Labor Day weekend

Since Sam took Tuesday off for our anniversary, we had a long Labor Day weekend together which we really enjoyed. On Saturday, instead of doing what I needed to do (stay home and clean my house) we went to a flea market and antique shopping. I love doing that and we found a really great little antique shop in one of the the towns we drive through all the time. There was so much packed into that space that I'm sure we didn't get to see everything.

We did get one really great piece that I'm excited about. In one of the back rooms there were quite a few old sewing machines and we saw a Singer treadle sewing machine back in a corner. Sam asked the owner how much it would cost and she said €100 (about $130). I couldn't believe it was that cheap! So, we said we wanted it. When she looked at it closer in getting it out she told Sam that we got a really great price. I think she spoke before really looking at the machine. It's in beautiful condition and still works. We were so excited about our antique find!

The owner had another shop down the street and gave us the key to have a look at what she has stored there. Sam fell in love with a 200 year old wooden trunk. She wanted €400 for that though and since we got such a great deal on the treadle she wasn't about to give us a break on the trunk. It's still sitting in the shop down the street.

Sunday we had Michelle over for dinner so she could meet Gabby. She's staying at our house while we're in Alaska. I was happy that Gabby wasn't nasty to her. Gabby just doesn't like other people and will often hiss or swat if they try to pet her. At one time she was acting all sweet to Michelle, but I told her not to trust the sweetness. I think they'll be alright though. It's a little easier to leave knowing that Gabby will have someone in the house with her. I know people must think we're crazy, but we love our girl and don't like to leave her for that long.

Monday we decided to take a drive to Bad Kreuznach, which is where Sam lived when he was young. He was excited about seeing his old house and school. It has been about 30 years since he lived there. Of course the town was different than what he remembered it to be. It took quite awhile to find the house, but after asking numerous people we finally found the school and the house was just behind it on another street. The school had changed some, but the playground looked the same to him. Here is a picture of Sam in front of the playground.

This is the house they lived in. The people who live there now were probably wondering why some strangers were parked out on the street taking pictures of their house. It was much smaller than Sam remembered and the driveway on the right side of the house was much shorter than he thought. He remembered it being really long, but as a 6 or 7 year old it would have seemed much longer. I really enjoyed seeing this part of his history too. I liked the town of Bad Kreuznach. It seemed like an older town and the old Army post was still visible in places although it's closed down now. Sam has quite a few family members in Bad Kreuznach, but we couldn't reach any of them so we'll have to get in touch at another time.

On the way back we decided to go through Idar-Oberstein to see the church in the rocks. It was raining though so we didn't want to walk the steps up to the church. We'll go back for that someday. The town is known for this church that was built into the rock of the mountain. It's really impressive and I want to see it up close at some point.

We were pretty close to some other military bases so we made a detour to fill up on gas at Baumholder. There are really quite a few US military facilities throughout Germany, which makes it nice for us when we travel. Baumholder was much larger than the other bases we've seen over here. We found out that we would be passing right by Ramstein Air Force Base, so we decided to check it out as well and walked through the PX.

We didn't get home until 8:00 that evening, then the next day (our anniversary) we decided to take another trip to see about a buffet and shrunk we saw advertised. The place for the buffet was close to Mannheim and we printed out Map quest directions, but true to form they weren't very good and we spent quite a bit of time lost. The lady was really nice and she had some other pieces that she was selling so we decided to buy an antique couch - it's in really good shape - and the buffet that we originally came for. The buffet is not in as good of condition, but Sam's going to do some work on it. I don't know how, but Sam got both items strapped on the truck and we headed off to Heidelberg to see the shrunk. After spending time lost again, we met the man at Patrick Henry Village and followed him home. It's a beautiful shrunk, but we haven't decided if we're getting it yet or not. We got home late that night as well and I don't think either of us feel like traveling anywhere soon. We were going to buy two small shrunks from the lady who had the buffet and couch, but when we got home she called and said her husband doesn't want to sell one of them until they leave Germany. We may go back up for the other one next Saturday. We'll see. Well, that about catches you up on our weekend.

I leave for Alaska in a week. I'm so excited to get home to both Alaska and the US. I like Germany, but I'm ready to be in the states again. Sam will come later and we'll fly back together. Well, I have a couch to clean up a little before we move it upstairs to our room, so I better get busy.