Spring Has Sprung

I love walking in the parks downtown and have been getting into a routine of walking every Tuesday and Thursday. Yesterday I took my camera with me so I could capture some of the beautiful scenery that Spring has brought to Germany. The trees are unbelievable and everything is turning green again!

The random Rhino in someones backyard

It's Wednesday, that means only 3 more days til the weekend!

The Burg

Sunday Jon and I visited the Burg Castle in Eppstein, just about a 5 minute drive from the Falkenstein castle. We were a little disappointed that it was closed, but I was still able to get a couple of pictures. I thought I'd share them with you.

I love the sky and the trees in this picture.

The beautiful walkway to the entrance.

Looking up at the castle wallsI believe this is the castle entrance.A beautiful church from the view at the top.

Hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday.



Added in: I usually make lunch everyday for Jon and me, but we are getting so bored with the same stuff. We usually eat salad or sandwiches. Do you guys have any good suggestions to add some excitement to our lunches? I mean you can only make so many different types of sandwiches and salads! I'd love any input!!! Thanks a bunch ;)

Hiking, Hiking, and More Hiking

By the title of my post it's obvious what we did this weekend. HIKING and lots of it!
And let me just tell you guys, Jon and I are still flat worn out!

First, on Friday night we met our new friends Sarah and Deaner at the Irish pub downtown. There was a live band playing some fun American Classic Rock and we all had a blast singing along and drinking some good Irish beer.

The band

Deaner, Jon, Me, and Sarah

We had such a fun night with these guys!

Saturday we met with our friends Tara, Ben and their dog Sampson and headed up to Johannisburg, about 15 minutes from Wiesbaden. We mapped out our hike for the day, which was a beautiful hike, through vineyards and then on to wooded area. After walking for about an hour, we stopped at a restaurant to grab lunch and continued on our walk. The weather was fantastic! I wore a long sleeved shirt and boy was that a mistake! It was HOT. Next time I will be more prepared. But it did cool down as we were walking and it turned out to be a beautiful day.

I forgot my camera, but luckily Tara had hers and took several great pictures of our day. I will post them in the next couple of days.

We finally made it back to the car just short of 10 miles. (9.63 to be exact.) I'm calling it a 10 miler because we walked up hill both ways! Thank goodness for Tara who once led a hiking group, she and Ben were able to read the maps perfectly and we never got lost. (well there were a few times we were wondering, but we made it back all in one piece.)

And thanks to my new Salomons, the 10 mile hike did not kill my feet.


Sunday Jon and I woke up early. We took our time waking up, ate a big breakfast and got ready for our trip to Konigstein. I mentioned this castle in an earlier post, and planned on taking pictures the last time we went, but left my camera on and it died before we made it!

This time I was more than prepared, having brought both of my cameras just in case. Once in Konigstein we hiked up the hill to the top where the castle was. Here are the pictures I took from our day trip to Falkenstein Castle.

The church at the bottom of the hill

Jon walking up the steep hill to the castle

The castle entrance

The castle wallA better view of the castleJon and meThe next several pictures are of the remaining castle wallsOutside of the castle walls

After taking over 130 pictures of the castle and having our picnic, (plus glass of wine), we thought hiking was in order. Here is a picture of the hiking trail.

Jon hiding in the roughage

The infamous "point and act like you see something exciting" picture.It was another beautiful day in Germany. We were so fortunate to have a rain-free, somewhat sunny weekend and of course we jumped on the opportunity to spend every minute that we could outdoors. It was a wonderful weekend and spending quality time with Jon was more than I could ask for.

We stopped at Burg Castle after leaving Konigstein. Sadly it was closed, but I was still able to take several pictures of the outter castle walls, which I will post tomorrow.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

If you'd like to see more of the picture from Falkenstein Castle, click here.

Have a great Monday everyone.............

Old Navy Rocks My World

I thought due to it being my birthday month, I'd buy myself an early birthday present!
Since it has been so nice outside, I am in a total springy dress mood and knew Old Navy would be just the place to find some bargains!
I thought I'd share what I found:

Old Navy: $24.50

Old Navy: $29.50

Old Navy: $19.50

I love Old Navy and their prices!
(and I'm so thankful that they ship to us overseas)

Jon came home for lunch today and we ate outside on the balcony to enjoy the nice weather.


I am so thankful for days like these! What an incredible way to spend a lunch time, with the most important person in my life, while relaxing outside soaking up the nice weather! Look at that happy smile...... I'm so blessed to have such an amazing husband!

After eating lunch, I had no other choice but to get some exercise in. We ate enchilada casserole, chips and homemade salsa! That's the price you pay, but it was totally worth it because the food was so darn good. Now I'm off to finish laundry!

Hope ya'll have a wonderful weekend!



P.S. I have yet to figure anything else out about this surprise Jon has in store for me! I'm so good at being a private investigator and finding clues, but he hasn't left a trace of anything. So I guess this time I really will be surprised.

A Surprise

It's my birthday this month and I am so excited! I love birthdays (except for getting older)! Something that is super exciting about this year is that Jon has a big surprised planned and I have NO idea what he's planning. He's never surprised me with anything before so I am really looking forward to what he has in store. Actually I take that back, the day he proposed to me was a HUGE surprise, I had no idea it was going to happen on that day and he completely took me by surprise.

But about these birthday plans..... I am the type of person who doesn't fancy surprises. I like to know what's going to happen. For instance, my 18th birthday my mom put on this big surprise birthday party for me and I had a funny suspicion that there was something going on under my nose. My brother, whom I can read like a book, was being really quiet all day. Finally I asked him if something was going on that I needed to know about. His answer was "Nope." and then he begins whistling. HA HA GOTCHA! I knew it, I then ask if my mother is throwing me a surprise party and bro says, "STEPH ugh please don't tell mom I told you!"

Score, Steph: 1 Mom and bro: 0

Needless to say I should have won an Oscar that night because everyone believed that I was completely surprised! I thank you......

Or the time I REALLY wanted a Maltese and I was trying to figure out if my mom was going to get me one for Christmas! Bro and I were talking about what we wanted for Christmas on the night of Eve and I had a suspicion my mom got me my favorite dog. But I had to be sure, so I told Sean that I didn't want a dog at all, and he freaked out, because my mother already got me the dog. He said she was going to be so upset that she got me this dog and I didn't even want it!
GOTCHA again! I so wanted the dog, I just wanted to make sure that she got me one because I couldn't stand waiting to be surprised.

Score, Steph: 2 Mom and bro: 0

And while I am at it.... I might as well confess that for every Christmas bro and I used to sneak to the Christmas tree and unwrap our presents just enough so we could see what we got, then carefully re-wrap them so my mom would never know! I guess all of that acting paid off because my bro is a fabulous actor and is really going to be famous one day.

I know I'm horrible!

Back to my husbands surprise...... I've got NOTHIN. I have not one single idea of what he might be doing because come on, a girl asks for 7,892,036 things during the year how can I possibly remember everything I've asked for.

I asked him if we were going to need to pack anything like for instance water and almonds (maybe we're going on a kick a** hike somewhere.)

His answer was "and maybe some underwear."

Okay so I've got to pack:

Water
Almonds
Underwear

What the heck!

There's no hope, he won't budge. Normally he's so excited to give me things or tell me things, I always get presents early. But this time it's different.

I'm dying to know what it is!
I wonder if it is something really awesome!!!!!

Well I am off to ponder my next move in this game called "Let's find out what Steph's birthday surprise is!"

Hope you all have a wonderful Thursday!

Seriously, this only happens to me!

So after taking Jon to work this morning I returned home and parked on the left side of our one way street. As I got out, I stepped in kind a grassy dirt area on the sidewalk where a tree is planted and walked the block to our apartment. I sat down at the computer like I do every morning, only this morning I smelled a funky aroma in the air. I kept getting whiffs of this awful smell and had no idea where the heck it was coming from. Finally, after smelling it several times, I checked the bottoms of my shoes and sure enough I had stepped in dog poo! Oh ya. Not just a little, but the entire bottom of my shoe was COVERED in poo. This must have been poo from a ginormous dog, like "The Beast" from "The Sandlot" or something.

At that moment in time I was thanking the Lord that we do not have carpet and then spent SEVERAL minutes cleaning my shoe with scalding hot water. I finally got it off but have it admit that was one of the grossest moment I've had in a while. I had to pick the poo out with a small spoon because my shoes have a gazillion tiny crevasses on the bottom of them. GROSS I know! But I finally got it spic and span. And managed to keep my breakfast down.

When it came around to lunch time I headed back down the block to the car so I could grab Jon and Sarah. As I was driving down the road there came the smell again, gut wrenching burn your nose hairs kind of poo smell. Why in the world would that smell still be lingering?
But it wasn't still lingering......sure enough, I stepped in the same freakin' pile of poo again, only this time got it on the other shoe! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, I knew the pile was there, but my brain completely forgot and I managed to step right in the same area again. Who does that? Only this time I managed to smear it all over my husbands car mat which now needs to be washed. GROSS!!

Dear Beast Owner,

Please pick up your dogs mess when they finish, it's just common courtesy. That is why on every street there are little doggy bags for people to use. The country of Germany supplies them for that very reason!

Thanks,
Disgruntled Stephanie

I told Jon and of course all he can do is laugh and say "April Fools!" No he did not place the poo there for me to step in, but it sure was a nice prank from "The Beast." Thanks a lot!

I guess that's my pay back for playing all of those pranks on my brother when we were younger for April Fools. Like tying a rubber band around the sprayer on the kitchen sink, so when he turned on the faucet, water sprayed everywhere including all over him..... Karma, that's what I get!

Happy April Fools everyone! Watch your step ;)