Time to catch up

Gosh, we haven't done a good job keeping this up since we've been back stateside :(

Well here's a recap of November 2009 to June 2010

November: we spent most of this month traveling to see family while John was still on leave. We had the chance to spend over a week total with the Haines' family. One trip was to Myrtle Beach to see all of John's cousins and Aunts for the family Thanksgiving, and the other was to Hilton Head to see Dad and Sally. In Myrtle Beach, we took Ranger to the beach, where he had a TON of fun chasing birds. We also got to be with Connie and Jason when they got engaged before he deployed to Iraq. Hilton Head was nice to be with Dad and Sal. Ranger had too much fun on the beach, he became our Salty Dog that weekend. Sal fell in love with her new fur grand baby, Ranger.

December: John went on the "trail" as a turtle and LOVED it! I got a job with Aflac's WWHQ and just loved the job!! We ended up spending Christmas together alone at home. I made my first Christmas dinner. Thankfully the only thing that sucked was the crab stuffed mushrooms. Apparently I did something that Rachael Ray didn't explain on her show. I mean I followed the directions, but they were just terrible. Dad gave us a Wii, so John got the new Mario Brothers game for Christmas and I think we spent three whole days playing that game. We also got a new puppy, her name is Sophie. Poor thing almost died on us the day after we adopted her. No worries ... that terror is in perfect health now :) She's a boxer mix ... I think the mix is demon ... but she's now roughly 6 months old and 50 lbs!! I'm worried what we're in for :(

January: We spent New Years Eve at our neighbors house (Espie and V) and had sooo much fun! They've turned into long time friends. Mom also got to come down for my birthday. Too bad it rained the whole weekend.

February: We got our first official snow in Columbus. Took the pups out ... Sophie hated it. She's too prissy for snow. We spent John's birthday togeher, followed by Valentine's Day just before he had to leave for BNCOC. Then rest of February was spent working hard and missing John.

March: Mom came down and I put her butt to work planting new shrubs and flowers :) I also visited Tony & Katrin in Huntsville, AL. Had a great time seeing them ... but I was sicker than ever. I always end up sick around them.

April: I flew up to Virginia to visit John for Easter and we had a blast!! We went fishing and flipped a canoe. Not funny at the time ... but pretty funny afterwards. We went to Bush Gardens and rode all kinds of scary roller coasters. My favorite was the Alpengeist. We spent time with his "extended family" the Pecks. And we visited Yorktown and Williamsburg. We decided to plan a vacation to follow history one day. Starting at Jamestown and following everything through the Revolutionary war.

May: Well May was a roller coaster. I lost my job with Aflac at the end of April, and got a new job with Greystone Properties as a leasing consultant. Spent the month getting ready for John to come home. Bought paint for him to paint our home with. We ended up hating one of the colors. We had a visit from our friends Tony & Katrin on Memorial Day weekend. Had a BBQ. And prepared for John to leave again :(

June: We had just a few days toghether before John left for Drill Sergeant School. Most of this time was spent getting ready, he had a HUGE packing list of Army crap to bring! We said goodbye - or really see you soon - the night before our 1 year anniversary. Tears on my part were included. He laughed at me. It's usual.

Now I've got the challenge of a huge to do list before John gets home.

DRIVING ON THE AUTOBAHN

Hello, Columbus

Well I've made it. And John is a day behind me. We're FINALLY here. Ready to start our new lives in our new home! I go today at 10 to get my house ... I can't believe it ... MY HOUSE!

So I still have a ton of stuff from Germany to put on our blog, it may just take a bit ... since I've got to get moved in and get a job :)

Furth Fest

Furth is a town just outside of Nürnberg that we frequently travel through. They had a fest, a beer fest where that weekend they were celebrating the town’s beer.



John and I joined Mark and a bunch of his friends at this fest for a night.

I learned quite a few things about these fests while there. There is a group of teens or young adults, who are in charge of guarding the fest’s pole (I don’t know the correct German word for this and for that I’m sorry). These young adults guard it from Friday afternoon to Monday afternoon. The girls make the decorations for the hoop around the top of the pole, and the guys cut down the tree that hold it up. Apparently there’s a ceremony that the town has when they put up and take down this pole.



Anywhoo … at the fest there’s like a carnival outside the beer tent, with rides and food and candy stands. Inside the tent there’s a TON of tables, usually jam packed with people and beer stands and a big stage.

Bands will play, but they only play famous German songs and even some covers of American songs too. When the bands are playing though, there’s soooo many people up on the benches singing and dancing to the songs that if your feet are on the ground then you are not having fun.



This blog has a lot of media on it, since John and I though it’d be cool to put both videos and photos online. Most of the videos are LOUD … so you may want to turn down your speakers.

4 stories below Nürnberg

Mark took us to these dungeons underneath the city of Nürnberg. In the medieval times, these dungeons used to be used for ½ prison and ½ stock house for pickles and beer. I don’t know why pickles, that’s just what the tour guide said.

See the reason for so much beer is that the water was bad then, so it was hard to find a place to get clean water without going far into the country. Well it wasn’t entirely safe to go that far into the country and leave the city, which they knew had protection. In that time, beer was also seen as a food group. We also learned that the average German consumes 109 liters of beer each year (that’s ½ a coke bottle if you need that to be put into perspective). WOW!!!


Okay so now the really cool part about these dungeons, during WWII, Nürnberg was the stronghold and headquarters for the Nazis. Hitler himself had his very own bunker in these dungeons! I mean there were actual Nazis walking the halls in this dungeon we went in just some 70 or so years ago. In addition, this bunker was built back up/expanded by mostly women and children since most of the men were off fighting in the war for the Nazis.



When American and British forces bombed Nürnberg there were over 60,000 people in these bunkers hiding for safety. OVER 60,000 … that’s where they stopped counting. Now there’s electricity in these dungeons, but back then all they had were candles to use down there.


In addition, we (as in British and US forces) destroyed 96% of that city in 58 seconds! You can even see it in the city wall … where the old bricks turn into nice new ones.
John took a lot of really great photos in there … here are a few.

Snuggly Sunday at the Spa

We went to the Franken Therme recently. It’s a spa, where a lot of old people go, but hey it’s nice. They’re renowned for their salt pools. Even with one that’s got salt from the Dead Sea! We got a spa day package that was entitled “Perfect Bathing Ceremony,” it was quite romantic!

We started off our day in the heated pools. They all have that light therapy where different colors glow from the bottom of the pool. They also have jets and these bed things where you lay in the water and the bubbles bubble on you. There’s even a pool bar, you better believe we checked that part out!

Our package included the sauna section, which we couldn’t decide if we were comfortable or not in there. Mainly because it was jam packed with old people … and I mean 60+ old people … that were NAKED! I guess it’s a European thing so we didn’t fight it. We went with the flow. There are saunas and baths you can take.

Now there were also spa sections to our package, which we loved the most.

The first was a mud bath “thing” (since it’s not what I’d call a mud bath) that you do. You get in and rub mud all over. There’s a special mud for your face and a different one for your body. Then the steam starts … and it gets H-O-T in there! I was like to a point of almost gasping for air. So you sit in this steam, sweating and in the dark. Then as the brochure calls it, “a sensual tropical rain begins” … it was more like a tsunami! The lights flew on and both John and I across the room simultaneously jump out of our skin we were so relaxed and comfortable. We decided that it was great, but a terrible way to end it.

The next part of our spa day was the couples’ massage. It was fantastic. We got to pick out our own body oils, I chose red wine and John chose white wine. Then we had a ½ hour massage, which was sooo worth it!

Our final part of the spa day was the emperor’s bath. Where we got in a got into a milk bath in a gold bathtub with champagne and chocolates. THAT was my favorite part.

When we left, we were relaxed and drunk of that wine they kept bringing us … it was a fantastic day. The only thing we missed out on was a beautiful fall day. We couldn’t take any photos inside, so we took some just before we went in.

And one after we left, as you can tell we were so snuggly sleepy that we didn't want to do a thing.

Troubles in German Land

So we have all these cute photos and stories, and videos of Germany, but for some reason we can't put them online. This isn't good :(

John and I are coming home next week and I know we'll be super duper busy getting ready to move into our new home ... so I'm trying to get all our Germany stuff on here before the hustle and bustle of real life sets back in and we let this blog slow down ...

I'll keep trying, but don't go anywhere ... you will get to see photos soon :(