Life 8.5 time zones apart & Erlangen Beer Fest

As usual, it's been awhile since I've written a post! Long story short, I am back home (getting ready to start back at work Monday!), and Jason is safely at FOB Airborne in Afghanistan after a WEEK of traveling to get there. So many answered prayers in just those few short sentences.

As soon as I flew back in town, I tried my best to catch up on sleep and emotions for the first day or two. In the midst of my insanity, I cut a foot off my hair (I still have a hard time believing it's gone!), and then left to visit Mom's side of the family in Illinois just a couple days after that. We had the best visit, and I think it was just the time for me to get away, but now it's time to get back to reality...in 3 days! Until then, I have a few things to catch you all up on our last weeks in Germany.

First up...the beer fest in Erlangen. In even more usual fashion, I can't remember at all what the fest is actually called, but for this blog's sake, we will just refer to it as "the beer fest." A whole bunch of us decided to take the train from Bamberg about 20 minutes down the road to Erlangen our second to last weekend together. Needless to say, it was a party! The fest was so much bigger than I thought it'd be. I swear it reminded me of a big, German Dollywood. They had all kinds of fest food and rides and live music and TONS of people all dressed up drinking some good German bier.

Check out some of my pics (when I had hairrrrr!):

I just love this man more than you could ever imagine.

Most of the group!

Sweet friends. With an even sweeter pretzel.

Sarah wanted one too!

Precious baby Isa & her momma, Liz :)

Just a FRACTION of the fest!

After losing Jason for an hour at one point and both our phones dying, we ended up heading home a lot earlier than some of our brave friends who literally stayed until the end! We took the train home with Mike & Nora, ordered Chinese in (yum! such a treat!) and called it a night. Our last couple weeks together were filled with nothing but fun and love and not taking even one single minute for granted. Mission accomplished!

Road-tripping: Memorial Day Weekend

Hi friends! Well, to put it simply, life has not slowed down here since I last blogged. We continue to find ourselves on the go about 90% of the time, and asleep by 8pm the other 10% of the time. The price you pay for living the European dream...

Last weekend was another 4-day for Jason, so we decided it would be our last big trip before deployment. We had casually talked about taking a road-trip to a few places, but it wasn't until the day before we left that we actually made plans and booked hotels! With my "mom" snack bag packed, we were ready to hit the road. We would drive to Cologne early Friday, spend the day there; drive to Amsterdam the next morning; and then end our weekend in Brussels Sunday/Monday. The drives were not bad at all, and we got to see so much!

Since I took about 750 photos in 3 days, I am going to skip posting them on here for both our sakes, but go check out my albums on Facebook to see everything with did and saw! For now, I'll just do a little recap of some of my favorite parts of the trip.

Cologne - I am a major nerd for feeling this way apparently, but I genuinely believe it is one of my favorite places I've been to in Europe! I have been to 7 countries and countless cities over here, but there is just something about Cologne. It's not too big, not too small. Not too much to run around and see, but enough to keep you entertained for a day or long weekend. Northern Germany is SO different than Bavaria, where we live. Cologne was modern for the most part, with a few really old things that survived the war. The Koln Dom (amazing church) is definitely worth seeing if you are there. And if you aren't feeling looking at old stuff, it is a beautiful place to just hang out! It is right on the Rhine River and has amazing views. One of the best views was from the Chocolate Museum actually. Another very cool thing to do there! Cologne also had a great shopping district, lots of yummy places to eat, and plenty of places to stay right downtown. Overall, I was pretty obsessed. If I had to stay in Germany, I would NOT mind living there!

Amsterdam - hmm...where do I start with this one? I didn't really do much research on what to see/do here, so maybe that made love it a little less than other big cities I've been too. BUT I really did enjoy my day there, and Jason did too. It is definitely one unique place. One thing you've got to do there is map out exactly what you want to see and do. There is not a lot of time to cover all that space! My favorite thing we did there was tour the Anne Frank house - her father's old business building where she hid in the annex with her family for over 2 years. So incredible and haunting and special. I was fascinated to say the least. After that, we went to Jason's favorite place - the Heineken Brewery, haha. It was cool too...definitely worth the time and money. And they give you several beers along the way! Other than that, we pretty much explored different canals and markets and churches and districts (even the Red Light district - so sad), and enjoyed the greatest dinner ever at Haesje Claes. Totally glad we went there, but I definitely want to see a lot of other places before I'd go back.

Brussels - again, my b. I didn't really know much about this place! We ran around taking pictures of a bunch of really old and beautiful stuff and ate more yummy food here. The coolest thing I saw there was the Grand Place. It was really breathtaking! The platz it is located in made Jason and I feel like we were living in a Harry Potter land...just a very cool feel. We also stumbled upon a jazz fest in that same square later that night, visited the Atomium (built for the World's Fair there), toured a mini-sized Europe, and ended our night at yet another Irish Pub for dinner. Overall, very cool place. Lots to see and do. Delicious waffles, go figure!

The most special part of our trip was a spur of the moment stop in Bastogne, almost on the border of Belgium and Luxembourg. The Battle of the Bulge took place here in WWII. Since we stopped there on the actual Memorial Day, it was a pretty darn cool feeling. There were roughly 79,000 American casualties on and around the grounds we were walking just 70 years earlier. It's hard to even comprehend the bravery of those men. So I hope you all took some time out of your lake days and BBQs to really think what Memorial Day is all about. It's truly only about those would have made the ultimate sacrifice for mine and your freedom. Selfless dedication to a country they were willing to die for, so that we may know true freedom always.

So that is the long and short of our last major trip together this year. For everything in between, go FB stalk us!

Fun Friends = Fun Weekends

It is 3:25pm on Monday, and I'm pretty sure this is the first time I have sat down for more than 2 minutes in the last 10 days. Since we left last Sunday for Italy, we have been on the GO! That didn't stop this weekend just because we were back home in Bamberg either...

Friday night we had a big, multi-reason, party at our friends', the Galletta's house. It was a sort-of delayed Cinco de Mayo/going away to 2 friends/pre-deployment party. Whatever the reason, we all got together and ate way too much food that is really bad for us and just hung out! Some people dressed for the "fiesta", and other people just looked like ghosts (please see me below). At least I put on that festive red lipstick, or I would have just blended in with the walls. I am in serious need of some sun!

The party continued Saturday afternoon at a bier garten, that not only do I not remember the name of, I furthermore don't even know what town it was in. Details have never really been my thing... Nonetheless! It was a beautiful afternoon spent with good friends drinking yummy German bier.

1/2 of the friends!

Jason and I came home Saturday just in time for me to fix dinner and him to make plans to watch the Champions League soccer match. (I don't know if that's the league's real name, or if you even call it a match...) So on we went to a place the Germans call City Beach and the Americans call Tiki Bar...you figure it out, there are no signs anywhere! But it is basically this huge "beach" tucked away in downtown Bamberg. I didn't even have a clue it was there. It's right on the river, and totally covered in sand, complete with multiple bars and a huge tv projector. It was actually really cool! So we met friends over there and the boys watched the game, while the girls just tried to stay awake.

Yesterday was part 2 of Friday night's party - a BBQ in the park. We are so blessed to have such a close group of friends over here, so these get togethers are always a lot of fun. Again, the boys played volleyball and the girls sat in the shade and talked top secret girl stuff. You know...like why do pedicures stay on so much longer than manicures, etc.

Can you find Jason?

We only have a few more weekends left in Germany this year, so taking full advantage of those is high on our priority list! We are just getting ready to close another chapter in our lives, and we couldn't have asked for better people to share it with. 3 weeks til America!

Just call us Romeo & Juliet

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, we stopped in Verona, Italy this last Thursday on our drive home from Vicenza. We'd only heard good things about it, but my goodness was it beautiful! I wish we could have spent more time there, but it only took me about an hour to fall in love.

I tried to post these photos to good 'ole FB last night, but they got all mixed up in my Italia album, so here are a few of my favorites (not interspersed between 200 other pics from all over the country)!

Arriving in Verona...

These buildings were so brightly colored...amazing!

I was a little obsessed.

First stop...the Arena! a.k.a. smaller version of the Colosseum (only my favorite thing I've ever seen!).

Next stop...Juliet's house! Where Romeo did his thing to win her heart...or at least that's what I tell myself. Now it's just a renovated inn, as Jason was quick to point out and crush my dreams.

For 6 Euros you can go up and stand on the balcony.

We tried really hard to get it in our picture! Almost...

Then on to the big market to pick up a trinket like we do in every city we visit.

Those are pretty much the highlights from our short stop in Verona. If you ever find yourself in Northern Italy, GO! It's such a special place. Until the next leg of our big adventure!

Hello from Vicenza!

Hi friends! Well, Jason and I have been pretty lucky this week. We got to come back to Italy for the 3rd time in just a year. (And not to the same places!) We left Sunday morning bright and early to drive down here to Vicenza, Italy. It's about halfway between Venice & Verona, if that gives you a mental map. No? Me either. I had to google it to even find that out. But anyways, Jason is down here for work, so I decided to tag along!

Sunday, after we got checked in to our hotel, we decided to drive over to the post here to pick up some food and figure out where his class would be this week. Major fail. Well, half-way major fail. We did eat Taco Bell, and any day in which I get to feast upon the delicacy that is T-Bell is not an all-bad day. But we didn't find Jason's building, nor did we find a community center for me to hang out in all week and get wi-fi, since it wasn't working at good 'ole Hotel Victoria. The post here is so different from ours! For those of you who don't know, we are stationed at a pretty tiny post. We have one drive-thru restaurant (BK), and only 3 others total (2 of which are in a "food court" - Charley's & Pizza Hut; and 1 of which is Popeye's, which is attached to our gas station). We have a nice, but small gym, a TINY commissary, and not much else to be perfectly honest with you. We had high hopes of coming down here to a bigger post and living the life this week! But what we really found out is that the grass really isn't always greener. We had this place up on a pedestal I think (it was Jason's first choice of duty station actually!), and (let me be clear - there is nothing wrong with this post) I think that's just a good way of bringing you back to reality. We are blessed to be where we are, and that is that.

So anyways, Sunday night we headed to downtown Vicenza in search of some dinner! What did we find, you ask? Nothing but gelato! We literally walked around for an hour hoping to find any restaurant, but alas, we dined on McDonald's after our feet started hurting and we were getting tired. (p.s. this in no way upset me. I love me some Mickey D's.) I snapped a few pics on my phone and we called it a night.

Monday, Jason learned that pretty much all restaurants here don't open until 7 and that downtown is pretty dead on Sunday nights. Go figure. But we'd heard really good things about our hotel's restaurant, so we headed down there for some delicious pizza and wine (and bread, which they didn't tell us we had to pay for!).

Our meal was amazing! Jason claims it was the best pizza he'd ever had, but I think he just said that because we're in Italy. And it had better be good.

Last night we ventured out again downtown, but had pretty much the same luck we'd had 2 nights before. No place that really grabbed our attention or sounded delicious, so back to Al Company at our hotel we went. Since I'd eaten the leftover pizza for lunch, we decided to branch out. Are you sitting down? Jason had never ordered mussels before!!! So we ate a huge plate of those, which were perfect, and then had some lasagna and asparagus ravioli as main dishes. Please ask Jason about the lasagna. He truly believes it was made of rotten cheese and old socks. I DIED watching him eat it. And I shared some of my ravioli, because it was delish, too. After turning down the dessert cart only because we'd eaten a complimentary "bread pizza" as well as 2 of those baskets of bread, which are NOT complimentary, we were stuffed. Back to our room to watch our all-time favorite show, the Celebrity Apprentice (no, I'm not joking), and we closed out another night in Italy.

Here are a few pics I got from downtown: (I'll have to go back later and get the names of everything!)

We have definitely loved our time here, but we are excited to be back in Bamberg tomorrow night! (Not without a little side trip to Verona though....yay!!)

Last few weeks...

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails."

- Proverbs 19:21

This one little amazingly powerful verse might be the only reason Jason and I have survived these past couple weeks. I am convinced the harder we try to control every little detail of our life, the stronger God comes through showing us His plan and path.

I"ll be returning Stateside quite a bit earlier than planned this summer, which is not necessarily a bad thing...it was just not expected! Although at first I straight up had a panic attack, I know this is all happening for a good reason. I will have the amazing opportunity to return home to all my friends and family while Jason is deployed. There are so many opportunities for me back in the States, that we always knew that's where I would be once the time came. This is my SIXTH! month in Germany, and the time has flown. I really don't know where all the time has gone. But I do know it's been the best 6 months of my life. I have very mixed emotions about leaving Germany until next Spring. It's hard to leave such a beautiful, special place. but at the same time, Jason and I both agree the place for me is back home. Until that time comes to cross the pond yet again, we are just trying to enjoy every second we have together. And that means not only accepting God's plan, but be thankful and joyful in it!

In the meantime, check out this amazing sunset from last night:

If that doesn't open your eyes to His greatness, holy cow! We are BLESSED, and always will be. Our home, no matter where we are in this world, is in the Lord's heart. The best is yet to be...

Home Makeover...pt. 2!

I have no idea why it's taken me so long to post the rest of the before and after pics of our place now that we are settled in, but alas! I finally took pictures of our kitchen and dining room last night. After an impromptu top-to-bottom scrubbing of the kitchen and me finally find nails to hang out wedding photos in the dining room, I'm ready to show you where we live...again!

Here's the kitchen before we had really anything in it:

Pretty sad. Good thing we had that olive oil and flour out on display though. It goes so nicely with our coconut head in the corner. Our friends, I'm sure, were really impressed. What were we thinking??! Luckily, with the arrival of, literally a CRATE of boxes full of wedding gifts, we filled the kitchen right up! (Did I mention how blessed we are? I'm still pinching myself.) Now on to present day...

Allie, SB - can you see the Magic Bullet under the counter? Hahaha, it is literally Jason's favorite possession.

Mom, Lindsay, Katie, etc. - here is where we keep the mail you've sent us!

Things in the kitchen are looking a little better these days. :) Now what I really should post a picture of is our refrigerator! It's the tiniest thing of all time, but I've learned over the last 5 months how to fit all the food we need for a week in there...which is no easy task, trust me. One other thing we are really looking forward to about living in the States again is being able to use all our amazing appliances! No blender, toaster, panini press, waffle maker, or hot water dispenser for us here in Deutschland! Only a matter of time though...

Okay, now do you remember how awesome our dining room looked before? I think my favorite part was Jason's gorilla boxes full of Army things and stuff I swear he didn't even know he had. :) That and the sweet flower box in the window that we're pretty sure is our landlord's.

And here it is today!:

There are the pictures I finally hung! Now if we could just get the paintings we bought in Florence framed for the other wall...

Our little liquor cabinet. :) I'm kind of obsessed with our wine bottle & cork holders!

And the other one. Filled with beautiful new dishes!

Our etched champagne glasses & hurricane vase from the wedding.

And the final wall, which faces the kitchen. Complete with wire hangings I stole from Mom's house in March (thanks JB!), a picture we had up at our ceremony, and whale and fish creamers/salt & pepper shakers from Lindsay. Just your typical stuff!

So there you have it. The one room I spend all my time in, and one room we spend no time in at all. Guess which is which. :) Unfortunately, when you can't paint the walls and you can put so many nails in the wall, there's only so much you can do to make a house a home! But I think we've done a pretty good job so far...and this is only the beginning.

Sunday FunFETTIday!

As I had said in a previous post, our friend Kevin came down for a visit this weekend. Friday night once he got in, we met a bunch of friends at Greifenklau, one of Bamberg's local breweries, for some good food and good beer. Everyone had a great time. Saturday was Jason's moment of glory - he had successfully planned a huge cookout at the park by the river for all our friends. (p.s. it was 88 degrees!!!) Everyone grilled out, played volleyball, threw the frisbee, and ate our now-famous (and thanks to Jamie), buffalo chicken dip. So how could we possibly have as much fun as that on Sunday? The answer lies below in these pictures. Kevin made us brunch...funfetti pancakes, and if that's not a good way to start a Sunday, I don't know what is.

Kevin cooking; Jason...supervising?

Halfway there...and mimosas to go with them!

FINISHED PRODUCT!

These pancakes are seriously amazing. And they are made completely from scratch! As soon as Jay can get the recipe from Kevin (who made them from memory!), I am definitely posting it. After waking from our sugar comas, Jason & Kevin finished out their visit by "crushing bad dudes" on MW3. They do not take it lightly. See below for proof.

All in all, it was a great visit. The boys got to play golf on Saturday as well...we have to take advantage of this amazing weather while we can! Here's to many more weekend visitors and adventures...

173rd Airborne Brigade Ball

Last weekend, Jason and I (and several of our friends) traveled down to the Alps to Edelweiss, a military vacation lodge. Jason had been last year for the same ball, but it was my first time staying there. It was so odd how much it felt like America! A big hotel with restaurants and a spa, and even the majority of the employees were American, or at least spoke flawless English. It was a little bit of a relief, if I'm being totally honest. Even though some people chose to make a weekend of it, we just went down for the night (it's only about a 3 hour drive), and then came back the following day. The weather was BEAUTIFUL, and in the background of our sunny pictures were the snow-capped Alps. It doesn't get much better than that.

Here's a pic of the actual Lodge, which I stole from a random person's blog:

Not the greatest first picture, but you can kind of get the idea! We didn't have a lot of time once we got there before we had to get ready for the ball, but we did manage to get a few pics of the view from our room's patio.

I was seriously in awe of the Alps (in case you couldn't tell by how hard I'm cheesing in that pic!) We got lunch at the little cafe downstairs, and then it was time to get fancy.

Not a bad backdrop! And here are a few more from the same official photo shoot:

Our good friends Nora & Mike.

I cannot get over this picture!!!

And now onto the actual ball...

Right before they played a video that made Jason want to make the Army his career, ha. It really was inspiring though!

My sweet German friends Nora & Freida.

The boys. Mike, Jeff, Jason, Abram.

Boring part over. People are ready to dance! After the lame music selection, we decided to go downtown for a drink instead. So on to Peaches we went...

All in all, it was a great little weekend trip! The views were amazing, the ball was a good time, and it was just nice to get out of Bamberg for a night. Trying to savor the last few weeks we have together!!