Mad Dash to Florida

One of the reasons why I didn't have time to update my blog was that I had to make a quick trip back to the states for the celebration of the life of my grandfather, who had recently passed on to be with the Lord. Although it is sad to say goodbye to someone you love SO much, it is hard to not be happy for them to be with God and finally have ultimate peace and joy. I was able to contact Red Cross and get a profile number to use when I went to the military passenger terminal to sign up for a military hop. Since Papa isn't my "immediate" family they don't typically allow emergency leave, but the Sargent in charge of the terminal was gracious enough to give it to me and I was at the top of the list to be chosen for the next flight to South Carolina! That day a flight was diverted into Spangdahlem with plenty of room for passengers, thankfully Daryl bought me a sleeping bag and I got to rest some on the floor of the plane. The whole trip and how it turned out perfectly was an answer to prayer!!

FOOD! sandwich, soda, water, candy and chips for only $5!

some of the cargo...and people.

unloading cargo.

                                                   

The ceiling!!

We weren't the only passengers, there were 17 marines and their IED sniffing dogs on their way home from 7 months in Afganistan. This was the sweetest thing I have ever seen =)

This guy looks just like my Charlie.

The Past Couple of Weeks

These past few weeks have been so hectic and busy that I never found the time to update my blog!! ACK! Who knew that a blog really even took that much time and dedication to keep it current? I am sure there will be tons of kinks that I need to get through till I have rhythm. Well, on to the news of the Knees =)

August 2nd Daryl and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary! YAY! He also had the day off so we got to spend the whole day together. We had the joy of sleeping in, and the dogs didn't peep once till we got up around 10, which was great. Then we had the most delicious pancakes courtesy of Aunt Jemima. The day was topped off with getting dressed up and going to one of our favorite restaurants, Landhous Biehl, which also happens to be the hotel we stayed at when we first arrived. 

I don't like beer ever, until I tried one of the German ones and it is really good! I like to enjoy one every once in a while and a wedding anniversary is a good time to =) 

There was a beautiful sunset on our way home, which happens a lot out here! LOVE IT!

The landscape in Germany offers many opportunities to view the awesome, vastness of the sky. I LOVE the sky, it is one of my favorite things that God has created; there are so many different scenes and colors that it creates and it is constantly changing. I enjoy just sitting and staring at it as it changes, and wow does it change out here! The weather is quite unpredictable in Germany in that it can go from cloudy to overcast, then rain and suddenly sunshine in a matter of a few hours or even 30 minutes. Needless to say, this place makes me one happy chick! These pictures only do it a fraction of the justice of how beautiful it was. 

Procrastination is the word

So I have been very slow about getting a post up; probably because my internet connection is so slow I have nightmares about one picture taking an hour to load! Well that and the fact that I didn't have anything exciting to write about until Thursday and Friday. So on with the news of the Bee's Knees =)

  Daryl and I took a walk Thursday evening down one of the trails right in front of our house. It had been a while and the weather was too nice to not go out. It was at that time of day when everything looks golden, it was so pretty.

This is my favorite thing in our town! I love this wall, it is only a few houses down from us.

Part of Auw.

I love seeing the different flowers here.

So Daryl said this was just like a "Redneck Weather Rock", I had never heard of them before (well I wasn't born in Wewa lol). I guess Germany has rednecks too. haha, just kidding.

    

This made me think of the Secret Garden.

On Friday my new friend Melissa and I went to Trier (the oldest city in Germany) and had sushi. Obviously this is cake and eating cake with chopsticks is not easy, neither is eating fruit! I ended up just sticking the fruit with one of the chopsticks. haha 

We also got some delicious ice cream =)

We LOVE ice cream.

This upcoming week Daryl and I will be celebrating our 3 year wedding anniversary! WOW! He has the day off and we will be spending it at Ramstein AFB getting some things for the house and then eating out. He also has Friday off and we are going to Trier to see some sights and eat sushi. Hopefully I won't be to slow about putting up another post. =)

Chus <3

(German for goodbye)

Getting Down and Dirty

I know it has been a few days since my last post, but we have been quite busy with the movers coming and doing a few things in the yard. I hope this post will help you see just what we have to tackle to to be completely settled in. 

This past Friday our household goods finally arrived! I am looking forward to settling into the house, but I am not very excited about emptying these boxes and trying to find places to put things.

There are two more rooms with stacks of boxes.

 In Germany it is uncommon to have closets because they are considered rooms and cost the builder/owners more money. What they use instead are wardrobes. This is not too big of a problem for me except when it comes to linen closets or a coat closet. In Wyoming we were blessed to have a coat closet and a linen closet and we have come to love having those available. We have nothing of the sort here...This is when things start to get interesting and creative. We also don't have the same type of storage in our kitchen and so we had to pick and choose a few items that we never really used and put them back in the box. I have one box that is for holiday and I filled it with extra pie pans and serving dishes and another box contains some of the appliances that aren't compatible with 220 voltage. I still kept a few of my favorite 120 appliances out (blender, mixer) and we will have to buy a small transformer for the kitchen. It just isn't smart to go out and buy a whole new set of kitchen appliances that are 220 then not be able to use them in the states.  

 We also went to our first German grocery store, Toom, and is Walmart-ish in the fact that there are clothes and toys and groceries. Daryl and I had a good time looking at things and laughing at a few. I am sure that some people were looking at us as we were pointing and giggling! We bought some fresh eggs and a local sweet wine, but that was it. 

As you can see by the feather on the egg I really did mean "fresh". haha

Hela is another store we decided to visit. It is just like Lowe's and had lots of fun home decor things to see. Our main goal was to visit the outdoor section; we bought some beautiful, blue pots and plants to put in them.

 Our house is white and I thought it was in a desperate need of a splash of color.

The fence that goes around our yard is hideous (I think the landlord was being cheap) and so we decided to buy some vines to cover it. Our neighbor owns a flower shop and she is bringing us some other ones that will grow much faster than these, but I am happy with them so far.

Weeds, weeds, and more weeds

So for those of you who don't know, I LOATHE weeding. LOATHE IT! It was punishment back when I was in high school and we did quite frequently to just keep the place spruced up. The house that Daryl and I have picked out has this wonderfully, large, stone terrace, of course it is covered in weeds. Not just little bitty weeds, but the ones that grow an inch a day! (slight exaggeration). The landlord said it was supposed to have been cleaned before it was even showed, but that just didn't happen...I'm really not that surprised. And of course the one to pull the weeds is the one who is at home, and of course that happens to be me. Of course! And of course the only gloves available to me (at the moment) are ones left by previous tenants and there are two gloves to choose from...both for the left hand! Of course! So I choose the one that is leather and not full of  spider webs =) I decided it would be in the best interest of my fingers to spread this chore between a couple of days. As of now I am a little more than half way through! You will see a final product picture in a few days.

Here is one of the many ginormous weeds!

We had a lot of rain right after we moved in and the weeds seemed to multiply and grow in just a matter of days.

  

The weeds are not the extent of adventures in our new yard; we have moles...moles! The dogs have decided to take it upon themselves to root them out, which I am not too happy about. We now have several holes to fill. Sigh.....

I know my photography isn't too good, but at least you kinda can see the hole.

On a lighter note we do have some pretty wild flowers...only they are behind a wall. Oh well, they make me smile =)

Check back soon! I will try to post every other day. The movers are going to be here tomorrow (hooray!) so you will get to see the house unfold from boxes to decorating and eventually painting. I LOVE decorating and have several wonderful ideas in mind, so keep checking for new things. 

Lots of Love!

The First!

As some of you may know, Daryl and I went to London this past weekend to see the final installation of the Harry Potter movies! All I have to say about the movie is AWESOME! We saw it at a BFI IMAX theater in 3D. The screen was the largest in Great Britain and it was huge. We had a great time seeing some of the sites in London as well. Obviously, as you can see this is the Big Ben. We were very blessed to have amazing weather the first full day we were there.

 We went to King's cross and got a pic in front of this display. If you are unfamiliar with Harry Potter it is a train station where they have to walk through a wall.

 Daryl and Sherlock Holmes :) He has always been a fan so we had to go to Baker St.

 The London Bridge

 We also had the chance to see the musical Wicked! It was amazing! The acting was great and so were the voices. It is kind of like a prequel to the Wizard of Oz movie. If you have the chance to see it in the States you have to!

 A required picture to have from London. HA!

We loved our trip, but have decided that London needs to be visited during the off season because it was so crowded! And everyone was pushy and didn't care if you were in their way they were going to walk right through you, so I decided I wasn't going to be pushed either. You have to have quite a backbone to walk those streets. Other than that it was so much fun. we traveled by plane, train, and the "Tube" or the underground transportation. It was so easy to get anywhere you wanted to go with the Tube and it only took a few minutes. We stayed at a Hostel that was pretty central to transportation. It wasn't all that bad, hotels would've been twice the price or more, especially in the area we stayed. The food was awesome and there were so many choices! We had some amazing Chinese food and Italian food. The choices for restaurants were endless. We also had some baguette sandwiches, they are pretty popular in Europe and they normally include ham and cheese or tomato and cheese, those are always delicious.  We were going to take a red bus tour, but saved money by just walking to all the places we wanted to see. Since we were only there for two days we didn't get to see any museums so that will be in the plan for next visit. 

Some guards along Parliament St. Don't ask what they were guarding...I have no idea 

In Trafalgar square

 Our yummy Italian food

That is it for now, I don't know how often I will be posting yet, So I will let you know

Lots of Love!

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