Christmas Festivities in the Midwest

Adam, Diggy, and I just got back from a busy week in the Midwest. Every time I go home I wish I could stay longer-our trips are just so crazy, running around trying to see everyone we can! Regardless of the exhausting schedule, we had a great time!

We left for the airport Saturday morning (the 20th), ate some breakfast, stuck a sedative into a treat for Diggy, stuffed him in his carrier, and got on the plane. He was a perfect (drugged) dog the whole time and stayed in his carrier until we got to Bloomington where my sister picked us up. That night Kristie had a group of people over including Katie, Krissy P, and Everhart (an old high school friend of mine), so it was really fun to hang out.

Diggy in his carrier

The next day we were supposed to go to Iowa for my mom's Christmas, but half way there, the roads were closed down due to the horribly icey roads. We turned around after driving 2 hours and went to one of my fave restaurants-Avantis-for lunch. Then I spent the day wrapping presents and my mom had all of us and my aunt's family over for dinner! Diggy loved it because he got TONS of attention from all the kiddies!

Cal playing with Diggy

Monday I basically lounged around until evening. Adam played racketball with my brother in law so he was busy. That night my sisters and our husbands went to dinner at another of my local faves-La Fiesta. Afterwards we met Kristen, Rachel, and some friends at a local townie bar.

Tuesday we headed for Indiana. We left early enough to get to our niece Carissa's baptism, but the roads were bad so we missed it by a half hour! Anyways, the whole Ralph family met up at Adam's sister Jill's house, along with his extended family. We hung out, ate dinner, then met up with Adam's friend Brian.

Us in matching green and white (Adam copied my only outfit I brought)

The next day we celebrated Christmas Eve in Indiana. It is a townie tradition for all the Haubstaters to attend the local bars on Christmas Eve, but while Adam and some people went, I stayed home with some of Adam's sisters and the kids and hung out/got ready. That night we did a gift exchange, Santa stopped by with some gifts for the kids, and we all ate a nice dinner.

Ralph Grandkids

Adam, Jay, and Adam preparing the meat

Christmas morning we got up early and drove back to Illinois. This time the weather was a lot nicer so we made good time. We did our usual Christmas kids open presents-dinner-we open presents. This year we played a game of Guesstures which was pretty funny too!

Erwin Grandkids

The Ralphs :)

Sylv, Tate, and Ells in the jumpy thing from Grandma and Grandpa

Diggy didn't know what to think of all the wrapping paper

Games

Friday we had a little shower for my cousin Courtney's baby, who is due in February. We went to lunch then back to my sisters for gifts and presents. That night we went to my aunt Julie's for dinner (grandparents and my aunt Cindy's family were there too), then I met up with Joanna and Darah at a bar where tons of high school people were at.

Saturday, it was time to go home. Despite Adam developing the flu that morning and a tornado warning in Bloomington, we made it out on time and got home as scheduled.

What a busy week! Now back to work. I guess I can't complain too bad since I have another 5 day weekend starting Wednesday for New Years :)

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Preparing to head to the Midwest

We leave to go home for Christmas on Saturday morning and I feel like I've got a zillion things to do...mainly because we are taking Diggy with us on our flight! I'm getting worried because I bought him a carrier and he is very resistant when it comes to going in it. Adam and I have been putting tons of treats in it so he associates it with good things, but I don't think it is working. Last night I finally got him in it and zipped it up and he barked at me until I let him out! I guess I'm going to have to ask the vet for a sedative or something 'cause I know it won't be a pleasant flight for our fellow passengers if a little dog is barking the whole time!

Tomorrow I have to work for a few hours, then I'm spending my day taking Diggy to the vet to get his papers saying he's okay to fly, finishing up laundry, and packing. Packing is another thing that might be difficult (not as bad as the Europe trip). I send a good 75 % of the gifts I bought to my mom and dad's house already, but we have 2 suitcases to fit all of our stuff, all of Diggy's stuff, and the rest of our gifts. I sense I'll have to do some sitting on the suitcases to get them zipped!

Wish us luck on our travels!

Christmas Parties for Work

This week we have had 4 parties for work: one for the Maternal Child Health and Family Services, one for Share the Care, one for UCSD Community Pediatrics, and the final big one was for all UCSD Pediatrics. Not a bad week to return to work after a vacation :).

The first one was Wednesday afternoon at a hotel in Old Town with a lunch buffet, talent show, dancing, etc. It is pretty funny to see how wild and crazy the ladies at work get (especially considering it's daytime and noone was drinking :). The second one was yesterday with a lunch at a Mexican restaurant and we did a white elephant gift exchange. The third was a cocktail party at Dr. Taras' house. The last one was a big dinner/dance party at Prado at Balboa Park.

Adam and I went last year to this one and were excited to go again! The ballroom it is in is super pretty, the food is really good, and it's just a fun night. Here are some pictures from the one last night...

Adam, me, Carissa, Carissa's boyfriend KyleDruann, her boyfriend Howard, and Janice

Carissa, Hank (my boss's husband), Renee (one of my bosses), Druann, Howard, Adam

Adam and me hitting the dance floor

Time to go home...

After our last night in Paris, we were taken to the airport and had to leave. It really was such a great trip! There were some things that I was totally over by the end of the trip (my feet and calves hurting, the cold, paying to use the bathrooms, tons of smoking people and smelling like smoke, bread and ham for breakfast and very few fruits/veggies in general, etc.) but so many things that were so great that the little things didn't matter (all of our new friends, the beautiful architecture, such pretty scenery/drives, fancy rest stops with wine/beer with all meals including fast food, walking everywhere, trying new foods, etc.).

This is me supposed to be acting sad to leave Paris, hehe.

We also learned a lot from the people we were on the trip with about their countries and learned of lots of other places we want to visit! It was so funny learning the vocabulary of all these people (cue for line, pissed for drunk, lollies for candy, uni for college, bloke, mate, etc).

People keep asking me what my favorite part of the trip was and it's so hard to say! I loved seeing every city around Christmas time and all lit up with the Christmas stands. I loved the low key nights just hanging out with people at the hotels. I LOVED the Haufbrau Haus. I thought Venice, Austria, and Lucerne were so pretty. I LOVED Paris and all the pretty things to look at, all the shopping, the Moulin Rouge, and our fun last night there. All in all, I loved everything!

But I love America too and was ready to come home to something that was missing in my heart...

Diggy was happy to be back with his mama, and I LOVE him more than the best thing any European city has to offer!

Paris

After Switzerland, we headed to what was probably the highlight of the trip-Paris! We got to our hotel, and to our pleasant surprise, it was VERY nice and new and clean and had a really neat decorated restaurant and bar. Everyone ate dinner at the restaurant then we went on a night time city tour of Paris. It was so beautiful to see everything lit up at night. We went by all of the main tourist attractions, then went to the top of the Eiffel Tower. It was so cool to do at night! There weren't as long of lines and the view of the city lit up was so pretty. It was, however, probably the most cold and wind blown I have ever been in my whole life! The tower goes into disco mode every hour on the hour, so it was pretty to see that at night as well. At the bottom there is all of these African men trying to sell you crappy Eiffel Tower gear and they just won't leave you alone. It's funny because a lot of the people we were with got the same stuff for completely different prices-moral of the story: If you buy stuff from these guys, you can get it for practically nothing-they'll take anything!

The next morning we went to the park in front of the Eiffel Tower to get pictures, then we had the whole day to explore. Adam and I started out by going to the Louvre. It is amazing how big and pretty and detailed this building is! There is enough to see in it to last you a lifetime, so we basically just went to see a few main things we were excited about: Mona Lisa, Apollo's Palace, Venus de Milo, and Napoleon's apartment. After the Louvre, we went to the Notre Dame (there was a guy dressed like the hunchback outside of it). It was so awesome, but the line was SOOOO long so we didn't go in. Afterwards, we went to the Latin Quarter and found this cute little bistro to eat lunch at. We had real French onion soup, escargot, a goat cheese/apple/green salad, and of course wine! Everything was delicious and didn't disappoint! The French sure do know how to practice portion control though, which I like! Despite what everyone says too, I thought French people were nice-the servers, our hotel staff, even a girl at the train station who gave us a coin!The rest of the afternoon we walked more and saw the Palace of Justice, we shopped (and I got Kristie a Christmas present I love!), went by the Opera House, saw the Madeleine Theatre, then walked up Champs Elysee (shopping and Christmas stands). Then we hurried home to get ready for our last night in Europe!

One of the main things I wanted to do while we were there was go to the Moulin Rouge, which I was lucky enough to get to do! It was crazy getting there (Saturday night in Paris is super busy PLUS the drivers there are HORRIBLE), but we made it. We sat with a big group and they served us a nice dinner with lots of wine while a cabaret band played and people danced. Finally they brought our champagne and the show started! It basically is like a musical, a circus, and a strip show all in one. There were dancers, gymnists, a juggler, a vantriliquist, ponies, snakes, a talking dog, and lots of American songs (but mostly French). It was something I would definitely recommend everyone to do at least once in their life if they are in Paris and all the guys even agreed that it was awesome.

After the show, we all went to this bar next to the Moulin Rouge to hang out one last night! It was a really fun night and everyone had a really good time. It was sad that the trip went so fast and that we probably won't see most of these people we had such a good time with ever again!

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Lucerne

After Italy, we had a beautiful drive into Switzerland. One of my highlights was driving by Lake Como and seeing George Clooney's house from across the lake, but the Swiss Alps were nice too :). When we arrived to Lucerne, it was so pretty. The city is surrounded by snow capped mountains and has so much character. We went to see the Lion Monument and the famous bridge, but mainly just walked around and looked at buildings, houses, and shops (known for their watches and knives of course). We tried authentic Swiss chocolate, which was DELICIOUS! Adam got it in his head he wanted cheese, so we went into a grocery store, he didn't find what he was looking for, so we decided to leave. As we were leaving, the buzzer went off when I went through! We couldn't communicate with the mean checkout lady, so they called security on me and took me back into this room! I was thinking "I'm going to Swiss jail for nothing." Anyways, turns out my extra memory card for my camera that was still in the package made it go off. The security guy was nice and let me leave. It made for a little excitement.

That night we all went to this sports bar in town. It was a really fun night, but we were lucky we weren't the last to leave. Apparently, 5 people got home late and all got onto this TINY elevator in our hotel. It was on its way up when it dropped and they were stuck inbetween floors. They started yelling for help and this guy Matt heard them, panicked, and punched through the glass to try to get them down. It didn't work, and they had to call the elevator guy to come in. The people involved in this little incident had to pay A LOT of money for the repair (140-300 Euro each) and for having the elevator guy have to come in the middle of the night! Oh well, makes for a good story of their adventure in Switzerland!



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Venice

Our first night in Italy was interesting. We ate dinner at the hotel we stayed at and all just sat in the lounge area with couches and mingled. I drank some delicious Italian wine but most people had the mixed drink, which we came to learn were so strong they were practically deadly. This made for an interesting night. People who had these drinks ended up having a really rough night-Adam being one of them :) The next morning on our way to Venice, we learned a lot of people were up in the night being sick and a few people even got sick on the way there, ewwww(don't worry, not Adam). Glad I stuck to the wine!




We started our visit to Venice at St. Mark's Square. We were super lucky because the day before we were there, Venice flooded. The raised walkways were all out in case it flooded the day we were there, but luck was on our side! We walked by the Bridge of Sighs (the bridge that leads to the prison Cassanova was in). We saw Doges Palace, the columns, the belltower, etc. We also went to a demonstration of how they make the famous glass sculptures there; it was so funny, this HUGE man who looked out of the Sopranos was the artist and he was rough!





After the glass demo, everyone walked to this little authentic pizza stand and got gigantic pizza slices. Then Adam and I walked all over to see the Rialto Bridge, neighborhoods, canals, etc. Everything here was so pretty!



After awhile, we met up with the group to go on a gondola ride. Adam and I rode with 4 guys-Chris, Dave, Kane, and Andrew, haha. Not so romantic but really fun. The gondola man was so funny-I pictured an old guy but he was a young man who seemed to be a model want to be.

After the ride, we walked around more and finally went to a cute little Italian restaurant for dinner. After some Bordeaux and seafood, we headed back to the hotel for bed! It was a long but fun day!


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Austria

After Germany we headed to Innsbrook Austria. The drive was so beautiful. It looked like the Sound of Music-mountains with snow everywhere then mountains with green grass. It was fun to see the people from South Africa react to snow because most of them had never seen it in person. When we got to Innsbrook, we went to the Swarofski Crystal museum first. The basement of it was set up as a winter wonderland display and was all glittery and sparkley-very pretty. Afterwards we basically walked around, ate lunch-the best pumpkin soup ever, took pictures, and finally tried world famous desserts (strudel and sacar), then we were on our way to Italy!

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Germany

Sunday night we arrived to St. Goar, Germany. It is a cute little town in the Rhine Valley on the Rhine River that has the world's largest cuckoo clock. We stayed at this cute family owned hotel that was very old fashioned. Most of the hotels had twin beds that they pushed together for us which was funny, but this one was all Brady Bunch yellow and right out of the seventies. This night we went to a wine cave for Reisling tastings. The Rhine Valley is known for Reislings, which I typically think is too sweet, but they had a dry Reisling that was really good. We also got to taste ice wine, which is really expensive because it takes the amount of grapes to make 8 bottles of regular wine to make this. It was super thick and syrupy, like honey, but sort of good. After the tasting, everyone hung out at the hotel bar, which was fun and low key!

The next morning we left for Munich. The hotel we stayed at here was a lot more modern/nicer and they had my favorite gummy bears on the bed like we put mints on pillows :) We started out at Marienplatz Square and saw the Glockenspiel. We also went to Frauenkirche Cathedral where there is supposedly the devil's footprint. Legend has it that if your foot is the same size as this print, you are the son of the devil! Luckily, our feet were too small! Woohoo.

After exploring, we met the whole group at the Haufbrau Haus. This place was one of the highlights of the trip. It basically is a huge beer hall/restaurant where everyone drinks out of gigantic beer steins, sits at long tables, listens to the oompah band, and eats. The servers are dressed in traditional German clothes and they carry all the steins your table orders at one time! There are lots of tourists here, but one side is reserved for the locals who have their own steins in locker type things. We tried gigantic pretzels, sausage, schnitzel, and of course saurkraut! It was an Australian guy named Kane's 19th bday, so it was fun to celebrate with him. This guy reminds me of what Adam would have been like at 19...he was never dull to be around. We basically played games and drank beer all night. We even tried this liquor called obstler, which supposedly is supposed to melt all the food and beer in your stomach so you can keep drinking without getting too full...didn't work for me, but it's a nice thought! Anyhow, this was one of the most fun nights I have had in a super long time, and I would LOVE to go back to this place!

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