Year in Review - 2023

I’ll be honest: this is probably one of my favorite blog posts to write, and based on how many people stop by, it appears to be a reader favorite as well. I started this series after falling short of my 2017 goals, aiming to shed light on the life that occurred beyond my planned objectives. So many friends and family reached out after I published that post, expressing how much they enjoyed seeing what we were up to.

I think sometimes we all (okay, at the very least me) forget about all the people we’ve crossed paths with who may not necessarily be up-to-date in the minutiae of our lives but still think about us and wish they could be more present. This feeling washes over me even more whenever we’re living overseas and so far from everyone. As per my usual, it’s taken a lot of words for me to say the simple: I miss you. I think about you all the time, and I wish there was a pocket-sized you to bring along on all of our adventures. But, alas, there isn’t, so here’s my best attempt at bridging the gap:

We rang in the new year with all of our friends – it was incredible having everyone in town for the holiday weekend (and quite the rarity)! The celebration took place on our friend Vivi’s rooftop terrace (miss you!), which offered a stunning view of the fireworks illuminating downtown Stuttgart’s night sky. As January drew to a close, we celebrated my birthday with a snowy weekend in the woods near Innsbruck, Austria.

Mark’s job sent him to the UK in February, so we decided to tack on a few extra days and I met him in Scotland. We spent a day exploring Glasgow and then the rest of the trip making time for daily afternoon tea in Edinburgh. I enjoyed our time so much in Edinburgh that I dedicated a whole blog post outlining everything we did. Pretty early into our trip, our usually laid-back dogsitter called us because she thought Jackson was having a stroke. She took him to an emergency vet where it was discovered that he had eaten a poison bait trap left in a field next to her house by some asshole. After a restless evening looking up emergency flights home, we woke up to the great news that he was going to be okay. As the dogs are getting older, I’m mentally preparing to lose them sooner rather than later, but not like this. I’m so thankful that our sitter was home and realized something wasn’t right and took action. It literally saved Jackson’s life.

By March, my marathon training was steadily underway, so the run buddy and I made the most of our long run and ran the entire length of Liechtenstein. That’s right, we ran a whole damn country in one go. The boys met us on the Switzerland border with some much needed water since it was unseasonably warm that day. At the end of the month, we flew to Türkiye to spend spring break with our Ramstein friends. We had envisioned ourselves in cute little dresses, watching hot air balloons from our hotel rooftops. Instead, we were greeted by an unexpected snowstorm that lasted our entire vacation. It wasn’t the trip we had planned, but it still ended up being a great week!

While we waited for the weather to warm up in April, the bestie stopped by for Frühlingsfest (basically the spring version of Oktoberfest) and a quick trip to Amsterdam, marking the first of our friends to visit us since we moved to Germany! I was sad to see her leave, but as we dropped her off at the airport, we continued driving north to Hamburg to see some more friends before they PCSed back to the states. Even though we were still in Germany, we were delighted by how different everything was in Hamburg compared to our home in the Schwäbisch area of the country.

The run buddy and I absolutely crushed it in May by finishing the Prague marathon in Czechia. It was her first marathon, which she smoked, and I shaved off 36 minutes from my previous time. Side note: if you ever find yourself in Prague and want a picture in front of the Astronomical Clock without a million tourists, go for a run at 8 a.m.; it’s an absolute ghost town. Mark and I finished out the month by doing the Shame Walk Game of Thrones style with a week-long vacation in Split and Dubrovnik, Croatia. I also wrote a blog post outlining everything we did in Croatia.

As the summer heat arrived, we decided to take a road trip with the puppies in June to Lake Bled, Slovenia to cool off in the turquoise blue water. It was a little too cold for us to swim, but the dogs had a blast! This is also when I really hit my stride in documenting our travels so I have a blog post about Slovenia as well.

Our outdoor adventures continued into July as we spent a whole week hiking among the Dolomites in Northern Italy, first in Val di Funes and then near Cortina d'Ampezzo. This may have been one of my favorite trips we took all year, and I think you can really tell based on how lengthy the blog post is that I wrote about it. We ended the month by celebrating Mark’s birthday in Épernay, France with all of our Ramstein friends. Épernay is the heart and soul of the champagne region and we enjoyed learning how to use a saber sword to open bottles.

With the oppressive heat of August bearing down upon us, we booked a quick weekend trip to Riga, Latvia with the Stuttgart crew. I got to stop at a yarn store that I had randomly found online months prior and the boys found a bar that let you hold a salvaged rocket launcher. We took a food tour and learned that Latvians eat every part of the animal except for the scream, and ended the trip with a sunset cruise to touch the Baltic Sea.

Just like last year, September was a gong show and we didn’t spend a single weekend at home. We took our second big trip of the year driving the entire Ring Road in Iceland over the course of nine days. We rented a camper truck that we affectionately referred to as Hermie and spent most of the trip battling severe wind storms. Luckily, we were still able to do most of what we had planned to do on this once in a lifetime trip. There will definitely be a blog post on this as soon as I get everything more together. We also ran an unseasonably hot half marathon in Colmar, France and welcomed all the alpine cows home for the winter at Almabtreib in Reith im Alpbachtal, Austria. The month ended with a road trip to Milan, Italy to meet up with Mark’s parents for the weekend.

With such a busy September, Mark begged me not schedule anything for October so I set my FOMO aside and begrudgingly complied. We spent the whole month recharging at home and enjoying the changing colors surrounding us. We donned our Fest fits and stopped by Volksfest (what Stuttgart calls their Oktoberfest and the second biggest festival in Germany after Munich) on the last day of the festival.

November always feels like the start of my favorite time of year in Germany. As the leaves give way to colder temps, all of the Christmas markets start to open in villages and cities across Europe. We opened the month with a weekend in the Moselle wine region, staying at a castle with the Ramstein crew. Before heading to the Christmas markets in Vienna and Salzburg, Austria and Bratislava, Slovakia for our usual non-traditional Thanksgiving travel, we celebrated Friendsgiving in Stuttgart. Mark cooked up an entire goose and I made a Pinterest-worthy cinnamon roll apple pie. We also learned (officially) that Mark’s tour in Germany was extended by a year, and we will now move in summer 2025. We considered it an early Christmas present as this gives us so much more opportunity to travel around Europe!

Just like last year, we spent every single weekend of December in a new town, trying to see as many Christmas markets as possible. This year we stopped by some new-to-us markets in the Black Forest, Trier, Luxembourg and Zurich. Our friend from DC came to visit so we enjoyed taking them to the markets in and around Stuttgart and finishing their trip with the best Christmas market to ever exist in Strasbourg, France.

This year was jammed-packed with tons of travel and time with friends (including some from across the pond!), and we wouldn’t have it any other way. We visited 9 new countries this year and have officially traveled through half of Europe! Mark and I are happiest living abroad, and we’re ready for all the 2024 has in store!

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