Germany cont...

Before taking the train to Viseck to visit Charee we took a walk around Nymphemberg Palace. The grounds were amazing. You could not see the end of the gardens. We walked around to see cute parks where everyone was jogging and walking their dogs. The train ride to Vilseck wasn't bad probably 3 hours or so. It was so great to meet up with the Brown family. Talk about best hosts ever. Made me realize I need to be a better host when I have my own home again someday. We started our tour around in Bayreuth to see the Opera House and Eremitage Park. The Opera House is unreal. I can't believe the amount of detail put in to that place. The park was huge which is what I have come to expect now. Walking around you could get lost it was that massive. And I can't even believe how green everything is here. Growing up in Arizona I guess I didn't know it was possible to have this much greenery somewhere... but it is!

Nymphemberg Palace

Huge gardens with parks

Visiting Bayreuth 

Love Miss Chloe

Opera House

The girls

Love this guy

Eremitage Park

Charee & Shalayne hanging on the bridge

Bavaria, Germany: Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles

We were very lucky to be able to visit Bavaria and see these 2 amazing castles. Anyone going to Germany should definitely go see these castles. They were beautiful; if on a budget you should at least tour Neuschwanstein, its worth the $$. It is the castle that Disney modeled their castle after and its pretty obvious why. I was kind of disappointed that on one side of the castle they were doing repairs so scaffolding covered the entire side which really put a damper on taking photos. 

Hiking up to the Castles

Hohenschwangau Castle

View from inside the castle

Neuschwanstein Castle

View from the bridge

Week 2: Austria/ Germany

And so the adventure continues... we flew into Munich, rented a car and drove to Austria. Clayton has relatives in Austria that were nice enough to let us stay with them. Clayton's grandma is from Austria and her brother Rudi and his wife Berta live in a quaint town called St. Michael. From the moment we showed up in the driveway they were SO welcoming. Berta whipped up a 3 course meal in the kitchen that was delicious. We never went hungry; she fed us schnitzel, meats, cheese, crackers, cake, ice cream, and the best homemade cranberry sauce. She is an amazing cook. Clayton's cousin Rusty (an Elvis impersonator) took us on a wonderful tour of Tamsweg (where Clayton's family is from and his dad was born). We did a tour of Moosham Castle, visited a beautiful lake, saw Hitler's summer home, saw Mauterndorf castle, and visited Clayton's great grandpa's grave site. Clayton's cousin Ulie has 2 adorable daughters that wanted to come over and practice their English with us. The youngest Anna had the biggest crush on Clayton is was so cute. It was so great to spend time in Austria spending time with family we have never met. Austria is beautiful, I felt like I was living in "The Sound of Music". The Alps are amazing. I don't know that I have ever seen mountains so green in my life. We are looking forward to visiting again. For now, on to Germany to visit Charee.

Rusty getting ready to take us on our tour

Uncle Rudi

Some of the beautiful countryside

Sight-seeing the castles

Cousins

One deer, 18 yrs of antlers

Tamsweg town square

The house that Clayton's grandma and uncle Rudi grew up in

Hitler's summer home

Rudi's home- I love the flower boxes on all the homes!

Anna wanted Clayton to teach her games on the Ipad the whole time.

The whole gang

Great Grandpa's grave

Week 1: First week in Dublin

Our first week in Dublin was a little bit of everything, fun, tiring, confusing, and wet. We landed in Dublin, picked up the rental car and headed to our hotel the Louis Fitzgerald. We were so surprised to find that Ireland doesn't have many street signs so finding our way with no cell phones took a lot more effort than normal. We spent most of our week trying to find an apartment, get Clayton registered for school, get local cell numbers, and set up a bank account. In our spare time we tried to do a little sight seeing... especially while we had a rental car. We were able to go downtown and see some of the Tall Ships that were in town. It is a big festival and a big deal in Dublin. It was great, we had a lot of rain to break us in. Once we secured a place to live to took a trip a little further south to see the Powers Court Gardens. It was beautiful!!! So much green everywhere. We took a hike to see Sally's Gap which is an amazing view. People who are coming to Ireland... this is a MUST DO. We loved our first week here but our lease didn't start for another week so we figured we would get on a plane and spend week 2 in Germany and Austria.

P.S.  the pictures are not edited! It really is this green here.

Tall Ships Festival

PowersCourt Garden

Breakfast with a view of the gardens

Wool Mills

Sallys Gap

Yes, yes we are still here

I should win an award for worst blogger. I really am a terrible blogger but hopefully I will be better. We have such great, exciting things going on I am determined to document it all. We had such a great time over the past year in California. We made such great friends, had plenty of Disney trips, and had lots weekend trips to crash in on Chelsey and Daniel in Carlsbad. It was the best! Clayton was offered an internship back in AZ for the summer so we packed up, AGAIN, and moved back to AZ for the summer. We had a great time in AZ spending lots of time with friends and family and taking some time to travel. We spent a few weeks in New York and a week in Tahoe with some of our good friends. We also had the chance to go to Utah to see my sweet cousin, Ashley get married. It was a beautiful wedding. To finish off our summer we headed to Europe where we will be living until Christmas. Clayton is doing a semester abroad in Dublin at UCD. I hope to have great experiences and make some wonderful memories while we are out here.