Raining...

I never thought I'd say this but I am loving the rain. Its been cloudy and rainy for almost a week now and I'm loving it. The temp has stayed in the 20's (mid-sixties) and its been really nice. The sun came out for most of the day on Sunday but it stayed at 68... sooo nice. ANYway... enough about the weather...

Seems like a lot has happened since I last posted an update on what's been going on here. But we haven't really done anything big. Well, we did go to Neuschwanstein which was a big day trip. In case you don't know what that is, its the Disney castle. Walt Disney got his idea for Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland from Neuschwanstein and it really is an amazing place.

So we left our apartment around 7:30 am with some friends (Marylin and David Auras, their 6 month old son Jonathon, Maria Auras, Chris, and Mahesh). It took roughly 3.5 hours to get there and then its a 40 walk up to the castle. After spending a few hours looking around and taking pictures went back to the car and drove through Austria and the alps... so pretty! We then went to a canyon with a river called Parnachklamm. All I can say is that it was beautiful.

Its hard to see in this picture but there is a narrow walk way and we walked all the way to the end of the canyon. Pictures taken by my awesome husband. after that we went to Walchelsee (a lake thats close to Garmish). I was too tired to walk to where the beach was so I stayed in the car and read on my kindle while everyone else went around and swam. Jordan was the only one who didn't but he did get some great pictures.

After that we drove back to Munich and ate McDonalds because thats the only place open at 11:00 at night. We made it home by 1 am. :)

So that was our fun day trip. Luckily the weather was perfect and cloudy the whole day so I wasn't miserable and was able to walk almost everywhere with everyone. It was a nice day. Since then, we haven't done much. The day after Neuschwanstein I went and had a girls night with some friends (Marylin, Andrea, and Maria). We went and saw 'Eclipse' in English. You may know that I hate Twilight so it wouldn't surprise you that I didn't like the movie. It was (like the other two movies) full of corny lines and terrible acting. The story was somewhat more enjoyable but I had a hard time trying not to laugh (the women I saw the movie with like the series) at every scene between Bella and Edward/Bella and Jacob/all three. I'm sorry but whoever said Robert Pattinson can act let alone is good looking? Seriously.

Anyway Jordan and I also got a chance to go swimming with David and Marylin at a pool in Furth. It was so nice and relaxing. We went around 8:00 (the pool closes at 11) and theres a section that is for adults only. They have all these different pools that are different temperatures and there are waterfalls and jets everywhere. There is also this one pool where its a really high salt content so you can just float while listening the the music thats playing underneath the water. The room its in is dark but the pool lights change colors and theres no talking so its really quiet. Oh man... its so nice. The baby loved it too... he was really active while we were in the salt pool.

Last Saturday we did a cook off against Mahesh and it was American food vs. Indian food. Jordan and I and Chris made chili, funeral potatoes and corn bread. Not sure who won because there weren't any leftovers. It was a fun day and the puzzle king was there. He's supposedly done the worlds largest puzzle and it was there... 24,000 peices took him five months to complete. Sunday I gave a talk in church... and... thats about all I can remember thats happened in the last few weeks! This weekend I think we're going to see a movie in Nuremberg with David and Marylin and probably some other people too. Both Toy Story 3 and Inception are coming out tomorrow and they're both playing in English! I'm excited to finally see a movie with Jordan... its been a while.

I lied...

So in a previous post I mentioned that I'll be sad to go home and and I really love it here (that part wasn't a lie... I do love it here) and that I wouldn't mind if Jordan got a job here... well I think I lied. I'm going to be really excited to go home in August. This has been an amazing and eye opening experience, but all good things must come to an end sometime. There are things about Germany that I'll miss like...

~The bakeries... we get strawberry croissants and apple struddels for breakfast every Saturday morning. Mmm... so good.
~Everything is priced exactly what you're going to pay for it in the end... tax included.
~The people of the Erlangen ward... They are amazing people.
~The chocolate... need I say more?
~Game nights on Mondays at the bishops house... a tradition we're going to try and carry on in the states... we'll see if it works out.
~The architecture of the buildings
~The sightseeing
~Being able to get anywhere with public transport and being within walking distance to most places I need to go
~Having so much free time... being able to sleep in as late as I want, read as much as I want, and surf the internet as much as I want
~The quality of the food... even mcdonalds is better here
~H&M

But there are so many more things I'm excited to go home to. Just little (a major) comforts that I took for granted such as...

~Having my family so close
~A/C
~Having a dryer to dry my clothes
~Having a car to get around in... a car WITH a/c
~BUSTER... I can't wait to hold my puppy in my arms again... He might be sleeping in our bed for a while when we get back
~English speaking people... I miss being able to communicate with people everyday
~American grocery stores
~American convenience foods like fruit leather, granola bars, etc.
~Target
~Being able to set up my baby's room and have our own place... a place that isn't the total size of my old bedroom at my parents house.
~Sunday afternoons spent at my parents house or at my in-laws
~Cafe Rio
~A place to get my hair cut that I KNOW will do a good job... Landis Aveda Salon
~My own bed
~English speaking movie theaters and more specifically, the dollar theater

I'm sure there are more but thats what I can think of right now. But I can't believe we only have six weeks left! The time has really flown by... we've had some really fun times here and hopefully we'll do more fun things in the time we have left. We're trying to plan out a three or four day trip somewhere outside of Germany but then theres the concern about money so we might just end up staying in the country and find more things to do.

Last weekend we spent part of the day in Nuremberg at the Nazi rally grounds. Theres a place called the documentation center thats in one of the buildings that Hitler was building for party rallies where he could make speeches. It was never finished so they made a museum out of it and we did a guided tour and heard about how Hitler came into power and the progression of the Nazi party and eventual downfall. It was really interesting. On Sunday two hours of church were canceled because of the heat and boy, was I feeling it. I was light headed and dizzy through most of the sacrament meeting despite all the water I was drinking. When we went home I laid down and Jordan and I slept for four hours. It was a nice nap and we still were able to get a decent night sleep.

Anyway... No plans for this week yet but I'm sure the weekend will be here before we know it!! Until next time...

"Its tired in here..."

Hello from Germany.
We've been watching a lot of Arrested Development lately and just as I decided to write up a new blog entry, I thought of that line from Buster... I love that show so much. It was one thing we just had to bring with us when coming here; all three seasons... a little piece of home that makes us so happy. haha If you haven't seen it, you really should. Its the best. We actually named our dog after that character. :)

Anyway, its been a lazy week for me. Last week we did a lot of walking and riding our bikes places. It was a very different fourth of July weekend. haha First we went to a ward BBQ which was way fun. Everyone brought meat and it was all grilled together; so you got to choose what kind of meat you wanted. Later in the evening they decided they wanted to roast marshmallows (I guess marshmallows are very American) and so they stuck them right on the grill to roast... it was really funny. So after scraping white goo off of the grill I showed them how its really done and everyone joined in. Saturday we spent the day with the Rollinghoffs and they took us through the franconian swiss (Germanys alps) where we saw a castle and a cool cathedral.

 

The Rollinghoffs have been very generous and nice to us (they give us rides to and from church every Sunday) but theres only so much I can handle. They're an older couple and take their time with things. On the trip they kept asking us where we wanted to go, and we were just like "we've never been here before so we have no idea!" Then it was in the mid 90's and they didn't want to use the working a/c in their car... I was dying. Needless to say I was quickly running out of patience; maybe that comes with being pregnant, I don't know. I probably sound totally ungrateful... they really are nice and helpful. So they've invited us to go to Nuesweinstein with them and it would be a two day trip... I'm thinking maybe they're lonely and don't get to see their kids very much? But I don't really want to go with them... I want to go see the Disney castle, just not with them. I don't think Jordan does either so we'll see what happens. Am I just a total brat or what? Maybe I'm just not good with people... haha I don't know. I seem to get annoyed with people and burn bridges quite often... something I need to work on.

So as many people know the World Cup has been going on. Germany has been doing really well and its been fun being here during it all! Jordan picked a great time to have an internship here. On saturday were the quarter finals and Germany stomped Argentina 4-0. It was a great game. All of down town was closed off to traffic because there were too many people in the streets. We got to go take in some celebrating and take some great pictures.

 

 

Yesterday Germany played Spain and lost 1-0. It was an exciting game though and Germany had a lot of good chances at scoring... I don't really like the way Spain played though. We were so close to scoring a goal and the guy from Spain totally knocked the guy over and it wasn't even called... he was literally feet from scoring!! Pretty lame. Also I think the only games Spain actually won was by scoring one goal... not something deserving a world cup but whatever. Thats my opinion. So Germany is set to play Uruguay for third place and we've been told that Germany always does well in this game... they got third place at the last world cup actually!

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I've been really lazy this week. Not much going on. On Sunday I think I was having braxton hicks contractions (where the uterus tightens up but theres no pain) and Jenny told me that it was probably just from the stress of so much walking and activity. So this week I've been trying to relax as much as possible and eat as healthy as I can. A lot of my meals have included lots of fruit (some of you may know I'm not the biggest fan of vegetables... haha). We've been buying cherries, strawberries, whole pineapples... its been really good. I love fruit. Something thats taken up a lot of my time has been looking at baby stuff on the internet. I've created a baby registry so I can easily find the stuff I like when I get back to the states and its time to start buying baby stuff. I'm not sure if anyone will throw me a shower or not... haven't heard anything. I'm hoping someone will but not counting on it... we're going to need all the help we can get. Finding an apartment has also been on my mind lately. Luckily we have friends and family who've said they'd help us find something; I just don't want to be living with parents for TOO long after we get home. It will be nice to finally be able to settle somewhere and hopefully stay there until Jordan is done with school (two more years!). Ugh... I'm trying really hard not to stress about things at this point because really, what can I do? We still have roughly six more weeks left in Germany, but I'm getting anxious to have things done and finally be able to get ready for little Noah (not his official name... yet). I wish it was October already.