The Adventures of Jon and Steph

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Our Make-shift Ladders....

When we found our home here in Germany, we didn't realize that when the tenants that lived here previously moved out, they were going to take all of their light fixtures with them. This would be NO problem if we lived in the states, because think of how many places you can get nice light fixtures in the US..... but for some reason it's been like pulling teeth to find nice lighting here that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. For the first few months of living here we just used lamps and floor lamps for lighting, then gradually we found fixtures here and there that we liked. We had such a hard time finding a nice chandelier type of fixture for the dining room, and finally this weekend we agreed on one.

Now, since our ceilings are 13 feet high, and we don't have a 12/13 foot ladder, it's a bit of a challenge to replace the lighting. Or at least I thought, but leave it to my husband to come up with a solution.....

This is in our bedroom. We put in a very simple fixture.

If you look closely you'll see that he has taken a small table, turned it upside down and placed it on our bed. THEN he sat a chair on the upside down table and used this as a ladder! Maybe not the safest way to replace lighting, but hey.... it worked!

This was last year when we first moved in and desperately needed light in the kitchen, Jon took a desk, put a chair on top of the desk and TA...DA! a ladder.

My husband is definitely a handy man! Now we only have one more light that needs a fixture and our lighting situation will finally be over. Whew, what a pain!

Hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday!

Monday, August 10, 2009

I'm Back!

Well, hello my lovely friends! How is everyone???

I am finally back from my blogging hiatus, and I sure have missed all of you and reading about your daily adventures! I can't believe I've been away from blogger for so long. Honestly, I've just been a little busy and haven't really felt compelled to write. I sure am glad to be back and hopefully I can get caught up with reading the gagillion posts I've missed out on.

Nothing too exciting has been going on with the Adventures of Jon and Steph.

Since I last blogged here's what we've been up to:

We saw The Hangover in the German theater.

It was my first theater movie in Germany EVER! and thankfully it was in English. Let me just tell you, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. The movie was hilarious! Especially at the end as they were flashing through the pictures from their long forgotten night in Vegas..... too funny! If you haven't seen it, do so, you won't regret it.

I'm almost finished planning our entire trip to Italy in September. I have all of the hotels and plane tickets booked, except for a hotel for our last night in Rome. I'm having some difficulties finding a good place that is near the train station. We have to get up so EARLY the morning that we head back to Germany, and I want to be near the train station so as not to have a conniption trying to be at the airport on time.

I got my Gussy wallet!

She rocks so much and made me a custom wallet. I really needed a wallet with two separate pouches, one for Euro and one for Dollars. She made that happen and I love it! I'll be doing a Gussy giveaway in a couple of weeks. Be looking out for that!

We've been helping our friends Sarah and Deaner out a little with their new house. They have lots of painting to do, and I went over last week to help her start painting her kitchen. She finished it, and it looks GREAT! Also, Sunday we spent 4 straight hours peeling away old.... and when I say old I mean OLD, wallpaper from one of their rooms. Even after 4 hours we couldn't get it all removed, so the poor thing continued working on it after we left and has gotten a lot more removed. What a job! But after it's all taken off, we'll paint it and the room will look brand new. Their house is going to be AWESOME! They're big football fans like us, so I'm sure we'll be spending Saturdays over at their place wathcing loads of college football.

And the most exciting thing that has happened since my hiatus is..... we bought our tickets to go home in December for Christmas and New Years! I am SOOO thrilled about this. We haven't been home in ONE year, and I so look forward to seeing our families and friends. We'll be visiting for almost three weeks. We have been away for TOO long. It will be so wonderful to spend the holidays at home.

I hope you all have a fantastic week! This Friday starts the Rheingau Wine Festival here in Wiesbaden and I am ecstatic. It's a two week festival with lots of great wine and good German food. I'll be posting lots of pictures of that I'm sure. Have a great Monday!

Monday, August 3, 2009

One Year in Germany

One year ago yesterday we left our family and friends to start a new adventure in Germany. What a year it has been! With lots of ups and downs, fantastic trips and learning to live in another country on a daily basis, it has definitely been the epitome of an ADVENTURE. Even though there have been difficult times, I am still very grateful for this adventure. It is a way to explore and travel throughout Europe while experiencing every-day life and every moment with my amazingly wonderful husband. There are definitely those days when I long for our family, friends, my job/clients, Mexican food, Target, Hobby Lobby, Swimming Pools, American television, seeing a movie when it first comes out in the theaters instead of weeks later, Lions Head, barbecues, Sonic, fried okra, my mom's cooking, Brandii's pretzels........ You see where I'm going with this ;)

I know that our life here is short, but God has blessed us with this amazing new life. So I am learning to enjoy it and this experience because it is definitely an adventure of a life time.

God is good, boy is He ever!

So with that being said I thought I'd share our first year in Germany. And what better way to do that than ..... you guess it.... through LOTS O' PICTURES!

If you are not one for pictures, you might want to just stop here ;) I post loads of pictures so that I can have these memories documented for the future.

12 Months in Germany

August 2008