Germany Whirl Wind

 HA! An actual post from traveling! WHEEEE!!! Let's do this!

It's been quite some time since Eric and I had taken a trip over to Ramstein, Germany. What's so special about that place? Well, aside from a completely bitchin' BX (think in terms of Costco size), we have several friends over there that we haven't seen in forever! I think the last time we were there and actually had time to visit was in January or February of this year...eesssshhh..

So, Eric and I hit the road early on Saturday morning since we were wanting to check out Trier considering it's on the way. I had picked out some places there I had wanted to check out since it's one of Germany's oldest cities. Since we were going to be in that area, one of Eric's co-workers asked us if we could stop off at a winery shop she was rather fond of and pick up a case of her favorite wine. Sure thing! No problem since Eric was wanting me to see this lil wine shop anyway since they had some German pottery.

On our way to Trier, we stopped off in Bernkastel, Germany.. which is apparently famous for their wineries. Since I'm not a wine person, I wouldn't know about such a place...other than it's really pretty. This was the place we needed to head to in order to pick up the co-workers wine case and our pottery :) We managed to find a parking spot after 30 minutes of stalking spaces.. the area is surrounded by wine fields and it's next to the Moselle River...gorgeous!

The path we had to use from where we parked.. it was right along the side of the river:

We finally found the little shop that had the coveted wine! Very cute little place! The German gal that was working..kinda friendly, kinda not. LOL.. I mean, she tried to speak English to us, but she seemed rather annoyed despite the fact we were dropping some serious money in there.

The outside of the shop:

Inside of the shop:

This set up reminds me of a place in Aachen.. there's a oil & vinegar shop that I'm inlove with and they use these containers to hold all the different types of oils and such. This place was using 'em to hold the different specialty wines that they offer :)

While Eric was poking around and trying to find the specific wine we were sent for, I ventured off to the part of the store that had the pottery :)

I know you're probably thinking," What's so special about German pottery?". Well.. Polish Pottery is made very well, lots of different patterns and can be used in all types of ways. Same thing with German pottery, except theirs is very thick, heavy, and pretty indestructible. I remember my Grandma having several nice pieces when I was growing up.. and they're from when she was younger than me! After flip flopping back and forth, I ended up getting a Garlic Keeper and a Butter Bell.

 See what I mean about their pottery being heavy? The Butter Bell without anything in it weighs a lil over 2lbs :)

Holds a little over 2 sticks of butter! (I only put in 1/2 a stick for the picture)

 Here's something that will really blow your mind as to how this thing is used. Seems odd at first, but it works REALLY well! I had to borrow this video from VAT19.com since it pretty much explained how this thing works...

Here's my spiffy Garlic Keeper! Eric made me laugh cause when the German lady asked us if we knew what it meant (I knew what it said and said it correctly), Eric pronounced "Knoblauch" like "Ka-Know-Blocken"...the lady pretty much looked at him like, "Stupid American." and shook her head, LOL

 From there, we made our way out of the country side and headed on over to Trier. I was amazed to see all the different vineyards that went all up and down the steep hillsides! I mean, GEEZE! I felt sorry for whoever actually had to walk up and down to harvest that stuff in the olden days! I think now a days, they use small tractors that have enough torque to deal with the incline...

 Once we got over to Trier, finding a parking spot turned out to be "Mission Impossible". It was quite frustrating considering we were wanting to check out the "Dome of Trier" which is a gorgeous cathedral. We literally spent 40 minutes trying to find some sort of parking area...all of them were full.. people who parked on the street parked VERY stupid and made it hard for others to fit into other spots. We eventually gave up and tried to make our way over to Porta Nigra (click on the link for some historical information).  Go figure.. we had the same problem there as we did as the Dome of Trier. NO PARKING!!! Very irritating!! Eric and I got to the point where we threw in the towel.. I managed to get some pics as we drove past Porta Nigra (ha).. we'll try to make it back there again, someday... only took a year and a half to make it there this time!!

An obvious last chance shot I attempted, lol. The camera was hanging out the window as I was trying to get a decent pic! 

 From there, we finally made our way over to Ramstein and got checked into our hotel (Hotel Rosenhof). It's in a very convenient area near the actual air force base, and the staff was awesome! Really nice and the rooms were sound proof (as funny as that sounds), because it's located right near the autobahn.

 When we went to check in, we were greeted by "Oscar", the hotel boxer. He was SUCH a big baby! Total cutie pie and the owner of the hotel got a kick out of how much he wanted to play with Eric as I was checking in:

 

 The walkway area to our hotel room:

 Eric modeling our room, lol

 Most European hotels have two mattresses pushed together (if you're opting for a double room), and you get two separate duvets. Their logic with the two duvets.. instead of the couple struggling and playing tug of war with 1 duvet, each person can have their own. Nice, hunh?

 All in all, our trip was a blast. Sorry I don't have any picture of hanging out with our friends..but it's for the best. We ended up partying later that night and got rather drunk off of Mojito's. Tell ya what... Turkish Baklava is the bomb-diggity, especially when you have the drunk hungrys :)

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Ahhh

When I was over in England earlier this year, I picked up several different boxes of tea. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do. "Right?

Anyway, when I was over in Snape Maltings, they had a really awesome little store that sold all kinds of things. Think in terms of a British style Pier One. They also had deli type store in there where you could buy different types of fudge, cheeses and tea. I loaded up on a ton of "Taylors of Harrogate" teas because they're REALLY good. Subtle flavors, but they're awesome..especially with a lil spoonful of honey in your hot drink :)

So. Here I sit with my awesome cup of Raspberry & Vanilla tea in my funky, oversized tea cup :)

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Get Lost.

I'm not saying that in mean way. Honestly.

Since we didn't really have anything going on today, I wanted to get out of the house. Yesterday we were running errands and such (tis' our normal routine on Saturdays), then last night we went to a friends house party. We needed to unwind a little since (as you can probably tell from my last post), I'm a lil on edge and Eric's had a pretty busy week.

So, I told Eric that I wanted to "get lost" for a little while since it was actually warm out today AND there was sunshine! I mean, you gotta take advantage of the weather when it's in your favor AND you're not stuck at work, right? Well, Eric preferred to take a nap in his recliner, so I ditched him for a few hours and ran around the Belgian countryside and ended up somewhere in The Netherlands. It sounds so simple to lose yourself around here, but in all honesty, it wasn't! I took little back rounds and different routes that what I was used to..yet, still ended up in area's I was familiar with. I NEVER turned my TomTom on the entire time I was out! Even when it was time to head home!

Here's some pictures of the different places I saw:

There's a windmill past the base I've been meaning to stop and check out. I mean, it's only taken me a year and a half to actually hit the breaks and pull over :)

I was messing around with the editing program I use.. I didn't know which one to pick, so here's both styles of the blades:

Then from there, I continued on..I think I ended up in Eksel, not really sure though. While I was just toodlin' along, I saw this:

I pulled over and went to check it out since it seemed pretty random, yet, interesting. Turns out it's an old fountain for the town. I really liked it cause of the old school scroll work all over it. 

On the way back to the Xterra, there was this little cottage type house that looked like it was lacking some TLC, but had plenty of character. I figured I'd take a picture of it's corner:

On the road again..left turn here, right turn there.. I honestly wasn't paying attention to where I was going. Then I passed by this statue and immediately pulled over:

It's a memorial statue for the men that were lost in WW1 who were from that town. It was pretty interesting to look at, even though I couldn't understand what any of the carvings said:

This is the back of the monument (it's a sword with garland leaves):

Back into my truck I went.. I finally got to the point to where I was ready to head on back to the house since I felt a headache coming on, despite chugging tons of water and taking some migraine medication. 

On the way home, I was driving past the canal on the border of The Netherlands and Belgium and managed to find a spot to pull over. I was surprised how "quiet" that strip of road was considering that's a main highway from one country to the other:

The canal:

There was this pretty neat looking marker to state where the border of Belgium was:

Map coordinates:

The year that the marker was placed at it's location:

And the crest of Belgium (a regal lion and crown ):

Once I strolled across the street, I was back in the lovely country of Belgie :) 

So, yeah. That about sums up my afternoon of driving around the country side. We'll be heading over to Germany next weekend.. I can definitely get myself lost over there and I'm looking forward to it :)

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Three.

Today is kind of a touchy day for me considering it's the 3 year mark of my mothers death. I originally typed "anniversary", but then replaced it with "mark" ... I consider the term "anniversary" a happy thing.. and her death isn't something I see as a positive moment in my life. I don't think anyone in their right mind would consider the loss of a parent as a happy thing.. well, unless they were a horrible horrible person. You know what I mean, right?

Anyway... I was going through pictures I have on my current laptop and I came across this:

This picture was taken on July 27th, 2007 over in Monterey, California. It's pretty significant to me considering that's the day Eric & I got married. Keep in mind, our actual wedding ceremony was planned for August 5th.. just a lil over a week later. We ended up getting married in Monterey since my Mom was too weak to make it to the ceremony location, which was in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her main request was that she wanted to see me get married, so that's why we got married in Monterey. The only people present were her, my Dad and Grandma. Pretty intimate little gathering.

Did I mention that my Mom wasn't able to make it to a single dress fitting? She was able to make it to the initial appointment where I picked my dress out, but not actually see me wear it. I'd drive up from Vandenberg to take her to her appointments in Standford (2 hours from my parents home..their home is 3 hours from Vandenberg)..then I'd take her home, then I'd head back to Capitola for my dress fitting (an hour and a half away). Lots of road time that she couldn't handle due to the nausea. The only time she actually saw me in my dress was when we streamed our wedding live over the internet  and my Dad set it up so she could watch it on the big screen in California.

When I look at the picture..all kinds of emotions come into play. I'm so grateful that she was able to make it, despite her being extremely weak from her chemo. See the fanny pack she's wearing? That's her morphine pump to control the pain due to her cancer. She was only able to stand for a few pictures and that drained her of her energy. After the ceremony, we walked over to Tarpy's for dinner (it's a nice Steakhouse that was right next door), and celebrated over there. The meal way amazing, but I couldn't help but notice that my Mom wasn't even eating. Her medication killed her appetite to the point where she could barely stomach water.

Sigh.

I guess what this blog post really comes down to is this... I miss my Mom. My Grandmother misses her Daughter. She had lost my Grandfather in 1996 and then lost my Mother in 2007. I don't think anyone should ever experience losing their child. Given.. when I think about the whole scheme of everything, I strongly believe my Uncle (the piece of crap, my Mom's half brother) should have been the one with cancer rather than her. Life is interesting like that, I suppose.

Damn, I sound bitter.

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Thank You! Dank je! Vielen Dank! Merci! Dziękujemy!

Woo hoo!!!

I hosted a Scentsy Online party last month and my goodies finally showed up :) I'm so excited! I ended up earning $140 worth of stuff, plus a ton of 50% off items (I gave my Consultant $30 worth of stuff to pick out since she held the Show open for a while).  Here's the goodies I got:

Some of the new stuff they came out with was hand sanitizer. Figured I'd give it a shot since I use hand sanitizer like crazy at work.. counting money is GROSS! My hands feel SO nasty after wards so I'm always lathering up with the stuff. I gotta say..these smell awesome (shocking, right?)..lol. I'm INLOVE with Coconut Lemongrass!

Eric was interested in getting one of these Scentsy Paks... I think it's for his locker at work or his gym bag. I dunno, he picked out the scent he wanted (he picked Citrus SunTea and I accidentally gave Melissa that since she ordered a Pak as well) and I ordered it. I'm a lil disappointed though with how small it is.. I figured it'd be a lil larger, but I guess we'll find out how much it smells when it busts it out for whatever it is he wanted it for, lol.

I also got several car "candles". They're absolutely amazing and highly recommend them! They last forever and smell exactly like the waxes :)

Here's some of the Warmers I ended up getting:

Say "Hi" to Tiki!  I know you're probably wondering why I got him since he's not really my style. A few weeks ago, Eric brought a warmer into his office since it (apparently) smells like death over there. Since he's done that, the guys really seem to like it and wished for another warmer in a different part of the building. Well, since I had a ton of 50% off items, I got this lil booger for their office. It's manly, per say, and it's kinda fitting to have something this random in a shop full of guys. I ended up getting a lot of "clean" smells for them (Clarity, Inner Peace, Berry Blush) so they can help with the "death / feet / fart" smell.

 I think he knows what he's in for...

Then I picked up Charlemagne. I love love love Fleur Di Leis.. I actually had them on my wedding invites (wax seal) and they were also details during the wedding ceremony :) When I saw this, I thought "Mine! I needs it!"

 

Since it's Fall, I HAD to get  Montpelier. Right now it's sitting on the window ledge burning "Autumn Sunset" :)

Since the holidays are upon us and I'm a freak about Christmas, I figured I might as well grab a Christmas type warmer :) Heavenly is really pretty when it's lit up (the while warmer glows rather than light just coming out of the holes). The top kinda fits a lil funky on it, though. Oh well, can't really complain about it!

Andddd last but not lease, I got Eric another Georgia warmer. "Another one?" you say? Well.. the first one he got is at work.. he wanted a second one for his "Man Cave". Being the good wife that I am, I ponied up the extra $$$$$ for it since the college warmers are excluded from the earned free product as well as 50% off items. That's love!

Here's a list of all the waxes I got:

2 Berry Blush

2 Pumpkin Roll (screams Fall)

2 Inner Peace (if only you could actually get inner piece this easily, lol)

2 Clarity

Autumn Sunset Bar

Just Peachy, Ginger (smells like peach tea)

Winter Wonderland (smells like Christmas!)

Maple Butter

Vanilla Cream

Hazelnut Latte (makes me miss Starbucks!!)

Cranberry Mango

Coconut Lemongrass (coconut heaven!)

Reggae Sunset

Black Raspberry Vanilla

Maple Butter (Brick)

Car Circle Candles: (Eric and I were bickering over which ones we wanted to get, lol)

Pumpkin Roll
2 Maple Butter
Cinnamon Bun
Pineapple Paradise
Winter Wonderland

 A MASSIVE thank you to everyone who purchased from my show!! It's GREATLY appreciated!! 

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