Just our luck!

So Jay and I had a lovely evening last night for our anniversary. I know it is two weeks late but I was in Europe for our anniversary, I did however call and wish him a happy anniversary. We went to see "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" and then out to dinner. Then we went looking for a Wi. No luck we went to two different stores but one of the stores we went to called around to other stores looking for us. I thought that was nice, but then again the people at EB are always that nice. So we came home anticipating to call Best Buy and then I am getting ready to pull the car into the garage and I heard a loud snap and then garage went up a quarter of the way and then stopped. Great I thought....so we pulled around to the street and make a beeline for the garage and discovered that a spring snapped and bent some other piece. So needless to say I think the money for the Wi is going towards the garage. Oh well....I guess Jay didn't need it for his early birthday present!

Back home again

Well we made it back home two days ago and I am still recovering. Switzerland was gorgeous. Definately the place where I would love to spend all of my time in. The place we went to was called Murren. We drove four hours from Germany into Switzerland. We parked the car down on the mountainside and then had to take cable cars up 5000 feet. The weather was a bit chilly and it was raining. Heck I didn't care because I was in the Alps! When we made it up to the sleepy little town of Murren we checked into our "lodge" and then went to explore a bit before we found dinner. I had the best chicken and salad dinner plus these very delicious strawberries and melon! By the time that we left dinner it was pouring so we went back to the lodge only to fall asleep early. When we woke up the next day, we were still in the middle of a cloud. Yes a cloud....how cool is that. We had slept with our window open and in the light you could see the mist falling into the room. Way cool! Later that morning we took the tram up to the next little town above us and hiked around for a little while and then ate a little cafe on the way down and just took in the beautiful scenary. When we finally hiked our way back down the "hill" we did some tourist shopping and then went out to dinner and I had the best spaghetti. It was even better than the spaghetti that I had had in Italy. Kinda hard to imagine. Then the rain came through again and it was downpouring by the time we got back to the lodge. The next day, we checked out and headed our way back north. My aunt and uncle suprised us by taking a little detour into France! We stopped at a little town called Colmar. This town is nicknamed the "little venice" because of the waterways that surround the town. Colmar was gorgeous as well and had a ton of flowers all over the place. We ate lunch in France at a crepe restuarant. This was the most delicious lunch I had had. It was a chicken and creamy sauce crepe. It literally melted in your mouth! We did a little shopping after lunch and then got back in the car and headed back to Germany. On Monday we went to the next town over via train and did some shopping at the mall that was there. I got the new Harry Potter book (the British version) so I was able to read it on the plane ride home.

Laura and I came home Tuesday and I was home by 11:15 PM just in time to see my hubby and the pile of mail left on the kitchen table! So now I am slowly working my way through the pile, unpacking, and doing laundry. I was very productive yesterday and put together an online scrapbook. I placed the order last night and hope to receive the book sometime next week. The price just about shocked me...around $120. However I figured if I took the time to print all of my pictures (550 of them) and then bought a scrapbook and the supplies to allow me to scrapbook it probably would have been around the same price. So I went with the online book, the only reason why it cost so much was because I had 63 pages! You receive the first 20 pages for $29.99 and then $1.99 a page after that. In my mind I had thought it was the first 40 pages for $29.99 and then $1.99 after. Gee was I wrong. However I had a ton of fun putting it together and providing information about the places we went to. This way I will always remember and the album is finished before things get crazy here again. I just received the letter from school saying the school is open for working in our classrooms and we can come in anytime. Heck it is still July....I am not going anywhere near Plymouth until August. On a sad note I do start school in less than 20 days...I guess all good things have to come to an end.

Hello all!

So now that I have been in Germany for almost a week...it has been a very long and exciting week. When we arrived last Friday morning we stayed up until about 10 o'clock Germany time so I was going almost 24 hours with about 2 hours of sleep. I was quite proud of myself. Laura and I visited the next town over and walked around with my cousin and Putzi my aunt and uncle's cute little dog and then went out to dinner. I had flamflugen (i know it is misspelled) it was a type of thin pizza with ham, goat cheese, and onions. It was pretty good. Laura and I crashed that night and woke up at noon on Saturday. We then went to visit a quaint little medieval town where a festival was going on. Very cool! Then we went onward to Heidleburg and walked around the town where another festival was going on and we watched fireworks with the castle in the backgrond.

Sunday was a kind of lazy day. We went to see Harry Potter in English in Frankfurt and walked around Frankfurt in the boiling heat. Then my aunt made dinner for us that night....very yummy.

Monday night Laura and I we flew into Rome at about 11 pm. So we went to bed and got up at 8 on Tuesday and just explored the city. So Tuesday we cramed in the Trevi Fountain, numerous fountains, the lions mouth, colliseum and the ancient ruins. We got a tour guide for the Colliseum and the ruins. Such a great guide for both. Laura and I were total tourists even though she hates to be. We also spent an hour getting lost going back to the hotel...that is when we saw the numerous fountains of Rome!

Wednesday we joined a tour group for the Vatican and it was possibly the best tour guide I have ever had anywhere. He was the same man who did the ancient ruins tour...very knowledable and well worth the moeny! I learned so much about the stories behind the Sistine Chapel and the Last Judgement painting in the Sistine Chapel. How wonderful these were! We then jumped on a tour bus to take us around the city where we could hop on and off at anytime. That allowed us to see things that we might have missed so it was great! Again we got lost going back to the hotel but we were not lost that long! It was an improvement!

So here we are back in Germany where my aunt is making an authentic German dish whose name escapes me at the moment. Then getting a good nights sleep because tomorrow we are off to Switzerland! We are going to a hotel in the mountains where we have to drive to a certain point and then park the car and take cable cars the rest of the way up because it is too steep to drive. Plus we also have to walk about 10-20 minutes to get to our lodging! How cool is that!

I cannot wait to get home and post pictures; I've taken over 300 of them already!!!

Call me crazy!

This week has been totally crazy. Tuesday Jay got his wisdom teeth surgically removed and so he looks like a swollen chipmuck, poor guy. But he actually ate yesterday so that is a good sign. Yesterday I went to the lake of my friend's house and we all just laid around on the boat for six hours and just had a fun time and I managed not to get severly burnt like I did last year but that is to the thanks of SPF 50! However I missed a couple of places with the sunscreen and the top part of my forehead is red so pictures in Germany are going to look lovely!

The plane to Germany leaves tonight at 7:50 from Chicago and we are sitting in the second to last row of the airplane right next to the bathroom. I am going to see if we can move up because the middle section of the plane is empty. In the meantime I still need to finish packing, fiind out where my stupid license plate renewal sticker is (Jay got his no clue why I don't have mine because I renewed them both at the same time!), call Visa and tell them I am taking my credit card out of the country (I think I will have to get a second job when I come back!!), and drop my car off at the body shop so they can finish fixing my car from the accident back in December. So all of this needs to get done by 1:20!

The house is stocked to keep hubby happy for 12 days and I am outta here!! Yah for me!!

Best time of the year!!

So I believe that this is the best time of the year! What you may ask....the on set of school supplies on sale for dirt cheap prices. Yes I know my family and my hubby make fun of me for this obsession. However from a teacher stand point I love that I can buy boxes of pencils, folders , pencil sharpners, and pencil boxes all for a penny plus bottles of glue for 9 cents. You can call me crazy but I really do believe that this is the best time of the year because anytime during the school year you shell out a small fortune for these types of items! I'm just a little sad that I will be missing the next two Sundays of school supplies on sale at Staples because I will be in Europe but not that sad because I will be in EUROPE!

Time is Flying By!

I really should say that I have been busy with things but that is a total lie. I still have school things that I need to finish for St. Mike's and no motivation to get it done. It includes writing out what I taught for 6th Math and SS since December. I fell behind at school and it is one of those things that you don't think of until everything else that needs to be fnished. So my lesson plan book is sitting in front of me screaming get me DONE!

I also found out that spinning is not the class for me. Not because my legs hurt but because my butt was sore for two days. I have forgotten what it feels like to be on a bike seat for an extended period of time. So I need to come up with another game plan!

I have been wanting to paint the inside of my porch because after putting up plastic to keep the winter chills out and taking it down in the spring it has taken the paint right off of the wall. So I have slowly been working on finishing actually more like starting. I decided to make the windows pop and added blue paint accenting the windows. I think it looks neat and reminds me of the sky however I have four windows done and six more to go with no ambition to finish. I also need to go back and touch up the four that are finished and maybe add a brown accent also around the window. We will see. I need to stop watching HGTV.

I did however go to Shipshewana today...aka the huge outdoor flea market. My parents are going tomorrow I opted to go today because the weather is supposed to be crappy tomorrow. So I laced up my walking shoes and walked the entire flea market which took about 3 hours to browse around at all of the goodies. I found some $2 shirts for Jay for work. I also found some cute little decorating things to put around the house and I also got some cheap baking supplies that are of great quality. Go me!!! However since I have gotten home I now realize what else I could have picked up to decorate the house...so I think I am going to ask my parents to pick up a couple items tomorrow while they are there. Jay claims that there will be no more place to walk in our house because it is going to be full to the rim. I told him I will not over decorate but when we do eventually move....watch out!!!

I also leave for Germany in a week and two days. I'm getting excited! Laura and I have also booked our side trip to Rome. Yah!!! We arrive in Rome on a Monday night and have Tuesday and Wednesday to putz around the city and we leave on a Thursday to go back to Germany and finish the remainder of our trip. However I have not even thought about what I need to bring or what needs to be done so Jay will survive without me for 12 days. I figure I have next week to worry about that and pay bills that are due while I am away.

Thank you to everyone that wished me happy birthday. My family and I went out to dinner in Culver at the Edgewater Grill because I had a student give me a very generous gift card for Christmas and I figured I might as well as treat because it is probably somewhere we would never go to and so we drove about 50 minutes to have dinner on Saturday night. The food was good and I ran into a teacher buddy at the resturant and she was celebrating her 20th wedding anniversary. It was her first time eating there also...it really is a small world.

I really need to get the recycling ready for pick-up. I have boxes in the basement from January from Jay's weight bench that need to be broken down. Now might be the time to get it done. So I am off. More fun for me!