We just spent a WHOLE WEEK with Dunja and her family and had an amazing time. We went to the river, hung out at the house, went to the city, went flying… and yes—you will get posts on all of these! Hurray! (I will try to make them mostly pictures and fewer words, but no promises.)

Backstory: Dunja and I met through our art accounts on Instagram. She is gaimersheimstein and lives in Germany (and I am kimhidestherocks… and live in the USA, ha ha). We connected early on in 2021 in DMs, then when Steven and I were in Europe in 2024, we spent the weekend together with Dunja in Belgium and really hit it off. So much that when Dunja and fam booked their 2025 summer holiday to the states they included a week with us! They arrived in Canada on August 2nd, then spent two weeks touring parts of Canada and the states and arrived at our house on Friday the 15th.

Their visit was a big deal to us and we used it as an excuse to fix up/touch up a LOT of things around the house we’d been putting off—patching, painting, bleaching and restaining the decks, painting the gas lines, getting the carpets deep cleaned, etc. We’ve been steadily working on all that since the spring and the house was in tiptop shape (ha, then we had a few incidents like the garage door stopped closing, some bats made residence in the attic, etc.—never a dull moment here).

What I didn’t do was plan much out for activities or meals. But I knew we’d figure that out. And we did!

Okay, let’s go!

Friday, August 15th

We met at El Famous (naturally) for dinner and I got the biggest hug from Dunja! And really, everyone!

Dunja had mentioned the kids might be shy at first then feel more comfortable after a few days (which totally makes sense—this was our first time meeting them and Dunja’s husband in person!) but it didn’t seem like they were at all! We all jumped right in, sharing stories, teasing, laughing about differences between the US and Germany, etc.

After dinner we did a tour of Steven’s warehouse since it’s so close by, and thus began a recurring adventure of “what new thing can Nicholas (Dunja’s son) drive?” Steven taught him how to drive the forklift and even had him bring down a pallet!

After that we got back to the house and they started giving the cats SO MUCH LOVE! Ned was being especially friendly—more confident and outgoing like he was when he first moved in. Dunja and her daughter Clarissa fell in love with Ned immediately! Nicholas was cautious around the cats at first but that definitely changed by the end of their visit.

Clarissa has been a big Khali fan from afar/my social media posts of her, but Khali is a bit shy when guests first show up, so we bribed Khali with a treat. Ha. I knew Khali would warm up more as the week went on.

Saturday, August 16th

On Saturday we ate breakfast, loved on the cats,

then drove to Guttenberg, Iowa! I know, they arrived and weren’t even at our house 24 hours before we left, but I really wanted them to experience Guttenberg, ideally, on the weekend.

Originally, we had the plane booked to fly half of us out there while the other half drove, but we ran into a few issues—weight, weather, and the reservation changing. So we caravanned in two cars (a girls car and a boys car, naturally) and had a lot of fun!

We made a few stops, the most important one being at a weird gas station in Wisconsin that has a huge cheese selection. Have you really been to Wisconsin if you haven’t bought cheese curds from a gas station?!

Or posed by… this guy?

I think not. Ha.

We were actually trying to get to Guttenberg between 1:00-2:00 to catch the Abel Island Fly-In (which was from 12-3 but past experience has taught us that people arrive by 12:00 and are mostly gone by 3:00). We thought it would be neat for them to see so many planes and watch them leave.

So we got to the river house, ate a quick lunch (hot dogs—I did actually plan out the river food with a bunch of basic Midwesterner dishes), then rode over to the fly-in and nearly all the planes were gone by 2:15. LOL. Okay. We did get to see a few up close, and a few take off.

It was a zillion degrees and perfect weather for being on the water, which is what we did next! And what I will get to in my next post because I need to stop writing this and go to the post office before it closes!