Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

pretty lake on the way to the cabins :)


more of the pretty lake :)


camp grounds


Our little cabin for the weekend :)

Well we made it back in one piece which is always good. Nothing broken or really injured! Friday we left to head to Switzerland. We got in late Friday night, checked into the cabins then headed downtown to eat dinner. We had amazingly good food with smelly Swiss cheese on it! A group of us went out for drinks after dinner. It was decided that the group would heli-ski on Sunday due to the cruddy weather that was expected on Saturday. Saturday morning we got up and yup cruddy weather! Nothing but rain on the ground, snow on the tops of the peaks. Brian and I headed up with the group to ski, I didn't make it far at all. My knee was really bothering me so I opted to go back to the cabin and try to rest it while Brian hit the slopes without me. He caught up to the group somehow and stayed with them for the rest of the day. He took a few falls and ended up managing to make it down the one hill before his ski and it attacked his face. Just a little cut later and he is fine!

Saturday night we headed to Interlaken for dinner. We went to Hooters for dinner and it was mighty yummy. It was about a 15 minute drive which wasn't bad at all. Yup out of ten of us, there was only 2 women. At first it was just supposed to be me and 8 guys! LOL I'm glad Jen was able to come with us at the last minute. After heading back to the cabins some of the guys went back out for drinks. I'm pretty sure we ended up going to bed after having a beer at the cabin's bar.

Sunday morning the boys and Jen left for the heli-ski trip. I went back to sleep after they left. I got up a little later and got ready to head to Wengen. As I was waiting for the bus to go to the train station I see a helicopter flying towards the cabins. A few minutes later a car pulls into the parking lot, out gets one of the guys that was with us. He got injured and they brought him back. I made sure he was taken care of (this later paid off!) I then took off 30 minutes later to head to Wengen. It was such a cute little town and had the most amazing views of the town we stayed in! I could have sat there all day looking at the valley and just enjoyed it. So peaceful nothing but the train and the birds could be heard.

Some of the hotels in Wengen


Train Station in Wengen


More hotels in Wengen (The one on the right is a Best Western)


Another hotel in Wengen


Me up by the Chapel on the hill overlooking the valley somewhat!


One of the pretty pretty peaks :)


more of another peak


The Pretty Chapel (I fell in love!)


Taxi in Wengen



I took a video and will work on uploading it so you can hear how peaceful it really was up by the little chapel they had. It had a few benches in front of it on the side of the hill to over look the valley. This was my favorite place up there! I'd give anything to go sit and relax there again. Sunday afternoon came and everyone got back to the cabins safely or pretty safe lol. We went downtown for dinner and had wonderful fondue! Three different types, we shared with a guy on our trip. From there we went out for dessert and then for drinks. Around 12:30/1 am we walked back to the cabins from the bar... Once we got to the cabins I decided to throw the key (wooden block, rope, key) onto the ground to watch it bounce.... Bounce it sure did! Right into the little creek on the camp grounds and floated under the road where it stayed. We couldn't get in our room at all until the next morning. We bunked with the people next door until morning. Once the morning rolled around we waited around for the office to open up and to get the maid to open our door for us. We paid the camp grounds $88.86 US dollars for the stupid key :( lets just say it's a funny story to tell now!

Chapel in Lauterbrunnen


Flowers on my walk back to the cabins


Pretty pretty waterfalls were everywhere this trip!


Amazing brownie and hot chocolate I had on my way back to the cabins :) the brownie had chunks of white chocolate in it and the hot chocolate had dark chocolate shavings on top! YUMMY!!!!


Our one side of the sets of cabins we were in. Our room was the middle door!


The inside of our cabin (it's blurry sorry!)

St Patrick's Day dinner!

our cabbage and beef meal today! The commissary didn't have any whole heads of cabbage so I couldn't do cabbage rolls hence the cut up cabbage floating around!

busy busy

Today we went back up to Landstuhl and were given the results of his ct scan. No mass or tumors are present. Um excuse me? We thought this was to check the blood flow and not check for a mass or a tumor. Not what we wanted to hear that's for sure. Brian was told to live with the inconvenience his arm/shoulder is giving him. See when he runs, talks on the phone, plays video games on the Wii, drives, does day to day activities around the house and at work his fingers go numb, they turn white and his arm tingles. He has seen 6 doctors now and has done physical therapy for thoracic outlet sydrome. We are pretty much at the point now it's either suck it up and deal with this on a day to day bases or surgery. While we don't want him to undergo surgery we are wanting to know if it will help. What if his symptoms go completely away after surgery. If we don't go that route, what happens when he goes for a run during pt and his hand turns white, goes numb and he gets frostbite on his fingers because he can't feel them. Then what do we do? It's finding the right doctor who is comfortable in taking steps to help him. I don't think we will find that here in Germany or at ANY military facility. See most of these 'doctors' he has seen haven't graduated Medical school or done anything to get the title of MD. It's frustrating to see someone who has little schooling making these judgments. Oh well such is military life.

Tomorrow I'll spend the day cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and packing for our trip. I also hope to be able to go to see Chief's last flight and help to celebrate it with him. He has been such a wonderful influence and friend here to Brian and I. We are super sad to see him go.

Friday morning we leave to go to Switzerland for the long weekend. Yup another 4 day weekend... The military likes to give us one a month at least if not more! It's super nice and makes traveling around a LOT easier. Brian is going helo-skiing on Saturday while I bum around, study for my certification testing and relax. Sunday we'll ski together (I can only ski one day a trip because of the metal in my calf... It hurts too much to do more) Then on Monday we travel back home to start another week. Brian is going to his new unit this coming week. Among other things. I'm still in the process of trying to get certified so I can maybe teach this upcoming year. Who knows it's all up in the air right now. We are at the mercy of someone hiring me and I'm not wanting to work nights/weekends which makes it a little harder!

V-day and other ramblings

Ramblings from February

We haven't done too much due to a lot of people PCS'ing in and out of here. We've had to say goodbye to many friends and people we've meet in the last year. Some of them will be greatly missed and others we have already celebrated them moving away from here! This is one part of the military life style that is hard for everyone. Making friends seems to be a hard task when you know either of you will be moving soon after becoming good friends. I guess it's life though.

We did stay up and watch the Super Bowl, but yet again no commercials. It just doesn't seem the same when they have no commercials from the states. Oh well, one more Super Bowl for sure here and then we can watch all the commercials back State side!

For Valentine's day we did a surf and turf type dinner. For Breakfast I made pancakes, bacon and a strawberry sauce to go on top of the pancakes. The strawberries came in heart shaped containers from the commissary. They were super cute!!!


Brian and I went to dinner the Friday before. We went to Tiz for dinner, which as always was yummy. It's an Asian/German place. I use Asian lightly as the food is Chinese or Japanese but with a German flare. They aren't too great at making great Asian food. One thing I miss about the States! Oh well, Brian brought home a dozen tulips for me as a surprise. We had said NO gifts but he spoiled me with tulips! Oh how nice :)



Other than that February was a very uneventful month here. We are looking forward to no more snow and to warmer temps so we can travel easier! It didn't really snow much this month which was wonderful.

Dinner?!?!

One of Brian's coworkers had a going away party on Saturday night so we piled in the car and drove down to join in for dinner. No one in the party had ever been to this place before. It was a very interesting and unique experience. A place we will go back to a few more times while we are still here. It would be the perfect place to go on a date or for girls night!!!! The food was fantastic and reasonably priced.

Now on to the real story behind this post.

In this restaurant there are NO and I mean NO wait staff. You do all the ordering of food/drinks yourself. Upon walking into the restaurant, you are given a card. With this card you order all of your food on the computers at your table. In the middle of the table is a huge turn table that is two shelves tall. The lower one houses plates, bowls, silverware, napkins, glasses, beer mugs, beer glasses, bottle opener and an empty spot to put your used dishes on. Going around the middle are two computers that are movable around the table so everyone can access them easily. Each chair has a number on the table that becomes your number for the night. When you order on your card, you select your number on the monitor. Upon placing your order, you wait around for not long at all, I'd say no more than 15 minutes for your whole meal to come down to you. The kitchen is up on the fourth floor of the restaurant. The drinks and food are loaded up into little caddies (single item per caddy) and sent down a track system that ends at your table. It is then resting on the top of the middle section of table. It can be spun around the table to the person who ordered it. They place a little sticker on the lid of whatever you order that has your table number, your seat number and a few other things on it. This comes in handy when there are 13 people at your table if in a large group! The food is served in little pots, with lids. On the lid is the steam hole and shoved in the hole is a sparkler. Makes the best presentation ever!!!! Nothing like seeing hot food coming at you with a sparkler attached to it.

Sorry the next few pictures were taken with my iPhone. I forgot to bring a real camera with us the first time we went.













Some of the pictures are from 2 weeks later when we went back with friends for another going away dinner :( BLAH! This is the part I think most of us dislike about the military and all the moving we do. Once we get great friends it seems that it is time for one of us to move.

Will and Papi

Brian

Papi, Jay and Mel

Mel getting some of her food!

Our onion rings :)

The pot holders for the pots

Brian

Julie and Will

Dessert :) yummy!

An empty food holder!

weekend update

This weekend has been unusually bright and sunny, but it's been FREEZING! This Arizona girl is ready to have some warm sunshine come to our house here in Germany. Man has it been such a tease to have the sun out when it's 18 degrees outside. Makes me really want the rest of winter to fly by and for spring to be here. I can't wait to be able to go travel more and not have to worry about freezing temperatures, icy roads, snowy walks among other things. I also can't wait to go pick flowers again this summer and plant some of my own in plant boxes for the balcony and back windows :) I'm ready to be able to get in the car and not use the seat warmers in the X3. Oh Spring/summer can't come fast enough this year. Nothing will stop us from traveling tons this year!!! Oh and something else that we are looking forward to is going back to visit our families come August/September. Brian's sister is getting married in Sept so we'll visit with his family before she gets married and stay a few days after. We'll visit my parents in the weeks leading up to the wedding and enjoy some warm Arizona sunshine. I also have some new people to meet that I have yet to meet since some of my friends back in Arizona have given birth to new babies in the year that we've been gone for!

Sun getting ready to set in Tucson Arizona, January 2010




Pretty sunset driving on I10 in Arizona last year in January.



Oh and I can't wait to get some AWESOME food from this place either...

Sunshine

It has been unusually bright outside today. There is something bright in the ski that we don't see often. It normally does not give us much warmth during this time of year. The sun finally came out to play for a day!!! It sure was a bright and sunny day, reminded me of being back home in Arizona well somewhat. I wish some warmth came with it, but I know all too well that in a few short months I won't want the warmth here!

The deep blue clear sky from this evening



Pretty colors off to the side



I see the sun peeking through some trees! This is what we see outside on our balcony :)

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog. Feel free to stay as long as you want. Hopefully you'll become a follower and travel with my husband and I through Europe.

I started this blog to keep in touch with our families while we travel and enjoy as much as Europe as we can. We have been in Germany for just over a year and have two more years here. I currently am a stay at home wife. I do all things around the house to keep it running. I have several hobbies that I love aside from traveling. They are scrapbooking, crafting and photography.

My husband is currently in the Army and serving here in Germany. He loves to Scuba Dive, anything in the water and outside. He is currently taking college classes to further not only his career but hopefully to finish a degree while he is here in Germany.

We have some of the best friends here and have made them family. We are very lucky to have the chance to be over here. Feel free to look around and stay a while :)

Enjoying a nice cold beer at the top of the Zugspitze. Which is the highest peak in Germany (The Alps).



Visiting the castle in Heidelberg, overlooking the town.

Nuremberg part 1

Here are pictures from our first trip to Nuremberg, almost a year ago. Here is my original post on this.

The first picture is that of a fountain in the middle of the town square. This has awesome details and tons of little parts to it.



Here is one of many churches in downtown. Unbelievable on how many there actually is!!!



Trip would not be complete without Starbucks :)



One of the bridges that is downtown.