Puppy Pate

Puppy Pate is home!! So far he's been living inside cause he can still slip through the gate in the back and can't be trusted outside by himself. He's now 10 weeks old and is a giant! He's going to be big! He's doing really well, he can sit, come, respond to his name, heal (kind of) and hasn't had that many accidents inside. He's house breaking nicely. Now if we can just keep him from chewing on everything!!

He's gone to the lakehouse with Kris for the weekend, which is nice cause I can actually get things done around the house without worrying about him eating something. He keeps falling in the lake so we had to get him a puppy life vest, it's so funny to see him wearing it.

He also got a visit from Santa, Mrs. Claus, the Elf and the Grinch. He didn't seem too excited about the visit until he discovered the eating the Elf's shoes were quite fun!

Anniversary

While I was traveling, Kris and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary on October 20th! It's been so amazing to be married to such an awesome, Godly man for 2 years! He's such a great husband (especially to put up with me being out of town for our anniversary). I love you Pumpkin!!
Even though I was out of town for our anniversary we still managed to get each other gifts (which is my love language, so Kris has learned to become very good at giving gifts).
I got him a remote control airplane. It's so cool, it can do anything a real airplane can do. Kris has become very skilled at flying it. I flew it for about 20 seconds and almost crashed it, but Kris learned to fly it and take off on land and water and hasn't had any major crashes...he's amazing at it!



And as my present, Kris got me a puppy!!! PUPPY PATE, we've been waiting a while for the breeder we picked to have puppies and they finally did, on our anniversary! Puppy Pate came home on Dec. 13th! He's a white lab.


Happy Anniversary Pumps - I love you!!

Where have we been...

Yes I know it's been forever since I've updated the blog (4 months actually)...and I never finished the Europe Trip (I really am going to try to get back to that). So where have I been? Traveling for work! It's been crazy, hectic at work, thus I haven't updated the blog in a while. So where did I go you ask...

For 2 weeks I was in College Station. Whoop! I hadn't ever spent any time in Aggieland, I was quite surprised by the plethora of good restaurants (which is really the most important thing when you're traveling for work). One evening I walked all around campus and checked it out. It definitely made me miss the college days - going to class in pajama pants - so awesome!

While we were there the client took us to a restaurant and gift shop called Maddens in downtown Bryan - it was so awesome, if you ever get the chance stop in there and eat, do it. The food is excellent and the gift shop is so cute, I wanted one of everything!
We also ate at the Chicken Oil Company burger place - the burgers were so delish! And the restaurant was so Texan, I loved it!



After my trip to College Station I headed to Denver City, Texas (no relation to Denver, Colorado). To get to Denver City we flew into Odessa and then drove 3 hours south west - yeah so basically to the middle of no where...we staying in Hobbs, New Mexico, which was about an hour away cause it was the closest town with a new hotel and restaurants. We audited a power plant...it was so interesting to learn about how electricity is generated!

The sky in West Texas is so beautiful - it's so flat you can see the storms rolling in!


From West Texas I traveled to Galveston to audit Moody Gardens. Moody is always a lot of fun at Christmas. They set up the Festival of Lights which is 1 mile of lights that you walk through, it's really beautiful. It was much nicer being on Galveston Island in Nov/Dec of this year verses last year right after the hurricane.



So what has Kris been doing while I've been out of town all this time. He's been keeping busy working and dealing with estate stuff (particularly the lake house)...more to come on that later...

Laminin

Okay I promise eventually I'll get the rest of the Europe Trip up! But for now, I got this e-mail forwarded today, and think our God is so amazing!

A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term very loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio... And I was BLOWN AWAY! I want to share what I learned.... But I fear not being able to convey it as well as I want. I will share anyway.He (Louie) was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is.... How He spoke the universe into being... How He breathes stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire.. . Etc. Etc.

Then He went on to speak of how this star-breathing, universe creating God ALSO knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder. At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) .... And I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during medical school as I learned more and more about God's handiwork. I remember so many times thinking.... 'How can ANYONE deny that a Creator did all of this???'

Louie went on to talk about how we can trust that the God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart....how our loving Creator is also our sustainer.

And then I lost my breath. And it wasn't because I was running my treadmill, either!!!It was because he started talking about laminin. I knew about laminin. Here is how Wikipedia describes them: 'Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue.' You see.... Laminins are what hold us together..... LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell. Without them, we would literally fall apart. And I knew all this already. But what I didn't know is what they LOOKED LIKE.But now I do. And I have thought about it a thousand times since (already).....Here is what the structure of laminin looks like... AND THIS IS NOT a 'Christian portrayal' of it.... If you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see...

Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!! Amazing.The glue that holds us together.... ALL of us.... Is in the shape of the cross.

Immediately Colossians 1:15-17 comes to mind.'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible And invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;All things were created by him and for him.He is before all things, and in him All things HOLD TOGETHER. 'Colossians 1:15-17

Call me crazy. I just think that is very, very, very cool. Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERALstandpoint, we are held together... One cell to another... By the cross. You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything Other than the mark of a Creator who knew EXACTLY what laminin 'glue' would look like long before Adam breathed his first breath!!

Stella and Dot

It's official! I'm selling Stella and Dot! What is Stella and Dot you ask? It's a fab new jewelry line that combines classic looks with a modern twist, and still at a reasonable price! I decided to sell it because I absolutely fell in love with the jewelry and what the company stands for, and hope you will to!

http://www.stelladot.com/sites?id=ZW]X&reload=true

Wedding March

This is seriously one of the coolest entrances I've ever seen to a wedding...if I had seen this before my wedding, my wedding party totally would have been doing this! Renee - be glad you got out of it :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

Castles, castles and more castles...Day 3 & 4

I know at this rate it's going to take me 3 months to get the whole trip up...but it's not easy working a full-time job, serving at the church, studying for the Exam, and blogging all at the same time, so something had to give...okay back to day 3 and 4.

On day 3 we headed back to Starbucks, where the English speaking tours meet and took the tour to Neuschwanstein Castle. Due to the train tracks being under construction it was 3 hours out there and 3 hours back...

Kris was ready to hit the road...or train track I should say...

The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as an homage to Richard Wagner, the King's inspiring muse. The king was rather eccentric (to say the least) and decided that he wanted a romantic, picturesque castle, so instead of having an architect design him a castle, he hired a painter...and then had the castle constructed based on the painting (not always the most practical way to go about things).


The hike up to the castle was soooo steap...not going to lie, it kicked my butt!!


He was notorious for changing his mind during the construction of the castle, thus only 1/3 of it was ever finished. In 1886 he died a mysterious death...he had basically bankrupted the royal family building his extravagant castles and they were ready to put and end to that. They sent the commissioners to go get him from the castle and return him to the Residenz in Munich. The commissioners had a very difficult time getting through the castle wall to him, however after a week of trying a servant finally let them in (that servant should definitely have been fired for that). Ludwig was declared mentally insane by Dr. Gudden, although never having been examined. Why you ask...it was the easiest way to remove a king from the thrown.

He was captured and taken back to his Uncles house in Munich where 2 days later his body, along with the body of Dr. Gudden, was found, having drawn in the Lake Starnberg. Claims are that perhaps they tried to make an escape and drown, although unlikely, since Ludwig was 6'3, an excellent swimmer and was found in 4 feet of water. To this day the autopsy results will not be released by the royal family.

Neuschwanstein Castle is the most visited castle in all of Germany, but not because of it's interesting history, but because it is the castle that inspired Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland. That mouse has some marketing power.

On Day 4 we rented a car and drove the autobahn to the Hohenzollern Castle, outside of Stuttgart. Kris really enjoyed getting to go as fast as he wanted (within reason, you can still get a ticket for recklessness). This castle was very special to Kris because his family is somehow related to the Prussian lineage at this castle. How glad am I that they Americanized their last name to Hohn?

Why are there no pics of this castle you ask? Oh that would be because at the end of day 5 of the trip, while at the pub in Salzburg, I decided to erase all the pictures on Kris's camera from day 3, 4 and 5...not the highlight of the trip...

More to come on that topic later...

Day 2 - Dachau

On day 2 we got up in the morning and headed to the main train station. In front of the Starbucks is where the English speaking tours left from (I know so American). We went to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. Our tour guide was named Matt, he was from California and was working on his PhD in History, he was very knowledgeable.

Dachau was open from March 1933 - April 1945 when it was liberated by the US troops. 32,000 were there at the time of liberation. It was estimated that up to 80,000 had been there the year before.

This was a replica of the main gate as you entered. It reads "work makes you free". The Nazis not only wanted to suppress people physically, but emotionally and mentally as well. People would read this walking in thinking that if they worked hard they would be released, when in reality the harder they worked the faster they became malnourished, dehydrated and exhausted.

Dachau was a main concentration camp, meaning people would be registered here and then could be sent to one of the 123 subsidiary camps in the surrounding areas. Sometimes people would leave for just the day and return in the evening to Dachau.

The bunk houses

"The Showers" - there was never any plumbing installed, proving that they were truly built with one purpose, a gas chamber.


An estimated 250,000 people died at Dachau. 11-12 Million would die in concentration camps during WWII. 6 Million of those were of Jewish decent.

After Dachau we headed to the Hunting and Fishing Museum (I think everyone can guess which one of us wanted to go there). It was actually pretty interesting and the building was beautiful, I loved how it was all displayed.


No...don't bite! Down boy...


After that we headed to the Residenz. The Munich Residenz served as the seat of government and residence of the Bavarian dukes, electors and kings from 1508 to 1918.


I've been wanting to paint my ceiling blue...but gold applique could work too...


After the Residenz we were quite hungry so we decided to walk around and look for a good place to eat...and that's when we found the mothership...

We ended up eating at this place called Spatenhaus. We had pork and spartzels with cheese in a mushroom sauce, it was so yummy I wanted to eat it everyday!

Europe Trip Day 1 - Munich

I'm going to try to recap our super fun, jam-packed Europe Trip day by day...we flew out on Friday the 26th. We got to Munich the next morning around noon. We had a lay-over in Amsterdam and met a couple (Neal and Vanita) that were from Jersey. We were on the same flight to Munich so we rode the train into the city together. We had planned to do Mike's Bike Tours at 4:00, so they said they would meet us there! Mike's Bike Tours was a great way to get a feel for the city and meet lots of great (English speaking) people!
This is the main town square in Munich, this building is so beautiful!

here we are on our bikes and all ready to go...

The famous Hofbrauhaus

All the gold mosaics and status in Munich face West, so if you get lost it's easy to figure out which direction you're facing.

This church was beautiful on the inside

Most of Munich's churches were heavily bombed during WWII, it's hard to imagine the task of having to rebuilt them...it must have been so overwhelming...

English Garden, it's 22 miles long, so you do not want to get lost in it...

We stopped at the Chinese Beer Garden in the English Garden for some food and drinks. This is one of the largest beer gardens in Munich seating up to 7,000 people.

There had been so much rain in Munich lately (it rained just about every day that we were there, the weather was crazy) that you could surf one part of the river that runs through the English Garden.

After the bike tour a group of us headed to the Hofbrauhaus for some dinner. It was a lot of fun hanging out with everyone!

The food was delicious! We had crackled pig knuckle and potato dumplings - yum!!

After that we were pretty tired from all the traveling so we headed back to the hotel for another exciting day in the morning.
Oh yeah, and Kris got attached by a wild boar statue on the way home...good thing he was up to date on all his shots :)

He was very friendly towards me, I don't know why he decided to attack Kris??

1 Week in Europe

This week has been awesome! I´m too tired to write anything else right now and we have to catch a train to Germany in 5 hours - but it´s been fun so far! We´ve been to Munich, Fussen, Stuttgart and Salzburg. Tomorrow we go to Florence! Don´t worry I´ll post pics when we get home.

Weekend in Denver

After finishing up in Cripple Creek for the week I spent the weekend with Matthew and Ursla (Kris's youngest sister, aka Merv) at their home in Denver - we had so much fun and excitement (especially when we had to take cover from a tornado, but I'll get to that part in a minute)!

Friday night we headed to the Rockies game...that night made for a 9 game winning streak. I didn't really pay much attention to the game (baseball's not really my thing) but I did have a lot of fun talking to Merv, Matthew and their friends Becky and Jodi.

Saturday morning we got up and drove to Boulder. We sat outside and had brunch at this great little restaurant and then went to the market, bought some fresh produce and walked around the shops in Boulder. It is such a cute town, although a little overpriced! We had a great time, I did very well and only purchased one little re-usable grocery bag for my lunch at work.


Saturday night we headed to a couple house parties of friends of Matt and Merv. On the way to one of the parties we spotted Senator Bennet in the car next to us. Since I was driving and Merv was navigating we handed the camera to Matthew to snap a picture...and this is what we got...

I think it's safe to assume the Matthew wont be quitting his day job and joining the paparazzi anytime soon.
Sunday we went to a restaurant called RootDown and ate brunch. The weather was perfect and they had a great patio that faced downtown! From there, Merv and I headed to the Woodhouse spa for a pedicure. Matthew, not super excited about the idea of getting a pedicure, headed to the Rockies game. The spa was so cute, it was in an old Victorian house with a huge wrap-around porch, it was just charming.


After our pedis we headed to the grocery to pick up some food for "jazz in the park" that evening...little did we know the weather had other plans. While driving to Safeway is started to get very dark, the clouds were rolling in...while is Safeway it let loose - it was pouring! The crazy thing about rain in the summer in Denver is IT'S FREEZING! The rain water was so cold, it even started to hail a little at one point, there was no way we were running to the car in that! Then...the tornado sirens started to go off - that was pretty freaky! As soon as the rain let up, we dashed to the car and made it home to take cover. Matthew in the mean time, was still at the Rockies game! Apparently, they could see the tornado from the stands!

After about an hour the weather moved on, the sirens stopped going off, and the baseball game resumed play. We decided not to go to jazz in the park since it had been pouring and the ground would be very muddy. We headed next door to hang out with Matt and Merv's neighbors, Jeff and Paul. That evening was really pleasant so we took a walk around the neighborhood. There were some really cute houses...this one was my favorite...it's very french country...

Monday I was glad that it wasn't raining, so I had no flight delays. Overall it was a super fun weekend in Denver! Thanks Matthew and Merv for hosting!