Our House

Sorry for the absence in the last few weeks. The good news about the absence is because Katie got a job! Well, two jobs really, and working on a third. She doesn't like to be bored. So the paying job is substitute teaching at the elementary school on base. So far, she's been called in 1-2 times per week and has been able to work in the developmental preschool room where they loved that she is an occupational therapist (which means they will be requesting her whenever they need a sub!). The second job is the volunteer position at the health clinic on base. It only took 4 months and lots of hoop jumping to make this happen, but she will finally be treating brain injured patients again! Katie will be at the clinic one day per week with the hopes of convincing them that Katie should be a regular, paid employee (fingers crossed that sequestration doesn't happen...). The third job is a possible online craft store, but that's another battle of getting approval and jumping hoops.

In other news, we are finally posting pictures of our house for everyone to see! Enjoy!

 The front and side of our house

 

Front door and hallway

 Front room used for our large collection of books and where the dog stays when we are not home.

 

 Living Room

  Dining Room

 Kitchen

 

 Guest Bathroom and Laundry Room

 Guest Bedroom

 Upstairs hallway

 Master Bathroom

Master Bedroom

 Katie's Craft Room and guest room when needed

 Storage space

 Office

So that's pretty much the house. Sorry for the dark pictures, but we don't get much sun here right now. We are looking forward to the spring so there is more sun and more stuff to do around here!

Miss you all!
~ Katie and Mike

Happy New Year!

Happy 2013 everyone!

We hope you have a wonderful holiday! We had a lovely Christmas with Katie's family here. We got to see some amazing sites:

Katie and her family spent the weekend in Paris:

du Louvre

The bridge of locks - couples come here and place a lock with their initials on it to show their everlasting love.

 

The hotel we stayed in

Versailles - that's real gold!

The ceilings were magnificent

The palace bedrooms

 

 

 

 

In Du Louvre

Mona Lisa - so small!

 

 

Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Family walking around Notre Dame

Amazing stained glass windows!

 

 

 Then we spent time in Germany. Everyone got to experience the Christmas Market in Rudesheim. We also visited a castle - Schloss Heidelberg. You can see the changes in architectural style as the castle was destroyed and re-built over the years.

 

 

Giant wine barrel  

Stairs to walk over the wine barrel

Destroyed part of the castle 

Overlooking Heidelberg

 

We also saw the world's largest cuckoo clock in Wiesbaden:

It was wonderful to have family here. We learned that there is not much to do here after Dec 23rd (note to future visitors). Regardless, it was fun to relax and hang out with the family.

New Year's eve was a pretty low-key event for us. We had friends over and went out to dinner and watched a movie. In Germany, fireworks are legal for New Year's use only, so at midnight every German was outside lighting off fireworks. There was no organized town or city show, it was just on all the streets, in between houses, in the fields, everywhere! It was pretty amazing to stand outside and be surrounded by fireworks. It was hard to know where to look - every direction there were fireworks! Mike promised that next year he will be out there with everyone else setting them off (note to future visitors).

As with any new year, I like to reflect on the past year. And let me tell you, 2012 was a year we will never forget. At the beginning of 2012 I would have never thought we would be living in Germany right now. This year has been the most exciting, challenging, adventurous, stressful, straining, and busiest year of our lives. I cannot speak for Mike, but I am extremely thankful for what this year has brought me. We are both very excited for 2013 and hope it will not be quite as busy as 2012. I have a lot of plans for this new year. No resolutions per say, but just goals. My main goal is to learn more German and get a productive job/volunteer position started. There are lots of plans in the works and I hope to have something finalized in the next month.

Look forward to pictures of our furnished house in the next few weeks!

Wishing you all an adventurous 2013!

~Katie and Mike

 



 

Christmas in Germany!

Hi everybody!

I can't believe Christmas is almost here! The house is just about ready for my parents and brother to visit. I will be spending a few days in Paris with them and then we will all be in Germany for Christmas. Very exciting!

I have to say that I loooooove Christmastime in Germany. The approach to the holidays is vastly different than in the US. There's no black Friday. No crazy sales and pressure to buy buy buy. It's much more low key. Christmas here means Christmas markets which are these rows of vendors set-up in towns and cities. People visit them during the week and especially on the weekends, in which they meander their way around the vendors, eat delicious fair food and drink Ghulwein (delicious spiced, hot wine). It is the perfect way to find unique gifts and enjoy the company of your family and friends. Here are pictures from some of the local markets:

The market in Wiesbaden (closest large city to us). We went to the opening ceremony where they turned the lights on. These were the angels who danced around and turned on the lights.

So pretty with the lights on. The symbol for the city is lilies so that's why they are all over the market.

 

After the lights came on, Mike and  witnessed the craziest performances ever. On stage is a large bubble. Inside - a woman playing the saxophone. After a few minutes someone ran on stage and popped the balloon.

Crazy saxophone lady after balloon was popped.

The market is just so pretty a night.

 

This is Rudesheim, the small, traditional German town near us. So pretty with the snow and Christmas Market.

 

This is a must-visit town for anyone who comes to see us!

 

In other news:

 

We are ready for winter!

Got all dressed up for the work holiday party! A fun night!

And, carried home our Christmas tree from the market a few blocks away. Mike wouldn't let me help :)

 

 

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season! It will be nice to have family here to celebrate! Much love to you all! See you in the new year!

 

~Katie and Mike 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Misty is here!

Guten Tag!

I know, I know, you have all been anxiously awaiting an update from us. Sorry! I have been putting this update off because my computer died, but I have a new Surface tablet and it has been super awesome to upload this blog on! There hasn't been too much excitement here. The big news is that Misty is finally here. Her arrival was delayed due to Sandy's destruction, but we are glad she is here with us now. Speaking of Sandy - our hearts go out to all our friends and family who were affected by the storm. I have talked to many of you, I know it was awful and hope for a speedy recovery.

So, Misty is here. She was not fond of the airplane and spend a decent amount of the flight scratching her belly (we know this based on the blood and irritation on her belly). She was pretty distressed, but survived. Also, we found out Misty is not fond of time zones - she was pretty much knocked out for two days straight! She has recovered now and her belly healed quickly.

Back to her favorite sleeping spot

Having Misty here has forced me to use some of the German I am learning. On our daily walk around the vineyards in our backyard, I have met many Germans and their dogs. Germans are vey eager to have their dogs meet so that means I stand there awkwardly hoping they don't say anything and if they do I respond mostly with the phrase "Enshuldegung, Mein Duetsch ist nicht so gut" (Sorry, my German is not that good.) This gets two responses - 1. The German immediately switches to English and we have a small, quick conversation, or 2. I am ignored. Luckily #2 does not happen too often, but it is very interesting when it does.

Part of our daily walk....beautiful even on a cloudy, cold day.

Misty loves our walks because she loves meeting the other dogs. Most dogs here are off-leash, which Misty is not trustworthy enough to do with her (its the hound in her). This causes a lot of questions from the Germans and I finally decided to try and train Misty to be off leash and respond to the "here" command which we use to make her come to us. We started this week practicing, I usually wait until we get to a field where I can see if people or wildlife are coming. She is pretty good, especially when motivated by treats!

Mike and I met a group of Germans and their dogs in this field yesterday on our walk and we let Misty off leash to play with the other dogs. She had so much fun! And sort of listened to us -haha. We were invited to join the group every afternoon for the dogs to play which is great for Misty and a great way for me to practice my German!

Other than getting Misty getting accustomed to Germany, we have been working hard to get the house set up. We took a trip to Ikea, spend a good amount of money, and almost couldn't drive the car home. This trip was extremely needed, because we now have places to store things! Yay!

Not recommended to drive this way on the autobahn :)

What I have learned from the unpacking process is that Mike and I have significantly different strategies. I unpack one box at a time, put it all away or in the pile of like items that need something in order to put away and then move on to the next. Mike unwraps all the items in 20 boxes, puts the items in piles or back in boxes, and then figures out what to do with all the stuff. Needless to say I have had my work cut out for me. This is what I accomplished yesterday:

This is one of our basement rooms - yikes!

After - not completely finished yet, but at least we can find things now :)

We finally decided to try some of the local vineyards. Wine tasting in Germany is not the same as in the states, although we haven't figured out how it really works. So we went to the two castles behind us - Schloss Johannisberg and Schloss Vollrads. The outcome of our tasting was that it is really hard to find a bad Riesling here, and when you are in the home of the Riesling grape, I guess that is expected.

Schloss Johannisberg - the one you can see from our house and the oldest Riesling vineyard in Germany!

If you walk down this path our house would be to the left.

Schloss Vollrads - also a very old vineyard, approximately 5 minutes from our house.

So old and beautiful!

Well, that's all we have here. Sorry for the poor quality pictures - I am waiting for my iphone case and still have the protector over the camera lense - haha.

We will be spending Thanksgiving with a group of friends which should be nice. The only thing that will be missing is the football (stupid time difference)! But the parade will be on during dinner, yay!

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

Tchuss!

Katie and Mike