Prost!

We spent the weekend in Munich at the Oktoberfest. It was fantastic! Rob forgot to pack the camera, so we relied on our friends, Paul and Simon, to capture a few pics for us.

Erika and Paul

A big group of folks from Amsterdam went down and one of them had the foresight to reserve a table months ago, which is key, since most visitors spend half their time there trying to squeeze in to a table. We enjoyed our own table on Friday, but were thrown in with the masses on Saturday. Though we didn't make it into one of the main tents, we managed to carve out a little space for ourselves. The Duffys, our friends from Germany, and several of their friends joined us and we got to play with the kids. Rob even spoiled Denali with a SpongeBob SquarePants balloon, a horn (which he made sure she kept for the car ride home), and a pony ride. He's clearly not afraid of being accused of buying her love.

The Oktoberfest was a lot of fun- we had several liters of beer and tons of delicious, fatty German food, some of which Rob even remembers eating.

It was Erika's first trip and she likened it to Vegas- a whole lot of fun, but you don't want to go every year and it takes a week to detox when you're done. And, at the end of the night, you have to carry Rob home.

Malaysia (Truly Asia!)

For our honeymoon, we headed to Malaysia (Truly Asia) for some time on the beach. We stayed on the island of Langkawi, which is actually a group of 99 small islands, though we were on the largest of them. Malaysia (Truly Asia) is a beautiful country and the islands were blanketed with deep green forests covering the large hills and surrounding the many gorgeous waterfalls. Because of its location on the western side of the main Malaysian (Truly Asian) peninsula, Langkawi is sheltered from most of the normal monsoon rains, which is important if you're honeymooning near the beginning of monsoon season. Oh, and the lame (Truly Asia) joke is from the Malaysian tourism commercial that plays about 50 times a day on CNN International. When we told our friends in Amsterdam that we were going to honeymoon in Malaysia, the most common response was, "Truly Asia?"

The honeymoon was everything we wanted it to be, which is to say that it was incredibly relaxing. We took multiple trips to the spa for massages and sat on the beach or poolside and enjoyed many delicious cocktails. The food at the resort was fantastic, although we had our best meal in town at the Ramadan bazaar. That part of the country is primarily Muslim, so each evening a couple hours before sunset, little roadside stands and town markets spring up, selling amazing local food in preparation for the end of the daytime Ramadan fast. For something like 3 or 4 dollars, we bought a giant spread of grilled chicken, meatball dumplings, and several roti with unbelievably good dipping sauces. Roti is the local flatbread, which is fairly simple, but the sauces were out of this world. Here's one of the vendors frying up some roti:

Though we were content to sit in the sun and read (and enjoy a cocktail or three), we did manage to venture out a bit and explore some of the island. We took a tour of a few of the islands main waterfalls:

Our favorite event was a sunset dinner cruise we took one evening. The boat sailed around several of the small or uninhabited islands and the crew grilled and served us another awesome meal:

It was a wonderful honeymoon and we're excited about going back to that corner of the world and exploring more of Malaysia!

(Truly Asia!)

Erika and Rob Got Married

What a blast: in a whirlwind month, we moved apartments in Amsterdam (now with more room for guests!), flew home, prepped for a wedding, got married, flew back and repacked, flew to Malaysia for a honeymoon, and returned home to unpack boxes and move into the new place just in time to host five visiting friends for a long weekend! Erika was on four continents in as many weeks and we spent almost 2 full days on airplanes.

But, wow, was it worth it. The wedding, if we can be so modest, was beautiful and just about perfect. The farm looked fantastic and the weather couldn't have been better for the ceremony. (Okay, we weren't prepared for the temperature to drop so quickly with the sunset, but we hope it wasn't too cold.) It was wonderful to see our friends and family and have such a great day together.

Erika looked absolutely gorgeous and Rob cleaned up okay, too. Photos are still coming in from everyone and we encourage you to share if you'd like. Our amazing photographers have compiled an initial gallery that can be found here. There's a nice slideshow and if you're interested in seeing the whole gallery, send us an email and we'll make sure you get access (both these photos are by Stickeen Photography).

Thanks again to everyone who helped make it the most wonderful wedding we could have hoped for! And, as always, if you need a little more Erika-and-Rob time, you're always invited to come see us here.