Hallo Darling Readers!

I apologize for literally falling off the face of the earth for the last few months.  We were getting down to crunch time for wedding stuff and while I thought I could totally juggle both wedding prep and this blog….

I realized very quickly that I couldn’t……

But the month of June is over which means both my wedding AND my 30th birthday has come and gone and now I must settle back into reality.  But that means T, Abner, and I have more time for adventures again! And we already have quite a bit planned!

So what have I been up to the last few months? Well, I will get to the wedding part soon enough but what I ended up spending more time and energy on was playing tour guide for what became a mass invasion of family members that came almost a week before the wedding.

How big was this group?

This photo was taken at Chicago O’Hare at the beginning of their journey.  And yes, T and I picked them ALL up! (not pictured were my two close friends from my IU days and my aunt who came from Peru). In total, we were 19 people.  19?! Crazy, no?

Anyway, they were arriving around 11:45.  The plan was that T would take a VW bus, I would drive his BMW, my parents and one of my sisters would each rent cars – making us a caravan of four cars.  My college friends had arrived a few days before:

And they were accompanying me in the BMW.  We were on the Autobahn for about 10 minutes when T calls….

“I think there’s something wrong,” he says from the VW bus in front of us.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I think I have a flat.”

My friends and I leaned to our right and sure enough his front right wheel was flat.  Fortunately we were at an exit and T carefully drove the bus off the highway.  Then my friends and I watched in horror as the tire literally crumbled like Oreo cookies off the rim. Mmmmmmmm Oreos, ewwwww poor tire.

We found a park ‘n ride, abandoned the bus wherever we could find parking, and then T got in the BMW.  We had to quickly drive back and pick up my VW golf and we were back on the road.  I messaged everyone I could knowing someone would get a text so they would know why we were arriving late.  My sister, S, had received it (thankfully) so none of our group members panicked.  We arrived to find our group tired and starving but glad to be in Germany.

So once the cars were organized and luggage packed – we led the caravan to Königstraße in downtown Stuttgart.  It’s where I bought my wedding dress and I knew of a good restaurant that we could (literally) descend upon.

Carls Brauhaus

That’s actually not all of us. T, two of my brother-in-laws, and my nephew were off at another table.  But you get the idea, right?

This is a great place to eat (if you find yourself at the Schloßplatz in central Stuttgart).  Here you can find great German food and beer.  My family was very happy but after a full stomach and being awake for over 24 hours – they were ready to slip into a food coma.  I had thought about organizing a barbecue later that evening, but I could tell that they were ready to just get their lodging organized and sleep.

In fact, here was what I had planned for our first day (you will come to find in the next few posts that we didn’t really follow my planned itinerary to the letter, though we got close).

Yeah, the cupcake part? I will get to THAT later.  Needless to say, it didn’t happen that night.  We got the caravan from Stuttgart to T’s hometown.  My sister, H, and brother-in-law stayed with T’s brother and family.  My sister, S, and her family had rented a gorgeous apartment in Rothenburg (I led her there and met the owners myself – lovely people! I definitely recommend you lodge there if you find yourself in Rothenburg, I will put the link below).  My college friends had rented the other apartment above my sister (owned by the same folks).  And the Latinos, and my parents stayed with us at my mother-in-law’s house.

This took a lot longer than I expected.  This was the phrase I ended repeating over and over again and became a theme whilst traveling with my family – 19 people move A LOT slower than just 2.  But I was determined to make the most of the time with my family.

The link to the apartment is HERE.

Phew! Just reliving that day is crazy!  I will write more of our adventures leading up to the Big Day, but in the mean time I just wanted to say that I missed you guys and I am so glad to be back!

Bis nächste Woche!

La Mari