Christmas 2010

2010 is swiftly drawing to a close. It has been a pretty good year in the Tomchesson household.

Josh was selected for Major and should be putting on in the first quarter of the new year. He has been busy at work, but really loves his job, so you can't ask for much more than that.

Jared is continuing his classes at Palo Alto Junior College while working at The Texas Cheer Academy as a full time coach. He is planning to transfer to Texas State next fall and move into his own apartment for the first time. He has managed to maintain an A/B average which is nothing to sneeze at since he works as well as attends classes.

Skye is doing really well in 7th grade and spends a lot of time on cheerleading and her saxophone. She has had an eventful year with ups and downs not only with friends, but with love as well. Everything she has encountered has made her a stronger more mature person. She has maintained her A/B average and is working very hard on achieving straight A's next semester.

Jaxon has started the 5th grade on the A/B honor roll. He has improved greatly on his attention span and is starting to really become quite the young man. He has discovered MMA - Mixed Martial Arts and is VERY good at it. Jax is still reading like a fiend and was thrilled to receive a copy of The Lost Hero - signed to Jax from Rick Riorden for Christmas - thank you Aunt Sharon and Uncle Brian.

As for me, I became a stay at home Mom again over the summer. It has given us a chance to travel more and the kiddos are super happy to have me back full time. Since leaving AAFES, we have traveled to France, Amsterdam and of course local sights like DriLanden Punten and Garmisch. We are heading to Berlin in the next week and Malta in February with hopes of Spain or Iatly over Spring Break and England in the summer.
Josh and I also celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary in the begining of December.

We, as a family, are hoping that 2010 was as wonderful a year for your family as it was for ours. may 2011 be blessed as well.

With love,
Jenn, Josh, Jared, Skye and Jax

Aachen

We decided to take a quick trip to Aachen on Wednesday for the last night of their Christmas Market. That was quite the adventure! Our region is not known for heavy snowfall so it has been a challenge learning how to deal with the 6-ish inches we have gotten so far. People in Germany and the Netherlands aren't really adept at driving in this weather and the governments aren't great about clearing the roads! Aachen is about a 45 minute drive from our house. Wednesday's drive was approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes long. The last 20 minutes were spent in a rather tense stand off between my car and an icy/snowy/slushy hill. That's right it took us about 20 minutes to travel the last 100 feet to the parking garage. Josh did very well at staying calm! We walked around the market for about an hour, enjoying the local delicacies and the beautiful snow fall while looking at the different items for sale. After our fill of wandering, we hit up a local pub for dinner. It took about an hour to get back home - by a completely different route than how we got there. It was a great evening!

Putting Jared to work....

'Cause that's how we roll.....Jared went to Cheer practice with Skye and kinda took over. The coaches didn't mind though. He pushed the girls on stretches, helped them with some tumbling basics and then worked on some cheers. He is very good at coaching and has amazing patience! I really think he will be quite perfect if he continues on this career path!

First night of visit

The whole country seemed to welcome Jared by providing a beautiful fog laden sunset.........We watched that for a bit before heading out to Valkenburg to check out the Christmas Market in the caves. We were hoping to impress Jared with a cool market in the Netherlands, but to be honest, it was kinda lame.....He did try his first glass of Glhuwine and we looked around then headed home since by this time he was going on 36 hours without sleep. He was a very good sport considering he is a south Texas boy and it was close to 12 degrees outside!

Jared Arrives

Jared looks incredibly chipper for someone who had been up for almost 24 hours. Skye was happy to see him, but Jax was the happiest.......

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is about 3 hours from our home right now so it seemed like and interesting place to have Jared fly into for Christmas break. Since he was arriving early in the morning, we decided to go down early and poke around. It was bitterly cold, but we walked around the 9 area and peeked into the shops. They have a little bit of everything from cheese to flower bulbs. There were a few stalls out, so we had to grab a chocolate dipped waffle and an apple turn over to snack on. It is a very pretty city to visit and looking at the boats in the canal was fun. It's hard to imagine that some are actually peoples homes. There was even ice in the canals and it looked like broken glass. We plan on spending a little extra time there before Jared flies out.

Paris

About two weeks ago, Josh had another trip to Ramstein for work. We decided to tag along but knew our time with him would be limited, as the mission comes first. I figured, we could pop to France while Josh worked. Scarey, but do-able. When we got to Ramstein, we found out the mission had "slipped" which means it was pushed back a few days. Bonus - a quick trip to France and Josh got to come to. Oddly, Paris is about 4 hours from our house, Ramstein is about 3 hours from our house, and Paris is about 4 hours from Ramstein. Driving through France was filled with lots of movies for the kids, interesting and frequent rest stops (see FB photos), and strategicly placed roadside art work. We made good time and checked into our hotel with no trouble. We stayed in a suburb of Paris called Torche. Not the best area. It was a little ghetto, but it was close to the RER train and that would connect us to the subway. We got quite a kick out of the room. It brought back memories of our Cruise. I told Mimi that there wasn't enough room to turn around a fart in the room. There really wasn't, but it gave us an idea of what a family bed was like.

We headed out to to downtown Paris, right away. We walked about 15 minutes to the train, rode 30 minutes into the city and then walked another 15 minutes to the Eiffel Tower. You can see it towereing over the trees and buildings surrounding it. It is truly a marvel to behold! The Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in Paris standing 1063 feet high and it is the most viewed monument in the world. It was built as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair. We walked up to the second level. Yes, I wrote walked up. I am an out of shape mom. Couple that with a mild fear of heights that increases with every turn on the metal stairs on the tower and you get a near panic attack and colorful cursing directed towards my beloved hubby! The views were amazing, though, and I am glad we did it.

After the tower we headed to the Louvre. The museum is housed in the Palais du Louvre and has exhibits displayed over 652,300 square feet. We chose to to grab a cab as it seemed quicker, and it was, but it was also funny as our cabby was from England and listened to Willie Nelson for the whole ride. The museum is so large that is impossible to see everything in a day. It is impossible to see everything in 3 days. We decided to go in with a plan and see what we felt was important on this trip - The Mona Lisa, The Venus de Milo and the Greek section. It was intense and amazing. I am glad I had an idea about the size of Mona before we saw her or I would have been very disappointed. She is kinda small. It was fun to stand there and think about the Da Vinci Code though and imagine Langdon standing there over a body looking for clues. Venus was in the Greek section so it was a score on that one. Jax got to see many depictions of the Gods and Goddesses and we got to take so goofy photos as well.

We spent about 4 hours there. Our puppies were yelping by the end of the day when we headed back to the hotel. The hotel had a lovely restaurant and we decided to eat there. A note to readers-The French like their meat rare. When I say rare - I mean it looks like the cow could be outside walking around with a gaping hole where your steak just came from. Josh and I had the buffet and chose ham and chicken since it seemed to be cooked completly. We ordered steak for the kids because we figured it was safe. When the steak came, we cut into it and I swear it mooed in protest! It went back to the kitchen and when it was returned, it still wasn't cooked. The kids ended up picking off our plates and Josh ate the steak. I am only telling all of this because it teaches a valuable lesson. After we returned to Ramstein, Josh came down with food poisoning. Violent food poisoning. Not the way we wanted to finish the trip but now we know what to do the next time we are there. Pitch a fit an have your meat cooked. Don't worry about insulting the culture or seeming crass.

All in all, the trip was really cool! Please enjoy the pictures. I know there are a ton of them and believe me, this doesn't even scratch the surface.

Our room

Views from the top

The Seine
The three of us

Lookin up from the second level. The second level is as high as we went!

Eiffel Tower Shots

Alone
Josh and Me

Skye and Jax

Police Officers??????
Love that Glass Pyramid!

How Beautiful?!

The "Famous" Louvre Art

Mona
Winged Victory of Samothrace

Venus

Goofey Louvre Pictures - Because when you're in a famous place, in a country that think Americans are class-less, it is just what you have to do!

Outside the Louvre

The Palace of Versailles

As you know, we spent two days in and around Paris. On our second day, we headed to the Palace of Versailles. Better described as an estate, Versailles was a hunting lodge built by LouisXIII but was expanded on by Louis XIV. It encompases 800 hectares (around 1976 acers) and has 3 chateaux, annexes, parks and extensive gardens with over 25 fountains.
Josh and I have been to a few estates in our time. We loved visiting the huge homes in Rhode Island and different palaces here in Germany. Nothing we have seen so far gets even close to Versailles. To say it is huge can't begin to explain it. Of course, with an immense estate, comes immense crowds. It was a little overwhelming and it was almost impossible to get really good shots inside the Palace (though non flash photography is allowed). I did take a few shots and posted them, but most of our time and photo opps were on the grounds of the Petite Trianon (Marie-Antoinett's little hidey hole on the grounds) and the Queen's Hamlet (a village of cottages built in the style of Normandy villages)
The Petite Trianon was a gift from Louis XVI on the accension to his throne. The Queen's Hamlet, which really helped to make the Queens gardens famous, were an amazing place to wander around. Marie-Antionette had 12 houses (10 are still standing) built and include the Mill, the Boudoir and the Pigeon Loft. We could have stayed all day there. It was almost magical. There are extensive gardens around each of the houses that furnish some of the grounds resteraunts with fresh produce. While strolling through the gardens, we saw pumpkins, artichokes, tomatoes, peppers and grapes. There was also a farm area with geese, chickens, rabbits, goats, pigs and mules. We stopped at the farm for some freshly squeezed orange juice which was refreshing as the temprature was creeping up towards 80 degrees.
After we left the Hamlet, we caught the train back to the grand canal and walked throught the gardens. There are over 25 fountains in the park - which is a lot of water - so they are turned on at different intervals. A lot of our shots are non spraying fountains, but around 3:30PM some were turned on which made the pictures so much better. The picture at the top of the post is in front of The Fountain of Latona. The fountain represents and episode from Apollos childhood. Apollos mother Latona, having been ridiculed by the Lycian peasents, beseeches Jupiter for vengence, who then turns them into frogs.
There are a lot of photos following this post, so please bare with me.

Truth be told - I can't remember the name of this fountain but it had a beautiful choreographed fountain display with baroque music.

The Fountain of Neptune had a display at 5:30 PM, but we were too tired to check it out.
This is at the bottom of a trio of fountains. The sun made an appearence as well.

Very cool shot. Even cooler standing there. Here, you can see the Fountain of Latona in the foreground, the Fountain of Apollo and all the way to the Grand Canal.
Jaxon and Me in front of the Fountain of Apollo.

The Dragon Fountain.

An outdoor view of the chapel at the main palace.
Good shot of the main Palace of Versailles. You can see some of the on going restoration work. The gold starts on the left side and stops on the right side.(check the roof line)

Inside the main chapel. There was gold and marble everywhere!