Plan B and a Taste of Home

With this weekend being a long weekend for James, although not for Thomas, we were hoping to go on a small trip, we never even got so far as to choose where but we thought we'd pick Thomas up from school on Friday and stay somewhere Friday and Saturday night and come back tonight. Unfortunately, our Rondo is still not fixed...eight weeks later...it is still in the same shape that it was the night that we wrecked it.  The parts are here but are taking a long time clearing customs.  We did find out on Friday that they are in a large shipment, parts for many cars, and it really has to do with clearing customs, they have been in the country for nearly two weeks.

Anyhow, we were forced to come up with a Plan B.  I suggested we go on two day-trips one yesterday, and the other today, but yesterday we were easily discouraged by the bad weather and other than James running some errands that had to be done, we just stayed home, and stayed warm.  However, today, despite the fact that it was even worse weather i.e. pouring rain, cold (although not freezing cold but cold enough for layers, hats, gloves and boots), absolutely no sun, we were determined to go out and do something.  And, yes, this means we skipped church, but we would have skipped church if we went on a two-night trip, too! So, we dressed in our best layers and boots and off we went.  The kids and the diaper bag and the hat/glove bag in the back, our coats in the trunk and me and the umbrella stroller in the front passenger seat and James was driving--yes we piled in the Mini Cooper. In all honesty, I had no idea where we were going when we drove away.  James likes to be mysterious like this.  Kind of drives me crazy, no, not kind of, it DOES DRIVE ME CRAZY, but at least today I knew we would be gone for a large portion of the day and I had planned for it.

We ended up going to Speyer, Germany which is only about a one-hour drive for us on the autobahn, today we drove at a conservative speed due to the rain.  First, we were going to go to a historical museum, but we found that a great number of other people also had the same idea for a Sunday afternoon.  The wait just to sit in the foyer of the museum was 30 minutes...no thanks.  We turned back around and walked around the town.  Most stores are closed on Sundays, but there were some café's that were open for business.  Not that we sat down and had a café experience of our own, no we stuck with fresh pretzels that were sold on the street.  We walked around the pedestrian zone and then went to capture it all on my camera, when I realized that my camera battery was dead, never fear, I have TWO! Only it helps if you put the second battery in your camera case...so that was that, no pictures!  So, we turned around and went to see the second tourist spot of the day, the Speyer Dom (Dom means Cathedral).  We walked around it for a while and then decided to move forward with our day.  Despite the miserable weather, the kids were absolutely amazing!

We hopped in our car and drove for about another hour to Ramstein, Germany.  Home of the Air Base with the Chili's!  The last time we went there was for Mother's Day Saturday.  I pretty much ask every other weekend if "we can go to Chili's?" and for the past month I have really been asking to go.  I've been feeling like I needed my "American dining experience" fix.  The kids were, once again, really, really good.  It helps that Americans know all about good, quick service but they were still exceptionally good today.  We were in and out of there within an hour.  An extreme difference from the minimum 2 1/2 to 3 hours you get to sit in a German restaurant for your meal, which explains why we don't take our kids out to eat here except to McDonald's.  And our waitress really knew how to keep the refills a-coming!  The food was just how we expected it and we all thoroughly enjoyed our meals!

All-in-all, not a bad day!

Until later,

Emily