It's Been Awhile...

I cannot believe that so much time has passed since I posted about our lovely lives in Germany. Right after I finished school, we took off for a summer trip to the US, so since we were actually spending time with our friends and family I didn't feel the need to post about what we were up to for friends and family to read. This will be a mish-mash of sorts to fill everyone in on what we have been up to lately.

Starting with today (and going backwards a bit)...

Check me out...being all German and drying my laundry in the sun!

If you know me, you know this is not typical. Having a dryer was one of the negotiation points in even being willing to move to Germany despite the quaint practice of air drying laundry which is typical here, but I honestly cannot imagine running it right now because it is HOT and we are not blessed with AC in our cozy little apartment. In fact, for the most part AC is entirely missing from the country of Germany. Apparently they did not get the memo that icy cool air is to die for in the overpowering heat of summer.  John did get some fans, but the only place I have found AC is at the little gas station mart across the street. I may get lots of snacks this summer just for a moment's reprieve from the sizzling heat!

When summertime comes and I can bask in the glory of being a teacher who does not have to work for two glorious months, I have to shift into project mode because my cute husband gets a wee bit jealous that I have so much free time on my hands. He is busting his butt working very long days, so I figure I need to be productive at home as well.

So, my little project today was replacing the lost buttons on our duvet cover. They have actually been missing since we lived in Portland, but I do not consider myself a competent sewer seamstress, so this was not a project I ever dreamed of doing myself. John is the one with sewing skills in the family which he proved when he sewed my ripped teddy bear in college (one of the many reasons I decided to keep him), but today was my day to learn how. I tried asking Lucinda aka the domestic goddess (my quilting teacher) to help me because she has a sewing machine that has a button sewing function, but she was not able to help me out today and suggested that it would be just as easy to hand stitch them on.

Easy for who?

Me?

uh....

So I thought to myself...Katie you are a smart girl. A smart girl who is getting a doctorate....You need to learn how to sew buttons!

So I went to the best resource I know...youtube!

I found a short video showing the process of showing a button and voila! My button sewing project is complete!

VICTORY! (said ala Johnny Chase in Entourage)

Ever since I got home from the US I have been exhausted! Jetlag on this leg of the trip totally knocked me out. Since John has been getting home late, we have been staying up late, which is followed by not being able to fall asleep, which is followed by getting up early with John so he doesn't hate me for having the luxury of sleeping in, which is follow by exhaustion! Yesterday I took a four hour nap, then took a sleeping pill at night and got in a good 11 hours. I feel better now.

Earlier this week, I helped my good friend Jill finish packing up and sent her off to Amsterdam where she spent a few days before heading back to the US for good. Jill has become a great friend here in Germany and I am very thankful and happy that she will be part of my solo adventure in Portland this upcoming school year. In helping her get ready to move, I was very thankful that we had the assistance of a moving company because she basically had to pack everything herself and aside from shipping a few boxes, she could only take what she could carry on the plane. Yikes! Somehow we made it work and I waved goodbye Wednesday afternoon. Now, I am officially friendless for the remainder of the summer as Jill, Christy, and Christina are all gone.

Right before returning to Germany, I spent a few days in Virginia with my best friend Cristina. It was so good to see her and do some shopping (our favorite activity!). We enjoyed a lovely dinner at "our place" (Bertuccis), some rooftop sunbathing in DC, fantastic cupcakes from Hello Cupcake & Georgetown Cupcakes, a wedding, and lots of shopping. 

Before visiting Cristina, we were in CT visiting my family. I stayed for several days after John went back to Germany to enjoy time with my mom and dad. Mom and I did some marathon shopping excursions which left us wiped out...but not too wiped out to enjoy silly movies like Beverly Hills Chihuahua and When in Rome. We also walked about 30 miles doing our 5 mile loop around the neighborhood because even though we put in some long days shopping which included lots of walking, we didn't really think that constituted exercise...

When John was still there, we went to Aaron and Michelle's wedding and got to see some Nova peeps. We kind of felt old when we couldn't even remember the names of some of the people that we went to school with not too many years ago  (in our defense they were not our same year), but they ALL remembered "Top." He really enjoyed hanging out with some of his buddies from the tennis team and we had a great time at the wedding.

We also got to spend some time with our adorable niece Alyssa and her mommy and daddy. My parents put on a nice belated birthday dinner for John and me at their house and we enjoyed some of Mom's good home cooking and fresh veggies from Dad's amazing garden. John also enjoyed hitting some golf balls with the boys and the Topel wine that my parents got for us.

Going all the way back to the first part of our trip, we spent some time in California with John and Margaret. Margaret took me shopping on my birthday and we got pedicures and found some great shoes!

For my birthday dinner we went to a fabulous sushi place and had our own little room to celebrate and enjoy the great food. California was sunny and relaxing and we had fun seeing Sean and Rayne (even though baby Brendan did not make his grand debut until after we left!)

We love Germany, but it is so nice to spend time with our families and good friends back home. I have left out many details of the trip, but it's hard to include every part since it was 2.5 weeks of straight fun for me. I am not sure how interesting the next few weeks of my summer solo time will be, but I will try to post more frequently now that I am back. I have about 4 more weeks until I head back to Portland for some doctoral classes and Kindergarten sans Johnny. Since my departure is almost exactly 1 year (to the day) after we moved here, I think I will use that as a stopping point to print what has been posted on this blog into a book for a nice keepsake. I am not sure what will happen with the blog once I am back in Portland, but keep checking in for the next few weeks!!