New Years & New Age

New Years Eve is my favorite. I have no idea why. Personally, I've always been a bigger fan of holidays that allow you to spend time with friends rather than family, but I also have not lived near my family for holidays in a long time. New Years Eve is a much more enjoyable holiday to spend away from your family than say, Thanksgiving.

This New Years, however, was an extremely depressing reminder of how lonely we are in Germany. After 7 months, we still haven't made any friends that are in a similar position in their lives as ourselves. It's pretty hard to throw a New Years party when no one can attend because it wouldn't start until after their children's bedtime. We couldn't go out of town because of Greg's extra duty, so I ended up working New Years Eve and falling asleep shortly after coming home. Greg woke me up before midnight to see if I wanted to watch fireworks outside. There weren't any planned, organized fireworks here, just a bunch of people setting them off in their backyard. We drove around for a few minutes to see them. It was a strange feeling that our entertainment for the night was watching other people set off fireworks in their backyards. By the time we got back home, the whole city was covered in a cloud of dust and smoke from the fireworks. Augustus was terrified by what sounded like a firefight happening outside. Aside from that, it was a pretty average day for us.

My birthday also corresponds closely with New Years, so I am officially one year older! We didn't do much for my birthday, but I didn't care to either. I baked my usual Black Magic cake which was ruined by our POS military issued oven, but that's a totally different and uninteresting story. We went to Chipotle in Frankfurt, which sounds kind of sad considering that's basically a fast food restaurant, but we both love Chipotle and it's as close as we can get to eating something "American" here in Germany. I probably enjoyed that fast food more than anything else I've ever eaten on the economy.



I don't really do resolutions, but I am very excited that 2013 is over as it has not been a great year for us. We're ready to start 2014 with a little more optimism and I do have a few goals I'd like to complete. Mostly, I want to save more for retirement and finish paying off my car. I know, nothing big or exciting over here. Hopefully, we'll do some more traveling, but I wouldn't consider that a goal. We've been talking a lot lately about planning a trip to London in the first half of this year and I'd still really love to persuade Greg into a cruise this summer, but he's still not interested! Who doesn't want to spend a week on the Mediterranean drinking and eating?! My crazy husband, obviously. Hope everyone else had an awesome start to 2014!

One Year

A week ago, Greg and I celebrated one year of being happily married. Even though we've only spent a month of that time living together, it was great to get away and reflect on the roller-coaster that was our first year of marriage. With so many military members having these miserable marriages that end so quickly in divorce, I'm happy to say that Greg and I are adjusting very well back into our relationship together since he's been home.
We drove out to Pagosa Springs for a long weekend of snowboarding, hot spring dipping and drinking. As is typical for us, we took more pictures of the stops we took on the way to our vacation than our actual vacation. On the way there, we stopped at the Royal Gorge to walk Augustus and generally terrify myself on the giant bridge to nowhere. Augustus had an intense stand-off with a bighorn ram, but somehow, we all managed to make it out of that park alive.

Imagine a rickety wooden bridge swaying over a million foot drop to jagged rocks.

The scenery everywhere was awesome. I wish we lived farther west in the Rocky Mountains where everything is beautiful all the time and it snows in increments of feet.

Pictures don't even do it justice.

On Sunday, we spent the day at Wolf Creek, where they actually had 4 feet of real snow on the slopes. No need for the fake snow they have to throw down on most ski resorts in Colorado. I took a snowboarding lesson while Greg boarded the most difficult slopes alone. We are at two very different skill levels, obviously.

It was about 5 degrees outside by 3pm

The rest of the time we ate, drank and froze our butts off getting in and out of the hot springs. On New Years, I was so exhausted I passed out around 10 pm. Guess we're getting old? Augustus had to sleep in a cage because the cabin owners were heartless chihuahua haters. He was happy when it was time to head home.

Along the way back, we stopped at the Great Sand Dunes which really just looked like giant snow drifts this time of year. Augustus chased Greg around off leash to get out some of his energy and then passed out the rest of the way home. 

Just a man and his chihuahua

It was a great trip! Next year, I'm thinking Paris for our anniversary and New Years. I mean, we'll only be a short train trip away, right?