarah was 2, and Joan was an infant. It was a great visit.

Now the children are much older, and Barbel and Maik have a daughter, Marlene, who is now 13. And we have David, Marley, and Sam, who weren't born when we had our last visit.

Steve said we'll finally go to Germany to visit four years from now. And we hope Maik and Barbel will come to us in Alabama before then. In the meantime, our friendship will continue and we'll enjoy letters, packages, e-mails, and phone calls from each other.