Summer Days in the USA

This past summer, Kyle was able to take almost an entire month off from work, so that meant a leisurely trip back to the USA!  We hadn't been back to the Maryland/DC area since we moved to Germany in the spring of 2012, so we decided it was time to visit.  

We had a wonderful time catching up with friends that we hadn't seen in over three years.  A week certainly wasn't enough time, but it was better than nothing!  We even got to catch up with friends that we made here in Germany that moved back to the States.  Our two awesome friends, Jason and Liz, hosted us for the week at their place in Georgetown.  They made us feel right at home.  It was so much fun staying with them! 

We miss you!!!!

Jason took us on a bike ride to Theodore Roosevelt Island, a small park on the Potomac River.

Jason was also nice enough to take us on a tour of the beautiful Eisenhower Executive building and the West Wing on his day off.  We even got to see the Oval Office!  It was really awesome to see!

Eisenhower Executive building

Eisenhower Executive building

The White House press room

Annapolis was one of our favorite places in Maryland, so we went for some crab cakes and a stroll around town one afternoon.  It was a nice afternoon, but we forgot how humid it can get around there!  Yuck!

How I've missed you, crab cake...

We got crab-picking lessons from our native Marylander friends that we met in Stuttgart. Delish!

After a fun week of catching up on the east coast, we headed to our home in the the heartland, Indianapolis.  We loved spending almost three weeks catching up with family and friends, eating delicious food, and enjoying long summer days.

It was so much fun seeing our nephew while we were in town.  I was so happy to be able to go to Isaac's 2nd birthday party! He is such a cute little guy, and 100% boy!

Kari and I love decorating cakes together and had a lot of fun with this one!

Dinner and drinks with my sis and bro-in-law at St. Elmo, an Indianapolis institution

MotoGP weekend in Indy

We have a wonderful group of friends in Indy that goes way back.  It was a treat to be able to spend so much time with them!  They did an awesome job introducing us to all of the fun new places.  Indy has a fantastic new foodie scene! (Including the foodie scene at Kim and Brian's house, where they hosted a fabulous dinner party for us!) Some of our favorites were drinks at Hotel Tango, brunch at Milktooth, and tacos at (not so new anymore) Bakersfield.

Highly recommended: The Taxman Brewing Company. It will make you look as cool as us...

We spent a Sunday afternoon on the Pickled Pelader; a beer bike that you drive around downtown.  It was soooo much fun!!  (Don't worry, the expecting mama did not get pickled!) I stole these pics from Facebook :-)

Visiting the Indiana State Fair is a must for Hoosiers every summer.  We went a couple of times to enjoy a nice variety of artery clogging deliciousness.  

It was a special treat to have enough down time for Kyle to go out and enjoy himself taking pics, just for fun.  He and our friend Ray went to the grounds at the Indianapolis Museum of Art to practice some shooting.  

One beautiful afternoon, Kyle's mom and the two of us drove about an hour south to Bloomington to visit our alma mater, Indiana University.  IU has a gorgeous campus, and Bloomington is such a fun town.  We love going down for a visit, though we don't get to do it nearly enough! 

Our awesome trip was ended with a not-so-great flight back to Germany.  We flew in to Chicago, where our flight to Germany was delayed more than six hours.  We finally boarded the plane (that had not been updated since the early 80s), and then were told that the flight was cancelled. We stayed overnight in Chicago before doing it all over again the next day...not fun.  At least we made it back safe and sound which is truly what matters!

Just a month later, we headed back to the States just for a short time.  Our friends that hosted us in DC got married, so we couldn't miss that!  Kyle took the photos for their wedding, and did a phenomenal job.  You would never know that he had never shot a wedding before.  The wedding was beautiful, and the bride and groom looked like models!  They planned a fantastic wedding and reception!  Here are a few of our favorite pics.   

We are so lucky to have been able to spend so much time with some of our favorite people in the world!  We have the best family and friends, and hope to see some of them over here in Germany soon!

Home for the Holidays

For Christmas, Kyle and I were very blessed to be able to go home to Indiana and spend the holidays with our family and friends.  It had been a few years since we were home for Christmas.  Our first Christmas in Germany, Kyle's family came to our place, and we had a nice cozy holiday together.  Last year, my cousin Erin and her husband (back then boyfriend/fiance) were here for Christmas, and then we traveled to Indy shortly after.  We are very lucky to have always had family here with us, but it's not quite the same as being home for the holidays!

Kyle and I had been traveling like crazy the couple of months before Christmas.  We didn't have time to see a lot of our favorite Christmas markets locally in Germany, but we did have time to check out one new market that easily became one of our new favorites!  It was in a little medieval town about 45 minutes away called Bad Wimpfen.  They only hold their market for a couple of weekends, so it was crowded, but so atmospheric!  The little half timbered buildings looked like gingerbread houses and yummy smells of glühwein, bratwurst, and sugared nuts filled the air.  It was pretty magical!

We flew to Indy about a week and a half before Christmas.  It was great being there in time for all of the festivities and parties before hand!  We got to catch up with a lot of friends and family that we hadn't seen in far too long!  We got in the Christmas mood at parties with the Guynns, the Joests, the Wilsons, the Nelighs and many of our friends.

The Joests...Nice duck face, Dad!

Olive meets Great Grandmommy!

We <3 the Kruse family!

Hanging out with Uncle Jim!

We were so excited to see our niece, Olive, and our nephew, Isaac!  They change so much every time we see them!  They are just the cutest!

A cute little elf got off the plane from London!

Sadie loves Olive!

Peek-a-boo, Isaac!

Check out Isaac's Deutschland shirt!

Of course you probably know that we have a number of "American" foods that we have to eat when we go to the States!  Some items always on that list are pizza and Mexican food!  We also had some exceptional home cooked meals, like Dad's slow smoked barbecued ribs and Mom's chicken puffs!

We had very nice, traditional Christmases with our families on Christmas day.  It's a lot of fun now that we have little ones to watch with their gifts!  I'm so glad that Cory, Lynn and Olive were also there from London!

Sisters!

Cory was very happy with his own toys to play with!

Kyle just had two weeks off of work, and those two weeks flew by!  He had to leave the day after Christmas, while I was able to stay an extra two weeks.  Kyle wasn't looking forward to going back to Germany alone, but it helped that he had some beautiful snow and Gizmo there to greet him!

I was still in Indy for my birthday and New Year's.  I spent New Year's at a party with our friends Jason and Lydia while poor Kyle was at work!  Since Kyle wasn't there for my 30th birthday, I decided to have a fun girl's night out.  We had a tapas dinner at Barcelona, then went out for drinks on Mass Ave. The girls made it a fun birthday for me!

We had a wonderful time seeing everyone in Indy.  It was such a nice treat being home for Christmas. We look forward to our next trip to the States, when we'll be able to see some sun and green grass!