Beach part 2

I was having serious problems with the previous post....read that one first!! :) Favorite beach memories continued... Tyler's ever changing rehersal dinner outfit. Constantly adding and removing accesories, it made for an interesting final look. Getting ready with my favorite ladies and then asking them all to jump in a pond to get a good picture! Family dinner! There were many other amazing memories from that week, but these are just a few of my favorites! I will cherish that week always. And I am so glad that we made the decision to have our wedding at the beach! I look forward to years of many more memories with all of our friends and family!

Beach pictures

I was looking through some wedding pictures today and remembering what a FUN week we had prior to the actual big day. It was so great to spend time with all the people we love the most in one place. It was fun to see our different sets of friends hanging out and developing new friendships! I wanted to share some of my favorite pictures and memories from the week! Getting there and revealing our visors and hats for the bridal party!! This was an idea that Tyler and I had while we were in Destin in June. How can you properly have a beach wedding between Destin and Panama City and airbrush not be involved. One thing that I didn't share with the guys (and Tyler didn't realize when we bought them) is that all the hats were women's hats. I am not sure that they would have cared, they rocked them all week!

Lazy weekend...

It has been a lazy weekend, but very satisfying. It is our last weekend just the two (four) of us here and we are just enjoying the time in Erlangen...no complaints about that! The weather has been AMAZING and yesterday we walked ALL over the city. We went to parts of town that we had never seen before and saw some interesting things! We also discovered that the holiday on Monday is All Saints Day. It is celebrated in multiple countries, just usually in different ways. I believe here in Germany it is mostly celebrated by Catholics. From what I read, the tradition is to light candles on the graves of the deceased on Monday night to honor them. There is a graveyard right down the street from our apartment, so we are going to check it out. We didn't see our friend last night, not without lack of Tyler trying. :) But we did get to watch two episodes of Glee!! I have to say the Britney/Brittany episode was hilarious. I actually just laughed out loud after I wrote that thinking about it. :) Oh, and we made stir fry last night and Tyler ate the peppers...and liked them!! We are up to three veggies that he likes and I am thrilled...that is progress people! We will be eating a lot of edamame when we return to Atlanta I have a feeling!

I did it!!

I got a picture of our furry little friend!! I didn't actually go out with Tyler last night to take the dogs out before bed...I was watching Carrie...FREAKY movie, I had never seen the whole thing. But, Tyler came busting back in the door yelling "Grab the camera, Wembley found two!!" Wembley is quite our little hunter these days and can sniff the little guys out with no problem! I had to stop taking pics because I could tell the little guy was getting scared. We chased him back into the grass away from the road so he wouldn't get run over and left him alone. Hope to see you tonight little friend!! Things can't seem to ever be easy for us!! I am sure that everyone heard about the "possible explosive devices" that were found on flights to the US yesterday...well of course one of them had to come from Saudi Arabia. We are really hoping this doesn't cause us any problems getting home since Tyler has a Saudi Arabia Visa in his passport. Fingers crossed we sail right through customs in a few weeks and still make it home for Thanksgiving! Today we are hanging around the apartment, going to take the pups for a walk and to play ball and doing a lot of laundry! I really have to stay on top of it so we are ready to go home! Cissy will be here on Thursday and Susan and Sonja arrive the day after she leaves!! Can't wait to have more company, I know the rest of our time here in Germany will fly by!

Welcome Weekend!!

We don't really have much planned for the weekend, but I always look forward to them because that means Tyler is off work and able to spend the days with me. Even if it is just laying around the apartment watching TV!! Tomorrow night we are planning to go to Nuremberg to have dinner at a new restaurant that someone at Tyler's work suggested, I will have to fill you in on how that goes! And Monday is a holiday, so he will have that off too! And last night we finally saw the face of the little creatures we see out at night when walking the dogs! We have decided that they are hedgehogs. Tyler spotted it in the pitch black and I ran back to the house to get a flashlight so we could check it out. Tonight I am going to take my camera and see if I can get a picture of one of the little guys! So, I FINALLY wanted to share the rest of the pictures from our apartment here! Can you see a theme with the colors?? Our entertainment center, with a special Happy Birthday banner on it! Entry way where we hang/throw all of our coats and scarves when we come in the apartment. Kitchen...I actually don't mind this kitchen. I get tired of cleaning it, but other than that, I kind of like it. The oven is actually a drawer that pulls out. It is fine for us, but wouldn't be good if you were trying to do much baking because you can't fit much in there. And the living room! I actually really really hate that table in front of the couch. The little levels never stay in one place and they are always in the way. And always really dirty. And in the top picture you can see the light fixture. It is the devil. I actually stood up underneath it one day and hit my head so hard directly on one of those points that it hurt to wash my hair for days. Other than those complaints (OH!! And I hate the rugs, they shead worse than my dogs) it isn't that bad of a place! Quite cozy actually. We got our first dog complaint a few days ago. It was while my mom and I went to Nuremberg and the puppies were locked up all day. Apparently they barked from the time we left until the time Tyler arrived home from work. So, two older women who didn't speak a word of English came to let Tyler know they were not happy about it. Since he couldn't understand what they were saying, he ended up just closing the door. Only a few more weeks, they will just have to deal...we have permission to have them there! I think we have reached a point where we are really missing things about home. I actually had a dream about Chic-fil-a last night. I am also really missing dry cleaners! Not that we don't have them here, but they are really expensive, so we wash Tyler's work shirts at home and I iron them all. I realized today how much I hate ironing dress shirts. Well, I will leave you with a few pics of the pups!! :) Sprocket loves it when I leave the patio door open so he can lay in the sun. It is rare these days because it has gotten so much cooler.

Belated Guest Post

I have been totally MIA lately...mom just left early this morning and I am being lazy today!! We went 100% while she is here and I am tired! I know she is having a rough time flying home today. SO....I will leave you with this guest post from my sister on their trip to Germany a few weeks ago! I know I still have lots of pictures to share on Prague AND now Italy! Stay tuned, I will try and get those up this week! Until then, enjoy this from Reagan!! I had to laugh when I read it because I had forgotten about the hallway light in Prague...it would seriously go PITCH black. The first time it happened to us, Reagan and I were alone with the dogs and we freaked, then finally found a switch. Hi, this is Reagan, Katie’s slacker sister. She asked me to write a guest post about our trip to Germany and I am just now writing it – oops!! So….Germany…. We left Nashville on a Wednesday afternoon and flew for 10 years until we made it to Erlangen (At least that’s what it felt like!) We met Katie at her apartment and she then made us walk for 50 miles to Tyler’s office (maybe slightly less, but again, that’s what it felt like!) We had our first and only German meal in a beer garden and it was not as scary as I had thought it would be! Interesting observation – Europeans love them some Italian food. We ate a lot of pizza that week. It was awesome. Katie then took us on a brief tour of Erlangen. I was pleasantly surprised by the town. From reading this blog and talking to Katie, I was expecting a lot worse! It was very clean and safe feeling, with lots of young people and families. The area where Katie and Tyler live looks like it could be in any American city but there were sections that looked more “German”. If you have ever been in an IKEA and thought, like I have, “This is so cute! I wish my whole house could look just like this!”….just go to Germany and you will be cured of that idea. EVERYTHING IS IKEA! It’s crazy. When Tyler got off work on Friday we threw the puppies in our rented Ford and headed to Prague. We rented a two bedroom apartment (again furnished by IKEA) in a building with a lot of locks that were impossible to open. Seriously, neither Katie nor I ever mastered the art of opening the door. And apparently Czechs are energy conscious because the hallway lights were on timers, so they would go out after a while – not good when you are going down the stairs or trying to unlock a door and you don’t know where the light switches are! Prague was incredible – I would love to go back there with more than 2 days to visit. We walked all over the place and saw tons of beautiful buildings and sites and this post would be ridiculously long if I tried to describe it all. I will just say, if you go to Europe and have a chance, go to Prague! The rest of our trip was spent hanging around Erlangen and Nuremberg and getting to see what Tyler and Katie’s day to day lives are like. We ate at some of their favorite restaurants, hung out in Katie’s coffee shop, went to the grocery store and tried not to get run over by bicycles. I am very impressed with how well Katie and Tyler have adjusted and adapted to being so far outside of their comfort zone. I know it hasn’t been easy to figure out everything from scratch but they are hanging in there and doing well. And the puppies too! They have learned to potty on sidewalks just like big city dogs. We had a great time on our German vacation, but the best part was spending time with Katie and Tyler. We miss them very much and can’t wait for them to be back on US soil!

Change of plans

Not much new around these parts...the temperature is dropping and dropping. Last night was frigid cold. I am sure it was today too, but I hardly left the apartment so I wouldn't really know. :) Last night we met Christoph and his wife again for drinks. It is always fun to hang out with them and learn more about Germany and compare our countries. We learned last night that the university here in town hasn't actually been in school at all since we have been here, they don't start until this week. So, it will be interesting to see if the town is more crowded now. Oh! We also learned why there are always so many kids out in the afternoon around here...they only go to school until 1:00pm! We are going to try and get together with them at least one more time before I head home!! So, we cancelled our trip to Paris today. I have mixed emotions about it because I was thrilled to have the opportunity to visit Paris, but I am also THRILLED to get to go other places. The strikes are getting more and more intense and more people involved....they are cancelling more and more flights and I would hate for us to get there and get stuck. The man Tyler is working with here in Germany actually called him tonight to tell him that we should reconsider traveling to Paris. The police are breaking up riots in the streets with tear gas. That is along with the threats that a terrorist attack was in the near future. We decided that mom is coming to visit to have fun and there are plenty of other beautiful places to visit in Europe! SO....we are headed to Milan!! I am thrilled because I really did want to visit Italy while we were on this journey. I cannot wait to see what this weekend has in store for me and my mom! It will be so much fun! More tomorrow with pictures when I have a better internet connection. I have tried to add more pics of the apartment today, but can't get them to load here at the apartment.

Prague and our weekend

This has been a totally lazy weekend! It rained all day Saturday so we hardly left the apartment. We did get up in the morning, grab the pups and head to the bus stop to ride the bus around town for a little while and see what areas we had yet to see!! We didn't find much interesting, mostly just neighborhoods. But it was fun to get out and see more of Erlangen. After that we decided to take the bus back to the Aldi grocery store and check it out. It is across town, so we haven't been there yet. We were very dissappointed. :( We actually tried to leave but realized we couldn't get out of the store with our cart (and the Euro in it) unless we went through the line, so we bought a bag of gummy bears and then headed to our regular grocery store to shop! Today we slept late and we are spending our afternoon at Coffini having some internet time. Tyler has some work to do and I need to blog because I have been such a slacker lately! Prague was absolutely amazing! We had such a great time! I would love to go back someday with more time and be able to explore the city more because I know there is so much that we didn't get to see. Tyler got off work on Friday afternoon and headed to pick up our rental car. We threw the puppies in the back seat and loaded up and we were off! We are only about a 2.5 hour drive from Prague and it was fun to be able to drive straight there without worrying with trains, etc. A little celebrating on the way there! A few months back Reagan did some research and discovered that we could actually rent an apartment in Prague on VRBO and it would be cheaper and much larger than a hotel. It also worked out well with us having the pups! Even though Prague is one of the most dog friendly cities in the world, it was still nice to not have to leave them in a hotel room where lots of people were coming and going. They tend to bark a lot. :) And in our apartment we actually had a room away from the hallway that we could lock them in where there wasn't as much noise! At the last minute the guy we rented from had to move us to another place because the water was out in the original apartment we were supposed to be in. I think we actually got a better deal :) When we arrived in Prague we had to meet someone at the first apartment and they would show us where the new one was. Here our some pictures of the place we stayed...it was great! Straight out of IKEA. Reagan and I tried to imagine if we lived there. :) Here is a view out of the living room window of our apartment...there were a couple of bars across the street which the boys enjoyed. And they were SUPER cheap! After we unloaded all of our stuff, we headed out to explore a little bit and find some dinner. Turns out Czech food is more unappetizing then German food and consist of a lot of pork knuckle. We were all pretty tired and cranky so we settled on something familiar...Italian. Which was actually really good! Don't we look tired!! We walked around a little bit after dinner and had a beer at a bar, but it was an pretty early night for us because we were all pretty beat! Well, we are headed back to the house for dinner! Maybe I will post again later tonight. The puppies are getting baths tonight to get ready for their Grandma's visit!! And incase Tyler has to go to Saudi this week, they need to be prepared for Paris. :) I have already started mentally packing to come home because after my mom leaves we will only have 5 days without visitors!! Which is AWESOME, but I also don't want to have to pack while anyone is here! And considering a load of laundry can take up to 3 hours, I really need to stay organized and on top of it so it will be easy when it comes time to leave!

Teaser!

Here is a little teaser of Reagan and Mikey's visit so far!! Their flight was delayed just a little bit in Frankfurt, so I spent all morning out on the porch watching for their taxi cab! I did know they were delayed because Tyler looked it up on the computer and let me know. But, I was so anxious for them to get there, I couldn't stop watching out the window! Plus, I knew they wouldn't really know where to go once the cab dropped them off, it can be a little confusing. After they arrived, we walked to Tyler's office to meet him for lunch at a Beirgarden. They were able to experience the walk I take most days to the coffee shop. We look hot, right?? Reagan has an excuse...she was traveling for HOURS! I don't really know what is going on with me. :) Kitzmann is the beer that is brewed locally here in Nuremberg. So, of course there are ads and umbrellas EVERYWHERE. We had to sit inside because it was a little chilly out, so that was kind of a bummer. Mikey is excited about his German sausages!! After lunch, we took the pups home to rest and I took Reagan and Mikey to show them around Erlangen a little bit. We found the site where they do the beer festivel here in Erlangen which is supposed to be another one of the larger festivals in Germany, along with Oktoberfest. Obviously not nearly as big, but still a lot of people. It is amazing to see all of the tables and how many people they cram in to these spaces! A painting on the side of a building right outside the grounds. After we wandered around for a while, it was time to head back to the apartment to meet Tyler for dinner! On the bus...yes, the dogs go almost everywhere with us. Wait til the pics from Prague. Apparently the bartender realized that we were having a good time and sent this over...I think we all threw up in our mouth a little after we took it because it was so gross. We asked the waitress what it was and she said martini, but we weren't convinced. So, we tried to pour what we left in each shot out evenly in our empty drinks to look like we drank it. :) Mikey's niece calls Tio Mikey instead of Uncle, so we had to take his picture in front of this sign. Tio is the name of the restaurant where we ate dinner and there is construction going on around it, so it can be a little confusing on which direction to head, so there are signs. Wembley is scared to walk over the little metal bridges that they have laid down...so I have to pick him up and carry him. :) After dinner we headed home to celebrate Reagan's birthday since I wasn't able to be there on the actual day!! And of course, watch the Glee DVD that she brought us! Tyler is excited for cake too!! Even little Wems had a drink to celebrate!! So, that is our first day....get excited about what is yet to come!! We had SO much fun in Prague. I have decided that I want all my visitors to do a "guest post" on the blog either while they are here or after they leave and share their opinion of Erlangen, and our life here in general! I think it will be interesting for everyone (and me) to see it from another point of view!