Today was my last visit (on this tour) to our favorite tapestry store ~ Marion and Armins ( http://tapestries.de/). My friend Deborah picked me up (as we are down to one car now) and we headed to Grubingen for our afternoon appointment. Even though I told myself, No more Christmas stuff, I came home with several Christmas items (can't refuse a sale). I will miss shopping here ~ I volunteered for these folks at our Bazaar on base and there products really do sell themselves.
Thanks Deborah ~ I had a fun afternoon hanging out with you and Ellie!
Tim and I took a break yesterday from preparing for our move to go and see Marley and Me at the base theater. What a great movie!! I recommend all animal lovers to go see it ~ be prepared for it to pull at your heart.
Tim and I were invited to spend the day with my Austrian relatives that live in Dornbirn. We arrived around noon and left at 6:30. They live 2 and 1/2 hours away from us in Gaertringen ~ we still can't believe the whole time we have been living here that we have family so close. While it was bittersweet to just get to know them I can't think of a better way to end our tour in Europe. Now we definately have a reason to come back!!! Thanks to Marlene and Julia for preparing such a wonderful meal. That was the best schnitzel we've had since living in Europe. Tim and I really enjoyed our afternoon visiting and joking with everyone. It was so nice to meet the whole family ~ it was as if we have known each other always ~ no one was a a stranger. It was really a pleasure to meet again with Lisbeth and Marlene and meet for the first time their brother Tomas and his family, Doris (wife), Matias, Julia (boyfriend Phillip) and Lisbeth, Marlene and Tomas' parents Josef and Sieglinde (sorry if I misspelled any names)
Our good friends, Becky and Rich, invited Tim and I over for Christmas dinner. Becky out did herself, she made a wonderful soup, ham, potatos and salad. We topped the dinner off with a Rum cake. Everything was sooo delicious. Thank you guys for always being there for us!! We will miss you but hope to see you as often as possible.
Our friends Mike and Lisa hosted a nice Christmas Eve get together. It created a good opportunity for us to say farewell to some new and old friends here in Germany. When I said goodbye to their daughter, Layla, I told her to come visit me in the states. She told me that a lot of the houses look a like so that it would be a good idea to write my name on a piece of paper and put it somewhere on the front of my house so that she could find me ~ I told her that was a great idea (she is 5 years old ~ pretty clever young thing).
My BUNCO friends hosted a Christmas get together/ornament exchange/and farewell (to me) yesterday. Amanda was kind enough to host it at her house. Everyone brought such yummy food! Thanks you gals ~ I had a great time.
We were fortunately able to spend a weekend in Vienna with my newfound family member Lisbeth. Lisbeth was kind enough to pick us up from the airport and let us stay in her flat in Vienna. Tim and I journeyed out on Saturday to 2 Christmas markets just down the road from Lisbeth's flat. Later that day Lisbeth made reservations at the famous schnitzel restaurant Figelmuller ~ this place was so popular that we had to still wait for a table to come available. Tim was quite pleased as he is a BIG schnitzel fan (and you'll see in the pictures that they serve BIG schnitzels). The next day Lisbeth drove us to a town that overlooks Vienna ~ what a lovely sight. We finished off the weekend at a restaurant called Kah - Kah (the sound a raven makes). Thank you Lisbeth for such a wonderful weekend ~ we are very sad that we didn't meet you sooner !!
Well we out did ourselves for this anniversary! Tim was in DC for training and I flew up for a couple of days so we could house hunt. After looking at 20+ homes between the 2 of us, we found a brand new one that we fell in love with immediately. While we went to lunch to ponder purchasing this home, I realized that I didn't bring a checkbook with me, unfortunately you have to put something down to show good faith. We called the agent for the home and she said there was no way around it ~ we HAD to provide a check and to top that off someone had an appointment that afternoon to put an offer on "OUR" house. Now I was in panic mode, should we try and start a bank account and wire money (this was Saturday afternoon ~ we weren't even sure if banks were open). Luckily, I had sense enough to call our bank but they were no help. They said we could have a check mailed ~ I told them that wasn't going to help me ~ so I hung up very disappointed. About 2 seconds later, Tim's phone rang and it was our bank (thank god for the technology out nowadays). They found a sister bank near us who would be able to cut a cashiers check for us!! Woohoo!! So we sped to the bank and then back to the agents office. She was still with her afternoon appoitnment, so we went back to the house and just imagined what we could do with it ~ still knowing that it might not be ours. When it was finally our turn to put an offer in, the agent cheerfully told us that her previous appointment decided to make an offer on the house across the street from ours. So, we put in an offer on Saturday and found out Monday afternoon that the bank accepted our offer. We are soon to be the proud owners (well, actually the bank owns it) of a brand new home in Virginia.
Tim and I recently met my relatives that live somewhat near to us (they live in Austria). It's hard to believe we've been here 5 years and are just now discovering family. It was a pleasant "Blind Date" as Lisbeth called it. Tim and I drove down to Friedrichshafen Germany while Marlene and Lisbeth drove from Austria to Friedrichshafen. We are looking forward to seeing them a couple more times before we move back to the states.
I hosted my last Bunco here last week. My prizes were from Armin and Marions textiles ( I chose the Christmas theme being December and all). We had a lot of fun! 3 of my neighbors came over to join us. Thanks to Deborah for cooking the Lasagna. It was delicious!! Many thanks to everyone for the Longaberger basket!!
