London

Dave and I had talked about going to London ever since we found out we were moving to Germany. Finally, after being in Europe for two years, we decided to go for a long weekend to celebrate our birthdays. 

We drove to Brussels, Belgium and took a train through the English Channel to London. We arrived in London on Friday evening and decided to hang out at the hotel and grab some food near the hotel because it had already been a long day of traveling for Em. 

The next day our adventure started! On our first day of sightseeing we went to/saw: Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, Parliament Square, took a ride on the London Eye, and walked around Leicester Square. 

Big Ben and the London Eye

 Em and me in front of Big Ben

 View of Big Ben from this amazing little bar, Stephen's Tavern. A friend of mine had pinned a much better photo than this on Pinterest, and after seeing it, I was determined to find this tavern to get a similar photo. Unfortunately, there was a police bus in the picture, and someone else was already sitting at this table where the photo was taken and didn't want to keep bugging them so that I could get that perfect picture. Nonetheless, it was an awesome place to stop at to have a beer, eat some fish 'n chips, and feed little Emily. 

 Here is Dave in front of Westminister Abbey. Photographs weren't allowed to be taken inside, so unfortunately I have none to post. It looks exactly like it did in the video footage from Prince William and Kate's wedding. Yes, that is one of the reasons I wanted to go there. I also wanted to go there because it is full of history and there are many famous people buried there. It was truly amazing to see the fine workmanship that went into creating such a wonderful place. 

 A view of the London Eye from the bridge near Big Ben

 Em slept through the ENTIRE London Eye ride

 Riding the London Eye was an experience we will never forget. The views were absolutely breathtaking! Below is a view of Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminister Abbey. 

After a long day of sightseeing, Emily just wanted to play on the bed back at the hotel.

 The next day, we were off to see the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London. 

We arrived at Buckingham Palace about an hour before the Changing of the Guards with hopes of getting a great view... that didn't work out that well for us. It was so busy! Apparently we weren't the only ones who thought that was a good idea. =) 

Buckingham Palace

Us in front of Buckingham Palace

The end of the Changing of the Guards

Next stop, St. Paul's Cathedral. Just like Westminister Abbey, photographs aren't allowed inside St. Paul's so I only have these two from the outside. Also, because we visited on a Sunday, there were no tours available.

 The front of St. Paul's Cathedral

 D at St. Paul's Cathedral

Our next sight to see was the London Bridge. She's not much to look at, but fun to see none the less. We've seen the original that is now in Lake Havasu, AZ plenty of times! 

 Em and me on the London Bridge. Yes, she is sleeping! 

After seeing the London Bridge, we walked along the river on the Thames Path to the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. 

Once we got to the Tower of London, Emily woke up and was in need of a diaper change and some food (or so we thought). She definitely needed the diaper change, but was less than interested in drinking her bottle. So, we packed up all of our stuff and headed toward the ticket office to purchase our tickets for the Tower of London. Well, the last tickets are sold at 4:00 pm and we showed up at 4:05 pm! We were so bummed that we weren't going to be able to see the Crown Jewels! We were even more bummed that we wouldn't have time to go back to the Tower of London the next day because we were leaving to go home... 

So instead of having being able to explore the Tower of London, we just took a few pictures in front of it. 

Behind us in this picture is the beautiful Tower Bridge. It is much more picturesque than the London Bridge. The Tower Bridge is where they hung the Olympic Rings this past year. 

 We had about an hour or so to kill before we had to be at the train station to go home, so we were able to squeeze in one more sight. Here is the famous Sherlock Holmes' home, 221b Baker Street! We didn't have that much time, so we unfortunately didn't get to take the tour.  

We had such and AMAZING time in London! I wish we had one more day, but Emily had pretty much had it and was not up for another day of go-go-go-sightseeing. We would love to go back to London if time permits, but don't see that happening. 

It's Been Awhile...

So here's what you've missed with the Dubels...

I apologize that this is my first post in over a year, but life has been pretty busy for us. Here is a very brief look at what our lives looked like since our last post! 

In December of 2011 (wow, that was forever ago), we took a trip to Rome for a week. It was an amazing trip and we were able to see a lot.

The Pantheon (Dave's favorite).

 Us at the Colosseum.

In front of St. Peter's Basilica.

The Trevi Fountain (my favorite).

In January 2012, we announced that we were expecting Baby Dubel. This is our first glimpse at our precious baby at 10 weeks and 6 days.

In February we found out that we were going to have a baby GIRL! Dave was out of town for the appointment when the big reveal was going to happen so I had the doctor write gender on a piece of paper and put it in a sealed envelope. My friend, Michelle, went with me to my appointment for moral support and to be the keeper of the envelope. We had a gender reveal party with a few close friends to celebrate the big reveal. Michelle made us amazing chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting in them.

How ADORABLE are these?!?  

 It's PINK! 

It's a GIRL!

The last week of March to mid-April, Dave's dad, Mark, and step-mom, Carlene came out to visit. While they were here, we went on a road trip to Munich, Germany; Salzburg, Austria; Innsbruck, Austria; and Zurich, Switzerland.  That's over 1,000 miles and over 20 hours of being in the car in one week! Needless to say, I was not planning on another road trip anytime soon. It was great to see Mark and Carlene, and they were even able to go to one of my doctor's appointments to see Baby D!

Here are the four of us at the famous Hofbräuhaus in Munich. This is the only photo that I have on my computer, the rest are on Dave's. 

In late April, some of my very sweet friends through me a baby shower. It was everything I could have dreamed of and more! The best part was definitely when my sister, Michelle, flew in to surprise me!!! I was so happy to see here and can't believe she flew out to Germany for my shower! 

Here I am with my amazing friends who threw me a baby shower! From the left: Becky, me, Andrea, and Michelle (the same one who made our gender reveal cupcakes).

 Awww! Sisterly love! This is right after Michelle walked in and surprised me! 

I had to post a picture of the cake at my baby shower. How AMAZING is this?!?

While my sister, Michelle, was here, we went to: the Keukenhof Tulip Gardens, Amsterdam, Paris, Luxembourg, and Brussels! 

 In front of the Eiffel Tower.

For most of May and June, we stayed home and didn't do much traveling. I was very pregnant and after all of the traveling that we'd been doing, I was ready to stay home, relax, and prepare for the arrival of our baby girl.

On the morning of June 27th, at 39 weeks pregnant, my water broke. At first I wasn't sure because I didn't feel or hear a pop and it wasn't a huge gush like you see on TV. About an hour or so later, I realized that I didn't pee my pants, and that I was pretty sure that my water broke. I had a doctor's appointment that day, so I waited to tell Dave that it broke until he came home from selling my Eclipse. He was quite surprised that I didn't tell him sooner, but because I wasn't having contractions and we were already going to the doctor's I decided to not stress him out until absolutely necessary. My appointment was at 1:00 pm, and after the doctor looked at the ultrasound he said there was very little fluid and even it wasn't my water that had broken earlier, they were going to induce me. YAY! Our baby girl was on her way!

So how did my labor go? Well let's make a really long story short. My water broke at 8:00 am on June 27th. I went to the hospital at 1:00 pm for my appointment. At 2:00 pm I was admitted and they gave me a cervical induction. After too many hours of natural labor, excruciating pain, and only being dilated 1 cm, I decided it was time for an epidural at 8:00 am on June 28th. I felt like a whole new person after that! They then gave me pitocin to see if that would help me dilate, but still nothing. So at 12:34 pm Emily Jean was born via c-section.

Emily Jean 7 lbs 7 oz and 19.3 in. 

Meeting our baby girl! I was so overwhelmed with love and happiness! 

July and August all kind of blur together right now. I really am unsure what we did except for I know that we took a day trip to Brussels, Belgium! 

Dave and Em in Brussels.

The three of us in front of the flower carpet in Brussels. 

In September, Dave's moms, Janet and Karen cam to visit us and meet sweet baby Em! While they were here, we went to Tongeren, Belgium, to a wine festival down in the Mosel, and we went on a trip to visit Bruges, Belgium for a few days. It was beautiful, and the beer was delish! This was Emily's first overnight trip anywhere and she did so well, she is a great little traveler!

The Moms and Em at the wine festival. 

Emily's first boat ride! We were on a canal tour in Bruges.

 The beer at De Garre in Bruges. Easily the best beer (and cheese) that I have ever had! 

 We took a carriage ride all around Bruges, it was beautiful!

In October, we were so fortunate that some of our friends from Dave's B-Course (F-16) class from Luke came out to visit us and our friends, the Wagners (friends that were also in that class but are now stationed here with us). We went to the Zoo in Köln and had such a blast! 

The three of us in front of the giraffes! 

The girls! From the left: Bri, Vanessa, Erin, and me. 

 Dave, Emily, Aubrey, Jared, with George and Georgie in on the right. 

November was sort of a blur for me. I really don't remember what happened except that Dave was gone for work for the month in Spain. 

In December, we packed up our stuff and flew home for the holidays! We spent three awesome weeks in sunny southern California spending some much needed time with our families. With the exception of Janet and Karen, no one else in our family had met Emily yet. It was wonderful being able to spend the holidays with our families. While we were there, we were also able to baptize Emily. Her great-grandpa Wayne, who also married us (the second time), performed her baptism which was very special for all of us. Unfortunately, I can't find any of the baptism photos at this time to post...

We flew back to Germany just in time it ring in the new year. A few days later, Dave was on a jet back to the good ol' US of A for training. I spent most of the first half of January recovering from a nasty cold I caught right before we flew home so, again, that month was a blur for me as well. I do remember that we got quite a bit of snow here in Germany. I distinctly remember this because I had to shovel the driveway a lot! 

Dave spent the first half of February trying to get back to Germany from the USA. After a few glitches and with the help of our awesome squadron commander, he made it home on my birthday! Dave made it just in time for our birthday weekend get away to London, which will be what my next post is all about! 

That was a lot to recap, and I hope to NEVER get that behind with blogging again! 

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving Day

It was so nice to be able spend Thanksgiving together with some of our closest friends here in Germany. All together in the Dubel house we had 15 people, 3 dogs, 3 turkeys (2 deep fried and 1 smoked) and all the fixings! It was quite a crowd and we had a blast! We are so thankful for many things this year, our friends out here (who are really more like family) are one of them!

Here a two pictures with everyone (minus the pups) that were at our house for Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Weekend In Amsterdam

That weekend, we took a short trip up to Amsterdam with two great friends! It was nice to just hop in the car and get away for a few days and see something new. So far, Amsterdam has had the friendliest people, and the most bicycles! That's right, BICYCLES! There are cyclist everywhere, and more bikes than any of us had ever seen COMBINED!

Here is us walking around Amsterdam, it was pretty cold!

While we were there, we visited the Anne Frank house, which was somber experience, but one we were all glad to partake in. It really is incredible to see the house that they lived in and see how they lived. Then we were off to something a little more fun, the Heineken Experience! There we took a very intuitive tour of the brewery, saw the history of Heineken, learned the brewing process from start to finish, and a crash course in how to properly drink their beer. After it was all said and done, we received our 2 "free" beers and then were on our merry way.

Here is the two of us at the Heineken Experience.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Amsterdam; however, we all came to the conclusion that it was not a place we would go back to, it's not really our type of scene.

Next stop? Rome, Italy!

Homecoming Happiness

On October 11th, after a long 6 months apart, David finally came home from his deployment to Iraq! Many people ask military spouses, "How do you do it? How can you get through 6 months with them away?" Well it's definitely not easy, but someone has to do it. When you love someone who loves their job (and who happens to serve in the military) you support them and their dreams. Not to mention, that when you see your loved one after 6 months, that feeling you get is something that cannot be described. The love, the happiness, the relief, and so many more emotions make that moment one of the HAPPIEST moments in your life! Here are a few pictures of this memorable day!

Thank you to everyone who supported us through this deployment! We love y'all very much!

Castles, Paris, and Mediterranean Cruise

Wow, I just realized how incredibly bad I am at keeping up this blog! With D being away, I jumped on the opportunity to travel with some of the wonderful ladies I have met out here.

Castles

Germany is covered in castles! In May, I went with a few of the girls to visit two of the castles near us. It is amazing to see how well preserved the castles are and to hear the history behind them.

Burg Eltz, is located in Münstermaifeld, Germany and is about an 1.5 hour from where we live. Unfortunately, there were doing some construction on the castle, so my pictures weren't as pretty as I would have hoped. Part of the structure of the castle that has been preserved dates back to 1157.

Burg Eltz is located in a valley. This picture was taken on our walk down to the castle.

We also went to Reichsburg, in Cochem, Germany which is only 40 minutes away. It located on the Mosel river and is stunning. Reichsburg is assumed to built around 1000.

View of Reichsburg from the Mosel River.

The four of us (Alisha, Michelle, me, and Kelly) in front of Reichsburg.

Kelly and I at the castle looking over the Mosel.

Paris, France

In May, I went to Paris, France with one of my best girls out here, Kelly, and her friend from the states, Alisha. We were only there for 2.5 days, so you can imagine how quickly we moved to see all of the wonderful sights there are to see! Visiting Paris has always been a dream of mine, and I almost had to pinch myself when I was there to make sure I wasn't dreaming! If you're going to visit Europe, you MUST go to Paris!

Seeing the Eiffel Tower was a dream come true!

Notre Dame

Arc de Triomphe

Eiffel Tower at night! Watching it sparkle is so cool; unfortunately, my camera couldn't get a good picture of it, so this is one without sparkle.

The flag is made out of Converse Shoes, and I thought is was pretty cool so I took a picture of it!

Cruise

In July, I went on a 7-day Mediterranean Cruise with 7 other wives from our squadron. The cruise went as followed: Venice, Italy --Dubrovnik, Croatia-- Athens, Greece -- Katakolon, Greece --Venice, Italy.

We flew into Venice a day early so we could explore this BEAUTIFUL city! There I had the best pizza ever, my first Bellini, and my first gondola ride!

Gondola ride with my roommate for the cruise, Becky.

The next day we arrived at the port, checked in and were well on our way to a fabulous girls trip!

The 8 of us (me, Elia, Becky, Susan, Andrea, Michelle, Kelly, and Tara) at lunch on our first day on the ship.

Our first stop was in Dubrovnik, Croatia. I was in awe at how amazing Croatia was. The history and the beautiful scenery is what made this my favorite stop on the cruise. We explored this amazing place and also took a glass-bottom boat tour.

Me in the port in Dubrovnik.

Our next stop on the cruise was Athens, Greece. To say it was hot would be a complete understatement. It was also a bummer that there were a total of 6 cruise ships in port that day, so you can imagine how many people were there to see the same things we wanted to see. We opted to take a double-decker bus tour around the city. Visiting the Acropolis was difficult with the mass amounts of people, but we got there and loved what we saw. It is amazing to me how beautiful the structures are and how they were able to build such massive and detailed structures back then. Also, the view from up there was wonderful, you could see all of Athens! Oh, and I must mention, that if you ever go to Athens, you have to go to Fresko's yogurt bar, it is the most AMAZING yogurt you will ever have!

Some of the girls (Andrea, Kelly, Becky, Michelle, me, and Elia) at the Acropolis.

Our final stop before we went back to Venice was Katakolon, Greece. The main attraction here is to take an 1.5 hour cab ride to Olympia to see where the first Olympic games were held. With 8 of us, that seemed difficult, and there was a cute little beach not to far from the ship, so we opted for fun day in the sun! The beach was a pebble beach (not like the sand I am used to), however, the water was crystal clear which wonderful. We explored the small city of Katakolon and ate at one of the restaurants and did a little souvenir shopping.

Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures of Katakolon, but this is the beach we spent the day at.

Overall we had a wonderful cruise! The group of ladies I went with were amazing-- all fun and no drama!

In addition to my wonderful European trips, I went back to the states and visited family and friends for 6 weeks! I had a great time catching up with everyone and enjoying the luxuries of being in America, but I am happy to be back home in Germany. The 6 month deployment wasn't ideal, but by keeping busy I successfully made it through! D is home now and we are so happy to be together again! Our next post will be of his homecoming! =)