New job, Special Visitors, and our First Venture to the Continent!

We have had so much going on in the past few weeks. Let's see, where do I start... Ah yes. On June 3rd, my Mom, Dad, Aunt Mar, and Uncle Dick came to visit! Jordan and I were extremely excited to have our first set of visitors, so we spent much of the week prior to their arrival cleaning each and every corner of our house, doing some gardening, and even washing our cars. (If you know my Dad, you'll understand) ;) Let's just say that this is a big house for two people to maintain! We were exhausted! I promise to create a Facebook album soon with lots of pictures of our house looking spic-n-span!

The night before they arrived, Jordan went on his first "real-deal" overnight mission. It was my first night staying in The Langtry alone, so Cooper was allowed the special privilege of sleeping with me that night. :) I was so excited for my family's arrival that I couldn't sleep a wink! I made it down to London and navigated through Heathrow all by myself, (quite a feat if you ask me!) and met my family at the car rental lot. We rented an MPV--Multi Passenger Van, as they call them here, because between the Accord and the itty-bitty Miata, we didn't have enough space to squeeze in four guests AND their luggage. We figured it would be easiest for my Dad to follow me in the right-hand drive van, since the Accord is left-hand drive. Little did we know that we had reserved an MPV with MANUAL transmission! SORRY Dad! Pulling out of the lot, I couldn't stop laughing, because my Dad had the windshield wipers going full speed for several blocks...it was nice and sunny that day. No worries though, it happens to us all the time. We made it home safely, with only one close call when my Dad accidentally turned into oncoming traffic. Yikes!

The next day, I scheduled a last-minute interview for a part time Field Representative position with the University of Maryland University College. I was obviously a little flustered because I didn't have much time to prepare, but I took a few deep breaths before I walked in, and the interview went off without a hitch! UMUC offers both undergraduate and graduate degree programs for military memebers and dependents, and I found out that they offer 100% tuition assistance for all of their employees!!!! I was told that they would contact me the following day (Friday), after they completed all of the interviews.

On Friday, we packed up the MPV and left for the continent! We drove to Dover to hop on a ferry over to Boulogne, France. As we were sitting in the car, I received a call from UMUC, informing me that I got the job!!! Jordan saw this as the perfect opportunity to embarrass me, so he led the entire car to cheer while I was still on the phone with my soon to be supervisor. Gotta love him. :) Luckily, she thought it was funny. I begin working this coming Monday--good timing, eh?

The one and only picture I got of our MPV...Imagine six people+luggage crammed in there! We were lined up and waiting to drive onto the boat.

Group shot on the ferry.

Anyway, we rode the ferry across the channel to Boulogne, and then found a restaurant to have dinner. We stumbled through the menu, and quickly realized that it was a mistake to not have a translation book along. Just trying to order a glass of water was painful! We spent the night in Boulogne, and enjoyed coffee and crepes the next morning at a cute little cafe with an adorable Cocker Spaniel who greeted us at the door.

Waiting for our yummy crepes!

Looking down one of the streets in Boulogne.

After seeing some of the sites in Boulogne that morning, we headed to Brugge, Belgium. We enjoyed tapas for lunch, drank some amazing beer in fancy glasses, and of course stopped for some Belgian chocolate while walking around the beautiful town.

I loved this place!

Mmmmmm.

We went on to spend night #2 in Brussels. Our hotel was located right across the street from the beautiful Bascilica of Koekelberg, and we had the opportunity to walk inside it on Sunday morning.

View from a distance across a park. This place was huge!

Later on Sunday, we stopped in Bastogne, where the Battle of the Bulge took place. We walked around a beautiful monument called the Mardasson Memorial, built in the memory of the American soldiers wounded or killed there.

We went on to spend Sunday night in Clervaux, Luxembourg, which was absolutely breathtaking. The architecture reminded me of what Colorado ski areas try to replicate, and the hills and trees surrounding the village were incredibly lush and green. The town was really quiet that evening, so we took a relaxing stroll around, enjoying the beautiful scenery, and climbing a hill to the Chateau de Clervaux.

See the Chateau on the left?

Pretty view.

The next day (Monday) we drove through Luxembourg, with a stop in Nospelt, the town that my uncle's family came from. It was really neat to see headstones with their family name engraved in them.

We spent Monday night in Heidelberg, which was amazing. We stayed in a homey little hotel, and went for some schnitzel and big glasses of hefeweizen in a cute little beer garden for dinner. It began to rain shortly after we finished eating, and we decided it was the perfect opportunity to go for a walk along the Rhine River with umbrellas in hand. The town is beautiful during the day, but to see the lights glowing at dusk with a little rain mixed in was incredible. The next morning, we made the long, arduous hike up to see the Heidelberg Castle which towers over the entire city. The view from above was totally worth it. We then spent a good amount of time walking around town, having bratwurst for lunch, and checking out some of the shops.

Heidelberg Castle

The view along the Rhine.

Looking down from inside the castle.

Beautiful.

Tuesday afternoon, we went on to drive through the Alsace region in France, which is where my Mom's-Mom's side of the family is from. I can't wait to go back through this area for a wine-tasting trip! We spent that night in Metz, France, and got up on Wednesday morning to complete the drive back to Boulogne. Somehow, we found ourselves on a toll road with the most expensive tolls I've ever paid in my life... I think they totaled somewhere around 35 Euros, which is nearly $50! I guess you can call it a learning experience.

When we returned back home, my parents and aunt and uncle still had a little over a week left to their trip. (It was about this time that I realized that for every picture I was taking, my Dad was taking five, so I left it to him to document the remaining days.) We spent time at all of our favorite local hang-outs, such as the Bell, The Lancer (our favorite Indian restaurant), and the Cock. We caught up on some much needed down-time, but also spent some days checking out all of our local attractions. We took Cooper on several walks at the heath, where my aunt and uncle and my parents were able to find lucky horse shoes! We went for a picnic on a sunny day at Framlingham Castle, visited Madingley American Cemetery, watched some F-15's land at Lakenheath, went to the outdoor market in Bury St. Edmonds, went to church and walked around in Cambridge, saw the Norfolk Lavender grounds and distillery, and the boys spent some time at the Imperial War Museum. WHEW!

My family also came along to watch Jordan and me play slow-pitch softball on Wednesday night. That's right, I'm playing with his squadron's team. It can be a little intimidating for a girl my size to play softball with a group of grown men, but I'm making the best of it. Jordan is playing 3rd base, and I'm playing 2nd. I somehow managed to squeeze out a base hit this week, which made me ecstatic!

The fam was also very generous with their time at our house, and helped us tackle the stinging nettle forest in our back yard! Come to find out, underneath all of those weeds, we found a raspberry bush, numerous blackberry bushes, an apple tree, plum tree, and a peach tree! By mid-summer, we will have quite an array of fruits and vegetables! (We also have a grape vine, and I planted some tomatoes, green beans, carrots, chives, basil, parsley, and rosemary!) All of us suffered from various nettle burns for about a day and a half, but our yard looks 100 times better than it did before!! Thanks Mom, Dad, Mar and Dick!

Unfortunately, we had to bring everyone back to the airport this morning. Cooper is really moping around now that everyone's gone, so I will probably be bringing him for a jaunt at the heath later this afternoon to help cheer him up. I will really miss having our company around, but I am looking forward to starting a new chapter next week with my new job!