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! 

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!

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!!! 

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! 

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 :) 

NC state fair - food edition

Justin and I love the fair- we even had some of our engagement photos taken there!!! 

So when I realized I had a free weekend and it fell in the fair we knew we wanted to go! We just barely found a house sitter- but thanks to Megan and Ryan we could leave for a night!!!

Somer justin and I headed out to the fair 

So we trekked out and made it a foodie quest. We wanted to eat all different foods. So Somer looked up new and unique foods and this is what we came up with (with reviews of course).

Crab cake fritters- these sound amazing right?? Well the thyme was very overpowering and they were old tasting our least favorite of the day.

Bacon pimento cheese egg roll was by far our favorite sooooo yummy! 

Deep fried hot chocolate. 

This was intriguing. It was marshmallows dipped in a chocolate batter and topped with chocolate sauce. It was actually super yummy! 

La farm bakery chocolate raspberry whoopie pie with marcapone cream.

This sounded really good but was ok. 

Phillycheese cake tater tots! 

Holy whoa these were good! The cheese was delicious along with the peppers and onions! 

Then I decided to take ALL the kettle corn popcorn home! Teehee

Lastly on the way out we stopped at two roosters ice cream. They had pizza flavor (surprisingly interesting) Krispy cream doughnut, deep fried Oreo, burbon and pecans, and we got a scoop of chocolate and candied bacon! 

All in all it was a perfect day- perfect weather perfect friends! It was awesome with the three of us we split all the food so we don't feel gross and full!

Good job NC state we are excited to see you next year!!!

Disney world

Finally the trip that Britt and I have talked about for years happened!!!!! We decided to tag onto a trip I made to Ocala for continuing education. We started out day full steam at 10:30 when we met at the airport. This was after I fought with the ticket sales person that yes I want the park hopper and yes I will make it worth it!! Ugh people just don't understand how to do things 😜. 

We dropped out stuff at the hotel and then promptly hitched a bus to the parks! We started at Epcot since we got dropped off there and thanks to new technology of wait time apps we went straight to the shortest line of spaceship earth. Britt had never been to any other park than magic kingdom so I was super excited (and privileged) to show her the rest of Disney!

The first day was great full of energy! We caught all the important rides at Epcot- mission space, spaceship earth, test track, and then walked around the different lands. We found a magical drink in Italy- a frozen lemonchello margarita....so delicious that we may have come back to Epcot later just for that!! After getting our fill we headed to Hollywood studios. We rode the great move ride, the Star Wars ride, Aerosmith, and tower of terror. Britt doesn't like drop rides so was pretty scared but ended up liking it! 

For dinner we headed back to Epcot and got reservations and the French restaurant after riding the boat from Hollywood studios to Epcot which I had never done! Very fun! 

I asked Dad if he remembered this place and of course he did! This restaurant was officially the last restaurant I was allowed to order off the kids menu. I had a bad habit of ordering a kids item then thinking dads food was better and I ate gormet while he ate a hamburger and fries. I did it here too. He ordered escargots(snails) and I ate them all and he ate my hamburger. I ordered them again with Britt for nostalgias sake (and because I love them!!) 

We had been ambitious and thought we would stay out till 11 but after the fireworks we opted to go home early and sleep! What a magical and fun filled start to this long weekend ❤️