Maryland Blizzard

Yurtle the Snow Turtle

Mike's snow angel

So Mike had a short trip to Vegas planned for work in the middle of December and he was planning on stopping in MD on his way home to see family and friends near the holidays. Well I couldn't let him go without me! Luckily he found some really cheap airline tickets for me and I was able to take a week off of work. The day after we got home from Dublin we headed back to the States - Mike to Vegas for a couple days and me straight to Frederick.

My flight home was pretty uneventful if uncomfortable. Flying tip - stay away from the Philadelphia airport, especially if you are just transferring planes. That was terrible. But I made it home and spent a great week relaxing, shopping, and spending time with Mom, Dad, and Katie. I was looking forward to Friday night when we would get to catch up with Ryan and Lindsay and Saturday we all of the extended family would be coming over to the house. And then the blizzard hit. Fortunately we still got to see Ryan and Lindsay but they had to come up to Frederick because I was afraid of getting stuck in Ellicott City. Instead they got stuck in Frederick - Thanks guys!!! And unfortunately there was so much snow that no one could come over Saturday :-( Luckily we planned ahead and I did get to see some family on Friday and Saturday. Plus being snowed in for a lazy day was very enjoyable!!

Mike and I played in the two feet of snow we got, trying to sled, and making a snow turtle (the snowman didn't work out so well)

My flight back to Germany was supposed to leave Sunday night. Wow were the airlines ridiculous!! Long story short I abandoned the commercial route and was luckily able to get on a military flight with Mike from BWI. Straight flight to Germany and much more comfortable. Its just a commercial jet but something about having it full of military members makes the flight attendants more friendly and the flight just more enjoyable overall.

Christmas in Germany was very quiet. We spend Christmas eve and day with our friends the Munshis. Eating good food, playing the Wii and just having a nice relaxing holiday.

Christmas morning

We hope all of you had a Merry Christmas!

Dublin

on the bus

St. Patrick's Cathedral

The second weekend in December Mike and I took a quick one night trip to Dublin with our friends Emily and Jamal. Earlier this year I discovered a band called Paramore (They were on the Twilight soundtrack - I'll admit that's how I discovered them!) and while I was looking at their website one day I saw they were touring in Europe. We hadn't been to Dublin yet so we thought it would be fun to combine the two.

We left very early on Saturday morning, slept through the flight, and arrived in Dublin around 10am. So we had the entire day to explore the city. Since we were only going to be there for one night we decided to take the hop on hop off bus to see as much of the city as possible. We hopped off at St. Patrick's cathedral which was gorgeous. We decided not to go in though because they were charging a fee! We hopped back on and then hopped off again at the Guinness factory. The process of making beer was pretty interesting (don't taste the hops - yuck) but the best part of course was the free sample on the roof top bar. Yummy beer and a view of the whole city.

After our tour we went back to our hotel - a very nice apartment I found - to rest up for the night. We ate dinner at an authentic Irish pub (yummy fish and chips) - complete with rugby on the TV. And then we began our trek to the concert. We hadn't really figured out the Dublin public transportation and didn't want to pay for a taxi. The concert venue was supposed to be just down the river so we decided to walk. 20 - 30 minutes later we finally made it! I personally think it was worth it but I'm sure there was a difference of opinion :-)

The concert was fantastic. Well worth it. There was lots of dancing, jumping up and down, and singing along - and not all by me!

The next day we checked out a Christmas market we had noticed the day before and went back to some souvenir shops. We caught our flight back to Frankfurt - Hahn and arrived in Germany to snow! We made it back home around 11pm. Just in time to go to sleep and wake up early for our trip to the States!

A Zermatt Thanksgiving

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone!

This year Mike and I decided it would be fun to get a jump on the season and go skiing for Thanksgiving. We ended up going to Zermatt, Switzerland with 6 other people.
we parked the car on a train through the mountains for part of the trip

Zermatt is a beautiful little town. No cars are allowed so we had to park and take a train into town. Everyone gets around by walking, biking, or these little electric taxis. We stayed in a 4 room apartment that had a beautiful view of the Matterhorn - apparently one of the highest peaks in the Alps. The only problem was all of the stairs we had to climb to get to that beautiful view.

crazy stairs - our apartment was the top one!

The weekend was wonderful! We switched to skiing this year - I gave up on the snowboarding, too hard! There wasn't much snow. Apparently its the warmest its been in years! So I was a little scared of all of the ice. The second day I fell several times - ouch! But it snowed a little Friday night so there was powder on the ground Saturday! On Saturday we tried to make our way over to the Italian side of the mountain but we were too sore from the previous two days to ski much.

it was cold and windy up there!

very crowded lifts

We missed Thanksgiving dinner and being with family but we figure we should make the most of our time here while we still can. We didn't miss Black Friday! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We are so thankful for our wonderful family and friends!!