Birthday Adventure

Hello lovely friends! I hope you all are doing well!!

If there is a terrible blogger award out there, I totally deserve it! Lately, it has been so hard for me to find time to sit down and read all of my favorite blogs, as well as write about our daily adventures! So this post is definitely overdue and REALLY LONG!

Last Friday we hopped on a red-eye at 1:15 a.m. and finally left the middle east to return to our lovely home in Germany! We arrived at 6:30 a.m. back in Frankfurt, grabbed a cab, and made it home in not so record timing because we managed to grab the slowest cab in world history... but we made it home safely nonetheless.

We showered, did a load of laundry, ate breakfast, and were back on the road by 10:30 a.m. YES WE'RE CRAZY! We set out for HOLLAND! I had been wanting to see the Keukenhof Festival in Holland since we moved to Germany, and since it was my birthday weekend, that's exactly what we did. My awesome husband found us a lovely hotel on the beach and made my birthday weekend so special!

Here are LOTS of pictures from our trip. I took over 400, but I'll spare you and will only post 100... just kidding. But if you don't like photographs, you might want to skip this post.

Our hotel

Since it was the tulip festival, they had a tulip parade and it passed right by our hotel. Here are a couple of the tulip floats.

After the parade we headed for the Keukenhof Gardens.

It was an incredibly beautiful day at Keukenhof, we couldn't have asked for better weather. The flowers were amazing! I've never seen so many flowers or people for that matter, in one place. Jon said it reminded him of the crowds at Disneyland. We had such a wonderful time! But that's not it... I'll be back soon with more pictures of the rest of our adventure to Holland. Stop back by on Monday for photographs of the tulip and hyacinth fields. Here's a little sneak peak.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Hopefully there is lovely weather where you are and you can spend the weekend outdoors!

Tschüs from:

Stuck in Qatar

Well hello lovely friends! Hope you all are doing well!!

As you can read by the title of my post, my flight was canceled yesterday to return to Germany! It's a bummer, as we've already been here for two weeks (Jon's business trip). But I REALLY can't complain, because they have re-booked me onto a flight for Thursday night, and with some wheeling and dealing Jon got me booked on his returning flight, so we'll be flying together. Thank God it all worked our really well. I was so stressed to fly out yesterday because from what the news was reporting it still wasn't completely safe, and sure enough my flight got canceled anyway. Just two more days here in Qatar and then we'll finally be home in Germany!

My heart goes out to the poor people stranded and sleeping at airports or spending loads of money on hotel rooms, etc. etc. because of this disastrous volcano. We really can't complain because we are both still in our hotel and we really aren't having to spend any extra money to get home. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those people that have suffered because of this silly volcano. I hope they get everything organized soon and that everyone can finally make their way home and back to their families and friends.

Now to some pictures! This weekend we checked out a mangrove swamp/salt marsh that is about 30 miles away from where we are staying. I thought it was so interesting that there was a marsh and I definitely wanted to check it out. Here are some picture from that trip...

The Mangrove trees

The salt marsh
Jon walking in the squishy marsh.


I walked through the marsh barefoot. It was actually kind of gross, it felt like really warm sticky mud. My feet were completely caked in... marshness.


As you can see, if you look closely, my feet are being swallowed by the squishy muck. I actually lost my shoe in a mush hole and Jon had to dig it out.

After we walked through the marsh we decided to try and find a beach that we had read was nearby. The last time I was at the beach was when we went to Ireland LAST YEAR in April. Here are some pictures of the beach.

It was SOOOO lovely to spend a little time at the beach. It was really quite, and there were very few people, so we got to enjoy the beach practically all to ourselves. Living near the beach would be like Heaven... maybe one of these days we'll get the chance.


I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday!!

I Left My Brain in Germany!

Hello lovelies! How are you all? I hope everyone is wonderful!

I, on the other hand, think I have left my brain back in Germany. Since we've been here in Qatar, I have been so scatter-brained and totally out of it. I am blaming it on the heat!

Today, I got up like I do every morning, went to grab breakfast and returned to our hotel room to get ready to go hang out at the pool. I took off the clothes that I wore to breakfast, put my swimming suit bottoms on, put on my cargo shorts and a t-shirt and headed out for the pool, iPod and water in hand.

Once I got to the pool, I pulled off my cargos, sat down on the lounge chair, and pulled off my shirt so that I could lather up the ole sunscreen...

But I stop dead in my tracks... freeze, AND REALIZE I had COMPLETELY forgotten to take my bra OFF and put my bikini top ON! There I was still wearing my white bra with navy polka dots with my mis-matched green bikini bottoms. YIKES! I scrambled around frantically, like a crazy person, grabbing my t-shirt and throwing it over my head so quickly I nearly knocked my head off.

Then I scanned the area to see if anyone had noticed my utterly embarrassing mistake. Luckily, I think I was in the clear... I laughed at myself OUT LOUD, put my shorts back on and hi-tailed it back to the hotel room to put my swim suit top on.

Seriously!!!! who does that... Where is my brain!!

Have any of you done something so silly?? I'd love to hear your story, So I don't feel like such an idiot ;)

Repelling Window Washers

Hello lovely family, friends, and blogging buddies! I hope y'all are doing well on this Wednesday morning!

This morning when I woke up, I looked out the window of our hotel, and to my surprise saw this...
I have never seen window washers before! And to my surprise they were only hanging by one rope each. Are you kidding me! They're repelling the building, while washing the windows. These guys are either brave or just plane crazy to be hanging from one rope from a building that has a gagillion floors. But of course they're safe because they're wearing a helmet... HA!!! I had to capture a picture. I give them props because I'd never choose this as my profession, it's just too darn terrifying.

Only two more days until our weekend. In Qatar they have their weekends on Fridays and Saturdays, and work Sunday through Thursday. There are mangrove swamps here, which I thought was pretty interesting and not normal for a desert, so we might check that out this weekend. There are also several beaches I'd like to visit while we are here.

Today, I'll be planting my nose in a book by the pool under the shade, in hopes to NOT get burned again! I went to the pool yesterday, sat under the shade completely out of the sun, and STILL managed to get burned. How in the world does that happen. It's like the sun is a magnet to extremely white Irish girls!!

Hope you all have a HAPPY Wednesday!

Weekend in Qatar

Hello lovely family, friends, and blogging buddies! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!
The weekend just flew by for me, but that's what it always seems to do.

Saturday Jon and I went to see the movie Shutter Island at the movie theater in the cool mall I posted about last time. Sadly we got the times screwed up and ended up seeing Daybeakers instead.

I was totally surprised by this movie, and actually really enjoyed it. It is a different spin from your typical vampire movie. I was really impressed! Ethan Hawke plays a hematologist and is looking for a synthetic form of blood for the vampire population to live on, because they are running out of human blood/humans. Willem Dafoe was a vampire who was turned back into a human after an accident. They work together to figure out the cure. You should definitely check it out if you haven't already.

Last night we went to the souk (the local market) to have dinner and walk around checking out all of the local vendors. We ended up in a part of the souk where they sell fabrics and local clothing. The colors are so vibrant! Here are some photos... (please mind the poor quality of the photos, I didn't bring my big girl camera.)

And lastly, Jon's favorite thing to visit at the souk... the falcons!
In Qatar falconry is huge. They use the falcons to hunt for sport. This shop had pictures of several falcons and the "prizes" they caught. Some falcons can even take down deer. WOW. This one is for sale and of course Jon wanted to buy it right then and there. "Um NO honey... but maybe next time." Pshhh ya right. But they are pretty incredible.

We had dinner at a Malaysian restaurant and I ate until I couldn't breathe! It was very tasty. That's about all of the excitement I have for our weekend in Qatar! We've been training for our half marathon in May and for me it is so DIFFICULT to train on a treadmill. I've been having shin issues and the treadmill only makes it worse. But gotta push through because the race will be here before we know it! May 23 is just around the corner.

Well, I hope you all have a fantastic Monday!
Until next time, Farewell from Qatar!