Castles

Today in Germany we drove down the Rhine & Mosel rivers to explore some castles. Unfortunately they were all closed for the season (what's up with that?!?) but at least we got to see and walk around the outside. They looked very pretty especially covered in snow.



Burg Eltz Castle Up Close

Looking down on Burg Eltz from the viewpoint in the forest.

Rheinfels Castle

Reinstein Castle Detail

Reinstein Castle

Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Bright and early tomorrow morning we are headed out for Germany! Just have to make it over the woods - Snoqualmie Pass - to the airport.

We are leaving 8 hours before we need to be at the airport (which is 3 hours earlier then our flight leaves) so hopefully this will give us PLENTY of time to get over there barring any crazy weather conditions on the pass. I have been checking every 5 minutes or so, haha!!!

We are so excited and will have plenty to share when we return. See you in two weeks.

SNOW!

It started snowing on Sunday evening and didn't quit until Monday around 10pm! I cleared off my car today and I think there was about 8 or 9 inches on top of my car.

Chris has driven me to work the past couple of days but I am going to attempt driving tomorrow. I don't think the roads worry me as much as the other drivers. This morning there were a lot of people out on the roads and boy were they going slow! As well as gawking at the people who had slide off the road or were parked on the side. This morning we almost lost traction because the car in front of us was going 5 miles an hour as he drove by someone on the side of the road. GAH!

I never remember people being this crazy in the snow & ice. But it is before Thanksgiving so I guess people aren't used to it. Maybe tomorrow before work I will get out and take some pictures.

Happy Thanksgiving! Have fun in the snow.

Upside

Sorry for that last post. It was written mostly out of frustration - not just about the computer but the midst of a busy week as well. We still don't have our computer back but we are able to borrow a computer from Chris' work that no one is using during the slow season.

I cannot believe it's another Friday already. No matter how slow the week feels it always does go by fast.

Last weekend was a great one and I wanted to share about it but never sat down to write this week. Now's the time.

We started a class at our church that is on Saturday mornings from (gulp) 7:30-9:30 for 13 weeks - thankfully skipping Christmas & New Years! We are calling it 'Discipleship Bootcamp' and after the first week I think it will be a huge benefit to all those who take it.

Back in college, being involved with Campus Crusade for Christ meant learning A LOT about becoming a disciple of Christ and how to disciple others. And really Crusade knows what they're doing. They've got it down and it works. Lots of people are able to be discipled and it turn they and grow in their faith and it multiplies. It's great to see it work in person.

But when you start getting involved in your local church it can be harder to find that kind of multiplication going on. There are lots of ways to get involved but sometimes I have felt that discipleship has been left out.

Our first week of bootcamp started out just talking about what it meant to follow Christ and learning a few Greek words and it was awesome. It really ignited my passion for learning and teaching others again. Lately I've been too lax in my walk with God and I am hopeful that this class will help get me on the right track again.

I can't wait to see what the rest of the class holds and how it takes our church by storm. I really think it is fundamental as our church grows and brings new people in all the time. We want these new people to not just come to church but grow and go out to their neighborhoods, workplaces, even the world to see more people come to Christ.

So is it worth getting up earlier on a Saturday then I do for work? Definitely!

Customer Disatisfaction

In my last blog post I told you we had to take our computer in the shop because the screen back-light was going out. Well it turned out to be much more expensive then we thought to fix so we decided to just convert it into a desktop and use an extra screen Chris has.

So yesterday Chris goes to pick it up and they had not put the computer back together. They do charge you upfront for one hour of service to diagnose. But we had decided and told them over the phone our plan and they even acknowledged in their summary that it would work with an external display.

Needless to say we were not very happy when they told Chris they would charge us another hour of work to put it back together. We don't know how to put it together and they should have returned it back to us in the condition we gave it to them in.

Chris went back today and heard the same answer so he is going back tomorrow to talk to a manager and see if we can get it put back together for free or at least a reduced rate. We can't afford to have it fixed right now and it would be less expensive to just buy a new computer but we need to save up. I hope they understand and can work with us.

We are borrowing a computer from Chris' work right now but it's tiny and I miss the mac.....:(

Where has customer service gone?

When we finally do get a computer back or perhaps find a Mac to borrow I'll upload some pictures I want to share with you. Until then I hope your customer services experiences are better then ours.

Quick Update

So.....I haven't blogged in awhile. I have a few updates to share.

1. My car is fine! PTL!!! The shop called us and said that they let the engine run for 3 hours (and filled up my gas tank after thankfully) and they could not find anything wrong. When they ran diagnostics it came back with a signal for a vacuum leak so we think that when Chris & his friend looked at it they inadvertantly fixed it. They took off the throttle body to see if that part was bad and put it back on but never started it again...so we didn't know it was fixed. It's been running fine and I am so thankful to have my car back and not having to get it fixed.

2. We might be moving.......things are moving along for us to move into a duplex in December. We still have a couple more places to look at but our application was accepted for one we went to view last Saturday. It has 3 bedrooms a large living/dining area and a large basement that's unfinished so would be great for storage!! The downside is that there's only one bathroom and it's tiny but we can manage until we save up to buy a great house.

3. Things are coming along for our trip. This weekend we are going to go shopping for all the travel essentials - luggage tags, space bags to pack our bulky clothes in, plus we're stopping by the AAA office to get advice on how to best travel with money and how much to take with us. We're hoping to use VISA travel cards to pull money out of ATMs because then we can get the best exchange rate.

4. Since we didn't have to get my car fixed our laoptop decided to semi-die on us. The backlight for the screen started to go out and so you had to use it on the dimmest setting or it would go black. Apparantly the cable for it wears out when you open and close the laptop.....so why would they put it there? Anyways we are hoping it is a quick and easy fix.

I am updating from work right now so I better log off. SSssshh don't tell!

P.S. Thank you to all the veterans who serve our country so faithfully. In my own family I am thankful for my dad and my father-in-law who both served in Vietnam.