The Smoly Adventures

A week ago we were able to move into our home for the next several years.  We'll detail our German House Hunting adventure in our next post.  For today, I wanted to document some of our experience in our temporary housing. As was mentioned in our previous post, we had been staying in a nice three bedroom apartment in Mackenbach.  Mackenbach is one of many small villages that surround Ramstein Air Base and the greater Kaiserslautern Military Community (KMC).  Our apartment was located on the far northeast side of the village and provided easy access to a paved walking trail that we took advantage of nearly every one of the 18 days we spent there. While it was indeed a temporary living arrangement, it afforded us the opportunity of everyone having their own space, a backyard for the #smolyboys and the dogs to run around in,



and absolutely incredible sunsets.

As I mentioned previously, we loved going out for family walks at all hours of the day. We discovered multiple wild blackberry bushes, that the German slugs came out after every rain, the nearby cut-your-own flower (Blumen) field, and Will's favorite house in the entire village.


Staying in Mackenbach also carried with it a unique historical and personal connection.  On April 1, 1892, my Great-Grandmother Freida (Goettel) Hartmiller was born in the village. She and most of my ancestors on both sides of my family came from the German states of Rhineland-Pfalz or Baden-Württemberg. Beyond the tremendous travel opportunities that we're going to experience in the years ahead, Janet and I are excited to explore our genealogical roots in Europe.