Summer 2017

Well, it's summer and we still like our little fluff-ball Royal. He's a fun dog that loves to play but isn't too much work. I also tried to go on a run with him and he lasted about 4 blocks until he wanted to walk, so him and Natali and are great running buddies. 

Summer picnics with Royal eager to see all the fun food we brought for us him.

Our tradition of going to see fireworks up in Allen on the weekend before the 4th of July is always fun. Natali had to fly to Germany for work and would miss the 4th of July this year so it was nice to be able to go with her so she could still see some fireworks. And Royal is not afraid at all of the fireworks which is nice. He just wants to run around and lick everyone's face, and he would if we didn't keep him on a short leash. 

So while Natali was off in Germany, Royal and I walked over to our neighborhood 4th of July parade. It was pretty hot out, but Royal seemed to enjoy seeing all the people walk by. 

Royal sure misses Natali when she is away though. Here he is curled up on the couch and looking out the window for her to come back. 

Meanwhile Natali was working hard in Germany. She had a day or two to enjoy the sites and was able to go to Baden Baden for a spa day and also see a few sites around the area. 

So while Natali was getting massaged and sitting in the spa, before she left she had committed to hosting a work summer get-together at our house. It was a 4 course dinner, where appetizers, dinner, dessert, and drinks were each at a different house. Well we were the dinner house, and I prepared all the food. We hired some help the day of to help cook but I did all the prep work and most of the cooking. 

We prepared Huli-Huli chicken, Hawaiian Pork with rice, baked veggies, and grilled pineapple. I had to prep everything the night before and it was quite the undertaking. I called my mom and got a bunch of her tips for everything and luckily it seemed to have turned out really well.  We decorated the backyard with Tiki torches and sprayed for mosquitoes and luckily we had great weather and no mosquitoes. 

Natali's firm always does a lot of other fun summer events. One this year was an 80's themed party. Can I just say that Natali is smokin' no matter what era she is in?

And the last work summer event is usually the dinner with the summer associate that Natali was able to mentor all summer and give them an offer to come back and work the following year. This summer it was Tayler and Natali was so excited to extend an offer to her!

Royal eyeing my delicious mushroom Swiss burger. 

On of my (failed) projects over the summer was to try to get some tomatoes and cucumbers to grow. We have a lot of shade in our backyard so my thought was to build a grow box on wheels and move it so that it would be in the sun for longer... Well it didn't work. It was too heavy to move, the wheels were too small, and the backyard was too muddy. Gotta think of something better for next year. 

In August we were off to St. George to see Natali's little sister, Tracie, get married. There is only one more of the siblings (Jayden) that isn't married now that Tracie is married. 

Then after the wedding Natali, Royal and I went up to Duck Creek and stayed at the Wyson cabin for a long weekend. We had a great time exploring nature on the quads and relaxing.

Royal saw a flock of sheep without a shepherd and sure wanted to herd them to safety. We decided that probably wasn't a very good idea...

So we continued up the mountain to a lookout to have lunch, Royal's favorite part of the day. 

I brought my drone and was able to fly it around a bit as well to capture the great scenery. 

But Royal's favorite part of the trip was laying by the pool. 

Also, I was pretty proud of the flowers I planted out front of our house this year. 

Germany in May

Natali here.  I'm handling this blogpost instead of Reed since some of the photos are from my own time in Germany before Reed came out to join me.   2017 was full of many trips to Germany for work but this post will focus on one of my two week work trips in May that I extended by half a week so that Reed and I could travel around a bit.  In my first week in Frankfurt, they were having their annual "Green Sauce Festival."  The festival is all about celebrating this famous creamy green sauce that goes on meat, potatoes, and pretty much anything.  Don't even ask me what's in it because I have no idea but it's delicious.  Isn't this meal below just about the most German-looking meal you have ever seen?  I got this at the Green Sauce Festival and it was delicious.

One of my first stops every time I'm in Europe is at a supermarket for cheese and chocolate.  There is just something about Europe, cheese and chocolate that really brings me a silly amount of happiness.  I remember one night towards the beginning of this trip when I found myself sitting in my cozy bed in the hotel room with chocolate in one hand and cheese in the other and I thought to myself "I can't believe I'm getting paid to be on this trip...this is the life."  ;-D.

It can get lonely on work trips but sometimes it can be nice to get some quiet alone time.  During this trip, I ate at an incredible french restaurant alone and it was one of the most incredible meals of my life.  There is something kind of cool about just eating in silence and focusing only on the delicious flavors of the meal.  

Over the weekend on this trip, I also was able to get away from Frankfurt to experience the legendary Brenner's Spa in Baden Baden.  The spa was awesome but the best part was the beautiful pool (pictured below) that opened up into a garden right next to the river that runs through Baden Baden.  Baden Baden translates to "bath bath" and it's actually a very famous spa and bath house town.  But be careful, all the spas have dual-gender areas and if you accidentally venture into them (like I did), you may see some sights you NEVER wanted to see (and those sights might still give you nightmares years later haha).  Below are some pictures from spa day and tour of Baden Baden.

And now for the fun part when Reed came to join me in Germany.... We started in Frankfurt but Frankfurt is not very picturesque so soon after Reed arrived, we headed out to Strasbourg in France.  Reed found a charming little bed and breakfast for us to stay in outside of Strasbourg while we explored some of the adorable towns along the Alsace wine route.

First up on our Alsace win tour was Riquewihr.  It's a very cute little fairytale town with both French and German influences.  It definitely felt more touristy than some of the other towns we saw but it's great for pictures so we took a lot!  Here are some of our favorites:

Many of these little fairy-tale style towns are top destinations for the Christmas market tourists in the winter so they often have little Christmas stores like the one above open all year long and the decorations are always gorgeous.  As shown below, we stopped for a "small" lunch before moving on.  We got cheese and potato dishes (with a little salad), as those are pretty safe bets in these areas.

After Riquewihr, we moved on to Eguisheim.  If you are in the area, I highly recommend stopping in this town and walking around because it is adorable and the perfect French fairytale town.  Also, as you can see below, they have insanely large birds nesting at the tops of their churches that are also pretty cool to see haha.

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After Eguisheim, we went down to one of the most beautiful French cities I've ever seen: Colmar.  If we did this trip again, we would stay in Colmar instead of Strasbourg.  We thought it was a lot cuter and did not feel like we had even close to enough time to see it (though that was partly due to the fact that we did this whole trip in just a few days since I'd already been gone for two weeks when Reed arrived).

The next day, we spent the morning walking around Strasbourg.  Here are some photos of Strasbourg:

In the afternoon we headed back to Germany to show Reed one of my favorite places in Germany: Heidelberg.  It's a must-see in Germany and I highly recommend going up to the castle.

After Heidelberg, we drove to Rothenberg aub der Tauber.  We made it just in time for the Night Watchman Tour.  He was great.  He told us about the history of Rothenberg and the stories were fascinating.  It is such a beautiful little town and I highly recommend spending the night there because they close the city gates at night so the only tourists there are the ones actually staying within the walls.  It makes for some beautiful night photos.

The next day, Reed woke up early to take pictures of Rothenberg without a bunch of tourists and then I joined him during the normal waking hours :-).

That night we headed to Wurzburg.  In Wurzburg, we ate at an incredibly delicious restaurant that had no menu--you just ate whatever the chef was making that day.  It was so fun and yummy!  Then later that night, I tried to take some night photos and was getting frustrated that cars kept pulling into my shot.  But then I realized I could probably do something cool with that so here is my night bus shot that I'm pretty proud of :-):

And on the last day of our little Germany vacation, we just bummed around Wurzburg.  Here are some photos we took during our little tour of Wurzburg.

Reed thought this bench was VERY well designed as you can tell :-)