Sunny-sandy good times!

Since we didn't go to NYC on Thursday we decided to go to Rehoboth Beach on Friday instead. We spent about 4 hours chilling in the sand and enjoying roasting in the sun. We went for a nice long walk along the beach which was nice... the breeze from the ocean was cool and refreshing after so much sun and we had fun searching for seashells in the waves. As always I ended up with sand in places I never really wanted to have sand but hey, i guess that is the price you pay :-p After we were sick of roasting, we took another walk, got some shells at the seashell shop and ate a bucket of greasy boardwalk fries. Definitely a lovely friday afternoon trip for sure :-D

Fun-filled week :)

Well this week turned out to be a lot of fun :) Monday (my 25th Birthday, yay!) we just chilled at home and then my mom took us out to dinner at Olive Garden. The food was super yummy and then they brought out a super chocolatey birthday cake and sang to me. That was pretty embarassing but mom was nice and asked them to keep it low-key so there were only 3 of them there singing.... the cake was amazingly good tho so it was totally worth it! hehe

Tuesday night we went to Philadelphia to the Franklin Museum to see the "Real Pirates" exhibit about a pirate ship they found off of Cape Cod and made the first exhibit with real pirate treasure. They even reconstructed what parts of the ship would look like and people could go in and explore them... it was pretty sweet! Afterwards there was a 3D movie of Sea Monsters which was fun... espec. as these giant fish kept zooming at the screen and with the 3D glasses it looked like they were going to eat us and Lukas kept ducking out of the way. It was his first 3D movie I think. Definitely a great birthday present from my mom :)

Wednesday I had a girl's night with my friends again which was nice... mostly just eating and talking but hey, what else does a group of girls need right? hehe.

Thursday we were supposed to go to NYC to the temple and a free Flogging Molly concert in the park but basically Im a huge wuss and was too scared and stressed out to drive in downtown NYC so we changed plans. We are going to go some other time when Lukas has his license because he is much better driving in big cities with lots of cranky traffic than I am.

Chapter 2... Newark, Delaware

And now we are back in Delaware and enjoying a nice long vacation period. We are living with my mom for about 8 weeks, half of which is up at this point. We flew in the 3rd of July and had a relaxing 4th of July shopping, napping, and just being glad to be back in the good ol´ USA. The following Thursday we headed to Indiana to visit family and friends. My sister Emily came up from Indianapolis, my since-junior-high-close-friend Becky came up also to visit us and brought her new baby Brooklyn with, and we had a nice time with my dad and Audrey and her kids and of course I was happy to see my puppies :) hehehe. It was also nice to go to church at my old ward and see some longtime friends and acquaintances from my childhood. All things considered it was a nice trip.

Back in Newark we have been relaxing, reading, swimming (thanks to my fabulous friend Sarah and her extra pool pass!!) and just chillin' the days away. It has been nice seeing my mom and friends and spending time with all of the above.

The best news of all however... after only one interview and one week of hardcore job searching and applying Lukas has a job! My bishop from my student ward at church owns his own business, a rather successfull business called CSC, Corporation Service Company, and he was nice enough to set Lukas up with an interview. After a 2 hour interview with more than 4 people he was told that they would let him know the following week. By his own merits he landed a great job with great benefits and I could not be prouder :) He starts on August 4th so we only have one week of vacation left but we are incredibly grateful for this new job and the huge blessings brought by its swift acquisition.

On Friday we headed to the beach since it was one of our last opportunities before Lukas starts work. We had a nice time shopping the outlet malls and a beautiful sunny and relaxing afternoon in the sand. Saturday we spent the afternoon playing in the pool which was rather nice as well. This next week we have lots of fun plans, especially as tomorrow is my 25th Birthday, wooo hooo! More to come as the fun events of this week unfold...

To Germany and beyond!

Our first stop after Salzburg was up north in Bayern to visit Lukas' friend Robin who then took us to Neuschwanstein, the gorgeous Cinderella Castle outside of Munich, Germany. We had a nice little hike up the mountain (reminding me yet again how very out of shape I am!) and were very well rewarded with a stunning view of the castle, valley and lake below from a VERY windy and Japanese tourist packed bridge! It was a great last outing as we said goodbye to our home area for the past 10 months.

After visiting Robin we continued our long drive to Lukas’ parents house farther west into Germany. Lukas had fun driving super fast on the Autobahn (silly German’s and their lack of speedlimits!) and I was content to hide in the passenger seat. Ok… its not like I even noticed we were going over 100mph but still :-p After not much sleep we got up on Saturday and prepared for a going-away party to which his sister, brother-in-law, and several friends came to. It was a great bbq with good food, good friends, and a very good time. It was hard saying goodbye to everyone after the BBQ as they all headed home but fortunately on Sunday, the following day, we had the chance to get together with Jana and Daniel to watch the final game of the European Championship, Germany –vs- Spain. Sadly Germany did not see us off with a victory but it was a good game and a great evening afterwards chatting with Daniel and Jana so I guess we cannot complain so much. There is always next time!

We spent lots of quality time with his parents and grandma for almost a week which was definitely a nice break after all of the packing, school, leaving stress of Salzburg. Lukas and I made a 30 mile roundtrip bike ride to the zoo in Karlsruhe, Germany which was a lot of fun, especially for this animal crazed kid, hehe.








We also took a day trip with Lukas' parents to Speyer where there was a really cool 1000+ year old Cathedral.

It was nice getting to see all of Lukas’ family and friends before we left for the USA, especially considering that we do not know when we will be back again to visit. We had some drama at the airport including a clueless worker, an equally clueless yet more stubborn supervisor, 6 VERY over packed suitcases but in the end (after LOTS of prayers!) it all worked out and we got checked in without the impending financial burden we had been expecting (seriously, we were soooo incredibly blessed!). Lukas’ parents saw us off at the security check with some hugs and tears and after a few hours we arrived safely in Dublin, got through customs and got Lukas registered as a permanent resident, wooo hoo! After a long and not very restful intercontinental flight we arrived in Philadelphia to my happily waiting mother and started a new chapter in our lives.

End of (my stay in) Salzburg highlights....

My last post left me during Spring semester in Salzburg, Austria and so much has happened since then! However, there are still a few highlights of that adventure left to share.

June sped by rather quickly after our visit to Lukas’ parents house in Germany. My final papers, projects, presentations and tests all spiraled out of control at a few points including getting falsely charged with plagiarism (wow that was not a fun battle, which I however DID win!) and it was a pretty overwhelming last couple of weeks. In then end however, I am happy to report that I ended up with 2 A’s and 1 B… a successful last semester with Bowling Green State University. And boy I am glad that is probably the last semester I will EVER have with them! :-p

Lukas and I had a fun afternoon walk to Schloß Hellbrunn, a castle down the street from us one sunny day. It was a nice break from all of my studying stresses to just get away and enjoy nature with my hubby J It also resulted in some fun pictures, as you can tell… hehehe.

The semester end highlight would however have to be when Carlotta, one of my bestest buds in the whole world (and I can truthfully say that because I have friends allllll over lol) came to visit us for a week! Ok so the first few days I had classes and finals and then the last few days I had to clean, pack, etc. and then we were kicked out a day early from our apartment and headed to Germany on Friday BUT.... it was still a memorable week during the time we did actually get to spend together and I am VERY grateful for her visit! It was exactley the "end of the school year" celebration I needed!! She had just finished up a year at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC and then an internship in London at a PR company so Im very glad I ended up on her list of "MUST-VISIT" people in Europe :) As you can see from the attached photos there was a lot of mayhem and silliness involved but seriously, what would be a visit from Carla without a bit of craziness?!

And thus we said goodbye to our beloved mountain surrounded Salzburg, saw Carla off as she headed off to other parts of Germany to visit friends, and in our super packed rental car rode off into the sunset... or something like that... haha...

Im still alive in Dela-where?

Hi everyone! Its me again... Im still alive, I promise! I have just been super busy lately with lots of things going on including finals, Carla coming to visit, vacationing at the in-laws in Germany and then moving to Delaware! I promise an update will come sooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnn..........

Gaisberg Trek

We had such a fabulous weekend, even if rather tiring.

On Friday night we went to a BBQ with some friends from church, or moreso "friendly acquaintances" I would say. Anyway, there were about 10-12 of us there and we had a good time all hanging out, talking, having LOTS of good food. One thing that made it super fantastic... they had 3 cans of AW Root Beer from a friend and we had root beer floats... sooo yummy! The silly Europeans other than Lukas didn't really like the root beer... whatever, us Americans enjoyed it a lot! haha It really reminded me of summer and home and it made me a bit more homesick, but it was really nice too. We ended up getting home around 11pm which was kind of crazy since we wanted to go hiking the next morning but hey, cant stop a good thing once it gets going, right? :)

We planned to head out around 7 or 8am but in the end we got out of the house around 9.30 and got to our hiking start at 10... not so bad :-p We had a crazy 2.5 hour hike up the mountain. I think it would have been a lot faster but I was super tired and super out of shape so that made it a bit slower. We also were retarded and didn't bring any food with, just water, and since I have problems with low blood sugar anyway that was pretty dumb. I got really dizzy for the last 40 minutes of the hike which then made it even longer because I had to take even more breaks than before. I'm surprised Lukas didn't just leave me and hike on without me, or push me off the mountain for complaining so much lol.

Anyway, the first part of the hike was a nice scenic route through beautiful Austrian countryside complete with darling farm houses and lots of cute cows :) It was a bit rough tho because the road was REALLY steep at parts when we were climbing up. After an hour of hiking we got to the woods and that is when the strenuous part really started. It was slightly slippery due to all the grass, moss and dead leaves. On top of that it was also very stony with random large stones and sticks all over blocking the way. I stepped on one branch and it swung up and smacked me in the hand harder than a catholic nun with a ruler! That wasn't too fun :-p lol. There were a lot of steep switchbacks going up which added to my slowness but hey, the map said it would take 2.5 hours and we took maybe 2 hours and 40 minutes... not so bad if I do say so myself! It was a great work out tho and at the top we were super glad we did it.

Unfortunately we missed the bus by a couple of minutes and the next one wasn't going to come for another 2 hours so we got some food and hiked back down... another 1.5 hours.

It was a long and strenuous hike but definitely good for us and I'm glad we did it. My goal is to get in better shape so that next time (provided we aren't stupid and DO remember to bring food lol) I will be able to keep up better and not be such a whiny wuss :-p

Today at church went well and then we came home and laid out in the sun a bit and just had a relaxing afternoon at home which is always welcome and always appreciated. I have to say that I definitely love the fact that we believe in honoring the Sabbath Day and keeping it holy. I love just being able to focus on the Lord and family and friends instead of work, homework, exercising, shopping, etc. Its just great having no commitments other than church and just being able to relax one full guilt-free day :)