Welcome back!

Hi friends and family!

Long time no see! :) Yes, we have away for too long, but we got too busy, first with Johanna (born in May 2009) and now with Michael (born in September 2010).

Here they are with their great-grandmotherI also got my quilt (which I started my freshman year of college) back. Thanks to Lola Crawford (my sister-in-law's mother) it is now finished. Hooray! The front was completely done, all that was left to do was to add the padding and combine it with the fabric for the back! Somehow I couldn't manage to finish this in my following three years of university. But now it's done and receiving it felt like Christmas and my birthday together!!

Have a look! Don't you just love the colors?


Well, this is it for now, as I have to fix lunch for Johanna. She is really hungry!

Recap - Engagement

So, it was on April 1st last year, that Jules proposed to me! :) What a day......

When I arrived at the Portland Airport after a tough weekend of racing, I had no clue what would happen later that evening. I was really exhausted, tired, sun-burned, and just wanted to go to bed. I also did not feel like changing into a nice skirt....but Jules begged me, so I changed quickly in the airport toilet....

I was waiting anxiously for my luggage, and finally I stepped outside where Jules was waiting with this sweet ride:

We drove to Jase and Jennie, Jules' oldest brother's house and there we had a nice family dinner. We had bread, cheese and meat, the German way and I felt very much at home. Still, I had no clue, about Jules's plan and neither did most of the family. Jennie was making jokes about being pregnant because it was April 1st.... :)! Judge, Jules' nephew (5 years old at the time) was still up and said that he wanted to give me flowers as well, so Jules went outside and pretended to help him! A few mintues later they came back, with a wonderful Swan vase with roses and the ring was hanging on the swan's tail....

However, I hadn't seen the ring, and I was really suprised that Jules got on his knee.....now I was totally overwhelmed. He proposed in German at the dinner table with all his family around, it was really special and personal, because nobody could understand what he was saying...I guess they got the idea of it though! :)

Then Jase took this last picture of the whole family and we had carrot cake with ice cream for dessert!!! It was a special day!!

Crazy Times

Ha, here are some pictures from our crazy old times...... :)!
So, did you all laugh?? :)

2008 - so much has happenend!

Hlello Friends and Family!!

Sorry, for not updating this blog in quite some time. I apologize for that! :)
We have been so busy in the past few weeks, well I should say months, with moving back to Germany, vacation in the US, finding a new apartment in Saarbrücken, moving from Ulm to Saarbrücken and for me finding a job! But to fill you in with the details:

1. We moved back to Germany in the middle of December. After cleaning our apartment for more than 6 hours, we were finally told, that we had a done a good enough job. To be honest, Jules did most of the cleaning, and I don't understand why the landlord wasn't satisfied, Jules is such a good cleaner!!! Anyway, we had had a good christmas in Ulm with all of my family.

2. On December 28th we flew to Portland, Oregon and visited friends and family. Unfortunately I was sick for about a week, so we could't do too much. But we visited most family members and quite some friends, and we were happy being back in Oregon! :)

3. On January 18th we flew back to Germany and started immediately looking for an apartment in Saarbrücken. The phone bill was high for about 3 weeks, and after looking at about 20 apartments we found one over our church. It's pretty small, but we stacked it with some IKEA furniture and we like it now! :)

4. The last task was to find a job! Jules will be finishing his thesis, found a doctor he can work with. I applied for several job and took a job at a consulting firm, called IDS Scheer AG. The company is a company, and does IT consulting services and I work as a translator in their sales service consulting center and in their global solutions department. It's too early to say, whether I like or not, but we'll see!

Well, that's what happened in our lives and hopefully I have more time to update this blog from time to time! :)

We miss you all!

Lame Bloggers

Sorry friends and family.....we have been or I should better say I have been a lame blogger in the past weeks. However, I'm always waiting for Jules to bring home his USB stick so I can upload some new cool pictures. But Jules is very busy, so busy that he sometimes doesn't go to bed until 6am or later (and yes it happened more than once). Poor boy! I admire him because he works so hard and I think that he will turn in a very nice research report with excellent results!!
Anyhow, that is my excuse for not blogging.... I know lame, because I should have enough time on my hands.....since grad school over here in Sweden is not really challenging.
Well hopefully I can post some pics this weekend!

News: We are going back to Germany in less than 2 weeks! YAY!

The Magic Flute

It's story time......

Once upon a time there was a little girl who desperately wanted to play the violin. So after some months of persuasion her parents finally agreed and allowed her to have violin lessons. Yes, I started playing the violin around 12 years ago. At the beginning I loved it, and with the years I lost the interest, mostly because I started rowing and didn't have time to do both well. I never brought my violin to Oregon, but I thought, since I stopped rowing, I could start again.
Shortly after arriving in Lulea, I had the idea of joining an orchestra to play with others. After some research and some friendly emails with the city information center, I was contacted by a guy with a really funny email telling me he had a little "Strak orkester" (String orchestra) and would love me to join. The next week Jules and I walked over almost 2miles to this little church where the orchestra was meeting. We were surprised with coffee/tea and cake. The Sweds call it "fika". It was a really small orchestra and the members were way older than me, but it was fun playing with them. After the rehearsal a woman told me about the town's orchestra that would be performing the opera "The magic flute" from Mozart in the middle of November. She told me that I was really good and that i should join them. So the next week we checked it out (Jules accompanied me, since I'm so shy). Long story short, they put me right in the 1st violin and I had to start practising on a daily basis. Most of the time, Jules would do the dishes and I would entertain him with (sometimes) nice or horrible violin play. After 6 weeks of practice the orchestra was (I wasn't) ready to perform in the big "Kulturens hus" (Culture house with a big auditorium) with the opera singers.
All I can say is that it was really fun and a real success!!!

Norway

So a few weekends ago, Jules and I traveled to Norway with some french guys. Stephan, a really nice French guy, who shares the office with Jules, invited us along to travel the "Lofoten" in Norway. The Lofoten are made up of small islands in the North of Norway. The Lofoten are famous for beautiful sceneries with all the fjords and mountains. The Lofoten are 240km long and there is only around 60km from one coast to the next. Approximately 56,000 people are living on the islands working as fishermen or in the tourist branch. It is very peaceful and reminded us a lot of Oregon. This is a map of the Lofoten:
We took a ferry from Melbu to Fiskebel in the hope to see some killer whales who swim to the Lofoten each year in the fall. Unfortunately we were not lucky.

Before entering Norway we crossed the Arctic Circle. It was really cold up there and not much later we saw a big herd of reindeers who were standing next to and on the road.
We also did some hiking, stayed in a original red little cabin, played lots of cards, and tried to learn French. :) All in all the trip was a lot of fun, see for yourself.On our way back we stopped in Narvik, had an amazing burger and found this really cool road sign!