Camping was the perfect getaway. I really needed to get away from work for an extra day or two, and Switzerland was perfect for relaxation. The only downside was the heat. I can’t believe it was as hot as it was even in the valley. I don’t know exactly how warm it got, because my cell service does not work outside of Germany, but I’m guessing it was at least in the upper 80s. (Note: Through the magic of the internet, I just found out that the temperatures ranged from 61 to 88 while we were there. Pretty warm for the Alps!)

We drove in Friday evening and even though it is just under a 4 hour drive, we hit the worst Stau (aka traffic jam) that we have even been in. The Autobahn was gridlocked for miles and it lasted about 2 hours. People were getting out of their cars and walking around ON the Autobahn. It was that bad. Needless to say, we ended up arriving at the campsite much later than we had planned. Unfortunately, this meant that we pulled in after dark. Setting up a campsite at night was a first for me. The only light we had was the little LED lantern we had bought. It was extra fun considering we were using a brand new tent, so we weren’t entirely sure of the directions.

After about an hour (maybe a little longer), everything was set up. The process would have been more expedient had we been setting up in the daylight, but c’est la vie. It was very nice to wake up there on Saturday with a full day ahead of us.

I can’t remember what our activities were on each day, so I’ll just break it down in bullets:

• We went on a two hour bike ride with Béni. It was his first time to come along with us on a bike ride, and he did a great job. By the end, he was so tired, and he spent the rest of the day napping.
• We saw a few cliff jumpers while on our bike ride, but we saw disappointingly few cattle. Last year, there were cows everywhere we looked. I wonder where they all were this year.
• We went on a summer luge, called a Rodelbahn, up at Pfingstegg. Picture a long metal slide, and you get to ride along the slide with its twists and turns while sitting on a little luge-like cart. I was such a wimp and held the brake so much that it took me nearly 2 minutes longer to ride it than it took John.
• After riding the luge, we decided to go for a hike. It wasn’t optimal considering we were both wearing flip flops, but I’m glad we did it. We hiked for a little over an hour and saw some breath-taking sights. Our hike took us opposite the face of the Eiger, with views of several large waterfalls. Unfortunately, my foot got stabbed by a loose fencing wire just as we were ending our hike. Luckily, it didn’t draw blood, but it sure did sting!
• We toured Trummelbach falls, which provides the sole drainage for the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau mountains (ie glacial and snow melt as well as rain water). The water has carved it was way through the inside of the mountain, where there are 10 separate places where the water falls lower. We got to tour through it all and thoroughly enjoyed the natural air conditioning. The water flows through there at about 20,000 liters per second. The water flow is incredible!
• We grilled for the 4th of July. However, it took us until the mid-afternoon to realize it was actually the 4th. My watch has to be manually set for the date whenever the month has less than 31 days. We spent the first half of the day thinking it was the 3rd. Oops! So yeah, we grilled for dinner. Unfortunately, it started raining shortly after we got dinner going. While John finished grilling, I worked to move everything inside our tent and set it up for dinner. It was very relaxing to sit inside and listen to the sound of the rain hit the tent.
• We went to Interlaken one day but only ended up staying about an hour. It was dreadfully touristy, and we couldn’t take it. The smaller towns around our campsite were much more charming and enjoyable.
• Our last evening in Switzerland, we had planned to go out to eat. Around 6 o’clock, we headed to a nice hotel in town with Béni . The host or server (not sure which) seemed annoyed that we didn’t have reservations. He sat us at a table that was reserved at 7:30, so we had to be done by then, which is really pushing it and we didn’t want to rush. When our waitress came up, we asked if we could move to a table at the end of the row that wasn’t reserved. She told us that our dog would be in the way there. John told her he wouldn’t and moved us anyway (go John!). She was thoroughly annoyed with us and no one was dog friendly. Come on now, this is a camping/outdoor rec-based town. How can you afford not to be dog friendly? Everyone takes their dogs places here as well as throughout most of Europe. We sat down at the new table and she asked us what we wanted to drink. There was no drink menu (at all – not even sodas) in the food menu, so we asked for a wine list. She dropped one off and not even 60 seconds later, she returned and said “Tell me.” John and I were so insulted. We told her we needed a minute, and when she left, we decided that we weren’t about to pay these people for a nice evening out. We got up and left and ended up eating at the restaurant at our campsite that was much friendlier toward Béni.
• Speaking of the campsite’s restaurant, they have one of those Cow Parade sculptures, and as we walked in, Béni got spooked by the “cow” and his hair stood on end as he growled and barked. Luckily, the other diners on the patio thought it was as funny as we did. Because of his fear of the cow, we ate inside FAR away from the scary cow.

We headed back to Heidelberg on Tuesday morning. As we were packing up, my obligatory camping injury occurred. Our neighbors refused to follow the strict campsite rules of keeping their dog on a leash, and their small dog wandered over to our campsite. Béni was recovering from a pretty uncomfortable blister on one of his paws, so we were trying to keep him resting. I immediately walked over to Béni as I saw the other dog approach, and I grabbed his collar and put one foot on his leash, which was a metal line encased in plastic. Béni got really excited and pulled so hard that the line wrapped around my foot and tightened. I am still healing from the cut, which (sorry for the graphic nature of this statement) was oozing for days. If I put a bandage on it, it would end up ripping the scab off when I changed bandages. Fortunately, it is now well on its way to healing and I no longer walk with a limp.

John’s dad, step mom, sisters and brother came to visit while on their whirlwind European vacation. We were thrilled to show them around the area as well as explore some new sights with them. Also, it is pretty awesome that they are visiting during the World Cup. I wish the US did the World Cup like they do in Europe – every restaurant, bar and even some shops pull out the big screen(s) and everyone stops on the street or grabs a seat to watch the games. We had several opportunities to catch games over lunch/dinner with them; unfortunately, they did not have a chance to witness the pandemonium that takes place when Germany scores a goal (stupid Serbia match).

Having now had three sets of overnight guests, we are starting to see the differences in people and their travel styles. Some enjoy the go-go-go, while others prefer to kick back and relax. Some prefer museums, while others want to explore the outdoors. Often, there’s a good mix of all the travel styles, and a person’s travel personality is likely to change depending on their destination.

Take us, for example. If we are going somewhere like London (never been there before), we would want to see Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and perhaps the Globe Theatre, but we would also be scouring teh internets for “local” advice. When we travel, unless it’s a vacation purely to relax (i.e. our honeymoon), our goal is to be able to experience life like the locals. Last May, we went to Paris for the second time and loved every minute of it. We ate at a local bakery each morning, strolled around town, walked around two parks, went to a jazz club in a “cave,” and ate at our favorite restaurant.

Thinking about travel styles has gotten me curious: what is your travel style? Does your style change depending on your destination? What is your primary goal when traveling?

As for my gimp finger, it’s finally starting to heal and no longer induces sharp pain when I move it. Advice: be very careful when grating mozzarella cheese. It’s so soft, your hand might slip on your final “grate” of cheese and result in multiple bloody cuts on your pointer finger.

I left off with our second vineyard visit, which was in Chassagne-Montrachet. We met with master wine maker Philippe Duvernay of Domaine Coffinet-Duvernay. While doing research for this post, I came across this video on YouTube of Monsieur Duvernay. It was taken in his cellar, which is where we had our tasting. Since I didn’t take any photo/video down there, I was happy to see someone else took care of that for me.

Monsieur Duvernay, Philippe, makes divine wine. We got to taste several 2009 growth wines straight from the barrel, and they were exquisite. I know 2009 is being heralded as an exceptional year for wine, but truly, Philippe’s wines are out of this world. Sadly, we only bought two bottles. Now, John and I both wish we had bought several cases. The bottles we bought were just of his village wine, too!

With Monsieur Duvernay just outside his cellar

After our tasting, we went to a local restaurant. John and I both ordered the paysanne (peasant) salad, which doesn’t sound like much, but the salad was once again a display of how well the French know food. The salad had greens, hard boiled eggs, cheese (not sure what kind – it was white, semi-soft and delicious), pine nuts, pecans, tomatoes and an oily dressing of sorts. Like the Greek salad from Cheateau Les Roches, I could eat this salad until the cows come home.

Speaking of cows, isn’t this little gal cute? I made a habit of talking to all the cows we passed.

Moo!!

Soon, all her buddies wanted to say hello as well. Hi cows!

After lunch, we were supposed to have another visit with a wine maker, but unfortunately, he had just had a heart attack. I really hope that he recovers well and his wife figures out how to manage the vineyard in the meantime. As I mentioned yesterday, these wine makers are primarily farmers, and if they are incapacitated for any reason and cannot tend to their vines, they are in danger of losing the quality they have worked so hard to achieve. Consequently, they can end up losing quite a bit of money.

Because our plans changed, we had a cultural visit to Beaune, where we saw the Hospices de Beaune.

Taken just outside the Hospices

“The Hôtel-Dieu was founded on 4 August 1443, when Burgundy was ruled by Duke Philip the Good (Philippe le Bon). The Hundred Years War had recently been brought to a close [...but there was still a great deal of misery and famine in the area...] The majority of the people of Beaune were declared destitute. Nicolas Rolin, the Duke’s Chancellor, and his wife Guigone de Salins, reacted by deciding to create a hospital and refuge for the poor. The hospital (known as the Hôtel-Dieu) received its first patient on 1st January 1452. Elderly, disabled and sick people, with orphans, women about to give birth and the destitute have all been uninterruptedly welcomed for treatment and refuge, from the Middle Ages until today.” Now, a lot of the place is a museum, but there are still places for people to stay as well.

The ceiling indoors where the beds and altar are located

Some of the old beds. We were told that they would sleep two people per bed.

The roof inside the courtyard is noteworthy. The roofing is made of glazed tile, which influenced many other structures in the Burgundy region. It is neat that the roofing on the sides viewed from outside the hospice are plain, but once you come inside, you’re bathed in color. Apparently, this, along with the nice beds, was supposed to help people relax and be comfortable before they died.

Inside the courtyard

Amazing tiling

Once we finished our quick tour, we hopped back in the car for a long drive around the Côte-de-Nuits, where we saw La Tâche, Romanée-Conti, Clos de Vougeot, and many more. The ones I named specifically are huge in the oenophilic world. Before this weekend, I admit that I had not heard of these names. I guess I can be a wine snob with the best of them now. Robert Parker, here I come!

Just a little extra -- many of the vineyards were labeled rather discreetly like this one (Montrachet)

Rounding out our visit, we passed through and/or by these towns as well: Nuits-Saint-Georges, Vosne-Romanée, Morey-St. Denis and Gevrey-Chambertin. We stopped at a tiny wine shop and bought a bottle of Morey-St. Denis as we wrapped up our day of wine tasting.

If you ever find yourself trying to decide on a wine from Burgundy and have a choice between one with a hyphenated name and one without, my blanket advice is to get the one with the hyphenated name. You may have noticed that many of the towns we passed were hyphenated, and that’s because the town has a Grand Cru vineyard, so they add their town’s Grand Cru name to their town name (ex. St. Denis of the town originally known as Morey).

Chateau Les Roches, Mont-Saint-Jean, France

You can read all about the bed and breakfast, see photos in their photo gallery and get a good feel for the place by clicking here to visit their website. I did manage to get a few photos of our room and view as well:

This is a large bathroom by European standards. Notice that there's no shower curtain. The half "shield" there did a great job, though!

The view from our room

Our balcony!

I felt like I was in Pride and Prejudice, at one point during our dinner in the dining room on Saturday evening, the theme song from the Pride and Prejudice movie came on. I smiled, took a long look around the room and enjoyed envisioning myself in the midst of that book/movie.

I’m going to try not to mention every little detail; however, Marco’s (one of the owner’s) cooking deserves at least a paragraph in my retelling of the weekend. He made a fantastic Greek salad for us on Friday night. When I ordered it, I envisioned having to pick out all the olives. Much to my surprise, his Greek salad had zero olives in it. Can we say love? The salad had fresh greens (of course), tomatoes, nuts (I can’t remember what kind), Feta cheese, chive flowers (!) and a light oily dressing. If I could have that salad twice a week for the rest of my life, I’d be thrilled. I will have to continue this discussion of Marco’s cooking in one of the following posts, because our four course dinner later in the weekend deserves more than just a blip in this tale.

When it was time for bed, we got another pleasant surprise – our windows had an exterior metal shade that comes down at night. I have seen these all over Germany, but until this weekend, I had not been in a room that had one. I got so excited that I videoed it for you all.

(Click here to view the video on YouTube. Apparently we don’t have the ability to upload video anymore and WordPress is charging $60/year for that functionality. You have to be kidding me.)

The video doesn’t capture the sensation that you get while standing in the room watching the shade come down. If you just stand and watch it come down, it’s easy to get the sensation that you are slowly going up in an elevator. When all the tiny holes close up, it adds the sensation that you are crossing a floor level (as in when you pass between a light and a dark slit in the elevator door).

Saturday morning we had breakfast on the patio, which was a good choice because it rained the rest of the mornings we were there. We had the most delicious croissants, raspberry and lingonberry jam and honey. There was more to the breakfast, but these were the real highlights for us. The honey was lighter than our normal honey – I wish we knew where to buy some. Along with breakfast, we had fresh squeezed orange juice. Is there any other way to enjoy OJ? Unless your answer involves champagne, I disagree with you. We were also spoiled with fantastic coffee and warmed cream. I wish my breakfast was like that every morning. Unfortunately, breakfast in “real life” means a quick cup of coffee and a cup of yogurt, both usually imbibed while standing up in the kitchen. I then grab a FiberOne bar and race out the door. If you tell me I need to get up earlier, I don’t think we can be friends.

As we were wrapping up our breakfast, Brendan Moore, our wine tour guide, showed up. We hired him to show us around the Côte-de-Beaune and Côte-de-Nuits, both of which are about 45 minutes from Mont-Saint-Jean. We first drove by Savigny-lès-Beaune, which is unique because its vineyards primarily face south, while the rest of the vineyards are primarily eastward-facing. We made our first wine stop in Pernand-Vergelesses, where we stopped to look at some vines. I was not expecting to see such old, thick trunks on the vines, so it was interesting to learn that many of the vines are 30-40 years old. There’s a cycle, of course, so some vines are younger, but I would say that the average vine is 30 years old. The roots go down about 20-22 meters deep and get their nutrients from way down in the soil.

There's a small bunch of grapes about to bloom on this vine

Looking toward Corton

Ah, Bourgogne!

In Burgundy, unlike in Bordeaux, the focus of the wine is on the location in which it was grown (terroir - the “somewhereness” of the wine). It is so specific, that for many of the nicer wines, the label will tell you in which vineyard the wine was grown. In Bordeaux, the focus is on the winemaker and a lot of times, what the wine maker does to the grapes after the harvest is more important. Burgundian wine makers are first and foremost farmers. What they do in the field to tend to their vines is of the utmost importance. Once the grapes are harvested, most of the work is over.

Some other quick notes on different notations you might see on a wine label - Grand Cru and Premier Cru.  For Burgundian wine, the term is applied to classified vineyards, with Grand cru being the highest level and Premier cru being the second-highest level, followed by the basic village AOCs. “For Burgundy wines, the terms Premier Cru or 1er Cru are usually kept rather than being translated into English. [...] Grand cru (French for great growth) is a regional wine classification that designates a vineyard known for its favorable reputation in producing wine. Although often used to describe grapes, wine or cognac, the term is not technically a classification of wine quality per se, but is intended to indicate the potential of the vineyard or terroir. It is the highest level of classification of AOC wines from Burgundy.” (taken from Wikipedia)

Back to our tour – we stopped in Pernand-Vergelesses at Domaine Denis to meet with Monsieur Denis. He let us sample about 10-12 of his wines, mainly reds, and they were all quite tasty. We started with an aligoté and progressed on to Village, Premier Cru and Grand Crus. The star, however, was a 1992 half bottle Grand Cru. The nose alone was stunning. It will probably be a long time before I enjoy a taste of an 18-year-old wine again, but I’m looking forward to it! Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Denis!

Following our visit at Domaine Denis, Brendan drove us by Corton-Charlemagne, Aloxe-Corton, Ladoix-Serrigny, Mersault, Puligny-Montrachet, and Chassagne-Montrachet. More on Chassagne-Montrachet  later.

P.S. The WordPress spellcheck had a seizure over my spelling in this post. Apparently words like beaucoup, Cru, and Chassagne aren’t English dictionary-friendly. Who knew?

This is Mont-Saint-Jean. Bienvenue!

Anyway, once we got settled in our room, we went to explore the town on foot. As we came to the one fork in the road, we saw the restaurant - as in the only one in the town. There were a few arrow-shaped signs on the road through town with the word “restaurant” painted on them. Well, we found the restaurant. Thanks, signs!

Across from the restaurant was a small plaza of sorts, which contained a memorial to all the men from the town who had died in World War I. It was a long list – maybe 20-25 names - for such a small town. Next to the monument was a well. There were two wells in the town, one of which was completely open, so I could see all the way to the bottom. All the other wells I’d seen in my life had either been filled in or covered, so seeing down a real well was exciting for me.  Nearby, there was also an archway that served as the official entrance to the city, and in the old days, there were guards that stood at this archway to keep lepers out. Apparently the town just down the way from Mont-Saint-Jean was full of lepers and the town’s name even warned of the sickness there. It was known as Malades, which means diseased.

The WWI Memorial in Mont-Saint-Jean

Gotta love the wells!

The old gate to Mont-Saint-Jean

Further down the road (and up a hill), was a château/castle, which is in private ownership. And by private ownership, I don’t mean that it’s a privately owned museum or restaurant. It’s someone’s private residence! Wowzers. Next door to the château was the town’s church. A placard by the very short door notes that the crypt below the church dates from about 900 AD.

After reaching this part of town, we were on the outskirts already, so we headed back. We got to the fork in the road and headed up another uphill road, where we came upon a medieval hospital. Only the chapel and women’s ward are still standing, but it was amazing to explore what remains of the building and be able to imagine what it would have been like to have been in the hospital there. I could almost hear the horses stopping outside the street as if a visitor came to call.

Walking back to the bed and breakfast, we passed some roosters that John called out to. They must have thought he was a cute little hen because they all came pouring out of the coop and looked rather miffed when they saw two humans staring back at them. I loved hearing all the animals while walking through the town – there were also cows and donkeys in fields directly next to the road.

Little town it’s a quiet village.
Everyday like the one before.
Little town full of little people, waking up to say.
Bonjour!

I have so much to share about our time there, that even before I begin, I know I will have to break this up into a few posts. Please bear with me as I share some of our favorite parts of the trip. We started our preparations on Thursday night by dropping Béni off at the kennel, which was a different one than before, and by picking up our rental car. We decided to go with a rental, because our overtly American gas-guzzling SUV just hit 100,000 miles and needs a tune up. Besides, it was much more fuel-efficient to rent a little zippy(ish) European car.

Friday morning we were on the road by 8:45. The drive to Mont-St.-Jean, which is where we stayed, is supposed to take about 4 hours and 45 minutes, but between stopping for refueling and a break for lunch, it took us closer to 6 hours. On the way there, while still on the German Autobahn, we drove through several construction areas that were a wee bit nerve wracking. The lanes were so narrow that I had to mentally try to put myself somewhere else in order to curb my anxiety. I did, however, manage to snap a quick photo of an 18-wheeler in the next lane over:

Eeeeek!

Once we crossed the border into France, we decided we could make it about another hour before finding a place for lunch, which meant that once we drove by Besançon, it was time to find a restaurant. Immediately upon exiting the Autoroute (the highway system in France), we saw a McDonald’s. Feeling a bit more adventurous than taking the easy lunch stop, we decided to drive into Besançon. We must have passed through the more run-down part of the city, because it didn’t look like much until we got downtown. Down there, it was a cute town; unfortunately, our GPS directed us down a pedestrian way (i.e. a street reserved for pedestrian use and sometimes bus routes). We did our best to get off there as quickly as possible, and we later learned that driving on a pedestrian way in France is against the law. Oops. Silly GPS. We ended up heading back toward the Autoroute to fund a place to eat and ended up stopping at a random place for pizza. I had an Alsatian pizza that is often served in western Germany called Flammenküche (or Flammkuchen in German).  I must have pronounced the French version of the word like a German would, because we think our waitress thought we were German. She didn’t speak English (that we know of), and she tried to say a few words here and there to us in German. I was excited that we passed for something other than Americans. It is nice to blend in sometimes.

After our quick lunch, we were eager to get back on the road and get to Mont-Saint-Jean and start relaxing. After long last 10 km over a one lane (not each way….one lane total) bumpy farm road driving between fields of corn and hay, we pulled into Mont-Saint-Jean. To say this town is small might be an exaggeration. It’s so small that it’s only about a street and a half long/wide. In order to really illustrate this, I have pulled a map from Google Maps showing the last town we went through, the drive through the fields and finally, Mont-Saint-Jean: click here to view the map.

Quaint, isn’t it? Doesn’t the thought of it just make you want to sing Bonjour from Beauty and the Beast? I was singing that song all weekend.

All right. In an effort to avoid overwhelming our already rather small audience, I’m going to wrap this up as the end of Part 1 of our trip. Tomorrow I’ll write about Mont-Saint-Jean and our bed and breakfast.

What did you do over the long weekend?

May is a big month for us. In the forefront of my mind is our second anniversary at the end of this month. Last year, we traveled to Paris on Memorial Day weekend to celebrate (you can read about it here and here). This year, we are traveling to Burgundy, France, to celebrate on a small-town level in a bed and breakfast. I am so excited! More on that when we get back.

This month, our family had two other celebrations: my niece’s sixth birthday (Happy Birthday, Emma!) and John’s brother and sister-in-law’s second wedding anniversary (yes we got married within one week of each other).

Our garden is also starting to require a bit of attention. I’m not sure what’s going on, but our pepper plants are looking pathetic. They’re looking a little shriveled but not in a dry way. If wilty were a word, that’s how I’d describe them. I thought it was because of how much rain we got (about 3 weeks straight with no sun), but they’re looking even more puny after 4 days of sunshine. Does anyone have any advice?

Perhaps the most exciting thing besides our anniversary is the fact that we are now down to 51 weeks until John signs out of the Army. Hooray! I don’t plan on counting week by week, but it is exciting to say that we have less than a year to go. We will probably pack up our household goods in about 9 months. Crazy!

On a pathetic note, I was searching through our archives today and found another anniversary of sorts. Today is the one-year anniversary of owning my iPhone. I can’t believe I decided to include that tidbit in this post. I am not sure what it says about me.

We experienced one particularly sad example of this during our second trip to Austin. On Wednesday, a few days before our departure, we headed up to Austin to take care of some school paperwork for John. We were able to stop in San Marcos at the outlet mall and get some good deals at GAP (new swimsuit for me!) before heading into Austin for lunch with John’s sister Sarah. We were in the mood for Trudy’s, which is the restaurant John and I met at (the second time around) when he was my waiter. When we got there, it was closed. Closed? The restaurant that is open from 5 am until 2 am?

John went to investigate and was able to speak with a manager who was inside at the time. The manager said that as of two weeks prior, they had changed their hours and didn’t open until 2 PM, at which time they would served drinks and queso. The kitchen would open at 4 PM. I don’t think I can convey how incredibly mind-boggling this was for us. Trudy’s has 3 locations, so we decided to try their location up north, which purported to be open (according to their website). We got there and were seated, but when our waiter came up to us, he said “have y’all been to Trudy’s for lunch lately?” He then proceeded to tell us that they were doing things a little differently. Their full menu would also not be available until 4 PM, but we could have a shot at their lunch buffet for $8.95/person. Buffet? Sigh.

Since we were there, we decided we would check it out. It was all I had feared it would be and more. Everything was the same color because it was all fried or smothered in cheese. I actually couldn’t tell what any of the dishes were without looking at the labels. Would you believe that they were also serving funnel cake fries? They were. It was that bad.

Needless to say that although we were incredibly hungry by this point, we did not want to spend our money at Trudy’s. We drove back near the UT campus and ate at Vivo’s. Aside from a rusty hanging basket stabbing John in the head and drawing blood (Yes, he’s current on his tetanus shot. Thanks in advance for the concern.), it was a good lunch.

(Also, before we went to lunch, we got to see Sarah’s dorm room. She has a great view of the Texas capitol building. I’m jealous!)

After lunch, we did our errands for John’s paperwork, dropped by to see a friend of his and then picked up my brother for dinner at Hula Hut. After dropping him off around 9 PM, we were on our way back to San Antonio.

I focused on Wednesday in this post because a) the rest of the days were just filled with family visits in SA and b) I wanted to draw attention to the food nastiness. I feel like I’ve shortchanged both our family experience and the attention I was hoping to bring to the food situation. So, with regard to the food, do you, as residents of the US or people who have visited the US, find the food there on average to be gross?

 With regard to the rest of our week and our time spent with family, I hope all our family knows what a great time we had with each of you and how excited we are that we will get to see you much more often in just 12 short months.

Wrapping this up, our last day was (fortunately) low-key. I woke up with an awful stomach ache and ended up sick most of the day. I have never felt like that before in my life. Smells made me so nauseous, and the smell aversion lasted for 2-3 days (no, I’m not pregnant). Sitting right next to the lavatory on our flight from San Antonio to Chicago on the way back was torture. A week later, I’m finally starting to feel good again, but you k now what would really help me? Some vitamin D. It’s been rainy and COLD since we got back. Right now it’s 44 degrees and it’s the afternoon. Ack! What is this weather? It’s May for heaven’s sake!

Thanks for bearing with me through all this. I have some photos to share, and I know that’s everyone’s favorite part. Unfortunately, I can’t upload them from this computer, so look for a big photo post on Monday!