Peeps, get ready.

The date is set, the flight is booked. I am ready. It has been a little over a year now that I was in Germany. Today I booked my flight. I will be landing in Germany on August 27th and I will leave on September 10th. I plan on having a brunch with my friends again like we did two years ago on the 28th around 11am probably at the same spot we went to last time. Ladies, I wanna see all of y'all! I cannot wait to see you all and catch up with you guys! And then there is the food, hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm.Anyway. I have been very busy, so excuse my lack of blogging, but here we are now. I have been working a ton and am very excited about it as well! I love my job! Also, I threw my first baby shower yesterday for Miss Amber, who is carrying Aaron and my God-child Kali. I hope she will be here before I leave for Germany, because the official due date is at the end of August. So, Amber and I have been out and about a lot prepping for the big party day, which went well, though the turn-out was not what I expected it to be. I have been missing my family a lot more. Well...... it has been over a year that I saw them, so go figure. Wednesday I picked up the new, but only temporary additions to the family, Rocky and Roxy, who will accompany me on my journey to Germany :-). They are so cute. They are eight and a half weeks old today. I am working on potty-training them, so my mom and my sis will not have to deal with that at least. They will be Champy's age as I got him when they get them. I am so excited. At the end of next month my aunt and uncle with their two kids will be here for four days, which is very exciting as well. I cannot even remember the last time I saw them - probably at my good-bye party over two years ago. Anyway, 69 more days and I will be back in Germany. Yes, I actually started the countdown like three weeks ago, I am so excited!

Here is to the wedding season

Tomorrow is Asa and Dan's big day - they are getting married. I am so excited for them! Two weeks ago we picked up my new car, a black Volkswagen GTI, which is super fast. I am sure I will get a speeding ticket in this car eventually, it is just so much fun to drive in it - fast. 91 days and I will be back in Germany for two weeks. I cannot wait. I miss my sister, mom and dad and my brother so much. And the food...... Don't even get me started..... In two months though my uncle and aunt will be here with their two kids and that is going to be exciting as well, the kids have never been here. My aunt and uncle were here like 15 years ago or so and drove through the country, which they plan on doing this time also. Such a great opportunity. Champy is the same hyperactive doggie. His birthday is coming up soon. Lately I have met a lot of new people at work who mostly ask me how long I have lived in the States and it truly amazes me that it has been two years and almost four months. Not really that long if you really think about it. I do know though, though I miss my family and some of the foods in Germany, I love living my dream - living in the United States of America. Living and working here. Just being here. Last Tuesday we had a Tornado touch down in Irving, about 30 minutes from here, which was crazy, because Aaron and I watched the sky from the living room and everyone else went to find shelter, hehe he. Nice experience, but we do not need to repeat that. Other than that, we finallly got some patio furniture and I was blessed with about twenty mosquito bites after having sat out there for about 30 minutes.

I know that Karma is a bitch, but this is getting ridiculous

Also, I do not think I deserve all this. Karma always comes back to you, but I did not do anything that would justify all this.
Well, let's start at the beginning. Aaron came back into town late, booooo. Then he had to work the next four days leading up to his birthday and on his birthday. For his birthday dindin the night before his birthday I had made dindin reservations for a bunch of people at Dragonfly at Hotel Zaza. Let's just say it was not what we anticipated it to be. After that the plan was to go to "Rio", which we did but Derrick and I told Aaron "Happy Birthday" in the car, since we did not make it to the club before a little after midnight. No biggie. We took a seat at the table and had a fun night. The place was a little overcrowded, but it was fun. We got home at 3am and Aaron had to be at work at 9am on his Birthday. I brought him "Sprinkles Cupcakes" before I went to go look at the puppies at Amber's house. Later that night I took Aaron out for his birthday dindin, which was delicious!
Wednesday morning, 3.45am. My phone keeps on ringing with a local but to me unknown number, so I do not answer it. 4am. Knocking on the door, repeatedly. Aaron gets up to check who is at the door and comes back laughing to the bedroom. "There has been an incident with your car and we need to come downstairs to check it out.". Huh??? So, here is what we saw.
Yea... So, if anyone could please explain to me how something like THAT can happen if a car is just sitting in a parking lot, please let me know. Also, I have no clue about cars, so preferable act as if I am a three-year old and explain it to me. Thank you.
My vehicle of choice now is my bike, LOL.

One pound of hair - OR - The curse of the vehicles

Well, this past week was quiet eventful. Last Thursday I got an email that my bicycle had arrived at the store. Aaron asked one of his friends if we could borrow his bigger car and we went on our way Friday night just to find the bike unassembled. We asked for it to be put together, so we can come get it Saturday night. I called Saturday to make sure it had been put together just to find out that the bike people were off on Saturdays and we would have to wait till Sunday. No biggie (at that point I was ok). Sunday rolls around and I call again to make sure we are not gonna waste our time. Nope, the bike has been misplaced, sold or I do not know what. So then I was upset. How do you loose a bicycle in a box that is almost as big as a mattress? Anyway, so I went online to see if any other store had the bicycle and after numerous hang-ups, disconnections and whatever else I finally found one. So, Aaron and I got the bigger car (again) and went to another store. The bike there was not on display but one of the employees was so helpful and grabbed it from the back - unassembled of course as well. Oh well, we took it with us along with a matching backpack, lights and a lock. Putting it together took about two hours or so. Wow. So, Monday afternoon I actually rode it to work, 4 miles, no biggie, just to find it with a flat on Tuesday as I was getting ready to ride it back to work again in the pm. Rear tire at that as well. BUT, handy woman that I am, I fixed it! First I tried to fix the little tear, but that did not work since it was at a really bad spot so I got another inside tube for $7.50 and fixed it, another time. YEAY! Now it is fine! Whoop Whoop.

On another note, I was on national T.V. on Monday night. How exciting. I was really nervous, because originally I thought I had to do something else, but it turned out fine and everybody was really nice! Here is the segment:

http://www.the33tv.com/about/station/newsteam/kdaf-spring-cleaning-fitness-story,0,5382606.story

So, that was fun. Now, it has been around 30°C in Dallas, TX and Champy has been really hot. He got a haircut. :-( His hair is really short now, but he can BREATHE. And it will grow out again and then he will be the little fur-ball again. All that hair that was cut off equalled ONE POUND less Champy on the scale. CRAZY! I bet he feels like it was a ton!

Cody got a short cut as well. She is used to it though. She has worn her hair that short before, but she sure did not like it as her face hair was cut and her nails. On another note, the other day I was craving my childhood public pool snack: Hannover Waffeln. So I went to the store and bought the overpriced, imported snack from my mother country.

Last weekend was date-night time on Saturday. Aaron and I went to "Ziziki's", which is an awesome Greek restaurant and then we went out with his friends. You can tell that it is close to S-U-M-M-E-R when I am wearing a short dress and heels to go out!

April, are you fooling me?!

So, since Cortney's baby shower was more of a diaper shower, I had to buy diapers - for the very first time in my life. Ahem. Let's just say it was an experience. Thank goodness I had one of my friends on the phone (thank you Laura) to help me out with the overwhelming assortment of different types and sizes of diapers and such. The diaper shower was so much fun and it was so good to see Chelsey, Cortney and Terry. Chelsey did an awesome job as a host!!!
I am going to be in Germany at the end of August till September 10th, and I plan on spending a lot of time with my family and close friends. If anyone wants to do something please let me know ahead of time so we can plan for it!
Greatest news yet: I am going to be a God-Mother this year. The due date for my God-daughter is August 30th, unfortunately, since I will be in Germany at the time, but she is going to be S-P-O-I-L-E-D!!! You know it! I am very excited!!
My mom's birthday is coming up in about two weeks and this year it should be celebrated double the time, for obvious reasons, as some of you know. Lately I miss my family a lot more, but I suppose that is only temporary. Till everyone is doing better, which will be soon!
Champy is growing so quickly, he is now 8.5 pounds. Aaron calls him "fat boy", but he really just has a lot of furrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I am also planning a super surprise for my mom when I go to Germany, she is going to flip out!!!!
Saturday my car died on me after work. Awesome. Battery was dead. Thankfully I had some jumper cables in my trunk and someone was so nice to give me a jump so I could make it home after I grabbed something to eat. Dropped off the car on Sunday to get an oil change and a new battery, just to find out that the alternator was bad as well. Great. The total was gonna be $900. Yea right. I guess it comes in handy when your special someone knows a lot of people. Aaron helped me out and had someone fix it for me for like half the price. Thank you sir! That whole mess resulted in me ordering a bicycle for me to use. I love that thing already and I have not even been on it. It is purple with turquoise, so it just screams my name!!! I will post pictures as soon as I get it! I miss my Jassele beary much, and so does Champy!!!

March "Madness"....

or is it? Despite the fact that nothing has really happened at my end of the world, other than my usual life, I decided to blog.... about nothing. LOL. Since my last blog entry about three weeks ago (I know, I know), my life has changed. Three weeks ago I had my last day at my first job, other than teaching group exercise classes, and I decided to divorce it and move on. Not because I did not like it anymore, I love being a trainer and helping other people reach their performance, weight-loss or "I want my abs/arms/a** to look like this"-goal, but because it was simply time to move on. On another note I bought my Jassele some lululemon stuff the other day and sent it to her along with some M&M's and some performance bars, that you cannot buy in Germany and those were the best $45 that I have ever invested! I dropped it off Tuesday afternoon and she got Saturday morning at 8.50am. Of course I made her wait to open it till I had time to skype with her on the webcam, but it was so worth it! She loves her new awesome pants and the matching top! Whoop Whoop! I am super excited to see my former clients Chelsey and Cortney this coming weekend, since Cortney's baby is due on 5-11-11, and Chelsey is throwing her a pamper-shower! I just invited myself, lol. Well, kinda. hehe he.This cool picture was taken at Stacie and Mike's wedding two weeks ago, where they had a photo booth set up - awesome idea, which is going on my scratch pad for the big day. If anyone cares.... 2014.

Turn the page and close this book....

Today is the last day of February and my last day as a personal trainer at Gold's Gym at Whiterock Lake. I turned in my notice two weeks ago after making the well thought-through decision to no longer work there. It has been a great 20 months but it is time for me to move on and go on to something else. I have collected a lot of experiences and learned a lot about the industry and everything that came with it, but it is time now to close this chapter of my life and start a new one. I will teach till the end of March and then stop doing that also. The hardest thing really was telling my clients, where a lot of them have become more than just clients, but friends. I spent New Year's with Chelsey, Cortney is about to have a baby in about two months and Barry has come such a long way, I feel like I am part of the Martin-family ;-). And then there is Enid, who is from South Africa, so it was a multicultural training session with more than just my German accent, but with her African accent as well, hehe he. And so many others as well. My co-workers have become more than that as well and it will be a real adjustment not to see them almost every day anymore either. I know that it will take some time to transition but in the end it will have been the right decision, even if hard, and everyone will be happy. And since I am staying in Dallas, it is not like I am out of the world. Just not at Gold's anymore.
Anyway, I made cake-balls this weekend and let me tell you...... it looked like I had killed someone. I had red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, so my hands were bright red. And since my hands got warmer and warmer as I rolled the cake-balls, the consistency of the dough was not as good as I wanted it to be.... Needless to say they were not all pretty, but some were, but super-delicious!!

Happy Hug And Kiss Day - OR - Two years later and I am still here!! :-D

Monday was Valentine's Day. Yeay. Happy Hug and Kiss Day. We were actually allowed to wear an appropriate Valentine's Day Shirt at work that day, which I thought was *awesome*, but I suppose nobody else shared that opinion. At least in the PT department. Only the OM wore a shirt with hearts as well, and mine had smoochies all over it. Aaron and I went on a lunch date that day, because we both worked till 8pm. Actually, we do not really care about Valentine's Day that much, but it was also my two year anniversary of my immigration and that means I now have been a permanent resident for two years. That also means, three years to go till I can start the whole naturalization process. Anyway, last year my anniversary was forgotten (wink, wink) and this year we did not really mention it either, but I suppose it is ok. Anyway, we had really low temperatures the other week, actually the week of my last blog. That Friday I did not go to work either. Aaron came home pretty late that night and I was about to cuss him out as he came home, as he gave me a pretty good explanation for his being late. Him and Marcus had gotten stuck in the snow and had to actually call the fire department to help them - infront of the gate of the apartment's parking lot, hehe he. Needless to say, the gym was closed till 10am and most of my clients cancelled, if they had not originally had a session that was before 10am. Weather is back to normal now. We had a nice 22°C today and it was really sunny outside! Last weekend I dropped off the babies to get their hair cut. It was Champy's first time and he sure did not want to go with the nice lady who cut his hair. He had a little bandana on as I picked him up and now he can actually see again without having to shake hair out of his face!

Alright everybody, close down the DFW airport - it is SUPERBOWL TIME IN DALLAS! - really??

Alright, first of all Superbowl XLV is in Arlington, TX, not Dallas, but the stadium is exactly in the area where the planes fly in and out. Hmmmm, let's not distract the dear players by ANY noise and let's close down DFW for the duration of the game. YEAY! I wonder when the different airlines and DFW are going to come up with the numbers of how much that cost them during that time, not to mention pissed off people who are trying to get away from all the locomotion (yes, I put "loco" in there), because people are going NUTS! The two teams arrived in Dallas yesterday and some TV stations decided to broadcast about this whole thing 24/7. Really? What about those people who just do not care. Me, for example. I could really care less. I already do not like going to the mall on the weekends due to the loads of people who push (or roll) themselves through the aisles to get a good steal or just to spend $1,200 on a pair of shoes or on a purse. Wednesday morning is a great time to shop or Thursday morning - there is nobody there and you do not have to wait in line to purchase your new sneakers or workout apparel ;-). (Yup, I said it. I mostly buy those things due to my profession, but also so I do not end up rolling myself through the aisles at the mall, because I live a rather healthy lifestyle.) Anyway, got a little bit off topic there, didn't I? Oops. I apologize.
Alright, so back to the topic. Superbowl XLV. This Sunday. Hmm. I decided not to leave the house, unless I ABSOLUTELY have to. I mean, I have to kick some ass in the morning in class and then some normal PT, and my own workout, but other than that, I plan on moping around the house and stay in. Yes. I can be super-boring sometimes. But I really prefer that to getting pissed off at other people who do decide to throw themselves into a situation which is going to aggravate them (and they know it beforehand), and share that joy with two million other people who want to see a team of people which is made up of overweight people and then others who can run really fast with a nice behind try to get a ball to the other side of the field. That's all I know about football. JK, I know a little more. ;-) Alright that's my two cents on the "super" Bowl. LOL
This week the forecast people were warning about the "cold front" coming here. I did not think it was going to be bad. I was wrong. Last night was fine. This morning I had my normal 6am client scheduled and got up at 5am. Look outside, looks fine, little rain, looks like a little snow on my windshield. Cool, gonna be fine. Turn on the TV, which I usually do not, because I enjoy a little quietness in the morning and school districts are closed down everywhere. Usually that is not a good sign. Hmph. Last night I asked Aaron if we had an ice scraper, just in case. No. OK, so I go outside, armored with a spatula (LOL). My passenger side door was frozen shut, great, BUT my car started, so that is always good. Turned on all the crap in the car to make it warm and so on and scraped the ice off my car - with the spatula from IKEA! Good tools, those European things, hehe he. Anyway, the ice was really hard-headed, but I got it so far that I had a clear view. Cool. Outside, everything was squishy, watery. I went 20 miles per hour, I usually go like 35/40 miles per hour. So it took me a little longer to make it to work. My loyal client had just gotten there as well as I arrived so it was all good. Worked out myself after her and decided to head home. My car was frozen in place though in the parking lot. Great. Started the car, tried to drive - car died. Let's do this again, 2nd gear. Worked. Cool. On my way home I had to stop at a light and as it turned green my car would not move - booooo. Rolled back down a little in reverse (weird that that worked) and used a little more initial force. Made it through the light. That was super fun. Not. It was right by a fire station though, so if it had not worked I would have asked one of the guys on duty to "rescue" me - I am pretty sure they would not have minded. hehe he.
The gym closes down early today, due to the weather and it does not look like it is going to warm up the next couple of days, see the picture, temps are in Celsius. Cannot wait for the weekend, because of the weather, not because of the bowl....

Sniff, sniff

Jasmin is gone. Needless to say, I am very sad. Seven weeks passed VERY fast when I look back at it. She left yesterday. I really miss her. I guess I will be alright in a couple of days. Still got the babies to cuddle with. Our birthday was fun last Tuesday. We went out for breakfast and then to the Galleria Mall, got a tattoo and had dindin with some friends. Not everyone who had said they were gonna be there made it, but we enjoyed it nevertheless. I am not very happy right now. :-(

Twenty-something....

It is nine days into the year 2011.... Who is still holding on to their new year's resolution? I am pretty sure I know about approximately 19 people.... Exactly those who came to the gym at 7am on Saturday for my co-worker Aaron and my Fit Camp class at the gym. One word: CRAZY. But also: good job! We had about 19 peeps in there ready to get their asses kicked, at a very human time on a Saturday at 7am. Yuck. If I had had a choice, you already know I would not have been there. LOL. We had fun though. Everyone did great and nobody threw up, yeay! AND since I was already up at the gym I thought I might as well do my cardio for the day, hehe he.
Anyway, Tuesday is the day: 1-11-11. LOL Jasmin and I are going to be 27. What? NOOOOOO! Well, what does age really mean though? Doesn't wine get better with age? I really do not feel like I am about to be 27 years old. I feel more like a nice 21 or 22. I know I can act according to my age, but what exactly does that mean too?? I get to turn into a three-year-old on my "nap-days", I do adult things, like work and pay some bills and take care of my babies (Champ and Cody), but do we really have to put a number on there? Jasmin's health age was 23 the other day. Maybe mine is about the same, so that would be more according to what I feel like. So, let's just say I am "mid-twenty". I think that is good. And as long as I do not feel my age I will just stick to that.
Champy has been super-active. He has to get his shots this month, poor baby. We will see how that is gonna go. Jasmin is leaving on the 21st, sniff sniff. Friday night we went to the movies. "Black Swan". Greatness. Such a good movie. I was really impressed! Today, it is snowing. I do not know who the f*ck ordered that sh*t but it better be gone asap. Me no likey. I like it when it is warmer outside.... No jackets, no hats, and most important no f*cking ice on my car at 5.30am when I have to go to work to kick some a**. ;-)
Anyway, dear Mister Weatherman, please make the sun shine on my birthday. That's all I want :D.

So I think it's time for us to have a toast - .......

2011... It's the year to get in shape, to save some money, to travel, to clean up, to xxx, to xxx, to xxx,...... some people's list goes on and on. But why is it that people need a January 1st to change life's habits? Why not NOW? I personally think it is bullsh*t. If you want to change something, do it now!! Do not eat your last bag of cookies and chips today, because you are starting your diet to loose ten pounds tomorrow. Do not smoke double the cigarettes that you normally smoke today, because you are quitting tomorrow. Do not spend a lot of money on a shopping spree because you are starting to save money tomorrow. Do it NOW! Adjust your life to be happy. Just be happy with yourself or adjust your life, but PLEASE quit complaining and making promises to yourself and the people around you that you are only going to break, because your New Year's resolution is only going to last one month and then it is back to the habits. Make it a habit to be happy, adjust if need be. Work on yourself and create new habits that you are going to stick to.
Alright, that was my New Year's announcement!
Now, back to the stuff everybody really wants to know, LOL. Our Christmas was..... well, it came and went. Jasmin and I had a lovely lunch with some of my coworkers after a morning of work and a terrific Zumba(R) Fitness class at Gold's on Christmas Eve. We had a blast in those 75 minutes and we wore matching outfits, hehe he. I turned into a five-and-a-half year old that afternoon, because I really needed a nap AND it was Friday. Woke up at 6pm and cooked for my hungry mouths. We had a nice healthy dindin and watched a movie. OF COURSE I fell asleep and nobody woke me up at midnight. Aaron got his gifts that night a little later than planned and Jasmin and I exchanged gifts on Christmas morning, like an American Christmas tradition. Working with people, or making them work at that, is a very demanding job, if you ask me. Lately we have had a lot of changes at work - new programs we launched, new admin stuff, you name it. This has gone so far as me turning on my computer when I get home and working for a couple of hours after work. Aaron has even asked me not to work anymore at home, because I took a certain program lauch a little bit too serious. Anyway, what I am meaninig to say: being a trainer is a life-altering job and I could not love it more. I truly love what I do, how I impact people's lives and how, through me, people find the inspiration and motivation to make changes to achieve their goal, whatever it may be. Being in America you feel the love, especially around Christmas! I wrote Christmas-thank-you-cards to each of my clients who I met with during the last week before Christmas and it is amazing how warm and thankful the response was, even to just a personal note from me! Of course I got some other awesome gift-cards AND Mavs tickets to THE game! L. A. Lakers, baby! (Thanks again Martin family!)
The last week of 2010 passed pretty quickly and now it is already 2011. That's weird to type that. Anyway, Jasmin and I cooked tonight and met up with some friends at a friend's house. We went late because we really did not know what exactly we wanted to do after dindin and a movie, but it worked out eventually and we got to toast to 2011 with more than just ourselves.
My birthday is in ten days. My two year anniversary of being a permanent resident is in six weeks!

Christmas will be over in one week - OR - Let's just call this a memorable night....

Today is December 19th 2010 and I have no idea where this year went. But it will be over in twelve days. Let's see what this year brought. I took an entire ELEVEN days off work, during which Aaron took me to the Bahamas to make up for his absence on New Year's last year, I went to Germany/Turkey, and got stuck in NYC on my way there and I took my sister to NYC this past weekend. Oh, and I took my birthday off because I believe nobody should have to go to work on their birthday. So I decided to take an entire two full weeks off next year and go to Germany - maybe stress free for a change. This year also brought a lot of sad things. Aaron lost a lot of friends who will always be remembered and taken home way too early but I believe there was a different plan for them and their job here was done. There was a lot of babies born, just to name two - Malik and Zachary. Malik is my soon-to-be-aunt's little one, who is adorable and Zachary is one my close friend's baby and he is a little bundle of joy as well. It was both mom's first-borns and they have had to make some big adjustments. But it is all worth it.
Yesterday we had our Company's Christmas Party and I was the designated driver. Well, I really volunteered, since I do not drink. I suggested Dillon and his girlfriend could ride with us, so we did not have to all go, plus that meant they could drink as well. So that's what we did. Party was supposed to start at 7pm, so they came over at 6.30pm. Introduced them to the doggies and we left. Well, there was an accident on 635 so it took us about an hour and 20 minutes to get onto 635 and my car started smoking. Great. Perfect day for that. I started freaking out. Awesome. Turned on the heat to take some heat off the engine and it stopped smoking. We still decided to pull over to the next gas station to check the water. The gas station we thought was coming up was closed down so we pulled over to the walgreens next to it. Dillon called his uncle to make sure what was wrong really was wrong and we got some liquid to put in the EMPTY tank. Cool. Car was fine after that and I was not freaking out anymore either. We finally got to the Christmas party at 8.45pm, hmph. Just a reminder. We left the house a little after 6.30pm and it was in Addison at "300". We say hi to everyone and grabbed some food, which was really good. Then we started bowling, that was fun. I actually won a $50 gift card, yeay. I guess overall it was a memorable night.....

In Neeeeew Yoooooork..... Are way too many people around Christmas time - and Jasmin and I were right in the middle of it this weekend!!!

I could finally embrace my Jasmin this past Friday (December 3rd). Her plane arrived late - but better late than never. We were at home around 7p and she settled down. We went grocery shopping and then she went to bed. Our Saturday plans included a trip to IKEA in Frisco, a baby visit and going out with my co-workers. We did not do the latter. Jasmin was knocked out on he couch around 10.30p and Dillon (our organizer LOL) was sick. Oh well, we decided to turn my kitchen into Santa's bake shop that weekend and so it smelled deliciously like Christmas Sunday night. Monday and Tuesday Jasmin came to the gym with me so my co-workers could meet her and she could work out. On Monday I am gonna work her out - for free of course LOL.
Anyway, on Thursday we went to New York City. I went to work from 5am till 7am and we went to the airport. Thanks to Delta our plane left DFW about 90 minutes late so we did not make it to the hotel till like 6pm or so. We checked in and went right to explore the city - straight to H&M. And we were starving. Thank goodness I had rebooked our hotel Wednesday night to one right on 7th and 53rd street so we didn't have to take the subway in and out the city. We went to sleep kind of early but we had to be well-rested for Friday because shopping is hard work and that was the program after breakfast at Lindy's. So Friday morning after we had a delicious breakfast we went straight to niketown. We both got a pair of awesome shoes. Jasmin is so in love with hers, I think she will always remember this trip because of those shoes, haha. They were the last pair in her size too and they were never sold in Europe, so lucky her. Honestly, we could have bought a whole bunch more there and the staff was really awesome but we decided to just stick to the shoes. After that we went to lululemon. Jasmin really enjoyed that store and one of the ladies that worked there on Friday asked us where we were from. I told her that Jasmin was from Europe and she said my accent sounded European with some southern accent mixed in there - I guess she got that right. We had an awesome experience there as well - very friendly staff. We had to take a break after that and grabbed some coffee at starbucks. We talked to our parents on our way back towards H&M and there we got some things for me. I was so excited to be in there, Jasmin only got some accessories and judged my choices in the dressing room. The cashier there was very slow. I'm sorry, but back in the day as I worked for H&M my supervisor would have had a talk with me, especially since the line got longer and longer. We dropped our steals off at the hotel and recharged the phone, since that was our guide and about to die, and rested for about 30 minutes. Then we headed to Katz's deli on east Houston street - all the way across he city, 50 blocks away from our hotel and we walked it. Unfortunately, as we got there we didn't find anything we liked so we headed back to Times Square to find something to eat. Jasmin was Miss Grumpy-Pants by then because she was starving. But after I fed her she was my happy Jasmin again and we got souvenirs for her friends. We were beat after all the marching back and forth and watched a movie at he hotel - in bed. Saturday morning we went to a different breakfast place around he corner. We just beat the breakfast rush and were seated right away. After breakfast we chilled at the hotel for a little bit and then walked to our age-appropriate culture attraction - The Museum of Sex. We learned a lot there and saw some very disturbing things. For example - did you know that it is normal in the animal kingdom to have sex partners of the same sex? I thought that was very odd, because back in the day I learned that dolphins and chimpanzees are the only other creatures besides humans who have sex for reasons other than reproduction, aka pleasure. Apparently that was wrong. We refueled with some coffee and went back to the hotel to relax a little in the lounge and change. Around 4pm we went on our way to JFK. The concierge told me that the train we are supposed to take was not going that day because there was something wrong with the doors. Too bad because that train departed RIGHT infront of the hotel. Long story short: we had to fight ourselves through ridonculous masses of people on Times Square to get to another train station where another train departed. We asked to make sure we were right and that guy only told me half of the directions and asked for weed instead. Yea, about that...... OMG. There were some weird creatures on that train to say the least. LoL. One lady kept on flashing the passengers (top and bottom!) and some soccer kids smelled up the whole cabin thingy. The weed guy was on that train as well and he kept on moving around in such a weird way that we were more than happy as he got off. We made it to JFK eventually, checked in real quick and went through security. I got us something to eat because we had to board soon and Jasmin and I were happy to be at the airport and to have something to eat.
It was an awesome sister-weekend, but we will never go to NYC again when it is Christmas time - unless we feel like we need a mass snuggle session while being pushed through the crowds.

Santa came early this year - OR - Only 7(!) more days and Champ meets his auntie!!!

Exactly one week ago I became a doggie-mom, officially now, since Cody is really just my step-dog, lol. I got my Christmas present early in form of a little boy Shih-Tzu, who was named Champ, because he looks like he got punched in the face. He is so cute. He was born on July 1st and is a fur-ball with legs. His butt looks a little bit like the one of the "Charmin"-bear. Very furry and round. Overall, he is really cute and he is all mine! Cody did surprisingly well so far, I am really proud of her. She is even sharing her toys!! Anyways, my Jassele will be here in exactly one week and that means that in exactly two weeks her and I will be in NYC! Yeay. I am really excited, it is going to be so much fun! Last weekend we went to a wedding, so I wore a little black dress which surprisingly fit, yeay. So all the sweat and soreness is finally paying off I suppose, haha. Yesterday was Thanksgiving and I really missed my family in Germany. This weekend is the first Advent Sunday and my family in Germany and I have a tradition of going out to dinner at a nice restaurant in Braunschweig where my brother lives and I will not be there. I am not even sure if they are doing it this year to be honest. But I still miss them more at this time of the year. My new baby Champ is doing a great job cuddling with me and keeping me busy though. Here he is in his first video: