Made it!

Actually we made it here to MO last Friday it's just taken me a little while to sit and write about it! The drive went very well, and we didn't have to take the crazy long route that we originally planned. We found the car we were looking for in New Mexico! We ended up getting an Audi Allroad and we love it, it's a little older (2001), but it's in pretty good condition and we paid a fair price for it, so we are definitely happy.

Since we arrived we've basically been getting to know the new community we will be living in. We visited one of the local churches on Sunday, and have driven around trying to familiarize ourselves with the area. It's been crazy hot and humid out here!

Matt started work on Monday and is enjoying it. It's been weird sending him off to work in button up shirts and slacks instead of his uniform, but it is just something we are going to need to get used to!

We are looking forward to this weekend, on Saturday we get to have breakfast with some college friends of mine who are travelling close by, AND we get to move into our new place as well! We are excited about getting settled in!

Making our way...

Well, our time in Southern California is up and tomorrow morning we will be making our drive East to Missouri!

The time here has been wonderful we have loved hanging out with Matt's family and friends, there certainly are some special people in this part of the world, we love them!

We have been trying to acclimate back to life in the US. We did some very important shopping... shoes, clothes, cell phones, See's Candies. It was funny getting cell phones. We were just about ready to get some iPhones then the guy at Best Buy mentioned the 3G network..."What's a 3G network?" we asked (a long time spent in Germany will do that to you!). Once we found out what it was we took a look at the coverage for our area in MO, and there was none. I'm glad we checked! Our iPhone days will have to wait. We did get some phones with touch screens though I figured we could get our fingers in shape for the day that we do get them. I'm a planner that way...

Our drive out East is a very random route! Basically we are doing some car shopping along the way (Matt needs a car for daily driving) and stopping in some cities that have the type of car we are looking for, so basically we will be heading to MO, via Santa Fe, Denver, and Kansas City. Hopefully we find what we are looking for! We will definitely let you know!

Last but not least, I heard from my dad yesterday, he made it to Iraq safe and sound and is getting settled into work and his container (his room). So begins the year tour, please pray for his safety and job there as you think about him.

Hopefully next time you hear from us we will have made it safely to Missouri!

OH! I almost forgot! Today marks the last day of Matt's being full time active duty in the Army. He did some truly amazing work during his time in service. I am so proud of the way he served with dignity, honor, and integrity; and we are so thankful for the experiences and opportunites that the Army provided us.

A couple of updates

There were a few trips and events that ended our time in Germany and I wanted to give each of them the attention they were due, so if you scroll down the blog here, start at "The Black Forest" and go up from there, you'll get all the updates.

I guess I should mention also that we flew out of Germany Sunday. Very sad. We arrived in California though to the smiling faces of Matt's parents, and the next day woke up to the bright sunshine of Southern California, it was a good "welcome back".

We will be here in California for a couple of weeks before we start making our way out to Missouri near the end of the month.

A Final Goodbye

It was hard saying goodbye to our friends at the Hospitality House. We were definitely blessed by the friendships we formed there. Many memories were made with that group in just the short 8 months that we had with them.

On Friday night, Jim and Diane hosted a goodbye dinner. The food was amazing and it was just a really nice time to spend with friends. We are going to miss that group so much!

Sorry. No pictures. : (

Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

Another incredible trip! The weekend after the Black Forest (previous post) we went with a group of friends down to Switzerland for some camping. This camping trip was just my style! We set up a bunch of tents and of course did not forget our air mattresses (I am very particular when it comes to sleeping in comfort!), we ate as a group for breakfast and dinner, and we definitely ate well. Jim and Diane set up our menu and we had things like Flank Steak and Mashed Potato's, Fajitas, Pancakes, French Toast. All that to say...we weren't quite roughing it!

BUT what we were doing was having an incredible time sharing life and adventures with friends. We were rather active this trip and that was right up my alley. On the first day, I decided to wake up early and go for a long run, I went through the mountain valley passing about 10 truly spectacular waterfalls, again, a run where the view was just amazing. Another top ten (yep, that makes two top ten runs in the span of a week). When I got back to the camp some of the group was going to hike for the day. We were hoping to get a good hike in on this trip so Matt and I jumped at the chance.

We left the campsite and started on what we thought would be a decent but not incredibly intense hike. 7 3/4 hours and 1925 calories later we returned to camp absolutely wiped out, I felt particularly wiped with that run in the morning as well as the hike!

We ended up on quite the adventure on the mountain, we ascended pretty high on some fairly steep trails. We found a gorgeous glacier lake that the guys thought would be awesome to try and get in to (I didn't witness anyone getting in much over there knees). We had to cross some pretty terrifying areas of snow on steep inclines. We were met with thunderstorms, and on the decent were also met with steep/tiny trails which required some real thought and careful steps to get down them.

It was an adventure and absolutely a huge highlight of the weekend for everyone that experienced it.

The following day we were definitely up for more physical punishment and went on a bike ride down the valley. It only took us a little under an hour to get to the town we were aiming for, but that was because we pretty much glided downhill for a large part of it. We had lunch in town and made our way back to the campsite, the way back took more like 2 hours since we had to go up hill pretty much the whole way. Matt and I hadn't been on bikes in a while, so boy were our bottoms tired! Though that didn't stop us from riding further up the valley to check out some amazing waterfalls that we had heard about.

An exhausting, yet wonderful trip, I love the memories we made with friends, it will never be forgotten!

Some pics from the hike (unfortunately we forgot the camera during the second days' bike trips)...

Taking a break on the way up...

An incredible view...

Stopping for a snack...

Stopping for a "swim"...

Trekking across the snow, the fear of falling and sliding into the icy, rushing waters at the bottom of the hill had my heart pounding...

Almost there! Don't you love the snow, tank tops, and shorts!

The Black Forest

For a long time, we have been wanting to do a driving tour through the Black Forest. Matt has a book that routes out a bunch of different driving tours throughout Germany. Since the Black Forest was most interesting to us we headed out one weekend for a 2 1/2 day driving trip.

The Porsche, of course, was our mode of transportation. We had a ton of fun winding around throughout the forested highways. The scenery was incredible. Absolutely beautiful. We took time to do some hiking as well, we walked up to pretty cool waterfall and enjoyed exploring the area. On our second day we went out for a long run. We ran along small roads and trails and the view could not be beat. There were forests and fields all around us and in the distance you could see the river that marks the Swiss border and further in the distance were the beautiful snow-capped Swiss Alps. That run was definitely on my top ten list!

Here we are on the side of the road with one of the views we were able to enjoy.

Here we are at the waterfall

The view during our run, can you see the far off mountains? (It's weird that the picture came out so hazy, it was pretty clear that day...oh well)