Shanna's Birthday Weekend

Shanna's birthday was this past Sunday, August 15th, but we made a weekend out of it.  It started early Saturday when I signed us up for a USO trip to Evelin's Spa in Bingen-Büdesheim.  The USO rep was driving, so we all met up on base at 8am.  It was a small van with me, Shanna, and 6 other ladies.  Needless to say I had my headphones ready, because it would have been a LOOONG 2 hour drive (each way) without them.  Bingen-Büdesheim is a quaint little German town.  There were multiple wineries, and you had to cross over a small brook to get to the town.  When we walked into the Spa, the ladies who ran the place had coffee, tea, and water set out, as well as two pound cakes the owner's husband had made that were DELICIOUS.  This was definitely a place geared toward the ladies...they had strict rules for guys who wanted to use their bathrooms:

After the small breakfast they let us know that they could only take 4 people at a time, so the first four went, and the rest of us waited.  The Spa was attached to a small stain glass window shop, and the Spa owner had arranged for us to watch the guy who owns the shop make some of his stain glass figurines.  It was actually pretty interesting watching him cut the glass, solder them together, and make things.  After that Shanna & I walked around town.  All over the place they had grape vines stretched around, going from building to building as shown below.

We stopped into a wine shop where the clerk spoke very little English.  Between the little English she knew, and the bit of German we knew, we were able to buy a few bottles of wine.  Eventually we made our way back to the Spa.  It was lunch time now (which they provided) so we sat down to eat.  The owner had walked over to the butcher across the street and purchased Salami, Ham, and cheese, and made us sandwiches.  Since it was all fresh from the butcher, it was REALLY good.  Then the spa treatment started.  First it was a facial and foot rub, then it was a full body massage.  It was VERY relaxing, but my only complaint was they used enough oil to lubricate a car, so when we were done, you could feel it all over your skin.  The ladies seemed to like it, but Shanna & I weren't big fans of it.  Other then that, though, it was great. As were were getting ready to leave, the owner came over & asked Shanna what her favorite color was.  She told her, and the lady said they'd over heard us talking about how it was Shanna's birthday, so they gave her a free stained glass heart.

Once we got back to base, we drove to a Pizzaria I'd seen that looked good.  I had to laugh at the inside of the place...it felt like 1985 all over again with the old fashioned cigarette machine and the Alf trashcan.

When we got home I gave Shanna her bday card.  I had thought about getting the standard Hallmark card at the PX, but decided to go local.  I walked down to the Rewe near our house and got her a card in German.

I didn't notice until after she opened the card that it said "Geburststagskind" instead of "Geburststag".  That changes the meaning from "A cheers on your birthday" to "A cheers to the birthday child".  In my defense, though, I've never seen a child's birthday card with Champagne flutes on them.

Sunday, her actual birthday, was a relaxing day.  We purchased an NFL pass to watch all games live, and games that have already aired on demand, so we spent the day watching the football games that had aired the day & night before.  We had dinner, then I took her & the dogs downtown to a surprise dessert place I'd found, the Cupcake Boutique, where we had cupcakes & milkshakes.  It was pretty good!  We walked around town for a bit, then headed home.

This is unrelated to Shanna's Birthday, but it doesn't warrant a separate post, so I'll add it here.  Tuesday evening when Shanna got home from work we headed downtown to get our Oktoberfest outfits!  They are pricey, but we'll be using them at least 3-4 times this year, and we'll use them for the next few years too, so it's worth it.  Below is a picture of what we got:

When Shanna got home yesterday, I put everything on, grabbed a stein, and was ready for pictures!  I didn't have enough beer in the house to fill a full stein, so I used apple juice for the picture.  Come Oktoberfest, though, it'll be beer. :)