South Mountain Creamery

Penn and Tor visit a ONE DAY OLD calf at the barn while shaking cream into butter.










Tor experiences the finer things while Lenka is just a plain ole cutie pie.

Balser Family Get-Together 2008

Seven cousins, all offspring of Marie and Karl-August Balser, got together on Mayday weekend. Here they all are, being scolded by the pastor of the Darmstadt burial chapel behind the wall that we are being too loud. Left to right are the pastor, Bärbel Balser, Agi Balser, Daniel Balser (Dietrich's son), Inga Gondro, Florian Balser (Christan's son), Christian Balser, Henrik Balser (also Christian's son), Gerald Balser, Sabine, Hans-Henning Balser and Peter Balser.

Hans-Henning und Gabi Balser + Gerald und Gabi Balser

Henning (born 1942) and Gerald (born 1944) hosted us in Giessen. Their wives are both named Gabi, but Henning's red-haired Gabi is older than Gerald's brown-haired Gabi. We visited the Gleiberg and the Schiffenberg, two hills with castles on the top that our grandmother used to take us up on hikes when we were children. On Sunday, Sabine left for Bochum and Gerald, the Gabis and I went sightseeing in Marburg and Wetzlar; on Monday Henning and I worked on family-archival stuff.

Christian und Agi Balser

Christian and Agi live in Darmstadt with their three children. They hosted the Darmstadt leg of the visit, where we visited the Balser gravesite, Christian's mother Tante Lotti, and the Mathildenhöhe, a famous Art Nouveau/ Art Deco neighborhood, which was built around the Russian Chapel that Zar Alexander II built there for himself and his wife Alexandra to worship in when they visited Alexandra's family.

Inga and Jürgen Gondro

Inga (born 1942) and Jürgen live near Frankfurt. They picked me up at the airport, Sabine met me at their house in Schwalbach, and we stayed with them for two nights. They have two sons, Jürgen and Klaus, and two grandchildren (14 and 16?).

Peter und Bärbel

This is, finally, our eldest cousin Peter with his wife Bärbel. They live up North in Schleswig-Holstein and have two children, a son and a daughter.