Part of my wonderful birthday surprise from dear fiancé was the awesome gift of a new bicycle! He had given me a region free DVD player (so now I can watch all my German DVDs (that are all in Germany,… minor detail)!!) and a massage gift certificate earlier in the evening and taken me to a restaurant I had been meaning to try forever so quite frankly, I thought my birthday was awesome and done with. Oh no. We came back home after dinner and he called me down into the den where he was waiting with a beautiful, super fancy hybrid bike. Swoon!
My first thought was “Oh sweeeet! Now I don’t have to research bikes to buy one!” Hehe. I had been wanting to get one this summer but had been dreading doing the research what with all the wedding prep. Mind you this is the first time I’ve had a bike in forever! I don’t even think I had one in college but perhaps I had one in Hamburg for a very short period of time. And all those bike’s I had had were completely functioning right outside the box. Apparently that’s not the case with fancy bikes. The babe was busy over the next couple of days to mount a kickstand and lights and a lock (don’t think we’ve figured out how to mount that one just yet. YOU’D THINK!!).
But finally everything was put together and I had gloves and a helmet (Don’t ride without one peeps! Don’t want your noggin to be smashed!). So off we went! I was sooooo nervous (and giddy – hello 32 year old child). Shifting gears?! I’ve never had a bike with more than 8 gears and I’d always been able to break by trying to pedal backwards. But, thankfully, that wasn’t hard and it really is like the saying – you never forget how to ride a bike! This one translates beautifully into German, too, although we never “unlearn” how to ride a bike. No training wheels needed!
So we’re excited to go on bike rides in our neighborhood, to visit our friends who just moved a mile and a half away from us, and to drive up to the bar that’s a mile and a half in the other direction. We’ve mapped out parks and the Virginia Kreeper Trail and look forward to being active outdoors together. What a great gift!
This past weekend I had invited a few people over to celebrate and I have to say, our house is just perfect for entertaining! So happy about that! Definitely was missing an attached outdoor space and the yard in my old apartment. I had found some cute decorative paper elements and finally found a reason to buy a few packs of those super adorable paper straws. The backyard looked awesome!
Not only did I get to go back to Germany for a trade show once (think free air fare), but twice! Was wonderful to see the family for a few days and I even got to check the beautiful city of Dresden off my bucketlist. My parents also got to meet my love to quiz him about his intentions (nah, they were nice).
I changed jobs, which was such a mixed feelings thing to do. I loved so many things about my old job yet it had become time to move on to new adventures. The new gig is great and the highlight was definitely going to Cancun for three days to observe cases!
Our 2013 vacation was a trip to Vermont. Aside from me being stuck overnight in Philadelphia (thanks stupid unexpected snow storm) it was just perfect and super romantic! You know it’s fantastic when you think to yourself “this is so cheesy but I love it”!