Wine Festival in Wiesbaden

This past weekend Brad and I experienced our first go at a wine festival in Wiesbaden. You might compare this experience to the first time you went trick-or-treating on Halloween. You walk from booth to booth to sample wine from vendors all over Germany and being the lush *ahem* I mean wine lover that I am, this was a pretty fantastic concept. Ok, so it’s not free and you don’t dress up like a super hero (granted, you may feel like one after a few hours there) you get the idea. Tommy and Melissa were our partners in crime and we had a fabulous time.

I have to be honest though, the wine wasn’t all that great. Neither of us are big fans of Rieslings which is primarily what is produced in this region….blech. After several glasses of wine that made our faces tense up like we just ate a lemon, the chardonnay that was introduced to us by a friend was happily welcomed. And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. We stuck with that for the rest of the afternoon…and evening.

But it’s not just about the wine, there’s food, too! Lots of it. We started off with a pizza-like dish that was made with a sour cream sauce of sorts instead of tomato paste. Very light and tasty. But it wasn’t enough to fill our empty bellies so we moved on to a SomeWeirdGermanWord….wurst sandwich with caramelized onions. Wow, now that was delicious. If I could only remember what it was called. Next up was a pretzel that was about the size of my steering wheel; all that was missing was a barrel of nacho cheese to go with it. And that was it…..ok, that’s a lie – you can’t go to a festival without getting a crepe with Nutella on it (ok, ok – and Grand Marnier). And I’m officially heading to the gym as soon as I finish this.


The exciting part is….drum roll please…..there’s another wine fest right here in Mainz this weekend!!! And the really exciting part? My dear friend, Bethany, will be here to enjoy it with us! That’s right, our first visitor will be here this weekend and I’m beyond excited to see her. Can’t wait!

And there are many more adventures to come in the near future in the life of the Bingham’s…stay tuned. The next few weeks, no - the next few months are going to be amazing!!

Amsterdam Adventure....And Then Some

Obviously from the title Brad and I have checked off another fun adventure from The List....but we'll discuss that a little later.

It seems that so much has happened since my last post. I believe my exact words were "there are no exciting trips to speak of" and I'm quite certain that I jinxed myself (in a good way) by saying that. In a matter of two weeks our calendar has started to fill up throughout the rest of the year. And by "calendar" I mean figuratively speaking because I no longer have one. Apparently day planners and calendars are very rare here and now that my 2008-2009 At a Glance Planner ended in July, I'm completely lost. Ugggh.

Now I now the anticipation is killing you...."what are the Binghams' going to do next?!" Ok, probably not. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. I just have this weird feeling that the minute I say "we're going to _________!!!!" something will happen to screw it all up and then you'll have to listen to me rant on here about how that really cool trip I told you about got cancelled. So I'm really doing this for you.

Instead I'll just recap the events of the past few weeks:

I spent Saturday before last on an all day shopping spree with Anica, Mariam, and Melissa. We started at a boutique-type outlet place in Wiesbaden that has great jeans marked way, way down (just my kind of place). Then we spent the rest of the afternoon in Frankfurt on a mission to find Melissa some appropriate business shoes for her munchkin-sized feet. A surprisingly hard task but we were successful. Before leaving Anica insisted we swing by her favorite, favorite, favorite ice cream place. I'm thinking some specialty gelato cafe, so you can imagine my surprise when we were standing in line at Haagen-Dazs. I chuckled on the inside but didn't have the heart to tell her Haagen-Dazs is, in fact, an American company and I've had it more times that I can remember. Oh well.

Brad was a trooper and hung out with Stella all day. I believe "welcome to my world" may have been whispered under my breath when he told me what a handful she was all day.

Sunday was A LOT of fun. Our German friends, none of whom are actually German, wanted to enjoy an American brunch. I made Sausage Casserole, a Blueberry Maple Breakfast Bake, fluffy biscuits, tons of fresh fruit and, of course, mimosas. We had a couple bottles of Champagne left from our wedding and we figured what better way to enjoy it than with friends. On top of that, Tommy and Melissa supplied the tasty Bloody Mary's. We will definitely have to do that again soon!

Tasty Champagne

Now for the really exciting stuff. It was decided on Wednesday that we should go to Amsterdam for the weekend. We'd been talking about it for months now and with the summer almost over we figured we'd better time than NOW? Amsterdam is approximately a 4 hour drive from here (I bet we could get there in 3 with Brad driving on the Autobahn) but with 5 people in one car we opted to do the USO Tour instead. Basically you get on a bus at 3:30 in the morning, sleep on the way (yeah right) and when you wake up you're in Amsterdam. We'll pretend that that is exactly how it went (have you ever tried sleeping on a bus?) Anyhoo, we made it. We spent the first part of our morning viewing the Van Gogh Museum. It's pretty amazing to be standing in front of an original painting that you've seen so many times before.

We made friends with a girl, Amanda, from North Carolina who was traveling alone. She and her husband had spent the last two weeks traveling ALL around Germany before he went back to Afghanistan. Amsterdam was her last trip before flying home. We all had a blast together!

Enjoying cupcakes (and NOT special brownies) with our new friend

I just really liked this door.

I was unaware that Amsterdam is a city with what seems like a squillion canals. It's actually only 4 main canals that form a semi-circle around the city but you can get practically everywhere on water. This was a pretty neat way to see the city and go from place to place, however, if/when we go back I would much rather rent a bike and stay the night.

Amsterdam is eclectic, to say the least. You will see just about all walks of life here. And I mean ALL. I suppose with both marijuana (which I don't even know if I spelled that right) and prostitution being legal, what would you expect? Sure, we visited the infamous Red Light District in broad daylight to see what that was all about....ummm, I don't think "interesting" is the proper term. But there is so much more to Amsterdam to see. I really enjoyed the Bloemenmarkt. It's the world's only floating flower market and it is a pretty cool sight to see. Unfortunately, they don't allow you to take pictures. We also visited the church where Rembrandt is buried. We just happened to be there while the massive pipe organ was being played. Amazing. The one thing we didn't get to do was see the inside of the Anne Frank House. The line was absurdly long and we figured that just gives us an excuse to go back.

Gotta love wooden shoes :)

We were back home by 1:00 am and spent Sunday relaxing and hanging out with the pup. We cooked burgers and dogs with Tommy and Melissa that evening and crashed early....well I did, Brad stayed up until 1:30 watching Tiger lose. :( So sad.

All in all, it was a good marble weekend!

Call Me Captain Random

Well, there are no super exciting trips to speak of this time. But that's not to say things have been uneventful so here are a few of the random things going on in the Bingham house....

You'll be impressed to know that within 24 hours of returning from St. Lucia, Brad and I were completely unpacked, ALL laundry finished AND we picked up on our little workout routine our first day back. In all of my life, I've never been able to accomplish this great feat. And now I know why. Following that first day, we fell off the workout wagon for a good 3 weeks. Oops.

Our little 10 pound pup has quickly grown into a 40 pound pup and has quite a ways to go. She seems to know that it is much more difficult to pick her up these days and has no problem REFUSING to come inside after potty breaks and walks. As soon as we start heading for the house she turns into limp puppy and will roll in the grass knowing we can't drag her through the yard. Nothing but ornery. She's also going to school on the weekends. We are now working with a new trainer who is fantastic and seeing how his dog, Friday, turned out only gives us inspiration to keep at it. Keep in mind, Stella turns into "Marley" at least once a day so we can use all the inspiration we can get!

Marley

Unfortunately/fortunately, softball is over for the summer season. I say unfortunately because I had a blast watching Brad play and I know he truly enjoyed it (for the most part). But it's fortunate because playing 3 games a week and tournaments on the weekends got old...really fast.

I have a small confession - I had a brief "meltdown" following our vacation. While it was wonderful seeing family, it really hit home how much I miss them and my girl friends. It occurred to me that the majority of my conversations throughout the day where with a dog. With that said, the power of prayer is quite amazing. Anica and Aadel (our friends that joined us for our Mexican Fiesta a while back) invited us to have dinner a couple of weeks ago at their place with a few friends. We had a blast!! And also met some really great people. It was just what I needed. I still miss my girls back home terribly but it sure is nice to have a few here.

Last weekend, Melissa and I went with Anica and our new friend, Mariam, to what Anica described as a "beach." It was more or less a small lake/large pond with nice white sand around it. Works for me! We spent all afternoon soaking up the rays, reading gossip magazines (in German) and chatting. Finally! Some girl time. We quickly made plans for a shopping trip this Saturday and I'm hosting brunch for everybody on Sunday. I'm tellin ya, ask and you shall receive.

I've also been introduced to my new favorite blog (thank you, Kasey B). Simplyrecipes.com. Check it out! Brad and I have tried multiple recipes from this blog and have yet to be disappointed. I highly, highly recommend the Eggplant Parmesan. Quite possibly my most favoritest thing we've had. Ever. And we've had some pretty good dinners. It's become almost tradition to make a homemade pizza on Sunday nights but it's been the same thing week in and week out - pepperoni with jalapenos. We decided to change it up this week and were blown away by the flavor of the Black Bean Spinach Pizza. I mean, WOW! And so easy. We've also had Baked Shrimp in Tomato Feta Sauce and my first try at Lasagna. All this week. Needless to say, we're back on the workout wagon.

In other news, the Audi is misbehaving. But you've gotta love the timing. I'll back up a little bit - a couple of weeks ago Brad and I were out driving around and I showed him that my black purse, the one I carry almost ALL of the time was starting to fall apart. He said, "well we never really got you anything big in Strasbourg for your birthday so let's go find you a good one." (I know, I have the greatest husband EVER.) So we looked around a bit but nothing caught my fancy and we called it a day. It wasn't 2 days later that the Audi was in the shop and wouldn't you know - it was the automatic clutch that needed replacing. Not exactly the "clutch" I was hoping for but beggars can't be choosers.














A trip is in the works for Labor Day Weekend. We're thinking Amsterdam but aren't 100% sure yet. There are a few details to work out but a good trip is definitely due. And for friends and family who are ready for a trip - get that passport out and come on! We're settled and ready for you to come visit!

Speaking of trips, Brad and I had put in for a lottery to travel to Edelweiss Lodge and Resort over New Year's and Brad's birthday. Since it's a very popular destination for military families and DoD employees that live here, it's quite difficult to get a reservation so they just set up a lottery system and we had to register by May to even be eligible. Well.....we got it!! That's right! Brad's 26th birthday will be spent on the slopes of the Bavarian Alps. Eeeee! So excited!

That's all for now. I know, this was a random post. Until next time....