Rainer and His Sisters

Both sets of our parents are still living and still married so we have a strong sense of family. Allison is the oldest of four children with a sister and two brothers and Rainer is the middle child of three with two sisters. His older sister and her husband, who are looking forward to being godparents to the child, live in our hometown.

With Allison’s Family

We all enjoy cooking and eating together or just going to our favorite Chinese restaurant for Dim Sum. Tom, our little nephew who lives close by in Spain is also eager to welcome a new member into our family, and show the child "the ropes" on our farm.

The Outside of Our Building in Germany

We live close to the harbor in the North of Germany and love being near the water. Seeing all the ships from exotic ports is very interesting. We are within walking distance from downtown but can also walk in parks along the river or hop on a public transport ferry that takes us quickly to a beach on the banks of the river. Living in a big city offers us the opportunity to choose from a huge amount of cultural and recreational activities. We love being able to walk to work, to the doctor, to go grocery shopping or where ever we might need to go. Our neighbors are people from all over the world and it is fun listening to all of the languages we hear spoken in one day. The grade school just by our apartment reflects this ethnic diversity. That is an aspect of our community that is very important to us. Visiting any of the many playgrounds close by could be compared to a trip around the globe. The children here have mixed heritage including African, Asian and South American.

Our hometown is one of Europe's largest cities and the trade and media capitol of Germany. It also has several excellent universities, museums, a lake in the center of the city, more bridges than Italy's Venice and many parks which makes it very beautiful.

Our two-story apartment is in a building that was 100 years old in 2006 - it has 6.5 rooms and 2 full baths. We love the original hardwood floors and huge windows. We have worked hard to restore it to its former beauty. Rainer has a huge fishtank with African fish, some are even fed live grasshoppers! We have lots of young families in our neighborhood with many artists and musicians.

Our Farm in Spain

In 2003 we bought a little farm with an acre of land, in the middle of a cork oak forest on the southern coast of Spain, close to the straight of Gibraltar and only 7 miles from the African continent and we can see the lights of Tangier twinkling at night from our house! It is just a 15 minute drive from a small town that is the windsurfing capitol of Europe with a beautiful 8 mile long beach. We have wonderful neighbors that are Spanish, German, American, British, and Belgian. All of the Spaniards have farm animals that roam free on the mountain to graze. In one day pigs, goats, sheep, horses, donkeys, and cows will pass by our property. We love feeding the pigs leftovers from the kitchen even though Lolo, our dog, gets very jealous and we have to carry it far from our gate so that the pigs are not always hanging around waiting for more food.

We love growing vegetables there in summer and harvesting grapes, peaches, pears, figs, oranges and apples from our fruit trees. Last year our olive tree was full of olives that we preserved ourselves. Because we work freelance and seasonally, we are able to spend several months a year there.

There are many children of all ages in our neighborhood. There is a wonderful feeling of community and we visit each other regularly. Recently, we spent a day at our neighbors’ pool, taking care of Luna and Lara on the day their baby sister was born. We celebrate Rainer's birthday there each summer. Last year we had the party behind the huge (50 yard high!) sand dune, between the pines on the beach and the kids, which outnumbered the adults, had a blast sliding down the dune and running back up for more.