Friday, December 30, 2016

Quality time

The rest of the time in Germany was spent having quality time. It was a true vacation. Opera has been sleeping in until 11:30 or 12 so we did too! The only problem with that is you aren't tired at night so you stay up stupid late...vicious circle. We were ready to eat breakfast/lunch with him every morning and then quickly noticed that if we didn't leave he wouldn't take his afternoon nap. So we found things to do in the afternoon- either walks, shopping trips, or a little walks with sight seeing! 


Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Christmas with the kids

Carmel spent her Christmas with our family and then kindly invited us over for Christmas with her kids. She made baked turkey (two of them!) and some of the best veggies I have had! Delicious broccoli and cauliflower bake and then carrots stuffing and Brussels sprouts. The food was spectacular! 

Afterwards both family's kind of split ways and we sat/drank & played games all night. 

Mom is the best to figure out games with just stuff sitting around. She played pass the m&ms with a spoon...hilarity ensued!!!



But the good fun came when we played heads up with our own made up words



I think that's the look Adi got when he said he wasn't going to play another card. Hahaght 

It was a great night and we had so much fun just hanging out and playing. Mom reminds me all the time all you need is some imagination and good people around you to have a good time!







Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Christmas with the family!

USo after our naps it was time to celebrate! We barely had enough time to get up and shower before everyone got here. Unfortunately I forgot to ask for everyone to get together and get a group picture 😩

It was so good to see everyone again. Just recommended this trip because sometimes I get so homesick for my family that I just sit there and cry. It was one of those days where Justin just said well let's go spend Christmas there!! I said wait we can do that?!?! So I cleared it with his family and my on call relief and we planned! 



Anyway- all the kids- Leo, Roxy, Adi all came with Carmel and Michi. Michi and Carmel made dinner- we didn't have to life a finger!!! The traditional Schweizer/Koenig dinner of meat fondue was amazing!!!!!! Michi bought probably the best filet I have ever eaten it was from New Zealand which I though was a crazy far away import. We all ate ourselves silly and then exchanged presents. Although we flew over we still tried really hard to bring something tangible for everyone to open. For Leonie it was a photo album of all of our times together and then some money for her savings account for her next trip to come see us. And a humane society shirt since she came and worked with me there while she lived with us.

 For Roxy it was a travel journal to write down all of her adventures and money for a next trip. Also of course Crispix! 

 For Adi it was money to buy new furniture for his apartment where he is moving into this week and a Starbucks cup to fill in for school to where he always thinks of us. Little backstory- we took him to NYC for New Years when he came over for Christmas a few years back. He was overwhelmed by the amount of Starbucks and we then proceeded to look up how many there where in the city. It's a crazy amount- and you can almost see the next one from the one where you are standing. We had Starbucks every morning for breakfast with Adi up there!



Michi and Carmel are notorious for having snacks around while sipping on wine and beer and talking so they both got crowns - one king and one queen along with m&ms to fill them up to start with! Opa got a stack of new shirts. Overall everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!! 


We received wonderful gifts - a puzzle that we finished in record time but is now broken apart so we get to do it all over again.... A new picture for my desk of my favorite cousins and lots of spending money to go find the perfect thing to take back home- I think shoes 😍😍



It was an evening filled with love laughter and family the best kind Christmas!!! 

Sunday, December 25, 2016

Merry Christmas from Germany travel day


This year we made the trek across the pond for Christmas. Dad wasn't super excited about traveling for his vacation so he decided to stay home and watch our critters (which we appreciate so greatly!!)
We had a pretty good travel day despite traveling the day before Christmas Eve. We had to park in daily because all the long term parking lots were full 😳. But that said we got there early enough we had time for a nice sit down lunch at the airport. The food was delicious and we even got real silverware! We had uneventful flight to Atlanta and boarded the flight for Germany. This flight was also very uneventful. I caught up on movies- me before you and neighbors 2 - justin watched a war dogs, athropiod, captain America :civil war. He wasn't able to sleep on the flight at all...😐 i got about 2.5-3 hrs.

I was able to try out my Christmas present from Justin - the best noise canceling headphones! They are wireless and you control them by tapping the ear pieces. So cool! 

Landing and going through customs was a breeze and then we walked out after getting both bags (yayayayayayay) and saw Michi!! 

He got us to Opas in record time with a shortcut. We enjoyed a wonderful pretzel breakfast and then I found out Opa loves zimtsterne (a German Christmas cookie) so I left to get the ingredients to make those!! I made them at home already and decided getting them in the traditional star shape was overrated and stupid hard - so they are blobs but taste just the same 👍 After baking we layed down for a nap and then it was time to get up and get ready for Christmas! 




Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Book club

Gale and I joined a book club earlier in the year with all vet techs and vets. I could never make the times they picked and Gale didn't particularly like the people so we decided to make our own! We have a few close friends and family that we invited and it grew a few members over the year! We meet once a month at someone's house eat dinner talk about the book and plan next month! We have had so much fun! The highlight was reading a book then having the author come talk to our book club! His month for Christmas we decided to have a cookie exchange. What an amazing idea have a ton of variation of cookies without having to bake a ton yourself. 

Our last book this year was Homefront by Kristin Hannah which was about a women national guard helicopter pilot - such a good read! I really recommend it! 

It inspired me to gather things to send to out deployed troops - we gathered together a ton of stuff! I forgot to take a picture the boxes are packed to the absolute brim! 


Merry Christmas to the troops! 

Can't wait to read the 12 books next year! So thankful for the wonderful book club I'm in :)