As I've said in previous blogs, the two types of food we miss the most are Mexican & Seafood. We'd gotten our share of Mexican back in DC, but with us landing in Louisiana, we couldn't pass up local seafood. We stopped at a Joe's Crabshack on the way back for dinner on the Shreveport waterfront, and it was delicious. It's been years since I last had good crawfish. After dinner we headed back home to Texarkana. It was evening by the time we got back to her parent's house, so we called it an early night.
The next day Shanna's brother picked up his kids to take them home and we spent the day with Nikki and her two kids, Alex & Alyssa. Alyssa, Nikki, Shanna, and her Mom went shopping while Alex, myself, and her Dad stayed behind to watch March Madness. After all the running around we did in DC visiting as many people as possible, it was nice to just sit around with no one to visit, watching my Bracket slowly get busted game after game. I can't believe I picked Louisville to go to the championship game... When they got back home, in addition to getting some clothes & shoes for Shanna, they even picked me up a pair of nice brown shoes. I couldn't believe they had found size 14 in the store, but they had, and the shoes fit great. That night dinner was good old fashioned steaks on the grill.
Friday was the day the kids had been the most excited about...making German donuts. Shanna had taken a German cooking class last month and one of the things they made were Berliners, a.k.a German donuts. She saved the recipe, and before we left we bought all the ingredients that you couldn't get in the US and brought them back with us. Friday morning after Shanna's brother Scott came by with his kids, they all made the donuts.
For those that have heard their names and want to put a face to them, the boy in the blue shirt on the far right is Alex. Heading around the table, next to him is Ryan, then Shanna, Alyssa, Cody (in the green shirt), and the youngest, Brady. The person behind Alyssa is Shanna's Mom, Pattie, and you can see Shanna's Dad in the background on the left. The donuts turned out great! That afternoon Scott & his wife Amy came over, and we had one of the most relaxing afternoons of the trip...sitting on the back porch, sipping a beer in 80 degree weather, and just talking about anything & everything. The kids even convinced me to go out & push them on the tire swing in the backyard. One thing they'd been doing the entire time we were there was asking us how to say words in German. When I was pushing them on the tire swing, when it was getting time for someone else's turn to swing, I'd count down pushes left start at 10. Then I started counting down in German and they loved it, repeating the word every time I said it. Dinner that night was hamburgers on the grill outside.
Saturday was just another lazy day watching basketball while the girls went out shopping. That afternoon we showered, got cleaned up, and headed downtown to Zappatta's. It's a great little Mexican restaurant in downtown Texarkana that we usually go to everytime we are back there visiting. We met up with Shanna's friends Kimber & Josh and Matt & Amber. Shanna has known Kimber & Matt since at least high school (I think maybe even longer), so it was good seeing them again. Matt & Amber have two kids, Addison and Mason, but they were staying with Amber's Mom while we had dinner. Afterwards they left a little early to go pick the kids up, and we all met back up at Matt & Amber's place. The last time we were there was last March after they had just bought the house. The previous owner was an older lady who smoked, and you could tell that as soon as you walked in. They hadn't moved into the house yet as of March of last year, so it smelled smoky and looked like it hadn't been updated in a long long time. This time, though, the house looked completely different. The smoke smell was gone and everything looked new & fresh. We had gotten Addison and Mason some spring toys and they couldn't stop playing with them. They are literally hand carved animals attached to a spring that makes them bounce up & down. The picture below is a friend in DC's daughter who we also got one for playing with hers.
We ended up spending most of the night there, not leaving until around midnight. When we walked outside the huge super moon everyone had been talking about was out. It was so bright outside that the birds were confused about the time of day and were chirping left & right.
The next day, Sunday, was our last full day in TX. We started the day running some errands, then went to the retirement home to visit Shanna's Grandpa. I've met him several times before, and always enjoy talking with him. He has a great sense of humor, and is fun to talk with. I even got to help him out with his computer because he wanted to do something on it, but wasn't sure quite how. That afternoon Scott, Amy, and their kids came over for Sunday dinner (a delicious roast with biscuits and mashed potatoes), and we said our goodbyes to all the nieces & nephews. We packed up for the next morning, and headed to bed early since we had to be up early the next morning.
The trip back to Germany wasn't too bad, but it WAS long. No matter how much you bring with you to occupy the time, 9 hours still is a long time to be in an airplane. We got lucky with the exit rows, though, because we were able to get exit row seating for both of us on both legs. After having breakfast at the airport with Shanna's parents we flew to Atlanta. We had a 5 hour layover there, so we spent it enjoying the last bit of American cuisine we could...we ate lunch at the Sam Adam's brewpub in the terminal and enjoyed some Sam Adam's specialty beers. Then, at 5:35, we took off, heading back to Germany.
While in flight we could see the moon outside our window. It was huge, and lit up the entire Atlantic Ocean. Unlike Shanna, I can't sleep on planes, so I was awake almost the entire time. While it made the time go by slowly, I did get see some neat things. I tried taking a picture of the moon from our window. I thought with how big it was outside it'd turn out, but you can barely see it. As we flew over Ireland they had a plane tracker up on all the screens in the plane showing where we were. It showed us being right over Belfast, so I looked outside and you could see the sun starting to come up and clouds below us leading right up to the city, then the clouds broke and all the lights in the city were still on. It was a beautiful site, I just wish I could have captured it on camera. We finally landed at 7:40am local time (2:40am EST). All of our luggage made it back in one piece, then we took the train back home. After unloading at the house, we went to pick the dogs up. It was great seeing them after two weeks away. Our friend who looked after them the last part of the trip had to take them to the kennel Friday because they were barking so much while she was at work that the German's were threating to call the police for animal cruelty. So when we got to the kennel, they first brought Milo out. He flew up to us and was so excited he didn't know who to jump on. First he jumped up on me, then Shanna, then back to me. Next they let Murphy out and the dogs were practically falling over themselves trying to jump up on us. That evening we cracked open the beer I brewed from the kit Shanna bought me for Christmas. It wasn't bad...there wasn't a ton of flavor, but it was carbonated and definitely beer. Considering it was made from a pre-fab kit, and it was my first time, I'm considering it a success! I can't wait to start batch #2. After a long day of making our selves stay awake, we finally went to bed around 6pm last night and slept all through the night.
Over all it was great seeing everyone. It was weird getting used to "the little things" that are different in the US, like not having the metric system, seeing road signs on the interstate that are green with white lettering (they are blue with white lettering here) and of course, the biggest thing, seeing & hearing English every where. It was such a weird experience when we walked into the first store when we were back and heard people only talking in English.
We're not sure when we're going to be back next, but we're both counting down the days to when we can see everyone again. In the mean time, keep checking the blog for more adventures over here!
You can click on the pictures in this post or here to see all of the pictures taken.
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