Embarking On A New Beginning

Guten Tag! Hey friends! I am finally starting to get settled into our new little village in Germany and are just loving it here! This is a dream come true for the both of us! I can't believe our move finally happened. Because we have been getting a home, buying a car, getting set up and settling in, I am way behind on blogging and everything else it seems. Now that I have some Internet set up I can share some adventures with you!

This last weekend was hectic for us, I wish I could have captured the town all decked out for the Easter festivities. Easter is huge in Europe....I mean huge. They get a four day weekend and all the villages are decorated and there are tons of Oster Markts (Easter markets and festivals). I also wish I had my things from home to set up an Easter table of our own but we won't be receiving most of our personal items from the states for another month or so. I guess I will have to wait to share a European Easter with you next spring, and I really look forward to it. 

By the way, pastries, gelato, and German chocolates are going to be a major problem for me.....

We have found a home that is just perfect for us. We love our little village, adore the heck out of our landlords and our neighbors are fantastic! The home is a fabulous mix of super contemporary and rustic....it is beyond perfect for us and I can't wait to get to decorating. Most homes here are either very very dated or, modern, stark and cold.  Everything is so different here including the typical design, the hardware stores and furniture shops (they are so stinkin' awesome here!) I am finding that Germany is so rich with great design ideas and solutions, incredible engineering and a ton of history and charm. It will be an adventure designing our new home and I can't wait to share the process with you! Our landlords are so wonderful and will let us do all the painting and updates that we want. Woohoo for me! It is quite rare here (and in the states for that matter) to find such lenient landlords and we are blessed with them and their friendship. I will show you pictures of our new home in my next post!

During our first two weeks here we have made great new friends and gone on a few adventures, including visiting a zillion castles (there are two gorgeous ruins of ones in our village!).

The pictures below are of Cochem Castle.

Cochem Castle is a  wonderful place to check out if you are ever in the area. It was inexpensive (about five Euro a ticket) to tour, a great hike to the top, dog friendly, and had a quaint cafe in it that had some spectacular views. 

These are our new friends!

As you know, I love chandeliers and had to get a shot of every one I saw in this castle.

This window looked like the main window at the Snow White Castle in Disneyland. I kept expecting Snow White's wicked stepmother to open the windows and pop her head out.

The view from the castle is unreal. The weird frog looking mascot with an over sized cape was not intimidating in the least....just a little weird haha. Wait....my husband just corrected me, I guess it's not a frog but a knights helmet...looks more like Kermie to me.....

Below are pictures of a village we visited. I felt like I'd bump into Pinocchio at any moment...Sorry for all this Disney talk, I can't help it.

I am obsessed with these wrought iron store front signs and am thinking I need one with our monogram over our front door. I saw some in Ballard designs that I just love! I will look around to see if I can find any antique ones I can refurbish first!

All in all, we love this new land we now call home!

I can't thank all of our family, friends, and fellow bloggers for the love encouragement and support!

Until next time...

Stay Tuned....

Design Solutions and shopping for our new European home.