Ikea

We have made two trips to Ikea in the past month. Two! It takes about an hour to drive there (and of course one hour back). This is how the back of our car looked after the second trip. On our first trip we bought Ikea shelves – they were so long, I needed to sit in the back while Robin sat in the front and drove. On this second trip, we bought two dressers, a few things for organizing, and cupcake liners (because they were cute!).

Makes me laugh

I commute – one hour each way. Some days it can be a bit dull – get on the train, find a seat, put on headphones OR pull out Kindle, ride the train to destination. Sometimes my “destination” is where I transfer trains, in which case the trip includes hurrying from one train to the next. I try to keep my eyes open for things to bring variety to the trip, for example, some girl with her pet rat on her shoulder, or a man with a well groomed handlebar mustache. One day this week I saw this advertisement for a tanning studio. I just had to laugh! It translates to “Only tastes good when tanned”. Raw chicken, only tastes when tan… hahaha. Other than this billboard, it was a normal day with a normal commute.

Trip to the USA

We took a trip to the US in August. We got to spend 10 days there and it was a whirl-wind trip! We landed on Saturday night in Seattle. Early Tuesday morning, we drove down to Salt Lake City (it took the whole day). Thursday, was the start of the Bennett Family reunion and we stayed down in Orem. Friday, the whole party went on the road and we drove up to Heber Family Camp. Saturday, Robin and I drove up to Logan and stayed with some friends there until late Sunday afternoon. Sunday evening, we started our trip back to Seattle arriving early Monday morning. Thursday morning was our flight back to Germany. The trip wasn’t very relaxing, but we had a wonderful time. We took lots of pictures too…. or not….

View from the passenger side of the car. We saw plenty of the freeway during our trip.

Coming down the mountain from Heber Valley Camp. The camp was waaaaaaaaaaay up in the mountains.

We took a garden tour of the Conference Center  in Salt Lake. This photo was taken from the top of the Conference Center.

Robin go a chance to enjoy the swing at my cousin’s house

Hello Oregon! One of the rest stops we stopped at. Once we got out of the car, I realized I had been to this rest stop before – the last time I drove from Seattle to SLC.

Robin took a picture of himself during the drive. It could get a bit dull in the passenger seat.

Curtains

Just in case anyone is interested, I made curtains for the very first time. We found a duvet cover at Ikea that had fabric I liked. We bought it and I turned it into curtains for our bedroom. I am quite impressed that I could do it. They may not be the best curtains ever, but they serve their purpose and make me smile.

Ludwigshöhe

Robin and I went to Ludwigshöhe yesterday in Darmstadt. Other than that it has a really great view, I don’t know anything about it (and at the moment I am too tired to read up about it on Wikipedia in German). So, enjoy the photos.

The panoramic view

The Tower

Source

Me on the stairs on the way down from the tower

The spiral staircase looking down

A few garden photos

I love go out and look at my garden. Every morning and every evening it looks just a bit different. Here is how things are going:

The morning glory arch – it looks AMAZING. We get several blooms every day and they are a lovely shade of blue. The vines are up to the top of the arch now and we have it growing along the top of our balcony ceiling.

This is a view from the street. If you look carefully, you can see the laundry I hang to dry.

Tomatoes – we have lots, but this is the first one to turn red

We at this strawberry yesterday. It looked ready to be eaten. It tasted quite nice. There are several more strawberries on the way too.

Zero to Sixty

Remember the trip I took to Frankfurt a few weeks ago? I posted pictures of the Occupy Frankfurt camp? I was at the European Central Bank (ECB) for a job interview as a Website Administrator. I got the job. I started on the 13th of June. Now my days are quite busy – I am gone nearly 12 hours each day – 51 minute train ride each way. I put my time on the train to good use by reading or listening to programs from the Mormon Channel on my MP3 player. It is pretty interesting working at the ECB. I am learning quite a bit about the Euro and the European Union. Lots of information about monetary policy is posted on the ECB website which I am still struggling to understand (even to a small degree). I think I will be able to learn quite a bit at this job.

Here is the view from my office

This is how it looks at the train station – pretty busy most of the time.