Thanksgiving and our time in Virginia

It's taken me awhile to get back to posting about our Thanksgiving. Since returning, we've been really busy with the house we're buying and getting ready for the holidays. We left before Thanksgiving and came back with the Christmas season in full swing and I'm very far behind.

When we were in Virginia, we thought if we had time we might drive over to see Kristy and the family - not knowing if it would work out or not. We weren't sure what Thanksgiving was going to be like since the funeral was just two days prior. We wanted to be there for Sam's family if there was going to be some sort of gathering, but Sam's Mom encouraged us to go on to Kristy's. The reason we went back to the States certainly wasn't for a vacation, but since we were in the area and there really wasn't anything we could do in Virginia to help out we were happy to be able to see my sister's family. It was unexpected, but so nice to be with my family for the holiday.

We drove down on Wednesday. It was so nice to see them and the kids again. I really miss having my family around. Connor and Hadassah are both getting so big. I can't believe that next year my little nephew will be a teen. He's getting so handsome and tall, but is still such a sweetheart and doesn't mind his aunt giving him hugs. He always enjoys being around Uncle Sam, who is just a big kid at heart and loves goofing off.




Hadassah is 2 1/2 now and cute as can be. She acted shy at first and kept hiding her face, but it didn't take long for her to get over that. I love how snuggly she is. She would crawl right up on my lap and snuggle down with her blanket. I know I'm biased, but I think she's a little doll.


Thanksgiving dinner was awesome. Kristy always makes great dinners and Thanksgiving was no exception. The food was delicious. It was fun cooking together. I really enjoyed being with my sister again. We were always close and I miss being around her. Kristy's neighbors came for dinner too since they were expecting their first baby any day (she was born last Sunday) and didn't want to wander too far from home. We all ate way too much, but had a nice day.

Friday, Kristy and I went out to do some shopping while the guys kept the kids at home. In all honesty, we didn't go out as much for the shopping as we did just to go somewhere together without everyone trailing along. Anyhow, we enjoyed it in spite of all the crowds. I really enjoy shopping at the American stores. They are just different than German stores and I miss what we have in the States. There were a few things that I needed for holiday baking that I couldn't find in Germany, so I made sure to buy those to bring back with me. Later that day we met the guys and kids for lunch.

I wish we could have had more time to spend with Kristy and David, but we were so happy to have even just a couple of days with them. I am so starved for family interaction in Germany and even before here when we were in Hawaii. I don't make friends that quickly and even when I do it's not quite the same as having my family around. Some of the nicest times were in the evenings when we all sat around the living room talking for several hours. I'm really glad it worked out that we could spend a few days with them.

Me, Connor and Hadassah while we were playing Oceanopoly after Thanksgiving dinner

This is such a hoot! Kristy said anymore when she tells Hadassah to smile for a picture this is what she gets. Too funny!

Another shot of Hadassah's "smile"

She is all girl and loves anything pretty and pink

Connor's catching up to Uncle Sam

Me with Connor and Hadassah

My sister's beautiful family

When we return to the States, it's easy to think that we can visit everyone while we're there, but then I realize that there's quite a bit of travelling involved. We planned to go see my Grandma in West Virginia, but when we looked at the distance we realized we would be pushing it to make it there. We felt bad about not going, but it was just too far away this trip. It turned out good that we didn't go, because I ended up getting sick with a cold. I think I got the same thing Kristy and David had. Thankfully it didn't hang on for more than a couple of days.

We headed back to Virginia on Saturday morning. Sam's parents had rented a condo for a week, so we ended up staying there with them for the remainder of our visit. We really enjoyed spending time with them. The area of Virginia that Sam grew up in is beautiful and has so much history associated with it. We spent our days visiting different historical tourist attractions. As always, we wish we could have had more time with our families. We really did enjoy our visit with everyone, even though I wish the circumstances could have been different.

Walking through Colonial Williamsburg

Sam and Stephanie in lockdown

Sam and I at the Jamestown Settlement

Inside one of the early American Indian huts

Sam aboard one of the ships (Godspeed, Susan Constant or Discovery) that made the 1607 voyage that resulted in the founding of the first permanent English settlement in North America (Jamestown,VA)

Sam inside one of the Jamestown Settlement buildings

There really was so much more we could have done while we were in Virginia, but I enjoyed what we did see. I never realized how much history is in the Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown area. Lots to do and see there. Well, I could continue posting pictures, but I'm sure they're getting a little boring so I'll stop for now.

We flew back to Germany last Wednesday and arrived Thursday morning. The older I get the more I despise travelling. It's just exhausting. There is a 6 hour time difference between Germany and the East Coast and normally it doesn't affect us too much. This time, however, we still feel like we're adjusting back to our schedule a week later. Well, I'll close for now. I still have one more post to do before I feel like I'm caught up. Hopefully I'll get to that tomorrow. Until then...

Nina Elly Hermes

It always amazes me how quickly life can change the path we're on. We think we know what we'll be doing the next day, week or month, but sometimes something happens that spins us off in a totally different direction. We thought we knew where we would be for Thanksgiving, but it turned out quite differently.

Nina last year at Christmas

For those of you who don't know Sam's family he has a sister, Stephanie, who has three children. Their middle child, Nina, has been bravely battling cancer for two years. When we were out last Christmas she was in remission and we were all praying for the best. Just after the holidays, though, they found that the cancer had returned.

On the evening of November 15th, (the Thursday before Thanksgiving) we received an email from Sam's parents saying that Nina was not doing well and was not expected to make it. We made plans right away to go to Virginia to help out in whatever way we could, even if just for moral support. We had just bought our tickets, when we found out that she had already passed away. She was only 8 years old. I wish I could have known Nina better. She seemed so sweet and wise for her age.

As you can imagine this has been a really hard time for the whole family. We wanted to be there to support Stephanie and Patrick, so we flew out on Sunday morning. Although we felt incredibly helpless once we were there, because there was nothing we could do to change the situation. Nothing we could say to make it better. We were just so sad for the loss of Nina. The funeral was Tuesday. Nina loved the color red, so they asked that everyone wear red to the funeral. It was really beautiful to see so much red in honor of such a special little girl. Sam's dad gave a very loving eulogy. Nina will certainly be missed.

It was a difficult place to be in this time. The real reason we were there was always on our minds, but we felt so helpless to do anything and the family really just needed their space. Since we were there for 10 days we tried to enjoy the time we had with both of our families.

We just returned home and I wanted to update this blog. I'll do a post later about Thanksgiving and our time spent with family.

Snow in Germany

It's been looking a lot like winter around here. It snowed almost all day yesterday, but was not cold enough and just kept melting off. Last night though it stayed a little colder so we woke up to a blanket of snow covering the ground. It's still snowing today. I love this weather. It's really beautiful out and not that cold. It's hovering around 30. This picture was taken off our bedroom balcony looking toward the backyard.

Gabby loves going outside, but she's been having second thoughts since it's gotten colder out. This morning, she was satisfied with just sitting in the open window watching the snow fall. There's no screen in this one, so she could have easily jumped out to the balcony, but she's decided that she doesn't like to get here little feet cold.

My pampered cat

View from the office balcony. It would be nice if the snow stayed around for awhile, but I have a feeling that in a couple of days it will be gone. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

Well, I have lots of studying to do for my German class, so I better get busy. We cover so much in each class and are suppose to have all the words memorized by the next class. Thankfully I have until Monday. I just wanted to share some pictures of our weather. Have a wonderful day!

Busy, busy, busy...

I didn't realize it had been almost 2 weeks since I last posted. We've been really busy and have had lots going on and I guess I just neglected to share it all here. Since my last post winter has knocked on our door a couple of times. Any snow that fell melted off quickly, but at least it looked like winter for awhile. Just this morning it was snowing again, but it's all gone by now. I would rather have an Alaskan winter where once it snowed you knew it would stay until breakup. Here, it is a mixture of very wet snow and sleet, which makes it really messy and dirty looking. It actually seems colder too because of the dampness and wind.

I started my German classes last Monday. I'm glad to be taking them, but it's much more intense than I expected. Being advertised as "conversational German", I didn't expect to delve right into German grammar. I would love to, one day, be able to communicate in German, but right now that seems like a very distant possibility. But we'll see how it goes. Even with just two classes under my belt I've found myself deciphering signs better. I guess maybe learning a few key words and phrases tends to help. We didn't have class yesterday because of Veteran's Day, but we start up again tomorrow. I have some studying to do....

We had our first guest this last weekend. Our friend, Kris, from Schweinfurt was down here on business and ended up staying two nights with us. We really enjoyed her company. I don't know what possessed me to try a new recipe out on a guest, but I did. Kris gave us some rhubarb when we visited her over the summer. I froze it at the time and hadn't used it yet, so I decided to make a strawberry/rhubarb pie. It didn't turn out as pretty as it could have because , wouldn't you know, I just put the top crust on when I realized I forgot to put some butter on top of the strawberries and rhubarb. Thankfully, it tasted better than it looked.

Last Friday, we went to the MWF factory outlet, which is just 30-40 minutes away. I love that store! They have the most incredible cookware, silverware, etc. We've been wanting to get a new set of silverware since before we got married, but I never found what I was looking for in the states. We found a set (service for 12) that we both liked. I'm very happy with what we bought and I'm sure it'll last us for many years. I've been wanting to replace our cookware too, but that will be done a piece at a time considering the prices.

MWF has a really nice cafe in the store, so we had lunch while waiting for our VAT forms to be completed. For those of you who don't know what that is...I'll explain. 19% VAT (value added tax) is added to almost everything bought here. As Americans working for the government we are not required to pay that, since we do not benefit from it (medical, schooling, etc). We can buy VAT forms for a small fee on post and when we make a big purchase we use it to get a refund of the 19%. It ends up saving us quite a bit.

Friday evening we stopped in at our favorite antique store in the town of Schönaich. It's where we bought our treadle and we just love browsing through the rooms. I could spend hours there. I think of my sister every time I'm there because of her love of antiques. I saw this old cast iron mold last time we were there. I just loved it, but wasn't willing to pay the €40 she was asking. It just happened to still be there when we were in on Friday and I also found an old butter churner that I liked. My wonderful husband worked his magic and we came away with both of those items for €40. I was so happy!

We had rotten weather the whole time Kris was here, but we made the most of it and really enjoyed her visit. Saturday we were going to go by the furniture store at Robinson Barracks, but they were not open yet, so we stopped in at the post thrift store. We met the nicest elderly couple there. He's American and she's German. They've been married for many years and have run the thrift shop for 15 years. They were so interesting to talk to and had alot of antiques in the shop. We will definitely be going back there.

Another thing that has been taking a lot of our time is looking for a house to buy. From the time we arrived in Germany we planned to eventually buy a place of our own. We knew we would be here for awhile and thought it was only wise to put our monthly rent into a place that we could turn around and sell in the future. Sam's been looking from the beginning, but we've gotten serious about it since returning from Alaska. Sam's been talking to people to learn all he can about buying over here.

We played with the idea of buying the house we're in if our landlord was interested, but we haven't heard back from him and even at that decided it would need quite a bit of renovation since it's over 30 years old. Instead, we're leaning toward buying a place that's being built in a little village just about 10 miles from here. We wanted to get a single family house, but they are few and far between in our price range. So, we're strongly considering this row house or what would be called a townhouse back home. It isn't quite finished, so we can have input on the finishing touches. We haven't bought it yet, but we're leaning heavily in that direction. If we do buy it we'll be moving in January. More to follow on that subject I'm sure.

Here is the cast iron mold that I bought at the antique store.

The antique butter churner

I just thought this was cute. I had wood burning in the Kachelofen and Gabby was up in the chair feeling the warmth.

What we've been up to...

There hasn't been much going on around here, but I thought my blog might be looking a bit boring with the same post for more than a week now.

Today is Halloween, which doesn't mean a lot to me. Probably after we have kids of our own it will have more meaning. I know some people don't celebrate it at all for reasons I can understand. We didn't do much on Halloween growing up, but I think mainly because we lived out so far and there really wasn't anyone to go trick or treating to. I remember a couple of times getting dressed up for a church party of some sort. I think there is a middle of the road. I certainly don't like the evil/gory costumes that some people wear, but I really don't see anything wrong with putting on a cute costume and going around collecting candy.

We received a package in the mail last week and neither one of us knew who this person was. Well, we opened it and found a card along with a cat toy. Here... it was from the girl who stayed at our house for a few days with Michelle while we were in Alaska. It was very nice. She sent a thank you card and a cat nip toy for Gabby. The cat nip must be very fresh because Gabby goes crazy over it. We say she's high on her 'weed'. It's so funny to watch her play with that little pouch of nip. It does seem to knock her out for awhile after playing with it.

Speaking of my rotten cat...I don't know if you can see it very well in the picture, but Gabby told on herself the other day. I made pancakes for breakfast, but we had to leave soon after so I left the pan sitting on the stove top. When I came home later, I saw little paw prints all over the counter. She must have jumped up to see what there was and stepped in the pan. She knows better than to get on the counter when we're here, but I'm pretty sure this is not the first time she's investigated while we were gone. She's just sneaky about it.

I am finally signed up for German Language classes. I start on Monday. Just by coincidence, I found an announcement for the class. They weren't planning to have another one until the end of December, but I'm really glad they did because after I start work it won't be quite as easy to get to classes. I don't have any hopes of being fluent in German, but hopefully, one day, I can communicate beyond my few words and phrases.

On the subject of getting a job...Sam had to go by the NAF office this morning on his way to work. The NAF Chief asked if I would be interested in a job there. She has a position coming open in January. It would be exactly what I did as a HR Specialist back in Alaska, so that would be interesting. I have no guarantee that I would even get it, but I'm sure I'll apply when it comes open. Human Resources can be pretty stressful, so I don't know that I'm real excited about that aspect, but it's certainly something I'll think about

I finally received my official passport last Friday. I sent for it before we left Hawaii and it's taken this long to get it. Sam still doesn't have his, but it should be here soon I would think. We really haven't had any problem travelling on our travel passport. I guess we just need both so that, if needed, we could prove that we are in Germany on official business.

A few weeks ago I found out that one of my friends/co-workers from Hawaii is going to be moving here in a month or two. She and her family will be a couple of hours away, but I'm really happy that she's coming. I know she's wanted to get a job here for awhile and selfishly it'll be nice to have someone pretty close by that I know and am friends with.

I love pictures. For awhile now I've been planning to get some enlarged and framed to put on my walls. I'm much more into having family pictures throughout the house then something I can go buy. Anyhow because I usually have the camera's date stamp turned on I now have those yellow numbers show up in all my pictures. I've been working with Corel Draw to get those dates out of the pictures I want to enlarge. It's enjoyable, but a little time consuming. Hopefully, one of these days I'll actually get them done and put up so my walls don't look so bare. It's difficult here in Germany because there is no where to print them out. I have to do it all online. I used to run down to Walmart and pick them up in an hour. It certainly makes it more difficult not to have that option.

Well, I think that's about it for now. Until next time...

Pottery shopping in Poland

We're back from Poland. We arrived home yesterday afternoon. It was a wonderful trip. It was very interesting to experience yet another country. It was 3:00pm on Friday when we finally got on the road. We printed out Mapquest directions because we hadn't used our Tom-Tom yet and just wanted to be sure we had directions in hand. I cannot say enough good about that Tom-Tom though. A couple of times we missed an exit and it just rerouted us to the next exit and got us back on track. It was awesome! We put it to the test with getting lost several times and it passed with flying colors.

We decided to get a hotel room in Bautzen, which is a small town on the German side of the border. We've heard that theft has gotten really bad in Poland, so we just felt better about staying the night in Germany and driving the hour into Poland the next morning. It should have only been a 5 hour trip to Bautzen, but it turned into 9 hours because of the traffic. There is lots of construction going on and I think we hit Friday night rush hour. On top of that we ran into some nasty weather along the way too. It was sleeting at one point and since it was already dark out that didn't make it any easier to drive. But...we made it and were very happy with our hotel.

Bautzen is a really neat town that we want to go back and visit some day. We should have planned to spend a whole day there, but we ran out of time. It's over 1000 years old and is called the City of Towers. Right outside the Holiday Inn, where we stayed, was the Reichenturm Tower, otherwise known as the Leaning Tower of Bautzen. I'm sure this would be an incredible town to spend some time in and explore.

Saturday morning we headed to Boleslawiec, Poland, which is rather famous for the pottery made there. It was only about an hours drive. I knew Poland was a poorer country than Germany, but I didn't really think I would be able to notice. I'm sure the rainy weather did nothing to improve the view, but I was surprised at how poor many of the places looked. It was sad to me that just across the border there could be such a difference.

With that in mind, it's very obvious to me that they market the Polish Pottery for the Americans. Some of the pieces seemed expensive to us and the U.S. dollar is worth 2 1/2 times that of the Polish Zloty. We actually asked one of the store owners who buys the pottery and she said the Americans. They really know who their market is. It was interesting to see so many Americans in the stores. We probably went to about 10 different pottery stores and most of the other customers were American.

The little beggar kids know where to get money from too. There were a couple of young boys begging for money out in front of the stores. When we first pulled up, Sam was very wary of them since we've heard the problem Poland has with theft. Later we realized they seemed quite harmless and were just begging for money. It was impossible to walk by without giving them some money. We were cautious though and made sure we didn't leave anything in view when we left the car. I felt very safe there though and would definitely go again.

About the pottery - they have the most beautiful patterns you could imagine. I went planning to (maybe) get a set of dishes. Well, after looking through a couple of stores I was overwhelmed with all the patterns and had no idea which one to pick. Another problem I was finding was that each store did not necessarily have whole sets of a particular pattern. That made it even more difficult because I didn't know if I would find enough to finish a set if I had to get bits and pieces from different stores. So then I decided to not get anything this trip, but just take it all in and maybe next time I would get something. I did buy a couple of items here and there, but there were so many beautiful dishes that it was hard to choose. Next time, we will have a calculator with us which will make figuring prices much easier. To get the dollar price we had to divide by 2.55. I'm not that good with math in my head and so I just guessed at alot of the prices.

With some large pieces of pottery outside one of the stores

Sam inside one of the pottery stores

On our way out of town later we went by quite a few more pottery stores and stopped at several. Throughout the day I saw some patterns that I liked, but Sam didn't and then some that he liked, but I wasn't crazy about. One of my concerns was that I might get tired of a really busy pattern that is so common on the Polish Pottery. Anyhow, at this one store they had quite a few pieces of a pattern that we both liked, so we decided to go for it. They still didn't have all the bowls, but it worked out that I found them at another store. This is the pattern we bought. I'm pretty happy with it, but I must say that when we got home and saw some of the other pieces I bought I second guessed myself because they were all so beautiful. In the back of my mind I'm wondering if I shouldn't have gone a little more bold on the pattern.

We ate lunch at a little Polish restaurant. We wanted to experience real Polish food. Basically, I've determined that I really don't care for much of the European food. It's much richer than American food and doesn't set very well in my stomach. For example, we were brought a basket of bread with some sort of a spread. I tried it, but it tasted to me like cold grease (maybe bacon grease??) that had a few other things mixed in. We enjoyed our meal though because it's interesting to experience different cultures. There were a couple of cats in the restaurant. One was just a few months old and so cute. He was make a scene rolling all over the floor trying to catch a bug or some other unfortunate creature. I snuck some of my meat to the older cat who really seemed to appreciate it. Our bill here was another reminder of how much the prices are inflated for the pottery. We had a very nice meal and it only cost about $11 for both of us.

Sam outside the restaurant we ate at

The weather was rainy and cold, so we headed back to Germany when we finished shopping. We thought about exploring Bautzen, but it was just too chilly to enjoy that. The next morning we headed home. It was a much better trip back. Only took 5 1/2 hours with stopping twice. We really enjoyed our trip and I look forward to doing it again. Here are a few more pictures of our trip.

Some pottery scoops I bought for my flour and sugar jars

Spoon rest for the stove

Pottery displayed in the traffic circle

Gabby enjoyed playing in the paper the pottery was wrapped in

Keeping in touch has never been so easy

Living so far away from family I've gotten into using Yahoo Messenger alot. Usually that's how Mom and I communicate on a daily basis. She'll leave an Instant Message for me and the next time I'm on I'll leave a message back to her. Sometimes we don't get to the computer at the same time, but we still manage to keep in touch.

A few days ago I finally got my web cam up and working too, so that's been a lot of fun. We can virtually talk and see each other at no cost. We call each other using Messenger and see each other on our cameras. It's really been nice to have an actual "visit" with Mom lately.

Something else I'm very thankful for is we can now call anywhere in the States for about $3 a month. Sam's clerk's sister works for the phone company here and she told us about this phone plan. We switched over, so as of today we'll be able to call anyone we want to without it costing much of anything. Up until now, when we call the states we've dialed an access number first in order to go through another phone company, so it hasn't been terribly expensive, but this is just so much cheaper and easier (less numbers to remember). We're very happy about cheaper phone bills :) (Although, maybe I should wait to celebrate until we get this next bill )

We're off to Poland this weekend. We've heard from a lot of people that we should not leave our car unattended in Poland. I guess theft is terrible there, so we decided to get a hotel room on the Germany side of the border then the next morning we'll head into Poland. It's only about 45 minutes to Boleslawiec, which is where lots of Polish Pottery is made. I don't know if I'll actually get much pottery, but I've been wanting to go and see what it's like.

A couple of weeks ago we finally bought a Tom-Tom GPS Navigator. What that means is we shouldn't be spending so much time lost anymore. WHOO-HOO!! We'll take it with us to Poland and try to figure it out on the way. Well, that's about it for tonight. I'm working on getting a pile of papers sorted and filed away. I don't know why, but I've never been good at keeping the house uncluttered on a daily basis. I wish I was. I have no problem cleaning, but then I don't keep it up daily like I should. I'm trying to get on a schedule so I can finally learn to keep in clean every day. Until next time....

Visiting Burg Hohenzollern

I hope no one's getting tired of seeing our castle visits. We've gone to several here in Germany, but we just haven't gotten bored with it yet. They are all different and we really enjoy seeing such beautiful examples of history.

Sam found out that we have a castle just up the road from us in Hechingen, which is only about 40 minutes away. It's called Burg Hohenzollern and was the home of the ruling family of Prussia, the Hohenzollerns, from 1871 to 1918. There is still an heir living that has some private rooms in the castle.

I looked up some of the history on Wikipedia and it said that the original castle was built in the early 11th century, but was completely destroyed in 1423.

The second castle, which was larger and sturdier, was built from 1454 to 1461. It was a refuge for the Hohenzollern family during wartime. By the end of the 18th century the castle had fallen into disrepair so some of the buildings were destroyed.

The third version of the castle, which we visited, was constructed by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV between 1846 and 1867. Because the castle was built to be merely a family memorial, no member of the Hohenzollern family took residence in this third castle until 1945, when it became home to the last Prussian Crown Prince Wilhelm. Prince Wilhelm and his wife Crown Princess Cecile are buried there. Anyhow, that gives a little bit of history on it.

After going to church in the morning we changed our clothes and headed to the castle. It was such a beautiful fall day. Gorgeous blue sky, crisp air and perfect temperature. It surprised us that a castle this big could be just down the road from us. We hadn't even heard about it. As we got closer we saw it standing out against the sky on top of the hill. They really knew how to strategically place those castles, so they were pretty much protected on all sides. They are really amazing pieces of architecture to see.

Once we parked we were told that we could walk up the hill to the castle or take a bus. We decided to take the bus up and walk down later. This ended up being a really good idea. The hill would have been quite a climb and I have blisters just from the walk down.

This castle is in awesome shape. It's really been taken care of and is beautiful. We spent quite a bit of time walking around the grounds. Later in the afternoon we took a tour of the inside. It was interesting, but I didn't get much of what the tour guide said since it was in German and I didn't get a lot from Sam's interpretation. Of course, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the castle, so here are some pictures from our walk through the castle grounds.

This is the entrance to the castle. This walkway spirals up to the next level.

We asked someone to take a picture of us. Unfortunately it turned out a little blurry.

There's a courtyard that surrounds the whole castle. Sam was sitting on the courtyard wall and you can see how high up this is built.

These statues of all the former kings line the walls of the castle.

Sam and I standing in the courtyard.

Looking out the window of a guard tower.

A castle tower in the background (I think this was the tower the church was in).

This knocker was on the door of the church located on the grounds.

This shows how 'pet friendly' Germany is. These bowls are specifically for giving the dogs water.

Standing in line waiting for the tour to begin.

Going down a spiral staircase to the underground rooms.

Walking through the underground rooms.

The end of our castle tour. We were on the path heading back down the hill.

Gabby

Well, as promised, here is a post about Gabby's escapades while we were gone. My Grandma has always said that for as much as I love that cat, she has had to go through more than her fair share of trials. Starting from one week old she's been in and out of the vet office. At first I tube fed her (had to put a tube down her throat to feed her) since she wouldn't take a bottle. She finally got the hang of sucking a bottle, but then would get constipated and have to go to the vet for that. Something I didn't know before raising her is that kittens cannot urinate or defecate on their own, only when the mother cleans them. Obviously, I wasn't as good as a mother cat, so she had some problems in that area. One time she got bad formula (outdated formula that a vet gave me) and kept throwing it up until I figured the problem out.


From early on we started the process to get her ready to go to Hawaii. Hawaii has very strict quarantine rules, so she needed lots of shots and a microchip. She was only 3 1/2 months old when Sam and I got married, so she stayed with Mom and Dad until she was 9 months and could come to Hawaii without going into quarantine.

On one of our trips back to Alaska we had the neighbor watching her. I put her collar on with the ID tag in case she got out. Big mistake! She scratched at the collar until it was so tight around her neck that it rubbed all the fur off and she had sores that surrounded her neck. The guy watching her didn't realize it because she doesn't let anyone near her.

Finally, to come to Germany, she needed a different type of microchip and shots, so she had to go through all of that again. My poor baby!

She has a really hard time when we leave her for any length of time and in the past we've set up for someone to come in each day to feed and check on her. This time we asked one of Sam's employees, Michelle, if she would stay here at the house while we were gone. She agreed to that, so we felt pretty good about leaving knowing that Gabby wouldn't be alone. I did have some reservations about how Gabby would treat Michelle, but we had her over a couple times for dinner prior to us leaving so Gabby would know who she was.

Everything seemed to be going fine even though Gabby still hissed and didn't want to be too friendly with Michelle. Then one evening in Alaska we came home to a phone message. It was Michelle telling us we needed to call her as soon as we got in no matter what time it was. I believe it was about 3:00am Germany time when we got the message, but called anyhow. Michelle said that she had one of her prescription pills sitting out and was going to take it after eating, but when she went back later she saw that Gabby had bitten it and was eating the little balls inside of the capsule. (Michelle later found out that cats actively seek out this particular medication - Who knew??)


At the time we were speaking to Michelle, Gabby was at the vet clinic being given IVs and being observed. We were glad that Michelle took her in right away. She may have been fine, but then again she may have died from it.

Sam called the vet clinic to find out how she was doing. They kept saying that she was being very aggressive so they needed to keep her for observation. That concerned me because I knew she would not calm down or be friendly to them.....EVER. Besides the fact that she's just not friendly with other people, she also has had bad experiences at the vet. So, I knew she wouldn't just calm down. The next day she kept throwing up her food. I wanted them to let Michelle bring in some of her normal kibble because she's only ever had one kind and with her nerves being spent probably just wasn't keeping the unfamiliar food down. They said no. I felt like my hands were tied and we were so far away I couldn't do anything.

Now that it's over it may seem irrational, but not knowing how German vet clinics work, my biggest fear was that they would say she needed to be put down because she was so aggressive. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but that was my fear. I couldn't speak to them, because of the language barrier, so I didn't feel like I was getting across to them that she's just naturally aggressive with strangers.

Well, thankfully, after two days of being at the clinic and numerous calls from us, she kept some food down and Michelle was allowed to pick her up. She got home just a few days before we returned. When we came in Friday evening she looked skinny and disheveled. She has a bald spot on her front leg where they drew blood and gave her the IV. She's been extremely sweet and loving and is getting back to her ornery little self. So...though it cost us close to $600 (OUCH!) we have our baby back and she's fine. I realize that to anyone else she's just a cat, but to us she's our baby and we were really happy that she came through that whole ordeal virtually unscathed.