Week 10

Week 10 was one of celebration for us! Not only did we enjoy really good food and wine (this is always something to be commemorated in our book), but we celebrated our 8 year anniversary and took our first family trip to Germany!

The week started as usual with Nick working and Heather doing whatever it is she does during the day...mostly it seems like this is cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, and a bit of relaxing. On Tuesday though, she spent the day in one of her favorite ways: grocery shopping and cooking for sweet hubby. After Nick's long day at work and then a quick trip to the gym, we got to enjoy a very tasty meal of quinoa fritters with an almond aglio olio sauce and a salad of cucumber and corn with a cilantro lime dressing topped with parmesan. Yum, thank you Pintrest!   

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On Wednesday, we celebrated our 8 year anniversary. Boy, how quickly the time has flown! It seems like just yesterday we were in Colorado saying our vows and celebrating the day with our wonderful families and friends. Now we are celebrating half way across the world on this crazy adventure of ours!  

We were rewarded for our 8 blessed years together with clean windows! This is really something to see. The window washers repel from the roof of the apartment building washing a bank of windows on each floor before lowering themselves down to the next window. Heather is highly considering this as a job opportunity! 

Repel down a building, and get paid? Sign me up!

The clean windows weren't the only gift though. On his way home, the ever spoiling Nick bought a beautiful bouquet of flowers for his sweet. 

We continued the celebration with dinner out at a nearby Spanish restaurant overlooking the harbor. It is a good thing the view and company were so interesting, because the food left much to be desired. We made up for it with a decadent dessert from the local bakery though. We shared a very large, very tasty tart with just the prefect amount of flakiness in the crust and a rich cream filling topped with fresh strawberries. All in all, it was a lovely evening and a happy anniversary.     

The rest of the week was fairly low key, work, gym, dinner and bed. Repeat. Friday evening, we spent some time online looking for a destination for our weekend's excursion to Germany. We settled on heading towards Lübeck, Germany in the northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein. The next morning we were off with Bella in tow to explore northeastern Germany. 

Bella loves family road trips, especially in the spacious V40! 

After about 3 hours of a beautiful and diverse scenery, ranging from fields and hilltopped forests to old towns and beaches, Heather spotted a castle in what looked like a quaint little town called Plön. We decided to pull off the road and check it out. The town is situated on the shore of largest lake in the Schleswig-Holstein region, the Great Plön Lake, and is surrounded on virtually all sides by that lake as well as on several smaller lakes. The Plön Castle is a 17th century chateau overlooking the town and the Great Plön Lake.

The castle that caught Heather's eye  

Tree-lined walkway leading to the castle

Raspberry mousse with German chocolate cake
and a nice dry reisling. That's the way to vacation!

The Great Plön Lake from castle grounds

View of town from the castle grounds

Love, love, love the small alleyways hiding
little outdoor eating areas and shops 

The town was so cute, we decided to forgo our trip to Lübeck (at least for now) and stay nearby. After driving around the shores of the lake, we came across a the very small town of Bosau. We stopped at a little hotel that gave us a reservation, dog and all, with no problem. The room was much better than we were hoping for. It included a balcony with views of the lake and across that, the town and castle of Plön.  

Lovely views from the room

Both Nick & Bella quickly found spots to relax!

After unwinding, Nick, Heather, and Bella went to find some nourishment. (Note: in Germany it is very common to bring your dog basically everywhere and they are welcome as long as they stay quiet and behave. Unlike the US and Denmark, dogs are also allowed inside of restaurants as well and are typically trained from a young age to lie right underneath the table at the owner's feet. Many restaurants will bring out a bowl or water for the dog, just as they would bring you a glass of water.) We stumbled upon an Italian restaurant with authentic Sicilian food. It was delicious and we left with very full bellies and sadly, no room for ice cream. Before turning in for the night, we decided to walk through the little town of Bosau. We found some very lovely, well maintained gardens, as well as some large beach areas with nice sandy shores. 

On Sunday morning, we walk through the woods near Bosau along a wandering trail we noticed when we drove into town. After that, we had one more quick stop to make in the town of Plön before heading towards home. We NEEDED spaghetti eis. What in the world is spaghetti eis you may ask. Well, it is, hands down, the BEST ice cream sundae ever! It starts with layer of whipped cream, this is covered in its entirety with a large mound of vanilla ice cream that is pushed through a spätzle press to come out in long strings like spaghetti. Fresh strawberry syrup is generously poured over the top and shaved white chocolate is sprinkled on top.  

Is it spaghetti, is it ice cream? No, it's spaghetti eis!! 

For some reason, unbeknownst to us, this has not caught on world-wide. So anytime we are in Germany, we make sure to get it at least once, if not once a day! After lunch (it covers enough of the food groups to be considered that, right?!) we headed back for Nyborg relaxed and happy. 

Monday took Nick back to work while Heather checked out dog boarding locations to take Bella to while we vacation for a week in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Around noon, Heather meet a wife of Nick's co-worker who relocated from Australia at the beginning of the year. What was planned as a short lunch before grocery shopping and picking Nick up at 4, ended with Nick calling Heather at about 4:30 saying, where are you?  Heather had completely lost track of time and was still sitting there chatting with Tanya. Oops! How time flies when you are having fun!