Time is flying...

Hi, I am still alive ;o) April was a great and very busy month. But today (ehm, yes, it is already May) I decided to take some time and give you a quick review.
First of all:
I want to leave this cake without a comment. You know what it means.... but I am still happy:

But that great event took place in the middle of the months. Before that very good friends of mine from Germany came visiting. Frank, Tine and their two sons Rainer and Manfred stayed with us for almost a week and we explored the area here. And you know what: I never took my camera with me. Don't ask me why. Mainly because the weather wasn't sunny. No, it didn't rain, but while in Germany my friends were able to use the pool, in England it was cloudy and not very warm.But we enjoyed the time together anyway. On the first day there was a miniture steam engine rally going on in Thetford. Almost 30 functional steam engine models made their way through town. We had fun watching them and exploring Thetford after that.
We also went on day trips to Cambridge (yes, we do this with everyone), Lavenham, Norwich, we visited the flint mines at Grime's Grave, the Anglo Saxon Village and of course the base. In the evening the boys had fun finishing my Madagasca Wii game (I only got to 6%) while the rest of us tried different wines and talked, talked, talked. I love having guests here!
They also stayed over my birthday. And it was a very fun day. Dave had a present for me almost every two hours. It went like "honey, it is noon, time for the next present!" I loved it, we had fun. We went out for dinner and this is where I got my last present (handed to me by the waiter) and a candle on my desert. All in all I can say that turning 40 isn't as bad as I expected.

My birthday was on a Thursday and I took the ferry to Germany on Friday. My friends in Germany organized a birthday party for me on Saturday, so Dave and I wanted to be there ;o) It was only a small party since we will have a really big one as a farewell party in September. But we had fun. Everybody brought some food, Marcus made some music and we just enjoyed our time.

While Dave had to leave on Sunday I stayed for another week. Most of the time I spent with sorting out things I want to bring to the US and those things that can go to the garbage. It was kind of living the last 40 years again. I found old journals, photos, letters and postcards, packed all my books (I won't leave one of them in Germany, I love books.... as much as I love stuffed animals) and cleaned out some paper work. Now almost everything is ready to go to England first before it will be shipped to Maryland. The plan is to rent a little truck and move the stuff mid of May. My brother will help me with it.

I also had some non packing times. For example I had coffee with Marcus' parents, lunch with two of my former colleagues and a day in the zoo with a friend of mine. And Dave flew in again for the next weekend. We finally did some shopping. The main thing we wanted to buy was the silverware (well, not real silver, but very, very nice) that Dave's parents got us for our wedding.
We spend the Saturday moring downtown Essen for all these shopping activities, in the afternoon we did a looooong geocache in my neighborhood and finally we had sushi for dinner with Marcus and Eva before the four of us watched "Into the wild".

Sunday we went to Juergen and Ingrid's place. It was Ingrid's birthday and we were invited for a brunch. Yammy.
Dave flew home on that evening and I took the ferry on Monday.

Now I am back to England, the weather is beautful, Amber is waiting for going for a walk in the woods and we are planning our summer. We are really looking forward to our trip to Scotland (with Amber) and all the people who plan on visiting us before we'll leave. Only 5 months left...