Um, So I Guess It's Been A While :)

Sorry we've been M.I.A. for a while, but we are still alive and well! Just thought we'd give a quick update. After 11 months, we finally left Thailand at the end of April. While I went back to the US, Jeff had to fly straight to Kuwait for another assignment. Jeff was supposed to be out there until September, so I snuck in a vacation to South Carolina to visit my parents, and then planned on heading to Kuwait to join him. However, as things go in this job, the assignment ended up changing. It took a few weeks to get him out of there, but after five weeks in Kuwait Jeff actually got to come home! He went into his office for the first time since January 2008 (and even back then it was only for one day!). We quickly found out we would be heading back to Doha, Qatar where Jeff had his very first road assignment. Luckily there were a few delays, so Jeff was able to spend about two weeks back home. We got to hang out with our families, and even caught a Brewers/Cardinals game!

On Friday we left the US and we're now back in Doha. Jeff was here for six months from October 2005 to April 2006. We weren't married yet and I was still in law school and working, but I was able to come out here for a week to visit. It's amazing how much this city has changed (but that's for another post!). It's a little bit nostalgic coming back here, and it seems like things are coming full circle. We're sure most of you know, but Jeff is planning on coming off the road and working in the office for good in September. That means our time left on the road is running out, so its really cool to possibly end things where they began! That's all for now, but now that we're back on the road hopefully the posts will come more often!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This year was definitely our best St. Patrick's Day since we've been on the road. For starters, we were in a location where there was actually an Irish Pub (I guess Russia and India don't know what they're missing!). Plus, one of Jeff's co-workers was in town on vacation, so we had someone else to celebrate with!

It was a work night for Jeff, so we couldn't stay out too late, but we spent the night at a local pub, Molly Malones. They had several specials going on throughout the night.

There was a live band . . .

. . . free green shooters (still not sure what was in them) . . .

. . . and free t-shirts.

Several of the staff members had on crazy hats, so of course we had to try them on!

Oh, and to top it all off, there was this guy . . .

Yes, he is wearing a skirt and makeup and he does have two melons in his shirt!

Good fun, good friends, and good Irish beer . . . we couldn't have asked for more!

New Photos

We know it has been a while, but we finally updated our photo site with some new pictures. All of our Christmas photos and our recent trip to Bangkok are up there. We're also trying to post some from Chinese New Year soon.

Also, we recently posted some new albums to Shutterfly that we thought we'd share:

Paris 2007

Our Ancestry Trip

Enjoy!

That's One Big Beer!

Just a few doors down from the hotel there's a great German Restaurant/Brewery called the Hopfbrauhaus. They brew a great hefeweizen that we've had many times. Typically we order a pint, or a whole liter if we're feeling ambitious. On the menu there's a three liter option. We've only seen it ordered once, and it was by a fairly large party. We always wanted to order it, but it's fairly expensive, and it's a lot of beer, so we never had. A few weeks back Jeff and I went to Hopf and ordered a liter each. Our waiter informed us that there was a special on the three liter jug if we were interested, so we decided to go for it. It took them a while to bring the drink, and when they did we couldn't stop laughing.

It was huge! Do you notice that there is a ladle next to the glass to serve the beer! There's no way you could lift the glass and accurately pour it! We were a little overwhelmed, but eventually we stopped laughing and tried to make a dent in that massive glass!

From left to right pint, liter, and three liter glasses (for comparison)

It took us about three hours, but we managed to finish the whole thing, much to the amusement of those around us! I really think we should have gotten a larger discount or a commission since others around us started ordering the three liter glass too! We were trendsetters for the night!

Our Nieces

We promise this is our final Christmas post! The last part of our trip to the US was a visit to South Carolina to see Jeff's brother Scott's family. His wife Lou Ann just had a baby in November, so we were excited to meet our new niece Cierra Rose. We spent about 4 days down in SC, so we had lots of time to play with Roxanne and Cierra. Jeff's whole family was there and we had a really good time! Not much to write, but a lot of pictures to share!

First up we'll introduce you to Cierra!

Being rocked by Daddy

Sporting the faux-hawk while napping

Opening presents with Grandma and Grandpa

Such a happy baby!

Sleeping with Aunt Rachel

Outside with Daddy

There was lots of dancing and silliness going on!

Scott and Jeff sporting their Christmas gifts to each other

Roxanne being silly with Aunt Rachel

Dancing to the Madagascar 2 Soundtrack

The fun was too much for some of us to handle!

One afternoon Jeff, Scott, Roxanne and I went disc golfing at a local park.

We tried to take a few good family pictures too!

Jeff, Roxanne and I

The whole Wery clan

Such a cute picture of Scott and his girls

Snow!!!

Yup, we're still blogging about Christmas :) Before we were home for Christmas it had been almost an entire year since we had seen snow. I talk to my parents almost every day, and they had been telling me about all of the snow they had received in Milwaukee. When we arrived in Chicago we were so excited to see a few inches on the ground. That however was nothing compared to the snow we encountered a few days later at my parents house.

When we arrived, this was the scene in the front of the house and on the back porch:

And as if that wasn't enough, it continued to snow almost every day we were home. My parents let their dog, Gunner, outside in the back yard to do his business. With all of the snow, I had to go outside and shovel the porch just so we could open the door and let him out.

The snow was so deep that Gunner could hardly move. He had cleared a small path for himself that he traced and retraced every time he went outside.

We did manage to find one way to get him off his path: throwing his favorite ball into the snow. The dog is a retriever, he's wired to chase, no matter what the circumstances. We had soooo much fun tossing the ball and watching him chase through the snow to retrieve it.

After all that time in the snow, we needed to warm up by the fire!

After a year without snow it was awesome to have a white Christmas!

It's Santa!

Yup, its another far overdue Christmas posting :) We arrived back in the US on the 20th and spent a day or two in IL with Jeff's family. We then headed up to Milwaukee to spend time with my family. Every year my Aunt has a Caroling Party on December 23rd, and since we were home we were really excited to get to attend. It's a fairly large party, and there are always plenty of little kids anxiously awaiting Santa's appearance. Santa must have the date on his calendar, because he manages to show up every year. Unfortunately this year bad weather prevented Santa from making the trip. He was kind enough to call my Aunt and let her know he wouldn't be there. He didn't want to disappoint the children, so he told my Aunt that a Santa suit and some candy canes would be waiting in her laundry room. He had scoured his naughty and nice list and determined that Jeff was the perfect candidate to fill in for him. Within five minutes of arriving at the party my Aunt informed Jeff of Santa's wishes, and Jeff was "thrilled" to fill in.


Now it takes a lot of courage to play Santa, so my very generous cousins made sure that Jeff had all of the "liquid courage" he needed for his big performance. Apparently Santa has called and cancelled before, and my male cousins have all been on the nice list, so they have all filled in before. They gladly introduced Jeff to their friend Jack Daniels, who helped him get ready.


We all know Santa is a big jolly fellow. Jeff unfortunately is not, so we had to find some pillows to help him fill out the suit. Our first pillow wasn't quite the right fit. He looked more like Santa-Bob Square pants.


With help from Jack Daniels, my dad, my uncle, and two of my cousins, we were able to figure out the suit. Since Jeff was Santa, I guess that made me Mrs. Claus, so of course I helped get him dressed.


Once he was ready, he came through the front door for his big performance. He was a little nervous, but he handed out candy canes like a pro!

The show could have lasted all night, but my adorable cousin Margaret (who was the flower girl at our wedding) shouted out "You look like Jeff." Not wanting to betray Santa's trust in him, Jeff high-tailed it out of there and was back at the party within minutes. Though he was nervous I think he had a great time. Plus, he must have ensured his spot on the nice list for a few more years to come!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Yes, we know Christmas was a few weeks ago, but we never got a chance to post our pictures, so . . . better late than never! After Thanksgiving I couldn't wait to search for Christmas decorations to hang up in our room (bear in mind that we didn't know we were coming home for Christmas, so we wanted to make it as festive as possible!). You may recall that two years ago in Korea we couldn't find any decorations so we had to make our own (who could forget Jeff's green shirt stretched over a lampshade as our"tree"). I feared the same thing would happen here, but boy was I wrong! Our local grocery store had a ton of tinsel and lights, and after stops at three large department stores we were even able to find a tree! Below are a few pictures . . .

We were told our lamp looked like a festivus pole :)

Our tree!

It's hard to tell in the picture, but the tinsel is green and gold, so we called this our Packer mirror (too bad it didn't help us win!)

Everything we watched was a Christmas movie!

Since we were able to come home for Christmas, we had to take the decorations down on the 21st. But they didn't go to waste, we passed them off to one of Jeff's co-workers who is on a different assignment about an hour from here. He travels with his wife and two young sons, so we thought they'd enjoy the decorations!