The Powell Family Blog

Last Friday night my work paid for us to go to Fruhlingsfest!  The Germans sure love their festivals!!  We had a nice time and Chris even got me out of there before I drank too much around my co-workers.  Yay for a responsible husband!!!

Then on Saturday we took Braydon to Tripsdrill, an amusement park here in Germany.  Braydon had a great time.  The park had a lot of rides that B could ride with us which was really great! They also had a little petting zoo. The baby goats were so cute! However, they freaked Braydon out a little bit

Happy birthday to my wonderful sister, Karen.  I wish I could be there to help celebrate.  I love you!

Last Thursday we took the train to Munich to pick up our new car at the BMW Welt!  We met a very nice German couple on the train also on their way to pick up their new BMW.  This was their second BMW, their first has lasted them over 20 years and now their son is driving it!  I’m hoping ours lasts that long…maybe Braydon will be driving it to college!

 When we 1st got to the Welt we checked in and planned our day.  We opted to do the BMW Museum since we had skipped it the last time we visited.  They gave us vouchers for food so we also had lunch prior to our big moment.  When it was finally time we headed back up to the Premium Lounge to meet our BMW representative, Petra.  Before we saw our new car, she took us through a tutorial.  It was very cool.  They have tutorial projected down on to a table and could move through it by touching the different areas. 

They had our exact car to show us all the details.  They had even put our license plate into the tutorial!  We did a “test drive” too and she walked us through the I Drive. 

Once we were done with our tutorial it was time to finally see our new car!!!!  Petra walked us halfway down the stairs and stopped so we could see our new car. It was so much fun seeing our new car spinning down below.
They took pictures of us in front of our new car and then hooked up our ipod and phones. Petra was wonderful. She showed us how every little thing worked before sending us on our way! We did a quick “victory” lap around the showroom before heading home. It was such a wonderful experience!

This last weekend we went to Heidelberg.  We had a free hotel room at the Crowne Plaza and it was really nice.  You can’t beat a free hotel!! 

We went to the castle first and had a picnic in the park.  It was a such a nice day!  The views from the castle are so amazing.  Heidelberg is such a beautiful city. I love living in Europe, the history, the architecture…amazing!

The Heidelberg Castle is also the home of the World’s Largest Wine Barrel.  It holds 58,124 gallons of wine and has a dance floor on top of it!  It was hard trying to get a good picture of it since it was so big and sits in a dark cellar but you get the idea.

Saturday night we walked the Hauptstrasse, which runs through the center of town. It’s just a bunch of shops, restaurants and entertainers on the street. We got ourselves some Starbucks and enjoyed the walk and people watching. It was such a nice weekend!

We spent Valentines Day in Garmisch this year!  Chris work organized a ski trip and a bunch of families were there.  We didn’t take Braydon skiing (I felt like he was too little) but I think we’ll put him in ski school next year.  We did take him sledding and he LOVED it!!!!

Here’s Braydon and Chris getting ready for dinner and the wonderful view from our hotel!

It was such a wonderful weekend in the Alps!

B turned 2 on February 11!!!  I can’t believe how big he is now!  We had a birthday party for him and he ran around crazy the whole time.  He had so much fun!  I made an Elmo cake for him and he got way too many presents.  The kid is so spoiled

In January we spent a weekend in Interlaken, Switzerland and it was so wonderful.  Our hotel had a fabulous view.

We spent all day on Saturday going to the top of Shilthorn.  We rode cable car after cable car but the view was amazing!  There’s nothing like standing on top of a mountain and being able to see for miles.

One of my favorite towns was Murren. You had to take a cable car up to it and there were no cars allowed on the streets. Everyone was skiing or sledding down the streets, it was so neat!! I want to stay there next time!

Switzerland is so beautiful, I can’t wait to spend more time there!

This was the first year that Chris and I have spent Christmas at our own house since we’ve been married.  We had my parents come visit which was really great!  Braydon was SO excited to see them!  We went to Ulm to see the tallest cathedral in Europe and to hit up the Christmas Market there.

Braydon had a great time riding the firetruck merry go round. We had a great time drinking gluhwein with a shot of amaretto!  It was yummy!!

We also tried to go to Esslingen’s Christmas market but we were a day late and they were already taking it down.  Braydon managed to ride yet another firetruck merry go round so it wasn’t a complete waste

Chritmas morning was a blast this year since this is the 1st time Braydon realized what was going on.  He just kept saying “Santa brings presents” over and over! Needless to say, Braydon had a wonderful Christmas!

This month has flown by, we’ve been so busy!  We went to Chris’ work Christmas party at the beginning of the month which are always a good time!  His coworkers and their families are a lot of fun!

It snowed a lot this month too.  Braydon had so much fun playing in the snow and sledding.

Lots and lots of snow!

Wow, I’ve been really bad about keeping up with my blog lately.  So here’s a quick run down of November. 

November 1st was my 28th birthday and Chris made the day so special.  He got up early with the baby and made me a big breakfast.  He then surprised me with a manicure/pedicure appointment that afternoon.  He tried to take me to a Mexican restaurant here in Suttgart but it was too busy so we ended up at another random restaurant which was really good!  He also made me a tres leches cake from scratch…I was impresssed!

 November 12th was our 3rd anniversary and we spent the weekend in Paris.  Paris was on the top of my list of things to see while we live in Europe.  We had a great time. 

 We hosted Thanksgiving at our home this year.  Chris was dissapointed he couldn’t find a turkey fryer but dinner turned out wonderful!  We had a great time with friends and ate entirely too much.