Still alive!

Yes, it has been almost a year since our last entry... but, in our defense, things have been crazy. With the tragic demise of our digital camera, an injury ridden summer, and months of crazy transitioning, we are finally settled. Several of our faithful readers (hard to believe that we have any!) have requested pictures of the inside of our house, of our life, and of things in general. We are happy to finally be able to update y'all on what we've been up to!

So, bear with us... lots of pictures follow!


Here is our house! We *love* it!






Heiner's father, Klaus, and his girlfriend Marietheres came to visit right after Christmas. Here is Marietheres out on our deck. We just purchased patio furniture and a grill; we can't wait for spring to really be able to use it!





Here are some shots from our kitchen down into our living room. These were taken around Christmas time, hence the decorations.





If you turn around, here is a shot towards our kitchen. We have out two extra chairs with our kitchen table (girls, recognize them from the old Etown apartment?) for our New Years Eve bash!

This is our "formal" living room. We didn't bother taking pictures of our dining room, since we don't have a formal dining room set.


Darcy loves our house. Here she is in our office (upstairs). Too bad you can't really see the office!

Also upstairs is our master bedroom (not pictured), Amelah's bedroom/library (not pictured), two bathrooms (not pictured), and our large guest bedroom (below).


Darcy especially enjoyed her visit with Klaus and Marietheres. Marietheres took Darcy for daily walks:


And Klaus was willing to go to extreme lengths to win over Darcy...

Darcy even enjoyed her first Philly cheese steak in Philly.

For the record, look at the parking spot we got next to Pats!! Unbelievable!



It was really great for Heiner to have some time to catch up with his dad - especially over German beer and HSV glasses!

Amy was happy to have a shopping partner for post-holiday sales...


...on the few days that she didn't have to work.


Since the departure of Klaus and Marietheres, we have been spending time taking long walks...



...enjoying the sunset view from our house...



...snuggling with Darcy and watching her tear apart her Christmas toys...








...and mocking Amy for her pronunciation of "underbed box."



So, in conclusion, life is good. We're happy, content, and finally settled in... and we know who really runs the house... (pictured below).

Zachary Drive!

Wait, what's that you say? Amy and Heiner are home owners? Unbelievable!
After a story so long that it isn't worth typing, we ended up not getting the other house that we had posted about before. The short of it is that the seller's realtor was jerking us around and after almost a month of waiting and verbal promises with no signed contract, we took back our offer. Heiner and Kathy sent on a frantic search for a new house without Amy and found our new house! After a month of sleeping with friends, Heiner is finally able to "come home" again! We made settlement on June 21st!!

Below is just a sampling of pictures - once we have the inside done up the way we would like it, we'll post pictures. The furniture that is pictured is not our furniture - we'll actually move in July 21st. Anyone want to help?

The house is a four bedroom, two and a half bathroom, super duper house! It was part of the Parade of Homes last year in Lancaster County (it is located in Manheim), so Garman Builders put all kinds of extra frills and whistles in the house that the homes around it do not have. Lucky us! :)

As you can see, it has the front porch that Amy always wanted! It's located in the Cedar Hollow development in Manheim, which is conveniently located to all commuter routes but still has a Lancaster County feel. (There is even a covered bridge right down the street!) Our house is on the corner lot, giving us more property too! It'll look really great once Heiner gets a chance to work his green thumb magic!

Here is a shot from the kitchen island in towards the family room. The first floor has a family room, living room, dining room, eat in kitchen, kitchen area, mud room, powder room, and laundry room.

Some of the aforementioned upgrades can be seen in the dining room, which has beautiful molding around the bottom and a tray ceiling.

There is Kathy on the phone with Amy telling her about the house (this picture was taken before the decision was made to purchase the house). You can see the eat in kitchen area, kitchen island, and cooking area. We still need to get a fridge!

Behind the house is our backyard, which has a great deck! If you continue straight down the road to the right it will take you past an area where some houses are going to be built and then into a large public park area that will have soccer fields (!!) and walking trails.

More pictures to come once we are settled in, have painted, and have made it our own!

House Search

Well, since I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs, why not an update on how our house hunt went in Pennsylvania? We drove up Saturday after work and arrived around 2.30 am. The next morning, we took off bright and early, with Darcy, my mom, and my grandma in tow. Our goal was to check out the neighborhoods that some of the houses were in, as we only had what we found on various websites to go by. We were in for some big surprises!

Some of the houses hid little things, like this one with a ridiculously steep driveway that goes out onto a curve over a bump. We feared for our lives as we drove in and out of the driveway (no, that isn't our car). The picture really doesn't do justice to how dangerous the driveway is.


Little things like that started to roll off of us though, once we realized that some other pictures on the Internet had selectively left out the fact that the house was located under Route 283 / a bridge.


Much to our dismay, our favourite house turned out to also be hiding something... some totally gnarly electrical lines! We never even bothered going into the house - we just kept driving... and hoping that the wires didn't come down on us in the wind storm we were experiencing!


One house that we particularly liked also had a hidden problem - a water collection area in the back yard. While it could boast an acre of land, if purchased, we would be required to maintain the water collection area. Hmm.. no thanks!


On Monday we went out with our realtor, Jack, to check out some of the properties that we had seen while driving around, and (mainly) ones that we had scoped out on the Internet. While they were pretty much all adequate, nothing really struck our fancy. Jack took us to a few more developments that he thought we might like, and that's when we found the house mentioned two posts ago. Although we don't know if our offer will be accepted yet, here are some pictures to give you a feeling for the inside of the house!

The first floor has an amazing living room...



... that leads into an eat-in kitchen...

... and also has a mudroom (not pictured), laundry room, and a fabulous dining room (hideous picture of me and my mom - eek!)


The entry way is equally as fabulous...


as is the upstairs! The hall bathroom is full and has a double door...

which is nice, but not nearly as nice as the master bathroom, complete with whirlpool tub, shower, and double sinks!

The master bedroom has a walk in closet the size of my old room in Marburg!


And there are three other bedrooms, once of which will be used as our office. The powder blue one has a great farmland view, which Heiner thinks should be a perfect office space...

... the bright blue room isn't quite as bright as it looks in this picture...

... and Amelah was thrilled to see a pink room, which she has already claimed as her own...

The back of the house is also lovely and has a nice deck. Heiner can hardly wait to start landscaping!

So, there you have it. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that we actually get this house! The waiting is killing us - but as soon as we hear something, we'll be sure to let you all know!

Poor Darcy!

The last twenty four hours have been crazy! Darcy has been getting progressively more lethargic and despondent over the last few days. We first attributed it to all of the hours in the car, or to the changes in location, people, smells, and places, or to the fact that she stayed with the vet for two days (but not overnight) while we looked at houses. However, it became painfully obvious last night that she was out of sorts. By this morning, she was no longer responding to her name, refused to move, and took absolutely no interest in food, water, or us. Heiner left for work and I slowly began to panic. I tried getting in touch with our vet, but no luck - it was before opening hours. I tried to wait it out, but then I realized Darcy was unable to use her back legs and was dragging them both behind her. Needless to say, I freaked out! I was trapped at home, as Heiner had driven our car to work. I finally got in touch with him and he ran the car home. I drove him back to work and then took off for the emergency vet.

Six hours later I emerged.

While at the vet, it was discovered that Darcy had a fever of 105, which subsequently spiked at 109.5. The vet said this could have killed her, and if that weren't enough, the seizures she was having, plus the temporary paralysis, inflamed optic nerves that prevented her from seeing, and stress induced loss of bowel and bladder control, made up the whole package.

Needless to say, Darcy has once again slammed us with sizable vet bills - but it was all worth it. She still isn't really okay. There was no way we could afford another $650 to leave her overnight at the vet to be monitored. So, I brought her home and she has to be constantly monitored throughout the night - including rectal thermometer readings. (You should have seen the guy in CVS when I was buying KY Jelly and a pediatric rectal thermometer...) In the last four hours, she has finally stabilized. She still has a fever of about 104, which of course isn't good, but her body has absorbed the hydration and nutrient injections she received, so she at least is a little bit stronger. She also is able to track again with her eyes, although she still seems to be unable to focus them all of the time. While Heiner was talking with her earlier, she managed a little tail wag - and she licked my hand earlier as I was packing her in ice to reduce her fever. Baby steps.. baby steps.

So, it seems like we are through the worst of it (I hope!) It's going to be a long night staying up with her though - Heiner has to work early in the morning, so he is going to get up a little bit earlier and relieve me for a few hours of sleep before he leaves and I have to get up again. I am going to have to call out of work again tomorrow.

Oh my, we are definitely going to have to start making puppy calendars to try to cover her vet bills!!! I think we should start with the one below, when I tripped over Darcy while pouring a bowl of Cheerios... note that the cereal on her back didn't stop her from eating the ones on the floor.

House?

We're back from our little jaunt in PA to go house hunting and interview for several jobs. The big news is, we put an offer in on our dream house! Now we are just waiting (somewhat impatiently) to hear back! We won't bore you with all of the details before we know if they accept our offer or not, but for now (and before we crash after spending a day driving back to NC), a picture of the house!

If they accept our offer, we'll follow up with pictures of the inside and some details - but until then, keep your fingers crossed for us!!

Happy Birthday Darcy!

Happy 1st Birthday Darcy!!

May your first birthday be filled with peanut butter, fun at the dog park, and table scraps!

New Glasses!

After months of seeing everything like the picture above, Amy decided that it was *finally* time for us to get new glasses and an eye exam. Below you can see the results!

In other news, it's finally starting to feel like spring!