Thanksgiving in the Alps!

First, sorry for the delay in this post.

Last Thursday (Thanksgiving day) we took Col. Collin Caliber (our car, a.k.a. "The Colonel") on his first official road trip! We packed up ourselves, the dogs and of course, the camera, and headed to Bavaria. This trip was extra special for me since that is where my family heritage lies.

It only took us around 3 hours or so to get there and WOW, was it beautiful!! We stayed at a cute little hotel in Oberau, just outside of Garmisch, Germany. Basically we were at the foothills of the Alps.

Thursday also was our 4th anniversary. Our hotel (the Hotel Forsthaus) was serving a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but we decided since it wasn't buffet-style, I probably wouldn't get enough to eat since pretty much everything had meat in it.

So, instead, we headed over to the Edelweiss, which is the Armed Forces Recreation Center resort for military personnel, and feasted on their giant buffet dinner. It was delicious! Expensive, but delicious, and we figured since it was our anniversary and a holiday it was okay to spend the money and knock both out of the way with one meal.

Friday we explored the area and went on a super shopping spree for new winter gear! Carl and I each got a new winter coat, ski pants, hats, gloves, scarves, sunglasses and I don't even remember what else. That night, we went to a yummy restaurant around the corner from our hotel that was owned by a German guy and his Irish wife and they were so nice! The food was delicious too! I had spinach dumplings with parmesan... yumm!! Carl had some sort of meat dish, of course. We also were with two of Carl's co-workers and their wives. After we ate dinner we all went back to the hotel and headed to the downstairs game room to play a game. We all had dogs, so we had six people and five dogs sitting in there. The dogs actually got along quite well. We played 'Apples to Apples,' which is a word-card game. Now, I am not a huge fan of games sometimes because I get a tiny bit competitive, but, ahem, I just want to say that I was a good sport and decided to play that night -- and I had a clean sweep of all three games to none over everyone! :)

Saturday, we headed up to the Zugspitze, which is the highest peak in Germany. Shane (Carl's co-worker and work BFF) and his wife Buffy were with us. To get up to the peak, you have to ride this cable car ..... oh my gosh, I was terrified! The view was gorgeous because here we are riding this little cable car up like 9,000 feet, but I was scared, I'll admit.

The Zugspitze is also a ski area, and this happened to be opening weekend. So, we decided that since we were now outfitted in our awesome new ski outfits, that must mean we were ready to ski, right? It's only the Alps, and we sure looked ready!

Umm, yeah.... so, ten minutes after getting the skis latched to my feet I was pretty much in tears and throwing my poles back on the ground.

Let's just say, the Alps are a tiny bit higher than the hills of North Carolina I learned to ski on! Carl tried snowboarding and also decided that maybe next time we should get some lessons first.

Even though the skiing wasn't the best idea, it was stil absolutely breathtaking to see the beauty in the mountains and the snow. It was cold, but, I decided to play the part of snow bunny and just sit and sip hot chocolate to keep warm.

Sunday we headed home, but took a different route, this one that took us through Austria part of the way. It was really pretty in a different type of way than the Germany side of the mountains. Less tourist-y, maybe, or something. Either way, we made it home just fine.

I unfortunately got pretty sick after the trip, just a bad cold, and I'm still getting over it. I guess being 10,000 feet up in the Alps will do that to you?

We are definitely excited to go back and try skiing again, but I think I'm even more excited to go back in the spring and summer and try hiking and biking and see how beautiful it looks without all the snow.

I was sad to miss out on Thanksgiving with the family, but at least Wednesday before we left we were able to get on the Skype and talk to my mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, nephew, aunt and uncle. That was really neat!

Today is my dad's birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!!!!!!!