Life on the Plains

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Wed. June 15th: Sweet American Soil!

Our flight left around 10am Germany time...so in Kansas it was 7pm. Needless to say we did not get any sleep on the flight home. We had a connection in Detroit and then finally landed in Dallas around 5pm. By the time we got our luggage and got to our car it was around 6:30pm...our bodies thought it was 1:30am. We were tired and had a 5 hour car ride. We had to get back because Ben had to be at work in the morning...poor guy! We were on our way and Ben said he would drive first and I would take the second leg. However I slept and could not wake up. Ben ended up driving all the home with the help of a "Monster"...

The trip to Europe was AMAZING!! We saw so much in such a short amount of time. But still...there is nothing like the USA! It is good to be home!!

Tues. June 14th: Relax and Pack

For breakfast Justin and Kari came over. It was good to see them one last time. It is always hard to say goodbye. Especially when you are separated by a large body of water.

After breakfast Ben, the kids and myself took a little hike behind the house. My brother lives in the middle of some pretty big hills with great hiking trails.

Most of the rest of the day we hung out and got all of our stuff packed to leave in the morning...

Mon. June 13th: Relax

We spent the day just hanging out. It was fun to be around family! For dinner we met my sister Kari and her family at Chili's (on base). It was good to have us all together one last time before we headed home.

Sun. June 12th: Back to Ramstein

What a wonderful 4 days we had in southern Germany. Thank you Coy and Evelyn for the wonderful time! We have many memories that we will cherish for a long time to come!!

This was our hotel.

On many of the buildings including the homes there were Bovarian paintings. This is one that was on our hotel.

Thank you God displying your majesty in such an AWESOME way!!

Sat. June 11th: Meran, Italy

After a day of not being in the car, we rested up enough to take a 4 hour trip to Italy. Northern Italy was different than the other countries however not anything like Venice or Rome.

We followed our GPS...it took us on the "shortest" trek. It was way up high in the mountains. I was pleading not to come back this way. In the picture you can see the autobahn. It is the straight line behind the houses.

The autobahn was amazing in its construction!

Here is one of a few castles we saw on our trip.

The vineyards were all on the sides of the mountains. They were a beautiful sight!

We made it to Meran. It is a place where Europeans will vacation because of its unique climate. It is a warm spot..80s. Yet the mountains are all around.

An Italian home.

This was the first time I had seen palm trees with mountains in the background. Like I said it had a very unique climate.

Evelyn explaining to me the climate.

It happened to be the weekend of a special market. Foods from all over Italy were brought to the market. We tried food from this Sicilian bread company.

There were lots and lots of cheeses too.

Yummy canoli!

I am not sure what this was called. It was ok. The texture was grainy...the inside though had some really good cheeses.

We kept seeing this yummy looking orange drink. Come to find out it is a drink known in this city. So of course we had to try one. It was a wine with spritzer in it. It was served with sugar on the rim.