Amanda Heads to Germany

Well the day has finally come for Amanda to head to Germany.  She did not sleep at all the night before her flight, so needless to say mom didn't get much sleep either.







She was very nervous about committing to take or not take items so the suitcase could not be closed.












Of course what would she be doing last minute.....













Always the colorful girl.
















Finally it was time to leave for the airport.  So I ask "Do you have your boarding passes and train ticket".  Good thing because they were still laying on the table.















We forgot dad at home and had to turn around and pick him up.  He helped unload her stuff and then went and parked the car....

so mom could go in with her to make sure she got checked in ok.







We waited for our baby girl to get through security before we left.

Planes

So the wait was on for us as the adventure began for Amanda.  She had the full spectrum of transportation

Trains

and her cousin Hailey picked her up in her automobile.

After a quick nap and shower they were off to a festival.











Where they had some Nutella crepes and...
















some beverages.

Well it looks like they had a great time.  Now they are all safe and snug in their beds.

New Travel Companions

Purchased some items for our upcoming trip.

Eye masks for the plane trip.  I wore them for the last two nights just to get used to them.  I think they may become an every night thing.  They are very comfortable and if my husband decides to turn his electronic devices on in the middle of the night the light will no longer wake me up.  So between these and my earplugs I should be able to sleep great no matter where we are.

And:

A VaultPro Gateway handbag.  It has some really great safety features.  I was a little worried it might be to heavy but it seems to be good.  I filled it with a water bottle and some other items I will be traveling with and went on a four mile walk and it felt fine.  So I have also started using it as my daily purse so that I get used to clipping the zipper of the main compartment and keeping the other zippers closed so that when we are traveling it will be second nature to do that.  All the safety features would be useless if I don't use them.  I have looked at this purse for a long time so when I saw it on sale I finally decided to buy it.  It seems to be just what I was looking for.  I bought both of these items through Magellans.com.

This is another product I just purchased for our trip.  Our friends that traveled with us last time found them at Walmart but I had to purchase them online.  These work really great, they don't take up much room, they're light, you don't have to worry about any leaks or spills and with the European washers you can just throw them in and not have to worry about anything.  I purchased the 20 load box from the washeze web site and it had free shipping.  It came out to about fifty cents a load.

Planning For Our 2013 Europe Adventure

As it nears the end of April I am happy to say that our plans have started coming together.  I am in charge of making sure we have transportation and accommodations and it is up to the rest of them to figure out what they really want to do.  So that being said I am glad that I booked our flights months ago as the price is now $300 more per person.

This trip started because our niece/cousin Hailey is stationed in the United States Air Force and is stationed in Germany and we wanted to visit her while she is still there.  So my daughter is leaving almost three weeks earlier so they can have some cousin time.  We will then fly with my husbands aunt and uncle  to Germany and stay with Hailey and do some day trips from there for a few days.  Then we will continue touring for about three weeks with Amanda and Hailey will join us when she can.

We have pre-purchased our rental car that we will be using while in Germany.  I have pre-purchased our train tickets and have them in hand that we will use to get from Munich to Salzburg, Salzburg to Vienna and Vienna to Budapest.  We have our hotel & apartment reservations.  Addresses are inputted into the gps.  My vacation binder is filled so all that is left is to pack our bags.  Oh did I tell you we are hoping to only travel with carry on bags.  So this should be fun......NOT.  So this is what I now need to plan for.  After our last trip and having to carry our large bags up stairs and load them onto trains we know this will make our trip much easier besides that fact that we will be traveling with five people in a van so we have to fit it all in.  

1/1/2013 - Belieze

I had booked a cave-tubing excursion with cave-tubing.com so it was important that we get off the ship on one of the first tenders.  Our group was great and they were all there on time and I was able to give them their tender stickers and we waited until they called our number to go down to the tender area.  This is a day that having our bright red shirts really helped me keep track of everyone as we had to stay together.

On our ride out to the reserve they passed out some cashew wine samples.

Amanda was the one chosen to finish off the bottle.






Once we got to the drop off area we were able to pick up our tubes and get going after a short bathroom break since everyone came with their suites on and ready to hit the water.

We had to cross the river












after we had gotten our tube and life vest.

Then walk  on a very rocky trail.

We stopped a few times, once to look at the stalagmites.

Once to admire the colorful caterpillar.

And once just to wait for others to catch up.

Then it was time to get in the water.

They had ropes with clasps on them that they used to hook the tubes together with, which was much nicer than the last time we did this.  Last time we had to hook our feet under the arms of the person in front of us.

We had three groups of eight hooked together.

As we came out of one cave and were heading into the second cave we could see people repelling down the face of the hill.

 Don't let the little bit of white water fool you this is a very lazy river.

It is very relaxing.

We laid in wait for the other group to come to us so that we could have a water fight, since for the most part we were totally dry.

So as we walked back to the bus we all looked like drowned rats.







They took us to their private rest area



 and fed us lunch which was included in the price
and we could purchase drinks, snacks and t-shirts.

We had a nice uneventful ride back to the port area.  I must say we highly recommend cave-tubing.com they were very professional and fun.

Almost everyone just jumped on the tender back to the ship but a few of us stayed at the port to do a little shopping before going back to the ship.










Tonight they did the Singin with the Big Band show before dinner so Elaine and I just made the show because we were out and about.  After dinner we pretty much went to bed.