European Adventure

Our European adventure really began once I was finished with my work stuff and Drew was back from Madrid. (Click here for a refresher on how we got across the Atlantic in the first place.)

We hopped on a train Friday afternoon and headed to Salzburg, Austria. Saturday we toured the city and took a Sound of Music tour. The Sound of Music is one of Drew's favorite movies so he was really excited to see various sights associated with its filming and the story. After the tour we walked around the old town.

The house used for the backyard and back of the house shots in The Sound of Music.

Saturday afternoon we hopped on another train to Munich, Germany. Sunday we went to Dachau concentration camp and then the Olympic Park from the 1972 summer games.

The frame of one of the barracks at Dachau.

The Olympic Park in Munich.

Monday we travelled a couple of hours outside the city to visit Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Neuschwanstein was the inspiration for Walt Disney's castle and it's absolutely fantastic.

Hohenschwangau.

Neuschwanstein.

Tuesday we spent the day in Munich and toured the Residenz, the former palace of Bavarian monarchs.

A stop at the Hofbrauhaus is a must. The food and beer were tasty and the patrons randomly erupted into song on numerous occasions.

The city hall at the Marienplatz in Munich.

That night we took our first ever overnight train to Paris. Coincidentally, we had such a great time with that experience that it will also be our last ever overnight train to Paris. It was not a pleasant experience for either of us, but I especially did not do well. Once we arrived in Paris Wednesday morning, we grabbed a taxi to another train station and caught our train out to Bayeux. Wednesday afternoon we went on a tour of the Normandy beaches. This was a highlight of the trip for Drew and it was really cool to see the old German gun stations and the American cemetery.

Omaha Beach.

Thursday morning we toured the The Caen Memorial, a WWII museum in Caen, France. Thursday afternoon we headed back to Paris to finish our trip.

The Seine in Paris.

The Eiffel Tower at night. We caught the tail end of one of the hourly light shows, but the pictures really didn't do it justice. This is just the normal lighting at night.

Friday we went out to the palace of Versailles and had a lovely time there. The last time I went to Versailles was May of 2001 and it was crowded. October is definitely the end of the tourist season and there weren't too many people there. It made it much easier to navigate the grounds.

We arrived at Versailles at the perfect time to see the sunlight hitting all the gold accents.

A portion of the extensive grounds at Versailles.

The Petit Trianon (Marie Antoinette's estate).

Friday afternoon we motored through the city and saw as much as our feet would allow us to see and that night we went to a concert at the Sainte-Chapelle. It was a beautiful venue for a concert featuring some of Mozart's work.

The Eiffel Tower.

Love this man and this picture of us.

Saturday morning we flew home and marveled at the amazing experience. It was such a great trip and I was so happy to show Drew some of the sights I'd previously seen and make some new memories with him.

One Year and Thousands of Miles Ago

A year ago, Drew and I were in the middle of a European vacation. It was an amazing trip and we had so much fun packed into two and a half weeks. We've been thinking and talking about that trip recently and I thought I'd share some pictures of the sights we saw.

My company decided to send me over to Zurich, Switzerland for a week of training at one of our labs. The last time they sent me there, it was for 2 months and I wasn't married. That trip was such an enjoyable experience and I had a blast once I got used to being by myself and not really speaking English much at all. I travelled every weekend and my parents came to visit and travel with me for three weekends. It was a great experience.

I was really excited to go again this time, but not very excited to be away from my husband. We had toyed with the idea of honeymooning in Europe after we were engaged, but then I realized that trying to plan a wedding and a trip to Europe was really a terrible idea and we decided a spring trip to Europe would be better. So, when this work opportunity arose, we started talking about moving the Europe trip up to the fall and trying to figure out if Drew could get the time off work. In the end, we decided we simply couldn't pass up having half of the trip paid for and we made it happen.

We flew into Zurich and arrived at 8:00 Saturday morning. The flight over there had been pretty rough (the heater wasn't working in our section so we were freezing and didn't get to sleep much at all) and it was raining when we stepped out of the train station. We pushed through the moisture, exhaustion, and our less than cheery dispositions and made do.

The grey skies of Zurich.

The Grossmunster church in Zurich.

Sunday we went to Lucerne and had a lovely day. I had been to Lucerne before and it was just as wonderful as I remembered. I think it's the most beautiful city in Switzerland and I highly recommend a visit if you get the opportunity.

The Chapel Bridge in Lucerne. Half of the bridge burned in 1993 and they rebuilt it so well that you can only tell the new from the old when you walk on it and see the charred beams above where the fire was.

One of the funniest pictures from our trip. I would love to learn the story of the events leading up to the bike ending up in the river!

Beautiful Lucerne.

I went to work Monday and Drew flew to Madrid to visit some friends of ours who are serving on a short cycle missions team there. I missed him terribly, but he had so much more fun visiting friends than he would have had being stuck in Zurich while I was at work. We met up again Friday afternoon in the main train station and headed out on our week and a half of adventure. (More pictures to come, but here's the teaser!)

Our shadows at the entrance of the Palace of Versailles.

Neuschwanstein Castle as seen from Mary's Bridge.

Basil Chicken Pizza on the Grill

Confession: I love making pizza on the grill and I don't know if I can ever go back to the oven.

I feel better. Thank you.

We have been making pizza on the grill for over a year now and it has been great. I have this standard pizza dough recipe that I make in about 7 minutes and it works. We use the pizza stone and it's been really great so far. Then, my mom gave me a recipe for a chicken basil pizza. I put it in my "recipes to try" drawer and didn't really think about it again. A couple of weeks ago the previously mentioned drawer pretty much threw up its contents all over the other drawers in the stack and I found the recipe again. So we tried it.

Our yummy basil plant happily growing alongside the rosemary plant.

It started with those loaves of bread dough you find in the freezer aisle of the grocery store. I was a little hesitant to use those because I really like making my own quick dough. How blinded I was! I split one of the loaves in half and made 2 pizzas. So easy and, dare I say, it worked better than my quick recipe on the grill. So, now I have to figure out how to make the dough in my bread machine and use that for future pizzas. That's for another time.



The crusts. As you can tell, they aren't circular. Thankfully, shape doesn't matter when it comes to a good pizza.

On to the chicken! I made a basil marinade using leaves from our basil plant in the backyard. If you like basil at all, you should really plant your own plant. Ours was around $4 in the spring and we have been enjoying the tastiness of it all summer long. I just need to figure out a way to take a cutting and bring it inside since we've gotten used to fresh basil on everything.



Chicken on the grill. I apologize for the quality of this and some of the pictures to come. I stink when it comes to taking pictures of the grill. I don't know if it's the heat or what, but it is not a skill I possess.

I grilled the chicken and sliced it. Then the crusts got tossed directly onto the grill for a few minutes before I flipped them and added the sauce and some cheese. The pizza stone is nice, but placing the pizzas directly on the grill was even better.

Pizzas with sauce and cheese.

Then we added the chicken, some more fresh basil, some sun dried tomatoes, and some asiago cheese. It took a bit to get the cheese all melted, but it was worth the wait.

I warned you about the picture quality... Even still, doesn't it look delicious?

Drew is already cooking up other recipe ideas to try. Yum!

Oh! Look at the basil and the tomatoes! I might just have to make this again next week.

September Fun

What did we do in September? I'm so glad you asked! Here are some of the highlights.

We tried star fruit. I wasn't super impressed, but if they are on sale and I'm planning on making a fruit pizza, I'll definitely get some more because they look pretty cool.

It hailed one evening. We have been scraping by on 0.5 inches of rain for the last 3 months and it hails for about 7 minutes one Tuesday night.

The hail toward the end of the 7 minutes of activity.

Spinach, chickpea, and chicken coconut curry.

After 3 months of no real rain, we finally got some measurable liquid in the rain gauge!

Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole.

Mixed Berry Buttermilk Cake. This was great; not too sweet and very yummy.

We spent some time with family and Drew played on the floor with our youngest niece, Olivia.

On the last day of summer, we went to the Sunken Gardens and were treated to a beautiful evening at the park.

Kramer Silliness

Here's the setup for these hilarious moments with Kramer. It's Friday night and Drew and I have moved the dressers out of our bedroom to prepare for the arrival of new dressers. The mirror that was attached to the old long dresser was removed and placed in the front living room between the sofa and the coffee table. Drew and I are busily moving things around and Kramer, well, Kramer met a new friend and let's just say they didn't hit it off. Again, who needs cable when you have a silly wiener dog around?

Also, here's another random Sarah/Kramer story for you. I was reminded of this incident as I watched my ferocious wiener dog chase a rabbit around the backyard earlier this week. Rabbits are second only to squirrels on Kramer's despised creatures list. She even brought me a dead baby rabbit a couple of years ago to demonstrate her hatred of them and/or her love for me. I guess? I don't really know. It was gross.

Anyway, the story. Last fall it was getting dark outside and I realized that I still had a couple of pieces of laundry out on the clothesline so I jumped up to head out and take care of it. Kramer sensed my excitement and decided to run outside with me. She made it out onto the deck and down the two steps before I did and she started running in the yard. This was entirely normal behavior for her. I, on the other hand, was sort of jogging down the steps and along the stone path to the clothesline. This is not normal behavior for me as I don't really jog ever. I used to, but my knees staged a violent protest that ultimately ended that activity. So, mid-stride on the stone path I felt something smack into my calf. Hard. I stopped short and looked around only to see a rabbit on the grass, slightly dazed. Then Kramer rounds the corner with her typical "on the hunt" bark, which is more like an all out screech. (Seriously, it's the least intimidating noise you'll ever hear.)The rabbit sort of shakes itself off and takes off, narrowly avoiding the screeching, brown wiener dog that is hot on its tail. They run around the yard for a bit longer before the rabbit escapes through the fence to a safer backyard.

Let's just recap that for a moment, a rabbit ran into my leg while being chased by my dog. I literally about peed my pants laughing at the absurdity of it all. It took me about 8 minutes to be able to tell Drew what had happened because I couldn't catch my breath and I had a charley horse for the next hour. What are the odds?



Million to one shot, Doc. Million to one.



Basement Wall Art

I alluded to the wall art in the basement in my last post and here's the skinny on that.

The basement living room is quite long and that's quite a bit of wall space to fill. After purchasing some other wall art for other rooms in the house, I wasn't too excited about trying to find some pieces for the basement. After all, we had just purchased new furniture and my wallet wasn't thrilled with the idea of spending more money.

Earlier this summer my mom and I took a painting class together. It was a Mother's Day present and we had a great time. I already had this idea of painting something myself so I paid careful attention to the types of paints and other supplies that we used. Then, I went out to Michael's and purchased some 16 x 20 inch canvases when they were $2.50 per canvas and used a 40% off coupon on a brush set. A few weeks after that, I bought several tubes of acrylic paint when they were $0.28 each (plus a 20% off my entire purchase coupon) and used another 40% off coupon on a can of spray lacquer.

My supplies. I'm sure that "real" artists would scoff at my paint selection, but it worked just fine for me.

Then, I got to work finding some sort of inspiration for this project because, as you may or may not know, I'm a scientist. A total type A, right-brain scientist. Creativity is not one of my strengths. So, I googled phrases like "easy canvas art" and "diy paint canvas" and looked at some pictures. These were my final inspiration choices:

Original found here.

Original found here.

I got to work and this is how it all turned out!

My less than $25 wall art. Nothing fancy, but still something fun to make.

The canvases in their position above the couch. I really like the pop of color on the wall.

As Drew said, if I get sick of them in a few months/years, I can throw them out or paint over them. I'm definitely not sick of them yet so we'll keep them for a while.

Basement Living Room

The basement is done! The basement is done! The basement is done!


The view once you come down the bottom of the stairs.

We are so, so very excited to have this project finished and to be able to use and enjoy the extra space in our house. Our starting point was outdated and cramped, but we (Drew) tore the whole thing apart and put it back together to make a great basement space. We're not completely finished down there, but the living room is pretty much done so I'll share that now.

View from behind the love seat. The door leads to the bedroom. The photobomb is courtesy of Kramer.

The view from the bedroom door. Bonus points for the quick and accurate identification of the photobomber.



Drew's recliner. It's got a high back for his tall enjoyment AND a seat massage, a back massage, and a seat warmer. The man is set!

Getting all of the furniture to arrive turned out to be quite the ordeal. The first time everything was delivered, they had a brown love seat (which we wanted) and a black couch (which we didn't want). So, they didn't even bother to unload the couch and we rescheduled another delivery date. The second delivery date came and we had a brown couch. Yeah! Except that as they started to bring it in the house, I noticed a 3 inch tear in the back. So, they loaded it back up into the truck and I scheduled another deliver time. On the third delivery date they delivered another black couch. Ug. So, the fourth time was the charm when we finally received a brown couch that was not damaged. And it is com-fy.

The long awaited couch finally arrived! More on the wall art later.

We're still working on setting up the bedroom down there. The bed that will be put in there is currently being stored at my parents' house and it's going to take some finagling to get it out. Once we get that in there, I'll share about that room.

Meanwhile, Kramer has gone from running around trying to figure things out in the basement to getting pretty comfortable down there.

Kramer just knocked the throw pillows around until she got comfortable and then it was lights out.

Also, she never really learned how to climb down a set of stairs before. I was OK with that since Daschunds are prone to back problems and it meant I always knew on which level of the house I could find her. Well, apparently the thrill of the finished basement was enough motivation for her and she figured out how to hop down the stairs. Now we have to make sure we keep an eye on her so she doesn't get down there alone!

Kramer's finally realized that her bed is not a toy...