Updated Flickr page

I've finally updated the Flickr photo site with our pics from Berlin and Switzerland. Please check it out!

Thanks,

Kristen

Labor Day in Switzerland

For the Labor Day holiday, we decided to take another weekend excursion. I had 8 hours of use-or-lose comp time, so we decided to take Friday off as well and make it a four-day. We thought about lots of places, but in the end decided it might be best to go somewhere close enough to drive this time and bring along the doggies. So, we ended up going to Engelberg, Switzerland, on the recommendation of my lovely mom who has been there before and absolutely loved it.

We packed up the car and headed out Friday afternoon, finally reaching the land of the Swiss just a few hours later. Oh my goodness. It was so beautiful I honestly can not put it into words!

The night we arrived it was raining and slightly chilly. We got checked into our hotel, only to get some bad news. While they advertise themselves as being pet friendly, in all actuality they do not allow you to leave your pets unattended in the rooms for any amount of time. Great. I wish they would have told us that in the beginning, because we definitely would have found a different hotel (I'm sure they knew that, too). Our dogs are very used to traveling and very used to being in hotel rooms or wherever by themselves for a few hours at a time. They are fine -- we leave the tv on for them, and they just sleep.

So, the disappointment was that Engelberg has lots of really neat things to do that we were now going to be unable to do because of having the dogs along, such as diggling down the mountain, or perhaps the rotating gondola that takes you to the top of the highest peak where you can ride a snowtube or take the Ice Flyer chairlift over the glacier. Next time, I guess.

We were able to take the reds in a cable car with us up the mountain on Saturday though, which was so cute to see how nervous Scouty was when it was our turn to jump into it! They did fine, and we got to the top of the mountain and spent a couple hours hiking around a gorgeous lake. There we were, smack in the middle of the Swiss Alps. It was honestly just unreal, the beauty. We had fun for the afternoon hiking and taking lots of pictures and watching the adorable cows with their giant cowbell collars just jangling away as they grazed on the grass in the meadows around the lake.

The next morning, poor Noel was so sore that she could barely walk down the street to go to the bathroom! So, that ruled out any more hiking that we'd be able to do that day. We had decided to rent some bikes and kiddy trailers and pull the doggies in the trailers, but of course the bike rental place that was open didn't have trailers, and the one with trailers was closed that day. Ugh. So, we drove around the mountains, napped, read, took more pictures, wandered the city and basically spent a lot of time relaxing.

The weekend overall was very fun, but we were disappointed with the stupid rules of the hotel. I just think they should put that in their room information offer letter they sent us. Our situation is just a little different due to the fact that Noel is special needs and simply can't walk very far. Most people who bring their dogs to the mountains probably have no issues just taking them everywhere. Oh well, at least we'll know next time that we won't stay at that hotel.

We are looking forward to going back to Switzerland again since it is so close to drive and it is just absolutely beautiful. It is very, very expensive though! But the beauty of the mountains is simply worth it.

One Year Later...

It's hard to believe that today marks exactly one year from the day we arrived here in Germany. Sometimes it feels like it's been forever, and other times it feels as if it's flown by. Overall, it has been a truly wonderful experience though! We have made some great friends and had some amazing experiences. Part of the experience has been keeping up this blog and being able to read back through and remember what we've been through. We've learned to adjust quite a bit to the cultural differences, tried to learn the language and gotten used to the small selection of tv we have to choose from. We've been to five other countries and several cities within Germany. I've already gotten a promotion and Carl has been able to get back into the world of aviation. We only made it home to the States one time but it was a wonderful trip, and we also had one super amazing trip here by my parents! We don't know how long we plan to stay, but we know it'll most likely involve traveling, working, and learning and experiencing all we can during this amazing blessing of being able to live here. Thanks for the support to everyone who has read along with us. Please stay tuned because we have lots more to experience and share!

Berlin excursion

The conference for my job took place last week in Berlin. So, of course we took advantage of the opportunity and traveled up a couple days early to tour the city. I can honestly say I learned so much during our time there. We always have said that Berlin is somewhere we definitely had to visit while living in Germany, but it never really pops up on our radar when we're looking for travel destinations on our leisure time. So this conference was a great chance to get part of the trip paid for and see the city with so much history.

We began our journey with a horrible experience on the train. Yes, you read that right, it was bad. We took the ICE train (super fast Inter-City Express) and were supposed to arrive in Berlin around 2:30 p.m. Welllllll, let's just say, at almost 7 p.m. we were finally checking into our hotel.

Our first train, a regional bahn, picked us up just fine and whisked us to our next train, which we soon found out was on a 60-minute delay. Ugh. No real problem there, except when the train showed up and sped away again without letting anyone get on! What? Luckily there was another train to Berlin right at that station at the same time, so we, along with everyone else who was supposed to be on our train (on which we of course had paid extra for reserved seats but didn't have that on this other train) got on this other train and stood the hour or so trip to Frankfurt. Not cool! We decided we were not going to stand the rest of the five hours to Berlin, so at the Frankfurt main station we got off and decided to try to get seats on a later train to Berlin. We did, and made it to Berlin, only to get very turned around with their metro system (They have a U-bahn, S-bahn, buses and trams). We finally found our hotel stop only to get turned around and walk about 30 minutes trying to find our hotel. We finally found our hotel, only to have them tell us they screwed up our reservation and put as at another hotel, lucky for us was only three blocks away and much nicer. Whew. So, it took about 10 hours total but we made it.

And in case you were wondering, apparently on our first train there had been some sort of "suspicious package" and the polizei weren't letting anyone on. It still went all the way to Berlin though. Figures, huh? Usually, the train system here is very reliable, but of course that one particular train wasn't! Oh well, at least we made it.

And then it was on to explore Berlin! What an amazing city! The first night we were too exhausted to do much, so we found a Hard Rock Cafe two doors down from the hotel and treated ourselves to lots of food.

The next day we went down the street to the Story of Berlin museum, which is pretty self-explanatory as to what it is. Very good museum, including a tour of a nuclear bunker from the Cold War era. I recommend that museum for a good overview, but be prepared to do a lot of reading. For the best overview of the city, I decided we should take one of those guided walking tours of the city. I had read about them in all the guidebooks and thought it would be a great way to really learn the ins and outs from someone who knows. We met up with Jen and Nate, who arrived that morning for the conference, and off we went on the walking tour with the Original Berlin walking tours company.

We were not disappointed! It was excellent. While it was long, and obviously included lots and lots of walking, we saw everything we wanted to see plus some things we really didn't even know about. Our tour guide was about Carl's age we guessed and grew up in the former East Berlin, so it was really neat to hear about life there from her perspective.

We saw the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, even the location of where Hitler's bunker was in which he committed suicide, the evil coward. I loved the tour and came away from it with a much greater understanding and broader knowledge of the history of that city and the way it impacted the world. We also visited an awesome chocolate store. Mmmm. :)

The following day, we visited the zoo and the aquarium. We love zoos, obviously, and I of course wanted to see the Berlin Zoo's most famous resident: anyone remember Knut the cuddly litte polar bear baby who became famous a few years ago? Well, I'm happy to report that Knut is still cute but he's huge now, and still very playful at his 3 years of age. He was playing in the water with a log. It was quite obvious he knows he's the star of the zoo :) The rest of the zoo was very nice as well. From there we went back to the famous Brandenburg gate and several other famous Berlin locations.

Then, it was time to start the conference. Lira made it with Leslie, and Nate had to leave, so that meant that while we girls were in the conference, Carl and Leslie ventured out into Berlin. They ended up going to the Checkpoint Charlie museum (they said it was overrated), up in a giant hot air balloon (it was tethered to the ground but still went really high) and to the aqua dome that was like an elevator through an aquarium or something like that. We also had time to make it to the DDR Museum (decent -- showing what life was like for East Germans in Berlin but it was a bit cheesy) and found several restaraunts we really enjoyed.

Oh yeah, and the conference was nice too -- good chance to network a little bit and learn some new stuff that's job related, but I'm not going to waste anyone's time by writing about that on here.

All in all, we would highly recommend anyone to visit Berlin. I'll try to post some pictures soon!

New Job!

Well I am a little slow in updating again because I've had a lot going on! Last Monday, exactly a week ago today, I started my new job! So far, it's been great. I have had a lot of learning and adjusting to do, but I feel like it was definitely the right move.

The first few days were all spent inprocessing (translation: walking all over the place trying to find different offices to have them tell me what they do or make me take a test or something and then sign my paperwork). I couldn't get on the computers till Wednesday but finally got that squared away only to find 16 emails waiting for me from that morning!

The worst part was that due to the job, I had to get immunizations, too! Excuse me? I don't have a clue what shots I've had or haven't had, but if you ask me I'll tell you I had them all and last week at that, I'm upated, nothing to see here, move along please, thank you! I called my mom and begged her to fake my shot record but she, being the wonderful mom she is, recommended if I can get the immunizations, and for free, I really should do it -- it's for my own good -- yeah, I guess she was right. I made it through (on the last possible day I could get shots) with no troubles at all! Even got a Spongebob band-aid and they drew a smiley face around my TB test.

The rest of the week was spent simply learning who's who and what's what and of course, going to meetings. I have a feeling I am going to be busier than I've ever been, but that's good! I love being busy and feeling important in my job. In this job I feel like I will come home exhausted every day but feel like I've actually accomplished something and made a difference. The people I work with have reminded me many times what big shoes I have to fill (Jen really did a great job here) but have also been super supportive and offering to help with whatever I need help with. Bonus, I even have my own office again. Yayyyy!!!!!

Last weekend we traveled to the Bodensee, a.k.a Lake Constance, with the doggies. We met with Dan and Kelli and Bryce (Sonia was on vacation with her sister). It was really fun. The hotel we stayed at backed up to miles upon miles it seemed of vineyards stretching up the hillsides. if you walked to the top you could look down all over the valley and the lake below. Across the lake you could see the Alps. We were looking at Switzerland!! On Saturday we took the ferry to the island of Mainau, the flower island, and wandered around. It was basically a giant botanical garden with a butterfly house. Then later we all rented a paddle boat (5-seater) and paddled on the lake a little bit. We really wanted to go to Switzerland but the ferry ride would have taken a while and we figured this time, looking at it was just as nice. Saturday evening turned out to be a specatular scene as the Swisss were celebrating some sort of national holiday and shooting fireworks from all across the lakeshore. Beautiful. The city we stayed in was so cute and small. Bikers and walkers everywhere you could look. Some day we hope to maybe go back and rent one of the houses on the lake front with all of our friends here and just chill out for a week!

In the coming weeks we will hopefully be traveling to Berlin for a conference I get to go to for work. I am very excited and am trying to get the paperwork squared away this week so we can go. It would be us, Jen, Nate, Lira and the kids. How fun would that be, and in Berlin, too! I can't wait!

All in all, some good things happening here now but I still have a long way to go before I feel settled and fully comfortable with my new job duties. I'll keep you posted!

Happy Birthday Carl and Grandma!

We've had a lot going on since the last post about the cruise. First and foremost, I'll be starting a new job one week from tomorrow (on the 3rd)!! I am very excited. It's a promotion, and we'll still be able to stay here -- I'll just be working for a different command and on a different kaserne here in town. It all came about because my best friend here, Jen, left the job to take a promotion somewhere else, so they upgraded the position and decided to slide me into it. It is a true and huge blessing, because it should turn out to be fantastic for my career.

Because of that, we were not able to go home to Minnesota this week as we had originally been planning (since December!). I've been very bummed about it but have been trying to push on and know that me being able to get this promotion, in the long run, may even allow for better chances to go home in the future. Today is Grandma Ger's 85th birthday, and yesterday was her big party. Everyone was there (except us) and it sounds like they had a really fun time celebrating her as the "Queen for the Century." Happy Birthday Grandma!!

Yesterday was also Carl's birthday (Happy Birthday Carl!), but he unfortunately had to work. I surprised him with a cake that tasted much better than it looked when he got home in the evening. Yesterday evening for work we went on a cruise down the Rhine River to see the famous four-castle illuminations with fireworks in a city just up the river. It was fun, but not enough to keep my mind off of the fact that I wasn't back in the States with everyone else. I have posted a bunch of pictures from the river cruise on the Flickr site. Please check them out! It was a fundraiser for the local Warrant Officer's Association and they hosted a bunch of wounded warriors from Landstuhl.

This weekend we're headed to the Bodensee -- also known as Lake Constance, which is a lake that sits in the borders of Switzerland, Austria and Germany. We'll be going with Dan and Kelli and Bryce and the dogs, of course. It should be a good time.

That's about all for now!

Cruise picture preview

As promised, pictures from our Baltic birthday cruise have now been uploaded to our Flickr site.
Here's a preview!


midnight in the Baltic Sea

St. Petersburg, Russia

Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia

St. Petersburg, Russia

yes, that clock is right: midnight in the Baltic Sea, and such a pretty sky!

Birthday Cruise

We just got back late Sunday night from our most recent trip -- this time, we took a cruise to the Baltic Sea. This turned out to be a last-minute trip, but it was awesome!

We had been planning for a while to try to take a trip somewhere around my birthday weekend. We had been looking into several trip packages similar to the one we took to Madrid, to all sorts of random places. We are completely open about where to go on vacation -- if it's a good deal, we're there, whether or not we've ever thought about that place before!

So, this time it turned out that we were eyeing a cruise out of Stockholm, our new favorite city. The cruise was on Royal Caribbean, and went to Tallinn, Estonia, and St. Petersburg, Russia. The price was mega-cheap and kept dropping lower so finally we decided to go for it! Carl turned in his leave and I had enough comp time to take 4 days off. (with still more than a week's worth of comp time left - yes, this is different from regular vacation time. Did I mention I have worked a lot of hours outside of work??)

The cruise was fantastic!! Neither of us had ever really thought about going to Russia, and Carl had never even heard of Estonia before, but this gave us a nice opportunity to see Gabriella and Simon again if even for a lunchtime, and have a relaxing trip this time. We love going to new cities and places and have become sort-of experts at navigating metro's and airports, but a cruise allows the opportunity to get there and not have to worry about anything.

The cruise was a 4-night cruise with one day in each Estonia and Russia and one day at sea. Here's a little breakdown of the port cities and the ship experience:

Tallinn, Estonia -- A very nice town. It is a mideival walled city, very similar to Rothenberg that is near us in Germany. There wasn't much that we found to do though, except wander around and shop and look at the old buildings, which we did. We enjoyed it nonetheless. We decided that Estonia is definitely the best place we have come across --ever-- for people-watching. The women were probably the most beautiful we've ever seen, which surprised us both. We also found a neat maritime museum on our way out of town that offered a secret little gem -- you could go to the top of the building and look out over the port. Very nice views!

St. Petersburg, Russia -- It was amazing to think we could go to Russia. We didn't have to get visa's beforehand to enter the country (probably wouldn't have had time anyway since we booked the cruise only a week before going) because we could take an excursion with the ship and they give you a one-day visa. We took walking tour, which was nice, except for the stupid girl on our tour who made everyone wait about 30 minutes because she needed to use the bathroom. Ugh... anyway. St. Petersburg was actually a very beautiful city, once you got inside of it. Lots of waterways and shiny buildings. The day we were there was also the day of their University graduations, so there were young people out all over the city celebrating. We also saw no less than 20 brides walking around in their dresses -- that was odd. Traffic patterns were the worst I have ever seen. It seemed like they had no laws or rules on driving the way some of these people drove! (We were in a bus from the ship to the downtown, and then back again after walking around the city). The only bad thing was that they were having a heat wave, and it was very, very hot, especially for me because I wore my trusty jeans because I wasn't thinking clearly.

The ship -- Royal Caribbean's Vision of the Seas. Very nice! It was exactly, I mean exactly, like the ship we were on for our last cruise a few years ago in the Caribbean, so that was actually nice because we already knew our way around.
Not only did we get a super-cheap last minute deal on the price of the cruise, but we also got upgraded to a larger room, so that was pretty cool, too.
Last time we took a cruise, we were duped by the art auction. Granted, we got some very nice art work out of it, but this time we knew to stay away. However, we weren't prepared for the spa people to find us! I planned to get my hair done anyway, and Carl was going to try something for his aching back. Well, I ended up getting my hair cut and colored, along with a facial, neck and shoulder massage and deep conditioning hair treatment, while Carl tried accupuncture. Then in a raffle I won a free body content analysis thing (where they tell you how fat you are -- perfect to learn while on a cruise...) so we also just paid for Carl to get the same thing done. The only bad thing we found was that we felt like everything was one giant sales pitch. They wanted us to buy every single product they used on us, and believe me, they were not cheap. ($300 for a 3-month detox system? $300 worth of facial products? $200 for chinese herbs? $85 for a nutrition analysis? What?!) Luckily we held our ground and didn't buy anything beyond the initial treatments. The best news is that Carl had a blast playing Blackjack in the ship's casino, and pretty much won enough to cover the treatments we had originally budgeted for in the spa!
The rest of the time, I mostly enjoyed relaxing and reading. There were 1,900 people on the ship, and 1,200 were from Sweden! They had lots of activities for everyone while on board, including bingo, trivia games, raffles, sing-alongs, demonstrations on things like cooking, ice sculptures and folding towel animals, along with nightly entertainment including an illusionist, a Beatles band and a juggler and variety show.

The whole time I kept thinking, I can not wait for our cruise in October!! Wait, what cruise? Oh, did I forget to blog about that one?? Hmm... well, yes, that is the big trip I had hinted at a while ago (before Madrid and this trip). My parents are coming here again in October and we're all going on a Mediterranean cruise to Turkey, Crotia and two islands of Greece! Yayyy!!! I CAN'T WAIT!! This trip was fun, but having them there will be so much better.

In other news, Jen moved away this week. :( I am super happy for her but I will miss her. She's headed to a new job here in Germany where her boyfriend lives. They'll be about 2.5 hours form us. Also, Carl's best work friend here, Shane, moved to England today. So, we're both sad about losing our friends but we still have some good ones here and it is PCS season now, so who knows who else might show up and move here now, too!

I'll try to post some pictures from the cruise tonight!

Memorial Day in Madrid

Hola!

In my last blog, I mentioned at the end something about booking our next adventure. Well, I'm still not going to write about that one. :)

Instead, I'm going to tell you about a little weekend jaunt we took to Madrid, Spain, over the Memorial Day three-day weekend holiday.

It was fun. The end.

Just kidding. :) It really was fun! We realized quickly how little Spanish we actually do know, and it was quite odd to find ourselves honestly thinking and trying to answer in German when people would talk to us. Guess our Deutch is going much better than we thought, even though it still doesn't seem like it!

Madrid is a beautiful city. I did tons of research beforehand by internet and guidebooks from the library to make sure our hotel was in a good location, and it was, right by a metro stop. From there we were able to get pretty much anywhere we wanted to go in the city. It is a huge city and we walked a lot!! Our hotel was nice -- the room was small, as most European hotel rooms are, and the toilet and sink were square! Yeah, imagine that one... haha!

My favorite part was the fact that they serve churros for breakfast - all you can eat! Can you imagine?! I was in heaven. Their sweets and pastries are delicious too, and I must admit I liked them more than the German bakeries. Probably because they are much sweeter and I do have a bit of a wicked sweet tooth.

Before we arrived, we both picked one thing we wanted to do for sure, and then from there after that I picked lots of random things near each other to try to make it to.

My pick was the Royal Palace.

I'm trying to upload a picture here but it doesn't seem to be working. Hmm. Anyway, the palace was amazing! I mean, simply stunning. I think my jaw was on the floor every time we turned a corner and went into another room! We waited in line for about an hour to get inside, in the rain of course, but it was completely worth it. No pictures were allowed inside, of course, but we took a few on the outside.

After that, we went to Carl's pick, the Zoo and Aquarium. It was a phenomenal zoo. The animals were unbelievable friendly, reaching through the fencing and such. Lots of people were feeding them, which is not actually allowed but they were doing it anyway. I'm sure that's part of the reason why they are so friendly toward humans! We got slightly lost on our way to the zoo as coming out of the metro you are in a big open parkland with no signs. But, we found it eventually. (We spent lots of extra time on this trip wandering around. Despite all the research we did beforehand and having our handy-dandy Frommer's travel guide book along with us, for some reason the exact locations of places kept finding a way to deceive us. It's okay though, the more walking we did throughout the city and the parks, the more of the city we got to experience!)

We also visited the museum of the Royal Navy, which could easily have been a top ten museum of all time probably for both of us, except it was all in Spanish! It was free so we couldn't complain. It even had a map drawn by the first mate of the Santa Maria, showing the route Columbus took, for Isabella and Ferdinand. Amazing.

We went to El Rastro on Sunday morning, which is the largest flea market in Spain. It was cool because it was all throughout some city streets. We didn't buy anything because it was mostly fabrics, clothing, leather goods, etc. We also visited the Parque del Retiro, which is the largest parkland in the city, and it was neat because there were lots of performers and vendors. The weather Sunday was beautiful so we stayed outside almost the whole time. We took the Teleferico cable car over the city too, which offered nice views of the Royal Palace and the skyline. That cable car provided us probably the longest and most confusing "where the heck is it?!" experience of the weekend... but, we found it finally.

There were so many parks, statues, fountains and buildings that we saw and admired but have no clue what they were! I know, that's kind of sad, but it was a beautiful city and it was so packed with stuff like that, that it was easier to admire and take some pics and keep moving.

As far as food, rest assured that Carl's taste for raw meat is still missing. Ha! No kidding, they like their meat almost like raw cold cuts, and even he was grossed out. (He hasn't been the same since the tar tar... hahaha!!) We found two yummy restaurants just by wandering the streets and looking at menus and also went to one vegetarian restaurant I had scouted out in the guidebook that was indescribably good. Even Carl loved that one, honestly!

Yep, we had a great time exploring Madrid and being able to experience a little of the Spanish culture. Would we go back? probably not. Did we need more time there to experience it all? definitely. Would we recommend it to others? Yes, but visit Stockholm first, that one still wins right now for coolest city. :)

All in all, a wonderful weekend. And let's not forget to stop and say thank you to all our service men and women, and remember the fallen, since it was Memorial Day weekend that we were traveling. God Bless America and our troops.

Don't forget to check out our Flickr page for more photos!!

Life in the 'hood... the 'parenthood'

Ok ok before anyone gets excited from the title of this blog posting, we are not going to be having a little one any time soon! Just had to say that right off the bat!!

We did, however, become 'parents' last week to a 10-year old and 13-year old as Lira, my boss, had to go to the States for a conference and left the kiddos with us! Yes, it was an experience to say the least. We get along great with them though, and they are so busy during the week with school and practices that it's not like we had to entertain them too much.

I did, however, learn how to brush someone else's hair, make fruit salad, make peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, do homework, pack lunches, study for spelling tests, sign parent permission slips, drop off at school and pick up at practices after school, and, of course, get the call from the school nurse saying "Leslie needs to go home because she's got a runny nose and due to the swine flu scare, I can't let her stay at school." Sheesh! Busy week!

We all ate dinner together every night and I was so surprised and pleased at how easy they were to feed - they ate whatever we offered, including asparagus, edamame beans, vegetarian corn dogs, spagetti, soy milk, etc. (not all at the same time though haha) They also loved Carl's new signature specialty - smoothies. Every night before bed we all got a smoothie made purely of frozen fruit and vanilla soy milk, nothing more, nothing less, and they were delicious!

It was really fun having the around though. They're very well-behaved and fun kids and are self-sufficient enough that they were not a burden in any way. We have two very lovely guest rooms now so they each got their own room, too. Thomas and Carl mostly played video games for a little while before bed while Leslie and I did homework or played online math trivia games. Good times. I know they were anxious for Lira to get home though, but I am pretty sure they'll be back again in the future, which is definitely fine with us.

Also, Saturday, May 2, Kelli and Dan had a Kentucky Derby party at their house. Now, if you've known me for any amount of years you know I love me some horses, and growing up I was plopped in front of the tv alllllll day on Derby day. The party was mostly for their German friends to learn about the Derby. We all got dressed up and the girls all even wore fancy hats in the tradition of the Derby. Because of the time change though, the race didn't run till 12:30 a.m. our time, and we had the kids coming over early the next morning, so we left about 11:30 p.m. and I watched the race half in and out of sleep on our couch at home. No, I will admit, I did not pick the winner. I was hoping for a little General Quarters or Dunkirk action myself. Maybe for the Preakness?

And, this evening we booked our next big adventure.... stay tuned to find out the details of that one in a later post!! ( I have to have something to keep you coming back!)

Memorial Day poll winner!

Wow, thanks to everyone who voted on the little poll for "Where should we go for Memorial Day?" How fun is that?! People actually read this blog! haha :)

Anyway, I am happy to announce we have a winner! I booked the flight and hotel package yesterday evening....... and the winner is..... Madrid, Spain!

Haha! I know, it wasn't even a choice, sorry! Originally, we were choosing among the four cities I had put in the poll. We were going to book a train +hotel package through our Army travel agency here. We had actually decided on Brussels (main reason: it was the cheapest!) even though we want to go to all of them and I really appreciate the words of advice from those of you who offered suggestions! It was very helpful, especially since I stink at making decisions!

However, when we went to the agency to actually book the package, they were all sold out of those deals! ughhh!! We didn't know it was also a German holiday weekend and those deals are also sold by other travel agencies all throughout Europe. Bummer!

So, we backed up and started at square one. Hmm. Where do we want to go? The beauty of living here is that we can go to so many places! Jen and Nate wanted to go with us, so one day Jen and I got on the computer and literally went city-by-city on where the cheap airline flies and what flights were available. Oslo? No. Wroklaw? No. Zadar? Where the heck is that? No. Madrid? Yes, cool!

Long story sort of short, Jen and Nate can't go with us due to Nate's job. So I started looking at hotel+flight packages thru all the travel Web sites. I did lots of research and comparisons on hotels, metro access, saftey, traveler reviews, etc. and finally, finally, finally was able to book a flight+hotel package for us to Madrid for the weekend. Now we just have to narrow down what we want to do in the little time we'll have there!

In other news, times have been super busy around here lately as we've been trying to plan ahead for summer travel and work has been obnoxious with co-workers being out, etc. Wednesday night Jen and I had a girls' night where we went shopping in Speyer and found a very yummy Mexican restaraunt!! Yes, it was Mexican and it was good! Definitely going back again soon. Last night we went to Lira's to celebrate her birthday. Sunday, her kids are coming to stay with us for the week while she travels to the States. Should be interesting as I'll learn how to juggle all the things that come with the kids -- dropping off at school, getting to and from soccer and softball practices, eating dinner, doing homework, making lunches, oh yeah and going to work and making sure the doggies aren't cooped up too long in the meantime. Should be fun!

Last week we picked up a new-to-us bedroom set from one of Carl's co-workers. It's very nice!! So tomorrow morning we'll go get the bedding and then we will officially have two (nice, if I may say so) guest rooms. :)

A couple weekends ago we also ventured out to the botanical gardens downtown and the zoo. Both were fun!

All in all, we've been busy enjoying all the beautiful weather we've been having, too. Each evening we have been walking the doggies on a 2-mile route we found thru the woods near the house. They have loved it and it's been nice and relaxing for us as well, not to mention good for our health.

Take care all and I'll update again soon! Thanks again for reading and also for voting. I will try to come up with another poll question soon!

More Memories, End of an Era, and a Purple tree

We've thought of two more memories not mentioned in the previous post that are just too good not to share.

• In the Irish restaurant in Garmisch, dad wasn't sure what he wanted to eat. The menu of course was in German, but the last time we were there the nice Irish lady helped us figure out what everything was. Her German husband was helping us that night and wasn't great at sprechening English, along with our young German waitress. So, when dad saw something go by to another table that looked yummy, he wanted to know what it was. He asked the waitress "Was ... are they eating?" Was (pronounced 'vas') is "What" in German. How cute! We cracked up! He tried at least. I will have to say that my mom did a nice job earlier in the evening also asking "Haben sie riesling?" (Have you reisling?) It was so fun seeing them try to use their German. We are definitely the same way still, so I can't laugh too hard!
• Dad and Carl's adventure in the sauna in our hotel in Garmisch. If this sounds bad, it kind of is. Apparently, two over-sized German guys were already completely smushed into the sauna together, in their Speedos, of course, and kept trying to talk to Dad and Carl as they sat in the hot tub. Needless to say, that little trip didn't last too long before they were rejoining mom and me in the hotel room!

End of an era: Last night was the final evening of bowling league. The Stike Masters are no more... well, until next season anyway, and even then, I have a feeling the team may not be the same. They came in third overall for the season, and in two weeks at the awards dinner may actually win some money out of it! We had fun all season and it's kind of funny and sad to think that now it's over. Believe it or not, that league started just two weeks after we arrived here. So, it was pretty much the first thing we got involved in. At first I couldn't believe it would last till April, and there were a few times we were just plain aggravated that Carl was still stuck going to that stupid league every Tuesday night!! -- but all in all, it was a great experience. It brought us so much closer to Lira and her kids as well as Regina and Dan, and also Ray who was a sub, but then ended up being an official team member since he came so often, sometimes even just to watch. Carl has his own bowling shoes and will most likely be getting a ball this summer. His high game for the season came about a month ago when he bowled a 256. He plans to continue bowling and join the league again next year for sure. For me, well, I just enjoyed pizza night and the fact that the guys at the snack bar got to know me so well I didn't even have to order anymore - they'd call in my order when they saw me walking up, and sometimes even gave me free extra cheese or only charged me for the small pizza instead of a large. :) We took a team photo on Lira's camera last night so I hope to get that from her soon and post it.

Purple Tree: Tonight, we had a funny experience. The doorbell rang about 6:30 p.m. or so. I answered it to find a German guy and his 7-year-old son on the front porch. In broken German and English, we figured out that he was asking if we had a big purple tree in our garden. As a matter of fact we do, back behind the extra building in our vineyard, we have several large lilac trees. Apparently, his wife and son saw the tree from the side road and just wanted to see it up close (his wife was too embarrassed to come to the door so she was still in the car!) I told them sure, we can walk back there, so we went back to the vineyard. His wife, who is Canadian and speaks great English, was so excited and kept saying "She's beautiful!" over and over about the trees! So we ended up chatting with them for a good 20 minutes. They live up the street and she runs a shoe store around the corner in town! (Yes!! shoes and shoe repair!) They were super friendly and invited us to stop by any time we needed anything or just wanted to chat, and I let her take some lilac home and she was thrilled. I guess I will have to get some fresh lilac for the house now, too!

Pictures: Don't forget about our Flickr page! Be sure to check it out again because Dad has loaded lots of pictures from their camera on there now, too! http://flickr.com/photos/kristenandcarl

Favorite Moments from my parents' visit

Well, I promised another post with some more details on some of the most memorable moments from my parents' visit. I'm sorry it has taken me so long to do that!

I only wish that right now I had my mom's little red notebook that she kept notes in so I could make sure not to forget any of them -- yes, we wrote down funny moments as they happened!

I am thinking I'll do this one in bullet form instead of large paragraphs. These are simply going to be in the order I remember them as I type this tonight!

• Lunch at what we now call "Sleepy's Chinese Restaurant." This was in Speyer, at what is actually the place that serves what we all agreed is the best Chinese food we've ever had. We couldn't find a restaurant that was actually serving lunch by the time we were ready to eat (lots of places close down here in the late afternoons to prepare for dinner.) However, the yummy Chinese place was open. We enjoyed our food and the waiter was so cute, saying "please, please" the time. (He was using a literal translation of a German word that means please and you're welcome, only he was using the wrong English word. Too cute!) Well, after we had all finished eating we realized we hadn't seen the waiter in a while. Not unusual, since waiters here let you enjoy your food and you have to signal them for everything. One problem: he wasn't around to signal that we were done. So we sat and waited and chit-chatted but after quite a while got kind of curious. Dad decided to walk over to the counter and see if he could peek into the kitchen and find him. He came back to the table with a bit of a goofy look - "He's asleep behind the counter!" We didn't believe him until he offered to buy lunch if he was making it up -- we knew then he meant it. So dad went to the bathroom and slammed the door once, then twice and all of a sudden the waiter shot up out of his chair and came running over to see if we enjoyed our food. You could tell he was horrified and probably had no idea how long we'd been out or if we knew. We didn't tell him, of course! Too cute!
• Gabriella picking us up at the airport and not remembering how to find the parking lot! It was fun :) Then later we arrived to meet Simon for the first time with his wonderful breakfast he had prepared for us. We learned all about "Simon the Troublemaker" who that afternoon redeemed himself into becoming "Simon the Tourguide." My mom and I definitely enjoyed touring by the Royal Palace guards and getting our picture taken next to them! We also had a fika (coffee break) in a coffee shop built inside a 700-year old prison that day.
• Seeing the speedbump sign in Uppsala, Sweden: The Swedish word is "Farthinder." HAHA Of course we all had to get our pictures taken by the sign! (Okay, actually only dad and I had our pictures taken there).
• Riding the train to Uppsala and seeing my mom's goofy grin as the very attractive ticket taker came through -- she of course pulled out her camera and asked for a picture. :) He didn't mind!
• Eating dinner at Story, a new restaurant in Stockholm. The place was very nice -- cool atmosphere, kinda built below the street level so you are looking up at the people walking by. However, the boys got nervous when they saw the portion size, and we all got nervous when we saw the menu prices and the waitress told us we were supposed to order two entrees! Carl decided to be daring as he thought Simon explained that 'tartar' was actually very lean meat. Oh contrare. He later found out when his biff tartar arrived, that it was actually a plate of raw meat. Hence he is now King Carl de Tartar. He ate it! We all laughed hysterically! We all then ordered two desserts since we had to order two entrees. Almost the Swedish kronar equivalent of $350 later, we finally left.
• Walking into the Frankander residence on our second visit there and mom saying "Oh, this is nice! Where are we now?"
• Eating schneeballen in Rothenberg. It was fun to introduce them to a treat we had been talking about. A week later, finding mom sneaking a bite of schneeballen in the kitchen still. (It's okay, I had been sneaking bites earlier. Those things seriously last a long time!)
• Learning all about the funny rules and laws of mideival times at the Crime and Punishment Museum in Rothenberg. Who would have known that people were punished for telling smutty jokes, being a blabbermouth or baking a loaf of bread too small? We decided none of us would have lasted very long in that time period!
• Eating dinner in Leimen on their first night there, and seeing them try authentic German food for the first time. Dad never did find another dish he liked better than his Schwabentopf (I am sure I spelled that wrong) the first night!
• Eating ice cream in downtown Heidelberg after shopping and a nice old lady started chatting with mom in half English-half German.
• Mom taking pictures of everything! But the Flickr site is perfect for displaying all of them, and I'll admit, I took a lot too!
• Hiking to the gorge in Garmisch only to discover it was closed! But we went around the sign and kept hiking anyway. Got some great pictures.
• Watching dad demonstrate how to ski jump at the Olympic Ski Stadion (1936 ski jumping stadium) in Garmisch.
• Night Watchman's Tour at the Heidelberg Castle -- this was something I was covering for work, and we did it their last night there. Awesome. We were in the year 1622 and touring the castle with the night watchman as he was preparing for a battle with the Catholics. We met a sergeant, a townslady and the castle maid along the way. So much fun! Perfect way to end their trip but also a must for everyone else who is coming to visit!
• Walking, walking, walking.... we walked everywhere in Sweden, then hiked in Garmisch. Lots of exercise.
• Touring the Neuschwanstein Castle. The hike up to it is about a 30-40 minute hike basically straight uphill (it switches back and forth too). The walk itself was actually fun too and we beat the crowd. The castle was amazing.
• Searching for the lost city of Zitzelville (pronounced Zitzelwill) as we drove through Bavaria -- trying to find my grandma's long lost relatives!!
• Leif, Gabriella's father, singing a song after serving everyone "Swedish Punch" in celebration of Gabriella's birthday. All I know is that it burned when I drank it! But I had to ater he sang that song!
• Candy stores, candy stores, candy stores! We bought lots of gummies in Heidelberg but in Sweden I think we hit every single candy store we walked by -- their candy is awesome!

Alrighty well I think that's enough for now. I am sure I have left out many more of our favorite funny moments but I think this is good for now. :) I will add more as I think of them!

I hope you've enjoyed and I look forward to many more funny moments with whoever our next visitors are...any takers???

My parents' visit... is over already!!

Hard to believe that time has flown by so quickly that my parents were here for 10 days and are already back home again!

Needless to say, we had the most amazing time while they were here! I sort of had intended to try and update the blog during their trip, but obviously that didn't happen! We were on the go pretty much the whole time. I will make this as concise as possible and add more later.

Starting with day one, I picked them up at the airport and literally had tears in my eyes when I saw them. I was so excited! We spent the day trying to keep them awake (and failed for a little while in the afternoon, even I fell asleep! I had been up all night tracking their flight on the online flight tracker okay?!) I took them to my work and introduced them to everyone I work with. We then had dinner at a German restaurant in Leimen (yes, the first place we ate when we arrived here). It was delicious, of course. Then, we took them by the bowling alley so they could see what quickly has become our 'second home.' I know you're thinking 'they flew all the way to Europe and you take them to the American places?' Ah, only for today, and only because we just needed to keep them awake a little while and had a full schedule the rest of the time they were here.

Saturday (March 28) we headed to Rothenberg again for a nice little day trip. We enjoyed schneeballen of course, visited the mideival crime and punishment museum, the Kathe Wolfhart Christmas museum, and walked the city for hours. It was a nice introduction to Germany for them.

Sunday morning we flew to Stockholm, Sweden. It was so exciting! We got to spend three wonderful days with Gabriella and her family touring Stockholm. Seriously, that city is awesome!! We also took a train ride to Uppsala one day which was also neat. We enjoyed meeting her husband, Simon, who greeted us with a lovely homemade Swedish breakfast when we arrived, and also celebrated Gabriella's birthday with her family at their home Tuesday evening. While in Stockholm, we walked a lot! Simon the tourguide and Gabriella took us around and showed us lots of sights, and then Monday Gabriella went with us on a boat tour of the city, which was great! We also went to the Nordiska Museum and the Vasa Museum.

Wednesday, we flew back to Frankfurt and drove back to Heidelberg for a few hours to see the downtown. We enjoyed some shopping and some ice cream.

Thursday, we went to Speyer, our favorite little local town where we always do our shopping. We walked around there and ate a delicious Chinese lunch. It was a nice way to do some relaxing after going so hard in Sweden.

Friday, we packed up the car and headed to Garmisch. We hiked to a gorge, visited the Olympic Ski Jump Stadium used in the 1936 Olympics and walked around the town. Saturday, we drove to the fairy-tale land of the Neuschwanstein Castle and toured the castle, which is amazingly beautiful. That evening we had a yummy Irish dinner across the street from our hotel and went to sleep exhausted!

Sunday, we drove back to Heidelberg by way of Austria. We stopped along the way to take pics of the beautiful Austrian Alps and tried to go to a castle museum but realized we didn't have much time since we had to make it back to HD in time for our night activity. We picked up the red babies from the German language camp they had been attending and then headed to meet up with Kelli and her family at the Heidelberg Castle for the Night Watchman's Tour... very fun!

It was a sad day Monday when we had to drive to the airport for them to fly home. I could not believe our time was up and did not want them to leave! Scouty went with us to the airport so he could keep me company on the drive back. I learned that crying and trying to drive on the autobahn are not really a good mix... but I made it, and they made it home safely later that night.

All in all, a trip of a lifetime!!!

I have posted many pics on the Flickr page so please check them out. I really tried to make this a short entry with just the basics. Later, I will make another post of some of our most memorable moments... you won't want to miss that one! :)

Day trip to Rothenberg

Yes, I finally have something real to write about again - albeit a week late - but last Saturday we packed up the red babies and headed to Rothenberg ob der Tauber, about an hour and a half form where we live. This little city is from mideival times and it is enclosed by a city wall that you can walk along and have great views (we didn't do that though of course since we had the doggies.) However, we were able to walk for 3 hours just exploring the streets of the city! It was so fun!

Rothenberg is actually one of the most popular tourist cities in Germany, and it's easy to see why. It is picture-perfect for what you think of in a cute little Germany community from days of old (when knights were bold.... haha!! in memory of Grandpa Don...). It is also the home of the indoor Christmas village, something I'll have to blog about once we go inside (again, we didn't do that either because of the doggies).

Now, before you think we missed out on everything because of the reds, let me just say the weather was gorgeous and we were able to just wear light jackets for our strolls. The people of this city completely epitomized the German's love for dogs - I can't even count how many people smiled at Noel and Scout, or pet them, or talked to them, and even a few who got down on the ground and hugged all over them. They loved it, and I was so proud of them for being so well-behaved, too! We had no problems whatsoever; there were even a couple dogs who decided to bark at Scout and he ignored them.

We also discovered the famous schneeballen -- a Rothenberg specialty pastry. It's basically like pie crusts cut into strips and rolled up into balls, and then covered with topping such as sugar, cinnamon, chocolate or nougat. Some even had fillings throughout. I have since learned from Alia too that schneballen means snowballs, which is fitting if you saw them. They were very good and we of course bought several varieties to try. The lady in the schneeball shop was in love with the dogs and came out side to sit and cuddle with them. She kept talking to them in German and every once in a while would say 'ohhh, I love you! I love you!" and kiss them and hug them. It was cute, and the best part is she gave us an extra schneeballen for free! haha!

I also forgot to blog I think that about a month ago we took a really fun day trip to Sinsheim with Lira and the kids to the Technik Museum there. It was fun; cold that day, but fun. So no, we haven't been completely holed up in the house here but now that the weather is getting warmer we are feeling the itch to do some more exploring!!

Today is clean the house day since we have less than a week before my parents arrive! I CAN'T WAIT!!! Also, in a couple hours the doggies have an appointment at a German vet to get their doggy passports. That way they can travel more with us.

Check out the pictures from our trip to Rothenberg on our Flickr page! http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristenandcarl

Short update

I know that I haven't updated in a while, but that's mostly because we just haven't had lots of really exciting things going on. We've been doing fine still, day in and day out -- just working, hanging out with our friends, etc. -- basically, the same old stuff.

We did host game nights a few weeks ago which turned out great. At the last minute we decided to have a potato bar and lots of snacky items and we played Cranium first, then we tried Don't Forget the Lyrics which turned out to just be a giant sing-fest where everyone sang what little words they knew at the top of their lungs. We also played some Uno that Lira's kids brought.

Last weekend Carl actually had the full weekend off, so we went back to Speyer to do some shopping. I felt like I needed some new warm work clothes and he wanted some too. Well a few hours later we were leaving with bags full of new stuff for me and nothing for him! Typical, huh? It was really fun because in one store we walked in and I think this lady must have seen me coming and thought, 'wow, this girl needs help!' She turned out to be like my own personal shopper lady! She helped me figure out my sizes for pants, jeans and sweaters (all different). She spoke no English, and I spoke no German. She followed me around and when I would pick up a sweater, she'd grab it out of my hands, put it down and pick up a different one. She also pulled some pants away from me because somehow she knew they'd be too short and she found me a pair of longs. Believe it or not, everything she picked not only fit perfectly but looked great, too! It was awesome! So anyone who is planning to come and visit and would like to do some shopping, I definitely know where we are going!

We are getting closer and closer to my parents' visit which is just so exciting I can hardly stand it! We have booked airline tickets to go see Gabriella in Sweden while they're here, too! Gabriella was an exchange student who lived with us in high school and we are so excited to go see where she lives and experience Stockholm! She's been very helpful too in making plans for things to see and do as well as finding an awesome deal on a very nice hotel in downtown.

The doggies are doing pretty well as always. We've had a few more big snow days and they just love the snow! Scouty keeps murdering rolls of toilet paper during the day, though. Guess he's trying to make it snow in the house too?

Well that's about all I can think of for right now. We've really not been living the glam Euro lifestyle lately with work getting in the way, not to mention we were saving money and fun things to do for when my parents get here.

I'll try to update more often again though as things happen.

Movie night make-up and Games, games, games

Well, it's been a quiet past few weeks in Germany, my new homecountry.
:)

Let's see, a week ago Tuesday we had a 'make-up movie night' where Lira and the kids and I all skipped out on bowling night and met up with Jen and Kelli to drool over Edward.. umm.. I mean to see Twilight at the movie theater on post. It was much better the second time! I think because this time I wasn't concentrating as much on what was different from the book, but more just on ... well, Edward. Haha! The movie itself is definitely kinda bad, just poorly made, but I still loved it and will see it again whenever I can!

One thing I have to say that I absolutely love about this community is that on a random Tuesday night like that, Carl can go bowling and I can be at the movie theater a block away, and when it's done we can safely walk around at night and there are people everywhere doing the same thing. It's a very nice sense of community. Even though we don't live on post right there, it's still a nice feeling.

I had several work events to cover over the past couple weeks as well that were kind of fun. One was Friday night, a carnival at one of the elementary schools on post. Carl got home in time to go with me, and Lira and the kids were there too. It was a nice event, to be honest. As I wandered around and took photos and talked to people, Carl wandered around and found the silent auction area... and proceeded to win the "family game night basket." It was this giant basket full of, what else, games! There are some fun-looking ones in there and we've already tried several of them, including Cranium, Jenga, Yahtzee, Mancala, Don't Forget the Lyrics, ESPN Trivia, Candyland, and I can't remember what else.

Saturday evening last weekend we were invited to Dan & Kelli's for a taco bar and to play some board games (they invited us before they knew Carl had won the games basket, how ironic huh?). Their dog, Bailey, even invited the red babies to come over too, so we headed over there. It was fun! Just the seven of us (four humans, three dogs). We played Clue, Hoopla and Cranium. (I stink at Hoopla and really have no desire to try that one ever again...) Then, of course we busted out the Rock Band and gave it a try. We rotated a little but found out that Dan needs to be the singer, Carl on drums and Kelli & I can switch out on guitar.

Sunday night was Super Bowl night. Carl stayed up to watch it, of course, since his beloved Steelers were playing. The game didn't even start till midnight our time, so I went to bed at my normal time since I had to work the next day! Yes, Carl took Monday off to recover from the game. It wasn't over till around 4:30 a.m. our time, so I can't blame him. I did, however, get him to agree to take care of some errands during the day. He took Noel to the vet to get her shots updated, went to the bank and even took my two-page grocery list and trekked to the commissary. I don't think he really caught up on his sleep like he was hoping to, but hey, his Steelers won the Super Bowl, so I doubt he'd have slept much anyway.

This week has mostly been just a typical work week for both of us.

Tomorrow night, we are hosting Game Night here at our house. Lira and the kids and Dan and Kelli are coming over. It should be fun! I am a little nervous about everyone coming here, because I still don't feel like this house is ready for visitors. (and of course I am blogging instead of cleaning...) But I know everyone's anxious to finally see where we live and I think we're due to be hosts this time.

That's about it for now!

Movie weekend

We had a good weekend this past weekend. Saturday morning we got up and headed over to the furniture store to pick up our new guestroom bedset. It was very nice because this store had a vehicle we could rent from them and we live close enough that we had it back within 30 minutes, so it was cheap, too! That's one bad thing about giving up our big vehicles -- it's hard to get stuff home!

After that, we flipped through cookbooks and some of my old vegetarian magazines to find suitable recipes to bring to the Twilight potluck later that night. We found some yummy-sounding recipes (vegetable caviar and lemon-mint vinaigrette sugar snap peas) and headed to the commissary to buy some ingredients. While at the commissary we stocked up on none other than.. Girl Scout Cookies! Yayyy!! I was thrilled. :)

When we got home, I worked on the cooking while Carl went upstairs to put the new bed set together. It looks nice, but it is still lacking bedding as it's a German bed and we need to go buy some nice German bedding for it.

The potluck was at Dan&Kelli's and it was fun. Our vegetarian caviar turned out delicious! For the other recipe, well, the commissary did not have sugar snap peas so we substituted snow peas.... and, it didn't work too well for this particular recipe. Anyway, there were 8 of us at the potluck and we had a nice time sitting around chatting while waiting for time to pass so we could head to the movie!

Twilight. Ahhh Twilight. My favorite vampire boyfriend Edward. :) It was scheduled to start at 9:30 p.m., and this was 'opening night' here at our post theater. So, we decided to get there around 9 p.m. since you can't buy tickets earlier than 30 minutes prior to a show starting here. We got in the line that was formed outside the building at about 9:05 p.m. Not even five minutes later, the theater workers come outside and tell everyone they were sold out already! What?!?! Unbelievable. Apparently, for this movie, they had opened at 8 p.m. to sell tickets. Are you kidding me? Nice. So, no Twilight for us. The stupid thing is they are only showing it maybe two more times at our theater. Dumb. Luckily I got to see it back home in the States. I still wanted to see it again though!! So, we rented Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and headed back to Dan& Kelli's to watch together. It was fun, even though I fell asleep for parts of it.

Sunday we went to church and then went to lunch with Dan&Kelli and Lira and the kids. It was fun. The restaurant has slow service, so we were there for a while, but it was okay because we all get along and had nice conversation. After that, we headed home and did some housecleaning and laundry, etc. before going to bed.

Tonight is bowling night again, but it's also the one other showing of Twilight at our theater. So, I will probably be going to that! Lira said she'll probably get a sub for bowling so she can go and bring the kids, and I think Jen and Kelli may show up as well. So, it may turn out to be a sort of girl's night after all.

Shopping, snow, American Idol

Oops, it's been a little while since I have updated again. We have had some pretty uneventful times overall lately, just being busy with work and the daily grind.

Last week, I think it was Wednesday, it snowed again and it was absolutely beautiful! Big huge fluffy flakes that covered the entire countryside with white. The dogs again had so much fun playing in it. The snow had not actually melted yet from the last time, so this piled on top and made for a fairly nice little base. Sunday, however, it warmed up enough to rain so it was all washed away.

Saturday we found a nice furniture store around the corner from the house, and bought a new bedroom set for one of our extra bedrooms! We sold a lot of our extra furniture before we moved, and figured it was time to start getting ready for guests... drumroll please.... since my parents have officially booked their tickets and will be coming in the spring! Yayyyy!!!!! Obviously, I'm not going to post dates or anything for simple security precautions, but, it's a little ways away yet. I have been busy trying to plan an itinerary for their visit. 'So much Europe, so little time' is my new phrase!! There are so many places we want to go while they're here; some we've been to, some not.

Anyway, back to the bedroom set. It's very German, so that should be interesting for all you future guests! We pick it up this weekend and I'll have to find some nice bedding and get it all decorated so I can eventually post some pictures.

Saturday we also stopped by the library and got some new books to read. I got an awesome cookbook and have been a cooking machine this week!! I'm serious when I say that the kitchen and I have never really gotten along, until this week! I should have been taking pictures of the meals just for proof! haha! I got another Karen Kingsbury novel to read (already a good halfway through) but that's the only one they have, so pretty soon I'll either have to find a new author again or will have to find some bargain books online to order.

Monday was a holiday so we spent part of the afternoon and evening in Speyer, our favorite little town nearby, doing some shopping. I needed new work shoes (20Euro for nice black boots) and some of the stores were having some mega clearance sales so I got some new work pants (9Euro!) and a sweater (9Euro!). The only bad thing is that I am still getting used to the sizing over here. My shoes? Size 41! Sweater? Extra Large! Pants? Welllll... let's just say Carl was making fun of me because my European size is near the number for his American size... and also near my European shoe size now that I think about it. The truth is, I'm not really any bigger (okay maybe a little bit -- but the bretzels, berliners and strudels are too good here!!) it just feels so funny to buy sizes like 41! I'll get used to it. Or, get better at online shopping in American sizes again. haha!

This weekend was supposed to be a girl's night on Saturday, when we were headed to the premiere (over here anyway) of Twilight! Well, then Lira's son kind of wanted to come, so Carl said he'd come, and Dan said he'd go if Carl was going, and now Bryce said he'd go if the other guys were going... so, it's just going to be a whole big group thing. We're going to do a potluck dinner together at Dan & Kelli's and then head to the movie. There will probably be 8 or maybe 10, depending on whether Jen & Nate can make it.

Some sad news to report, and the only reason I put it down here is Not because it's not important, but because I know the only people who read this far down are the people who actually care about us, and the only ones who should read this, but we did have a loss in the family last week as Matt & Jennie lost the baby. :( We've all been keeping them in our prayers and are very sad for them, but happy that Jennie is okay. I won't post details because it's not my place to do so, but, we are thinking about them and praying for them.

That's about all for now. It's time for American Idol! :) Yes, we get it over here, just a day later. Better than nothing!

Weekend Update

Over the weekend we had a lot to accomplish. Saturday was one of those days that we knew we just needed to get things done. Most importantly, we had to figure out how to buy oil and have it delivered to the house. We use oil to heat our home, and we have four huge tanks in the basement... and they were pretty much at the last drops. I got the name of a local oil company from a co-worker but of course that wasn't going to get the oil delivered.

So, Saturday we drove to where we thought their building was, and through broken English and German we found our way to the office, where the very nice lady at the counter basically only spoke one word of English -"No."

Luckily, Carl's been brushing up on his German, and hand gestures and acting out things are universal languages. The lady was very friendly and willing to help us figure out what to do. As it turned out, there was a driver near our house already who did speak English, so she called him and Carl spoke with him on the phone. About 20 minutes later we were driving up to the house and the oil truck was already there waiting for us! Hallelujah!! We can now turn our heaters up to high and try to keep from catching another cold! It has been unbelievably cold here in our house lately... radiator heaters just don't heat up a giant house all that well. We have figured out which doors to close to keep the heat in certain rooms, and we don't heat the whole upstairs or downstairs just yet, only the side of the house that we are living on. It's worked fine so far, and so it should continue to work well now that we've refilled the oil and know how to get more in the future!

Saturday evening we attened at play at our local theater since we bought season tickets at the beginning of the year. We saw "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and it was hysterical! We were laughing out loud and there were parts where I think the entire audience was laughing as loud as they could at how hilarious it was. It was a good evening. I am really looking forward to the last play of the season, my personal favorite, "The Sound of Music!" but that doesn't start up till May I think. There are a couple more in between we'll go to as well.

Sunday was wonderful for me because I got to stay home. Carl had to work again so I did something I haven't done in forever -- I stayed in my pj's and bathrobe all day! And it felt awesome!! I was a heathen by skipping church, yes I know, and I do feel bad, but sometimes the need to do absolutely nothing and stay in the pajamas is just too great to overcome. I did do a bunch of laundry though so the day wasn't a total waste of time (although I personally think there would have been nothing wrong with a total wasted day...)

I finished another Karen Kingsbury book last night too, this one was "Like Dandelion Dust." I highly recommend it. I am hoping to go by the library to see if they have any more by her but if not then I might move on to another Rosamunde Pilcher or maybe a Maeve Binchy; I really like both of those authors and found some old paperbacks in our stuff that I haven't read yet.

We're hard at work trying to nail down dates for my parents' visit! Lots of work things on both ends have prevented any ticket purchase yet unfortunately, but, we're getting closer! I can't wait!!

One more random thing about me: I have become totally addicted to Burt's Bee's Hand Salve. I got a little kit in my stocking from Santa of Burt's Bee's samplers. (Thanks Santa Dude!!!!) I already knew I loved the lip gloss tin and the lemon butter cuticle cream. I actually gave Carl a huge tin of this Hand Salve stuff last year at Christmas because I thought it would be good for him with work and all. Well, when I felt how dry my skin got here and just one night of putting that stuff on my hands, I am hooked! And I can't get it here! Ugh! So... anytime someone would like to send me a little something, Burt's Bee's Hand Salve would be a real treat! (actually, anything Burt's Bee's is fine with me; I haven't found anything yet I don't like from that company!) Just a thought! :)

Snowed In??

Okay, no, we have not really been snowed in. I was going to use the excuse of "We've been snowed in since Monday, and it knocked our power out, and I've had to walk 12 miles in the snow uphill one-way to work every day this week, and the snow is all the way to our roof..." as the reason I have not updated again. But, obviously that's not true.

We did, however, have snow, glorious snow, Monday of this week. It snowed pretty much all day while we were both at work. Overall we probably only had a few inches total, but it was enough to coat everything with a nice thick layer of the nice powdery white stuff. It hasn't really melted yet. The roads are not too bad, as they do a good job here of plowing and salting. They even have special little plows for the bike paths, believe it or not! The doggies have definitely had some fun romping and playing in the backyard in all the snow. They love it! It is really cute too, to see their bright red fur against backdrop of white everywhere you can look.

Today as I was driving home from work around 5 p.m., I looked to my left and right and saw just the most beautiful sight -- it was the landscape, covered in snow, with the mountains on the left and the flat land on the right, pale blue sky above me on the left with the moon rising over it all, and on the right side the sky was still a very pale pink from the sunset. It was gorgeous. We don't normally get views like that because it's been so gray and overcast here all the time. But this was a sight to see. I was driving on the autobahn though, so I didn't get too much time to enjoy the view before needing to concentrate on the road again.

Happy (late) New Year's, everyone! I guess this is my first post of 2009. And I'm only 8 days into it. Eh, oh well. I didn't think anyone was sitting on the edges of their seats waiting for a new post, but, you never know!

For New Year's we went to Dan & Kelli's house. They had a couple friends visiting from the States, and Sonia and Bryce and Jen and Nate came also. We had a good time. They provided a taco bar, we brought cookies and brownies and they also had lots of wines for everyone (else) to try. We played Catch Phrase boys vs. girls (except I was on the boys team because a.I have to be on Carl's team so we don't fight and b. there was one extra girl). Our team won all three games! It was really fun and got pretty intense for a little while.

However, I have to say one of the coolest things ever happened at midnight. We watched the countdown from Berlin on the German cable, and at midnight went outside to see if we could see any of the fireworks. See, fireworks are banned year-round here except for NYE. Well, the Germans take advantage of that and make up for it! I'm not kidding, we stood outside in their front yard and watched a panorama view for 30 minutes of fireworks in every direction we could see. It was so cool!! These people don't just do sparklers and little puny fireworks either. No, these were normal people shooting off what looked like professional shows from their front yards! It was really neat.

After the fireworks we played some Wii and Wii Fit. We all tried ski jumping, slalom, snowboarding, etc. And then they pulled up the Yoga... ugh.... I did two moves and almost killed myself. Carl even tried a couple, and.. it wasn't pretty. We are not Yoga people!

We got home around 2 a.m. and called my parents to wish them a Happy New Year, and it was pretty weird because it was still 2008 for them. This time change thing is still really weird to me! I don't know if I'll ever get used to it.

Anyway, we've been back at work now all week and settling back into the swing of things. We are now looking for airfare for a visit from my parents in the Spring. Yay!! You know I can't wait for that!! This weekend might be the time to go buy some more extra bedroom furniture and get the extra rooms ready!

Here's some randomness about some of my recent activities: I've been doing a ton of reading lately. Let's see, I finished the Twilight series (eeek! I love Edward! But I also love Jacob!) Then I read a Barbara Delinsky book that someone at Fort Jackson gave me, and then I read the "Under the Sabers" book that Army Wives is based on that Santa gave me in my stocking. It was good (but not as good as the tv show)! I have now moved on to another Karen Kingsbury that I got from either mom or grandma, and it's really good. I am not sure what I'll read next. Always up for suggestions, though! I have been listening to the two cds of "Wow! 2009" top Christian music and I am completely addicted to them. That was also from Santa, and I highly recommend getting them.

And to everyone who is leaving comments, thanks! You don't know how much it means to me to hear from you guys back home and know that you are taking the time to check up on us. We are truly blessed.

Don't forget to check the Flickr page for all our DisneyWorld and family Christmas photos!! (click on the link to go directly there).