Birthday Adventures - Trier, Germany

My birthday is July 6th.  Lately it feels like we're always moving on my birthday so we never really do much to celebrate.  Trek managed to make my birthday extra special this year.  It was an amazing day full of fun surprises.

I woke up to 3 of my favorite treats:

Kinder Eggs

Niederegger Marzipan

& Freddie Ferkels

My birthday breakfast was my favorite brotchen rolls with butterkase & shinkenwurst with little gherkins on the side, & a giant chocolate croissant from the local bakery.  Trek also found some multivitaminsaft at the local market too.  I was in heaven.  YUM.

I love my sweet family.  38 years & counting.

For my birthday surprise, Trek took me to my favorite city in Germany, Trier.  My little Taya was born here almost 12 years ago.  I used to visit Trier every 2 weeks for doctor appointments & just for sighseeing enjoyment.  It's a beautiful city & when we were stationed at Spangdahlem, it was my favorite place to be.  It's only about an hour from where we are now, so it was a nice trip down memory lane for me.

Of course we had to take the kids to the Porta Nigra while we were there.  It's the old Roman gate to the city.  It was built in 170 AD.  Yes, THAT old.  It's incredible.

We actually bought a family pass that took all of us INTO the Porta Nigra & allowed us to view all of it's many layers, including stairs to the top to lookout over the city.

So much history!  So much beauty!  We loved every second of it.

I married a 3 year old who likes to pose for pictures.  I love this man child of mine.

After exploring the Porta Nigra, we took the kids to the city center where the farmer's market was in full swing.  I loved coming here every Saturday to buy flowers, fruit, & vegetables.   Trier is such a beautiful city.

We ended our tour of Trier at the Cathedral.  This beautiful church is the oldest church in Germany built somewhere around the early 4th century by Constantine himself.  It's beautiful in every way, has many different architectural sides built into it over the years, has an organ that makes me giddy, & beautiful stone carvings throughout.  It's one of my favorite churches in Europe.  If you've never been, GO.  It's worth a trip.

After playing in Trier for a bit, we headed up to Speicher, Germany. . . the town we lived in 10 years ago.  Trek took me to City Grill, my favorite restaurant.  This little doner kebap shop was within walking distance of our house in Speicher & let me tell you, when I was pregnant with Bladen 10 years ago, I would walk there EVERY SINGLE DAY to get a doner kebap with cheese & extra hot peppers.  The sweet men that ran the restaurant knew me SO well.  They'd have my doner ready at the same time every day & literally just waited for me to show up.  They were my saving grace during that time in my life.

Their food is still the best in the country.  I walked in & cried when I saw the SAME THREE GUYS running the restaurant.  And the best part?  They recognized me!!!  It's been YEARS, & they recognized me.  They were so excited to see all the kids who are now teenagers & then meet my youngest 2 boys that they've never met.

Just one shop down from City Grill was my favorite gelato shop as well.  Of course we had to go say hi to that shop owner (who also recognized me) & get some spaghetti eis to celebrate my birthday.

It seriously was the best birthday I've ever had.  I had my family, my favorite food, & my favorite city in the world.  HEAVEN on earth.

ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE:

Here's some more information on Trier, the Porta Nigra, & the Dom Cathedral near the City Center for those wanting to travel . . . 

History of the Porta Nigra

Porta Nigra Website with cost, parking, location, & info.

The Dom Cathedral Website with costs, parking, location, & info.

4th of July Festival

For the 4th of July, the base had a big celebration with TONS of food, free bowling, carnival games, & rides.  It was our first "festival" here in Germany & even though it was on the American base, it was a blast.  We let each of the kids pick one ride or carnival game to play & they enjoyed every second of it.  We also tried lots of yummy food from the food vendors.  Later that night we watched the fireworks show & went to bed very excited for the many adventures we'd have here in Germany.

Festival Tour

Lorien, Taya, Bladen, & Craiger all rode bumper cars for their one ride.

Cadence decided to ride the octopus ride with Canyon (to protect him) since he wanted to ride it SO BADLY.  They were a hoot to watch.

Octopus Ride

Overall, it was a great start to a fabulous summer!

July Fun

Eventually, I'll have to make a blog post that details out all the craziness the Potter house has experienced the last 2 months with this move to Germany.  Don't get me wrong. . . we LOVE it here & we are FINALLY feeling settled more & more each day, but getting to this point has been remarkably difficult with all the roadblocks we've hit along the way. 

Which explains why my blog is TWO MONTHS BEHIND.  Yikes.  So I decided to sit down with my phone that is our only connection to the internet right now, to update you all on what we've been up to.  (because our internet was accidentally turned off 2 weeks ago & the internet company here absolutely cannot figure out why they can't get it back on)

July was a crazy, but fun month.  We spent the entire month in a TLA house (temporary living - aka hotel/house).  The house was perfectly fine.  It was beautiful, was in a great location, & fit our family just fine.  But it wasn't home.  We were itching to get into our "forever house" & finally have our things again.  There were so many people moving here over the summer that there just weren't enough movers to go around so we had to wait until July 31st to move into our real house.  But let me tell you, the sunsets from our hotel house were spectacular.  We loved watching them every night before we went to bed.  (The sun sets past 10 pm here in the summer.)

Meanwhile, we made almost daily trips to our new house in Hütschenhausen.  We met with housing, we met with the landlord & signed the contract, we got German bank accounts set up, German utilities set up, German garbage & recycling set up. . . everything was done except the moving in part.  We couldn't wait to make this our "forever home" for the next 3-4 years.

We would go to the house & just look at it, imagine where our furniture would go, walk around the neighbourhood just to get a feel of it, & go visit the little park at the end of the street.  We couldn't wait for it to be HOME.

We also took SEVERAL (too many to admit to) trips to IKEA to look at furniture to help make our adaptation to a German home easier.  German homes don't have a lot of cupboards or drawers in their kitchens, no closets, & no storage in bathrooms.  The rooms in our house are really shaped uniquely (LOTS of curved walls) so we had to get creative in furinture & storage placement.  IKEA became our home away from home.

Trek & I also got to explore FOOD in Germany a lot this month too.  We found an amazing Burrito place that is pretty much the German version of Chipotle which was super fun.

And I've been pigging out on Doner Kebaps & Frickadellen (meatloaf) sandwiches any time I see them.  Europe is a food lovers dream.  I feel like I'm in a dream 99% of the time.

We also got a family year pass to a local pool located only 4 minutes from our new house.  How awesome is that?!?  Since we didn't really have a house yet & nothing to do, we spent most of July at that pool.  The kids played, swam, & enjoyed every second of it.  It's a great pool.  It has large grassy fields to play soccer/frisbee/tag/picnic, volleyball, ping pong, 2 huge sand filled playgrounds with play structures for kids, 3 huge pools to swim in, a giant water slide, a wave pool, a bubble pool, 3 high dives, & a lazy/current river.  We LOVE the Miseau pool.

Pool Fun #1

Pool Fun #2

Pool Fun #3

Pool Fun #4

It was a great way to get to know members of our church congregation too.  Every Monday night all the families would meet at this pool for what we call "Family Home Evening," & we'd just hang out all night until closing time.  It helped my kids to make friends REALLY fast & we just had a blast & looked forward to every day.