Jacob's Volleyball Tournament in Italy...

Here's an article taken from the military newspaper describing the events of Jacob's volleyball team while playing in Italy for their big tournament.

Power drives Black Forest to Mediterranean volleyball crown By Kent Harris, Stars and StripesEuropean edition, Sunday, November 5, 2006

AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy — It’s not often that a team seeded sixth and facing the unbeaten defending champions is considered the favorite.
That was the case Saturday, however, with sixth-seeded Black Forest Academy. And the team from Germany walked away with the DODDS-Europe Mediterranean Region boys volleyball crown, topping Naples 25-20, 25-23, 22-25, 25-17.
Limited to playing against the likes of international schools from Paris, Frankfurt and Basel, BFA hadn’t taken on a DODDS team all season.
“It’s enough motivation for the guys just to come and play in this tournament,” coach Lee Evans said of his team’s participation in the Mediterranean Region championships.
The tournament is composed mainly of teams from Italy that play one another during the regular season. BFA and squads from Turkey are seeded in the middle of the field because there’s no realistic way to rank them.
But on Saturday, at least, BFA showed it was better than Naples, the defending champs who had rolled through the tournament without losing a game.
“Volleyball, at all levels, is a game of rhythm,” said Naples coach Naga Fuchi. “When you serve into the net, it’s almost like you lose two points. And if you do that too many times, it’s very hard to keep up.”
Naples made a handful of service errors in each game, including a few in key spots that stopped momentum. But the biggest difference between the two teams was that BFA had a little more power and made it count when it needed to.
“On every rotation, we have a wall, so we can block the ball,” Evans said. “(Naples) wasn’t able to get that every time, so we were able to hit.”
Jake Loewen, Tom Fowler and Collin Garrity were the big hitters for BFA. Loewen’s spike into an open court provided the final point of the night.
Naples took small leads in each of the first two games, but couldn’t hold on in either.In the third game, senior Randall Wright, playing his first year of volleyball, came off the bench to spark Naples. Limited to playing on the front line, Wright had a few blocks and a few kills to help Naples open up a lead. Then Brian Baldwin took over, scoring on several kills and blocks for the final points for the Wildcat win.In the final game, BFA again scored when it had to.The Falcons scored five straight points to break a 15-15 tie. Then after Naples rallied for two points to close they gap, they went on another five-point run to close out the match.

We love walking through the forest up to Lorrach Castle. The leaves were starting to turn colors of yellow and red.
There were 4 men playing the alpin horns while we were there.

Our Staff...

Gabe, Byron, Riki, Joni, Us, Becky.

Funny Faces

We found some caves about 1/2 hour away from home. They're called Erdmannshoehle. They were formed by an underground river flowing through a small area of limestone which is rare for Germany. The stalactite that is beside Mark was actually named in the Guiness Book of World Records for awhile for being the largest.

Hartmannswillerkopf - World War 1 Site

Connie and Al and the kids came out to visit just before mom and dad went back to Canada.

We went up to see this site where the French and Germans fought on one ridge for for 2-3 years. It was very interesting to see the actual trenches on both sides and walk through these tunnels and trenches. There is barbed wire still in place as it was back then. There is quite a difference between the French trenches and the German ones. The French side was basically a dugout trench where as the German side was carefully built with stone and cement, most of which is still in great shape. Some of the trenches led down to deep tunnels underground and we were able to search through many of these. It's hard to imagine the fighting that took place here when you look around now and see such beauty.




















This monument is placed into the rocks as a memorial. It must have been bronze because it has now turned green over the years. It's hard to tell from the picture how massive it is.




French trenches

















German trenches

































Andrea, Mark and Sara - our nieces and nephew.

Haut-Koenigsberg Castle in France

We spent one of our days off visiting a castle in France. We travelled up a very winding road for what seemed like a very long time. The view was incredible from the top.

Riquewihr with Mom and Dad in October...
















"New" wine is sold in little plastic cups along the streets which is only available during the wine making season.


































One of our favorite treats for lunch is going to the crepe stand. This lady and her brother own the store and make the most wonderful crepes. One of the favorites is ham, cheese and egg.