BBQ Day

Eric got home early from work today, and with bags full of food to grill up! He's a good man. We made shish-kebabs with steak, shrimp, pineapple and zucchini...sooo delicious. As you can tell by the photos of us, it's still so warm outside.

Great afternoon.

Getting Ready for Company!

Well my mom officially lands here in Germany on Sunday afternoon...and I couldn't be more excited. I've spent the week touching up last minute decorations, cleaning, organizing etc etc. Yesterday I got the house completely ready early in the day and since it was SO beautiful outside I decided to walk into town and buy some flowers. And flowers were everywhere! It was almost 70 degrees outside and I felt very European carrying home my little bundles from the store.

I bought a few single flowers in 3 different varietys, some branches and a leafy green wreath for the front door (haven't hung it yet so the photo is of it laying on our unattractive carpet)When I got home I realized that we didn't own any vases--even though I have dozens in boxes at my parents house from the wedding--so I improvised with wine bottles and a pitcher.

Also, this is totally random but I wanted to post these pictures of some bus stops near our home. Aren't they so pretty?

PS-I finally took photos of our place now that it's decorated and will post them soon!

Embracing the Warm Weather

Lately it has been super sunny and warm here ("warm" by our standards is now about 55 degrees, haha) so we've been taking full advantage of the sunshine. Eric had a three-day weekend off work so we wanted to do something fun in the sun, and found just the ticket:

Kristall Palm Beach Resort!! (check it out at http://www.palm-beach.de/)

Eric had heard that the Army Rec Center was offering a trip to Kristall Palm on this past Sunday, but the trip was canceled because so few people signed up, and so we decided to go by ourselves. Eric drove the hour on the Autobahn (our first time!) and it was well worth the trip. It pretty much was just an indoor water park, complete with wave pool, indoor & outdoor hot-tubs, water slides, restaurants, saunas, etc etc. It was sooo much fun! I'm pretty sure we just laughed the whole day.

We were a little overwhelmed at first: not knowing they had co-ed locker rooms, not knowing where to change, not knowing how to lock the changing room door, not knowing how to leave the changing room, not knowing how to use lockers, not knowing how to get out of locker room. I'm sure we looked ridiculous. We ended up just finding other people wearing bathing suits and following them to the right doors, haha.

The place had so much to offer, and I'm certain we didn't even experience everything that was there. At least 3,000 people were swarming the place; sleeping under heat lamps, floating on inner tubes, and lounging in all sorts of different mineral pools. We saw our fair share of men wearing speedos (Eric, sporting board shorts, was the minority), almost all of which had nowhere near the body type necessary to pull off that small of attire.

Eric and I started off in the wave pool, and I don't think I've seen Eric that excited in quite a like time. He was jumping up and down along with all of the other kids. And kids were everywhere. Besides parents of toddlers, we were definitely the oldest patrons there. We then wandered into different pools and waded around outside and inside. The ceiling of the main area was a big glass dome, making the whole place heat up like a greenhouse. It felt so good!

Soon we found a group of kids (haha we sound so creepy) carrying inner tubes and followed them up a few flights of metal stairs to the top of a ride. We thought we were in for a "lazy river" type of situation, but were verryyyy wrong. No lifeguards, or anyone for that matter, were monitoring the ride, so groups of kids were all going at once. And not everybody had tubes. And it was anything but "lazy". It was by far the craziest tube ride I've ever been on. I felt pretty bad however, because around every turn I was taking out handfuls of little children at a time. I guess I couldn't feel too bad though, because seconds later a 200lb man (E Clark) would come tumbling down and cause such big tidal waves that I was certain kids were drowning under my feet. At one point, after my tube and I crashed into the wall/a child, one boy turned to me and yelled (surprisingly in English) "LOOK OUT!!!!! HE'S COMING!!!!". That "he", my husband, then came down the slide, yelling like a gorilla, while the tiny children and I could only watch in horror and try to get out of the way. Needless to say we only went down twice before we felt too guilty to go down again. I was just exhausted from laughing so hard, and we were both all banged up (I think our bodies were too long for the little tubes and narrow slide).

We only stayed another hour or so after that, after eating some cheese pizza poolside. Eric cruised back onto the Autobahn and we laughed back on our silly day. Upon entering Eschenbach, we realized the Eis Cafe (ice cream shop) was open for the season, and had no choice but to order a treat to cool down with in our little Bavarian town.

Below: Eric with his banana split and me with my chocolate-hazelnut soda! Sooo good!

A Few Yummy Things

Since we really haven't been doing anything this week, I decided to post a few photos that make me feel good!

First, the famous pizza from Pizzeria Peppo that we are sooo addicted to. They pile on the toppings and everything tastes super fresh. Our favorite is the Sabina Pizza: covered in cheese, shrimp and artichoke.

Now that we are regulars there, and regular "tippers", the waiter has started bringing us complimentary Cherry Schnapps after our meal. It is seriously delicious and we feel like we finally belong!
Ok, so this last picture isn't "yummy" but the sun has finally come out after weeks of clouds and frost, so I snapped a picture of our side yard area this morning. See all those dirt piles? They're actually mole hills! Mole hills are EVERYWHERE on the countryside here; we'll literally see hundreds on them on our 20 minute drive to Grafenwoehr. It's illegal to kill rodents here in Germany, so they are clearly living the good life. I don't mind if they live here, I just don't ever want to see one.

Hope this post finds you all well in America!

Bleerrggg

Eric and I are both sick and stranded on the couch. I got food poisoning Saturday night and must have passed it on to him.

We are accepting donations of Gatorade and Jello.

Also somebody to carry us up to our room.

Happy Birthday Eric!!!

Today is my handsome man's 23rd birthday!! And in the 4+ years we have known each other, this will be the first birthday we have ever actually spent together...and it's in Europe! Who would've guessed?!

Anyways, Eric got tomorrow (Friday) off work so we'll have a 3-day weekend to celebrate and relax. Today I'm baking a "Better Than Sex Cake" (see the photo below) at Eric's request and we'll probably go out for a dinner here in Eschenbach. As for the rest of the weekend...I think we're planning on getting out and doing something fun, even though it's supposed to snow again.

It's so strange posting photos of his gifts before he has even seen them, but here you all go:

A big enough (but still small) BBQ. Eric pretty much has been talking about how he wants to become a "grill master" since we got engaged.

A bonzai tree! He was looking at a lot of them at OBI (hardware store here) and has kept up about how he'd like one. I think it's quite adorable.

And now, a few photos of my gift: Eric Matthew Clark.

Here he is enjoying a mojito on our Honeymoon. Somebody approached us at this restaurant and asked if we were from Hollywood. We felt like it.

Jane is the only girl who I'll share Eric's attention with. Before Eric and I got married he told me that if I hadn't fallen in love with her, it would've been a deal breaker.

Eric back in the good ol' days where he worked in NYC. We talked on the phone at least twice a day, and still apparently had no clue we were totally in love.

Eric is definitely one of the goofiest people I know. Sure, he acts pretty quiet around my friends and family...but he makes me laugh more than anybody in this world.

We only have a few photos of Eric during his time in Iraq. I don't know if that's a bad thing or not. I remember getting this photo via e-mail while I was in college, and showing my whole class. He makes me so proud.

Here we are on the best day of our life!! Was that an amazing weekend or what?

Happy Birthday E Clark! Thanks for making me history's luckiest lady. You're my best friend and I love showing you off to the world.

Kids

I just had a few short stories regarding children, and thought I'd bunch them all together into a short post.

1. Last Tuesday was apparently Read To A Child Day in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday, and Eric's troop was sent in shifts to read at Grafenwoehr Elementary School. It ended up that they could bring wives, so Eric brought me as his partner. We had to wear these giant "camo" Dr. Seuss hats (Eric looked about 12 feet tall) and got paired up together with a 3rd grade class. The teacher actually had us sit on opposite sides of the room and have the kids take turns reading to us. They were sooo shy about it! No girls wanted to read to Eric and no boys wanted to read to me. It was pretty adorable. By the end of the afternoon we were both in a great mood...but a little sick of "Green Eggs & Ham".

2. Eric and I decided to head to the gym on Saturday to shoot around the basketball a bit. There was a pick-up game going on half of the court, and another hoop had a group of middle schoolers playing HORSE...so Eric and I ended up sharing with a 7-year-old boy. He was pretty cute at first, then ended up running off with our ball every chance he got, throwing it AT us, laughing hard whenever we missed, yelling at Eric...and all at this while he was in the process of trying to pull out his front tooth. It was so incredibly gross. We kept looking around for his parents, but they apparently didn't exist. Finally we just left and decided to be a little less nice next time.

3. We finally got to Skype with Eric's little sister Jane. She was pretty shy at first but then was her silly self. I talked to her "privately" about what I should get for Eric's birthday, but she didn't approve of my ideas. Instead, she offered her advice: "Umm...you should get him a baby". Maybe in a few years Jane.