My wife is wonderful!

Can I just brag on my wife a little?
I just want to say that she is an amazing and beautiful woman.
She's a great cook.
She knows how to run a house and has the energy to do it. Such a hard worker!
She has a great mind for business. She's so good, that she could probably bail the government out of the finance crisis. (But they can't have her, so they better keep looking.)
She's a great listener.
She has a great heart.
She's reading through the Bible this year.
She inspires me with her thoughts on the stories that she's reading.
She loves her family.
She's the cutest pregnant woman I've ever seen!
She's going to make a wonderful Mom!
She's my best friend.
She has my heart and I love her dearly.

I Love you, Marisa!

4th Doctor's Appointment

I went to the doctor last week for my fourth appointment. The doctor said that she was pretty sure that we are having a girl. I'm only 16 weeks along so she could be wrong. But we so excited to have a baby and everything looks really good! So far this pregnancy has gone really well. The only difficult part besides the limited communication with my doctor in English has been not being immune to rubella and having to stay home the past two months. I have just two more weeks before I am free to go out in public "safely." However, we just found out that the flu virus is going around. So, with caution I hope to get out and enjoy the life in Germany. Interestingly, this particular flu strain is different from the vaccinations available this year, so it wouldn't matter if we were vaccinated (Collin was, I was not). Please pray for strong immunities!

5 Wonderful Years of Marriage

On January 4, 2009, we celebrated our 5-year anniversary. We have had a wonderful five years of marriage. We have gone through so much together. Marisa finished her bachelors, Collin got a job in Fort Worth after grad school, we bought our first house, we got a dog, we experienced giving away our dog several times and have missed her ever since, we have moved overseas to Germany, and are now expecting our first child just to name a few big events.

Germany is well known for castles and cuckoo clocks. So, what better way to spend a milestone anniversary than in a castle. We celebrated the weekend at a castle hotel in Hornberg, Germany. We got lost on our way and drove up a mountain on an unpaved icy road. We have a GPS but I (Marisa) put in the wrong Hornberg address. Luckily, we saw a few people outside on top of the mountain and Collin was able to communicate in German to find out where the schloss (castle) was and if we were in Hornberg. They told us we were in Hornberg but that there was no castle there. They said the Hornberg we were looking for was around 90 kil. away, which was about an hour and a half. I took the GPS down from our windshield and put in the zip code for the city we were going to and sure enough another Hornberg showed up. The estimated time of arrival was about 1.5 hours. We checked into our castle around 4 pm. The sun was setting and it was beautiful outside. Our room overlooked the city. We got dressed for dinner and went downstairs to the dining room, yes, we got to eat dinner at a castle too! The dinner was delicious. There was live music and we had a table with a view by a window. We had a wonderful time.

Our castle hotel

dinner at the castle

My pregnant belly

view from our room

breakfast at the castle

views from the castle

The roads were icy and it had snowed that weekend. Originally we were hoping to hike Germany's largest waterfall but the weather conditions made it unsafe, especially for a pregnant woman to hike a mountain in the ice and snow. Instead we decided to drive to Triberg, Germany, and see the world's largest cuckoo clock. We got to see the hour change and the cuckoo bird sing outside and paid 3 EUR to go inside the museum. Thankfully, we were the only people in the museum. Not that it was not a good museum, it is just not a touristy season right now. We saw how the largest cuckoo clock worked and read a little history about the cuckoo clock. We also saw more cuckoo clocks than we have ever seen in our life in the museum's shop. We did not buy a cuckoo clock. Many people have told us that when you move to Germany you leave with either a baby or a cuckoo clock. We plan on leaving with our baby and maybe, if the price is right, we will consider a cuckoo clock as well.

World's largest cuckoo clock

Alsace France

This past weekend we visited the Alsace region of France. This was our first trip into France and we had a wonderful time! We spent our first day in Strasbourg and ate at a nice French restaurant. The French were very friendly as were a couple from Switzerland. Neither of us speaks French so it was nice to hear the couple from Switzerland speaking German. We had not felt so lost language wise since we first arrived in Germany. Thankfully the chef spoke English and she recommended the Cordon Bleu, so Collin ordered that and I ordered the Quiché Lorraine. That was the best Quiché I have ever had. For dessert we had crème brulee. It was good but we actually like the crème brulee we make better. We walked around the town and plan on going back when we are able to tour the cathedral and take a river boat tour.

Cathedral in Strasbourg, France

We spent the night in Mulhouse, France. Most of the town was closed for the holidays. We have noticed one of the biggest differences between this part of France and the part of Germany we live in is that businesses are not opened during the holidays. In fact, the day after Christmas the gas station we drove to in Germany was closed. Many restaurants and retail stores were closed as well. In Mulhouse we only saw one restaurant open besides the restaurant in our hotel. Saturday morning we decided we would go to McDonalds for breakfast since there were no bakeries near our hotel and most of the businesses in Mulhouse were closed. When we arrived it was not open. McDonalds in Mulhouse does not open until 10:30 and does not serve breakfast. In Germany the McDonalds have a traditional American breakfast as well as a McCafé which serves gourmet coffee and pastries all day. We were surprised that this McDonalds in France did not have the same thing. We decided to wait and eat a burger there in case the businesses at our next destination were closed too. We both had a cheese burger, fries, and a salad. They did not have mayo or ketchup but a sauce for the fries. It was a mix between ranch dressing and mustard. The French fries were wonderful.

Strasbourg, France

Our last day we spent in Colmar. Colmar is a beautiful medieval city. It was still decorated for Christmas and the Christmas markets were still open. We grabbed a bite from a bakery there and even got some baked goods to go. This bakery was like the bakery in Germany, they served cold baked goods. The croissants and pastries were delicious but tasted better when we got home and were able to put them in the oven. Overall we had a wonderful time and are looking forward to visiting France again soon.

Colmar, France

To see more pictures of our trip, visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/collin.marisa/StrasbourgAndColmarFrance02

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Our first Christmas in Germany was wonderful. On Christmas Eve we went to our friends Gary and Lisa's house for Christmas dinner. Gary made a gourmet dinner which started out with a delicious salad with homemade dressing, a wonderful sweet potato and pear soup, the main course included yummy potatoes (Lisa made these), awesome carrots, and ham, and for dessert we had Chocolate Decadence Cake, this is a special dessert that Gary makes. It was the best chocolate cake I have had in Germany. Here are some pictures of our evening.

The food was really good!

This cake was one of the highlights of the meal.

Today Collin and I celebrated Christmas as a small family. We ate leftovers from last night for lunch, took a 45-minute walk, played Earthopoly, and made our yearly ginger bread houses. Collin's house is on the left and Marisa's house is on the right. We used to buy ginger bread house kits but a year or two ago we started making our own houses out of graham crackers, icing, and goodies we liked to eat. We plan on sharing this tradition with our children.

We missed seeing our families this year but for being in Germany, we had a really nice Christmas.

Handy Problems

I thought about entitling this blog "Why I hateGermany." But instead I'll just say this is one of many road bumps we haveencountered while living here and keep it to "Handy Problems."

We got our second T-Mobile cell phone (handy) billin the mail. The first one over charged us by about $15. Well, this one was even worse. We were lied to when we signed our contract - which by the way contracts in Germany are a nightmare! We both got the new BlackBerry Bold. The main reason we chose this phone was because we were told we would have free unlimited email for the first 6 months. After 6 months we could continue the unlimited email for 4.99 EUR per month. The sales representative was very convincingand and we thought we did our research. In fact we had visited over a dozen different cell phone stores on multiple occasions. This was Collin's third time to talk with this particular representative. Since email has become one of the best ways to communicate with people back home, we decided to go ahead and signa 2-year contract, written in German of course - which by the way every contract is in German so you really have to trust the people selling you thes ervice. Well, we got our second cell phone bill in the mail and we were charged over $170 more than we should have been. Collin took our bill to T-Mobile and at first the guy denied telling him what he told us when he sold us the phones and the plan. Then he wanted to up sell us to a higher multi-media plan which would cost us over $50 more per month! We were both very upset. Finally the guy said he must have miscommunicated to us and said he would hand-write a letter to T-Mobile in German stating there was a miscommunication with the language. So we had to come back on another day and wait while he hand-wrote a letter to T-Mobile. After waiting an hour, I needed to go to my doctor's appointment which is a few doors down, so he said he would finish writing the letter and fax it to T-Mobile.

I am just upset because of the dishonesty we have encountered while living over here. I cannot tell you how much money we have been out of because of the overpriced goods we've had to buy and people taking advantage of us because our German is not very good. Not to mention we had to get rid of and store all or our appliances in the U.S. because the voltage is different and they would not work over here. It has just been one thing after another. Also all of the services are at least twice the price as they are in the States. There are no Walmarts or Targets, just overpriced stores.

Take this advice, if you ever move to Germany just get a pre-paid cell phone plan. That is what I had at first and wish I would have kept. Then you know what you are spending and you do not risk someone miscommunicating to you and having to spend time and money trying to fix it all. We will let youknow the outcome of this situation.

3rd Doctor's Appointment

Last night I had my third baby doctor appointment. We got to see our baby through a 3-D ultrasound, it was amazing. Everything looks good and the baby is developing nicely. My German doctor does a very thorough exam everytime I go. She even exams the test results through a microscope while I am there. I have never seen a doctor in the States use a microscope so this is pretty neat. It reminds me of some of the science classes I took in school and am thankful that some people do use microscopes outside of labs and classrooms. Part of me wants to ask her if I can look at what ever it is she is looking at but I resist. As she looks through the microscope she tells the nurse what she sees in German, so I have no clue what they are talking about. Once she is done she tells me everything looks good.

The most challenging experience during my pregnancy so far has been being "house-bound." I am not immune to rubella (German measles) even though I was vaccinated twice as a kid. Therefore, my doctor has advised me to stay home and not go out because it would be very dangerous for my baby if I were to catch rubella during the first half of pregnancy. I have been following her orders pretty well. I still get out and take walks every now and again which is fine as long as I stay away from people. Last night she said it should be fine if Collin and I went to France over Christmas but we should not to go inside museums or churches. Basically anywhere inside that could be crowded. She said walking around outside in cute little towns should be fine because not a lot of people are out during this time of year and I have less of a chance catching the virus outside in the cold than inside somewhere.

Overall if I had to choose a time to be pregnant and stuck indoors now is better than any. The weather is cold and wet so I am not missing much being outside, except for the Christmas markets and being around friends. Thankfully, several of my friends have stopped by to visit and I have received lots of nice phone calls and emails and have stayed pretty busy.