Berlin - Charlottenburg Palace

The ultimate "chotsky" room! All 4 walls were covered!

All the fireplaces had the initials of Sophie Charlotte.

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.