Here's an inside glimpse of our episode on House Hunters International!

As many of you now know, Joe and I recently made our TV debut on House Hunters International! The whole experience has been incredibly surreal. I was contacted by a casting office for HGTV’s House Hunters International asking if we would be interested in shooting with the show, they had found me on Instagram! If you haven’t heard of House Hunters, you obviously haven't ever been bored on a Southwest flight, but the basis of the show is that you move abroad and then the show helps you find your perfect place in your new city! First of all, I can’t say instagram never did anything for me, because I was found completely through moving hashtags by the casting office and I am sure many of you are now reading this post thanks to Instagram connecting us!

I’ve had so many questions from friends and family since the show aired about a week ago, so I wanted to give you a glimpse into the behind the scenes of the show! If you haven’t had a chance to watch the show, we are Season 160, Episode 4 and you can watch on this link, House Hunters International.

On the first day of shooting, we were super nervous and had no idea what to expect. Joe joked about needing a makeup artist, which the show does NOT provide for the record, and in all reality I was the one who ended up powdering both of our noses. 

We arrived at the first meeting location where we sat for our interviews. There were 4 team members total in the crew; the director, the audio guy, the camera guy, and the fixer (basically the guy doing all the running around and speaking German for us). The following day, we met our real estate agent. Over five days, we spent about 40-50 hours shooting for the show. That means for our 23 minute and 55 second episode, A LOT of things were not included in the episode. The director had all kinds of crazy ideas like doing a segment of me making homemade tie dye to show to my trendy followers on the blog or surprising Mr. Sparkle (Joe) with a sequined shirt and catching his reaction on film. We ended up not having time to do many of those ideas, but even some of the things we did have time to shoot, didn’t end up on the show. 

Because there is no great way to answer all of your questions, I’ve compiled some of the most common ones, but feel free to leave additional questions in the comments! 

For the record, we keep the cats on the top floor of our house where they have three rooms and plenty of space to run around. Fuzzy, our blind cat, is not able to safely navigate the stairs and the other cat, Fatty, can navigate the barrier to come down the stairs if she wishes. 

Top Five Questions

How were you cast for the show?

If you are moving and interested in applying to be on the show, it is my understanding that the show is typically cast through applications, but that is not how we landed our TV debut on the show. I was found by the HGTV casting company through my Instagram hashtags like #movingabroad and #movingtogermany and received an email asking if we would be interested in being on the show. To be honest, with Joe’s work schedule it was almost impossible to find a time to shoot the episode, but we were able to make it work and I am so thankful for the experience!

Does Joe love the pets more than he loves you?

If you know anything about my husband, you know he is NOT a huge fan of owning pets. Now, do not get me wrong, he cares for and loves our pets very well, but he jokes that if I died, they would be put outside immediately. Joe lovingly puts up with the pets for me and that is the ONLY reason we have them. I have always loved having pets, and they are a great comfort for me when Joe is traveling for work (which is typically over 250 days of the year with his current job). Joe loves me, and therefore he tolerates the pets.

Was the realtor as bad as she seemed on the show?

Many of you had visceral reactions to how the realtor treated me on the episode and I appreciate your love and support, but do not forget that the only thing “real” about reality TV is the name! Every single word in the episode is intentionally put there. Remember, they have hours of film to choose from when compiling each 20ish minutes episode, so of course, they can dramatize each scene in the show. In actuality, we got along great with the real estate agent and joked around with her the entire time! 

Were you pregnant when you shot the episode?

NO! While I am happy to pose with a beer in a picture even while pregnant, the episode was shot while Joe and I were trying for a baby, but not pregnant.

Why did you need four bedrooms if it was just the two of you?!?

The show failed to add the small (but very important detail) that we were hoping and praying to start a family while living here in Kaiserslautern, Germany. If you haven’t seen the announcement, we are ecstatic to be welcoming a baby boy into our world in January 2021, so with the idea that we might have family coming to stay with us AND a new nursery for our first child, four bedrooms was important to us. Joe does much of his job from home when he isn’t traveling, so it was very important for him to have his own office space. And finally, yes, I do have a lot of clothes, and the house we decided on has zero, you heard that right ZERO, closets. That means, no pantry, no coat closet, no linen closet, no storage closets, and no clothing closets. With that in mind, it was important to me to have a space to organize it all. Four bedrooms wasn’t a requirement, but we did end up finding a great house with four bedrooms and now, with my baby belly growing, we are thankful for the space! 

Here is the official plot of our episode, Dressing Up in Kaiserslautern:

A Louisiana couple is following his military transfer to Kaiserslautern, Germany. She's giving up her job for the move and starting a fashion and style blog, so she hopes to find a home with plenty of space for her clothes, as well as room for their pets.

If you did not get a chance to catch it live, our episode can be found here or on the HGTV website, here. I would love to hear what you think about our episode!!!

Xo,

Theresa

The Biggest Decision of Our Life

How we made the decision to move to Germany

You might assume that because we moved to Germany with the military, that we didn’t have a choice in the decision process. It's true that the military can totally decide to uproot us at any time and for any reason (because they basically own us).  However, when it comes to this move, we were actually given the unique opportunity to decide what we wanted to do. One thing I’ve heard many times since moving over here is “It is so cool that you can travel Europe for a few years while you live there!” Even though it is incredibly cool, and a big reason we personally chose to move to Europe, I want to tell you that you too, could choose to move to Europe! Maybe not the exact way we chose to, but since being here we’ve met tons of people that are living here and working here as civilians (not military). The logistics behind moving across the world are not for the faint of heart...but after settling in for a few months, I can tell you that if you enjoy traveling and experiencing other cultures, it is 100% worth it. 

If you’ve been following along with my life on the gram, then you may not know our moving story because this is the first time I’ve shared it! Moving to Europe was the hardest decision Joe and I have had to make in our adult life so here’s a glimpse into what it looked like for us.

A random weekend at the end of 2018…..

Joe called me on a Thursday morning to tell me that we had been offered a job with the Air Force at Ramstein. To give some context, Joe had requested a position with the Air Force that entails a lot of travel and there are only five main bases across the world from which they are stationed. This is Joe’s DREAM job, doing exactly what he wants to do with trial work and from the Germany base (Ramstein) he would be getting to travel Europe while he worked (hopefully with me). But, as soon as Joe took the call he knew I would have doubts.

The irony is when we asked for 10 different places on our “dream sheet” four years prior, we weren’t given any of our picks. Instead, we were sent to Shreveport, LA. This time, we were given exactly the position that we asked for and we had the perfect plan. I would stay working as a sales manager and live out of the house that we owned in Shreveport. Joe would work out of San Antonio on paper but he would come home to me when he wasn’t traveling. Eventually, we would look for a place in Austin, TX if a job opened for me. We were offered the exact position that fit into our perfect plan which RARELY happens in the military. And then, we were asked if we wanted to scrap that plan and move to Germany instead.

I went to bed on that Thursday saying no.

On Friday morning at the gym, Joe told one of my closest friends that we were offered the chance of a lifetime. That friend, being the faith-filled woman that she is, offered to pray for me at the top of every hour that day so that God could give me clarity in the decision. I had had an exhausting week and the magnitude of this decision felt too monstrous to make in three days. Oh, did I forget to say that?  We got the call on Thursday and the Air Force needed to know our decision by Sunday night.

I went to bed on Friday saying no.

Luckily, a full night sleep had me waking up with a fresh perspective. When Joe and I got to our Saturday morning gym class, we were greeted by a friend leaving for Korea the next week. He said, “You absolutely have to go.” The excitement in his voice was changing my fearful heart. God was working.

This is a story about redemption and walking in obedience. Even when you aren’t really sure how, or even what’s going on, God can still work. Joe and I had our own plan when really, God had an even better plan. Obediently walking in His plan is hard but, it’s the only way I want to be walking. Surely my plan pales in the shadows of God’s plan for us.

When I got home from the gym that Saturday, I knew I had to talk through the decision with a trusted friend. She listened and let me process the things that felt like they would be the most challenging. The blow to my career, the potential of having to pay my company back a large sum of money for the time I owed them for business school tuition, leaving sooner than expected from a community that I have grown to love, being even farther from friends and family on the east coast, and of course the issue of getting all the pets overseas. (Yes, I am a crazy cat lady with three cats and a very large dog. I love them and if they couldn’t come with me, then it wasn’t going to happen.)

After this conversation I found that none of the barriers were too large to overcome. There would be challenges, but none too big for God. So, I messaged a friend who had lived in Germany. She had dropped everything to move there with her then boyfriend. She responded saying, “You have to go.”

Originally it felt strange to me that I didn’t want to go. So much so that I thought that it must be a sign that we weren’t supposed to go. This type of opportunity had always been a dream of ours. I loved traveling abroad and living there sounded even better theoretically. I could have let the momentary emotions of being tired at the end of a long, stressful week keep me from clearly looking at God’s hand in all of it. (This part is scary to me- why do I make decisions on SUCH A WHIM?) Lucky for me, God interjects when necessary and when you are willing to listen. I have an amazing community of believers that I can rely on for prayer and counsel when I am emotionally drained and seeing things sideways.

By the end of Saturday afternoon, Joe and I were writing a pros & cons list. Joe had told me from the moment we were asked that he would happily reject the opportunity if I didn’t agree that this was the right decision for our family. God redeemed this area in our marriage because I no longer had any resentment over his job priorities when he said this. Instead, I was given the option to weigh the decision without feeling like I would be dragging his career down by putting mine first. This is the fun part of having two very driven people married to each other *she said sarcastically*.

Saturday night we had dinner with our best friends in Shreveport. Instant tears come to my eyes when I think about leaving them. They are the biggest blessing I could have ever dreamt of when we made the big, terrifying move to Shreveport. They listened to our pros & cons list and how we were processing the decision, although selfishly they never wanted us to leave. Thankfully they respected God’s call on our life over anything we selfishly wanted for ourselves.

I went to bed Saturday thinking an anxious, excited, nervous maybe.

Sunday morning instead of our normal Sunday school class, we had missionaries from the Czech Republic visit. We didn’t know this was happening but it sure felt like a crazy coincidence. The missionaries visiting live in a city bordering Germany and would be just a few hours away by car. Joe and I have dreamt of the opportunity to participate in international missions and it is so incredible that God would give us this chance when we least expected it. Just two weeks prior to getting the call about the potential to move to Germany, David Platt, a Christian pastor and author, had visited our church for our missions conference and challenged our church to send missionaries to places that had never heard the gospel. There are places and people in the Czech Republic that have never heard the name of Jesus. I stood during the service and said send me even though I knew we were restricted by the Air Force. Joe stood alongside me in the middle of church while our friends watched. We stood in faith that God would use us to spread His glory. With tears falling from my eyes, we were surrounded by the congregation as they prayed. We had no idea that two weeks later we would be asked to go. You see, we do not have to understand how God plans to use us. All we are responsible for doing is standing up and being willing to go. Use me however You see fit for the glory of your kingdom is what I prayed. I had no earthly idea that two weeks later we would be asked by the Air Force to move to Germany. Europe puts us much closer to many countries that have less than 1% of their population that are believers. 

The timing of these circumstances can only be from God. I know I’ve said this a few times, but I don’t think we recognize God working in our lives enough. There is no way we could have ever dreamt these plans. And, it would be a shame if we didn’t recognize and see with eyes wide open that these plans were laid by God, but only if we were willing.

In God’s goodness, he offered us a place that both Joe and I have experience visiting and living in. Joe studied abroad in Dresden, Germany during his undergrad for 6 months and I studied German in high school and did an exchange program in Stuttgart, Germany. Tell me, what are the odds of that? Our first big move with the military was daunting and scary. We didn’t even have a single friend or family member living in the central time zone at the time. In many ways, moving to Louisiana was more scary for us than moving to Europe. I had extreme peace with the decision to move to Germany even though there were more unknowns than I had ever experienced in life.

Needless to say by Sunday afternoon, the answer was yes.

XO,
Theresa 

My European Bucket List!!!

When the Air Force told us we were moving to Germany for three years, my first thought was TRAVEL. I had been to Europe a few times, but there was still SO MUCH I wanted to see and do. We have three years to see as much as we can and I can’t wait. We’ve found as we travel, that there are not a lot of great resources for exactly what to do, where to stay, and where to eat while traveling so I will compile the info here as best as possible (even with a little of what to wear!). As I travel places there will be a star marked next to them and as I write each guide, they will be linked on this list so you can find it all in one place! There are 27 countries and almost 100 cities and places on this list and I’m sure as I research more in depth the list will only grow. With that being said, I would love your help! Have you been somewhere that I must see, or is there a place on your own bucket list that you are dying to go?? Leave a comment so I can add it to the list!

Austria

Hallstatt*

Innsbruck

Salzburg*

Vienna*

Belgium

Bruges*BrusselsGhent

Croatia

Dalmatian CoastDubrovnikPlitvice National Park

Republic of Cyprus

Czech Republic

Prague*

Denmark

Copenhagen

Estonia

Finland

HelsinkiSaariselkä

France

Bayeux & Honfleur (Normandy Region)*

Bordeaux

Chamonix

Epernay & Reims (Champagne Region)*

French Riviera

Lyon*

Marseille

Mont St. Michel

Nice

Paris*

Strasbourg

Germany

Berlin*

Black Forest

Cologne

Rhineland Region*

Hamburg

Heidelberg*

Kaiserslautern*

Munich

Greece

Athens

Corfu

Crete

Milos

Santorini

Zakynthos

Hungary

Budapest

Iceland

Blue Lagoon

Reykjavik

Seyðisfjörður

Ireland

Cliffs of Moher

Dublin

Galway

Italy
Amalfi Coast

Dolomites*

Lake Garda*

Milan

Sicily

Tuscany

Luxembourg

Malta

Montenegro

Netherlands

Amsterdam

Kinderdijk

Lisse (Tulips)

The Hague

Rotterdam

Norway

Bergen

Oslo

Portugal

The Azores

Lisbon

Slovenia
Lake Bled*

Ljubljana

Spain

Barcelona

Granada

Madrid

Mallorca

Sweden

Stockholm

Switzerland

Bern

Geneva

Gimmelwald

Gstaad

Lucerne

Interlachen

Zermatt*

Zurich

Turkey

Cappadocia

Istanbul*

Izmir*

United Kingdom
Jurassic Coast, England

London, England*

Cotswolds, England

Edinburgh, Scotland

Glasgow, Scotland

Scottish Highlands, Scotland

Isle of Skye, Scotland

Northern Wales

Visiting Epernay

*Cue the bubble machines!!!!*

Jk, I am not talking about that kind of bubbles, but I love me a glass of champagne! I love it so much,

the Champagne region in France was the first trip we planned, just weeks after arriving in Germany.

<Heads off plane and immediately goes to drink champagne in CHAMPAGNE> In all reality there are

many reasons to visit the Champagne region of France, but I found there were some helpful things

to know before you book your next trip to the capital of bubbly. In honor of Valentine’s Day this week,

I am giving you all the tips about the land of bubbles. Make sure to grab a glass while you read this

and certainly start your V-day meal with your partner or galentines with a glass!  If you are still

holding out for the perfect gift, go big and ask for two plane tickets to France!

Ok, so you want to experience the Champagne region, and then you realize it spans many miles,

small towns, and cities... Where should you stay?! Which champagne houses are the best?! Can

you just walk in or do you need reservations?! What should you eat?! I personally did not feel like

this trip was easy to book. I spent HOURS reading reviews of people’s experiences in the region and

on different tours, so I am hoping to help you with your quest to find bubbles!

There are a few cities throughout the Champagne region worth visiting: Châlons-en-Champagne,

Epernay, Reims, and Troyes to name the bigger ones. I wanted to get the most bang for my buck on

my first visit, and so we decided on Epernay.  Where, oh where, should you stay in Epernay? What

is dreamier than imagining a glass of bubbles in the French countryside in the world’s most famous

Champagne houses? When I picture where I want to stay, I also picture me with my Chanel bag over

my shoulder and pulling up in my Mercedes G-wagon. Oh wait… that’s not me; that’s every famous

blogger I see on Instagram. First thing to remember, when booking any trip to Europe, you can plan

your trip on a budget and still have an amazing time. I am married to a military service member and

for the first time in my adult life I am unemployed. I want to do all the fancy things and do them in

style, but our bank account says differently. So, instead of staying at the ritzy hotels downtown, we

stayed at a home away that we found on booking.com called La Villa Geiss and I highly recommend

it. It would be great if you were traveling with 4-6 people because there was plenty of room too.

Biggest perk for us was that they allowed dogs and had parking outside. 

If we weren’t traveling with a dog and had all the money in the world, I would stay at the Royal

Champagne Hotel and Spa although it is a 12-minute drive from the center of Epernay. It looks

stunning and has won a ton of awards. 

More budget options:

Hotel Jean Moet (in the center of town next to our favorite wine bar)

Parva Domus (Adorable B&B located right on Champagne de Avenue)

Apartments/Home Aways found on booking.combooking.com like the one we stayed in!

Next, what should I do there? 

Well, the obvious answer is drink champagne. We visited for a weekend but only really had about a

day and a half for actual champagne exploring. There is so much more than just tasting the

champagne while visiting, like the incredibly rich history of the region, the industry, and the families

that have been in the business for many generations. I also really enjoyed learning about the

process of making the champagne and how each house does it a little differently. Did you know that

all champagne comes from only three different types of grapes? They are chardonnay, pinot noir,

and pinot meunier. And that you can have red grapes in a white champagne? Drinking and

appreciating champagne is certainly much more enjoyable (if that was even possible) after learning

so many interesting facts about it.

Below are all of the houses we visited. KEEP IN MIND- every house whether you are doing a tasting

or a tour requires a reservation (this applies to lunch/dinner at many restaurants as well). This is one

of the reasons having a plan is so important to make the most of your trip. There are a lot of options

for what to do when visiting each champagne house. You can drink champagne, have a tasting,

cheese or food pairings, and take many different length tours. I have described everything we chose

to do and I feel like we had a very thorough experience. When booking reservations, I recommend

using a service like Champagne-booking or Rue des Vignerons because the house websites are

sometimes difficult to navigate and both sites have great customer service if anything changes with

your bookings.

Comtesse Laffond

This was by far our favorite house that we visited and that’s saying something considering our entire

tour was in FRENCH and we do not speak a word of french. Why were we so excited you may ask?!

Because this tour offered the opportunity to use a SABER. The day before our booked tour, we were

told it was cancelled because the English speaking tour guide for our tour was sick. This was the

tour we were looking forward to the most, so we decided to show up anyway! When we arrived we

were told that there was only a tour being done in French but that if we decided to stay, they would

give us the really short version in English and we said YES PLEASE! We had so much fun walking

the beautiful grounds of this place and having the opportunity to learn how to open a bottle of

champagne with a saber (I am available to book any of your upcoming parties for lessons). The mini

castle owned by the estate on the edge of Epernay is used for tours and was bought in the year

2000 and completely renovated. It is absolutely stunning and worth visiting.

Moet & Chandon

Moet is the literal powerhouse of the industry. This house has access to 12% of the region’s grapes,

produces and sells approximately 36 million bottles of champagne each year and has over 100

million bottles of champagne stored in their Epernay cellars alone. Although the most commercial

and least personal, this tour is worth seeing just to understand the sheer magnitude of the business.

You will have the opportunity to tour part of their 110km of cellars underneath the streets of Epernay

(that is 68 MILES). 

De Venoge

This house was not offering tours while we visited but they did have their tasting room open. The

architecture of this house was so beautiful and the tasting room had a great ambience although

unfortunately we found the service to be lacking. I also imagine that visiting in Spring or summer

would be lovely to sit on their outdoor patio (just don’t expect to be treated very well!). 

Boizel

We arrived to this tour extremely happy from our tour at Comtesse Lafond and honestly I don’t have

a lot of memories of learning new information from this tour (I blame the champagne). You do get the

opportunity to walk through their enormous gallery of stainless steel fermentation tanks which was

very cool. And their champagne was yummy so if nothing else, a tasting is worth it.

Alfred Gratien 

I visited this house on a later date on my way back from Paris and it deserves to be on the list and I’ll

tell you why! This is one of only 5 champagne houses that does 100% of their first fermentation

process in barrels instead of stainless steal. There are only 7 full time people working at this house

and everything they accomplish is incredible. It was a very unique tour that I highly recommend 

Additional Houses I hope to visit in the future in Epernay:

Michel Gonet

Andre Bergere

Ayala Ay

(There are others in Reims, but I will post separately on those!)

So now you have a place to lay your head and entertainment scheduled, it’s important you fill those

bubbly tummies with food! Below are all of the places we tried and what we thought along with

additional recommendations we didn’t have enough time to try.

C Comme

C Comme is a wine bar where you can get some yummy charcuterie along with your champagne
tasting. It is actually the only place we visited on our trip where we had the opportunity to compare
different champagne houses during a tasting. When we visited C Comme they were not taking
reservations, but it is always worth checking! We left herea little tipsy and heading straight across
the street to grab a pizza from L’Evrasienne.

L’Evrasienne

The face we make when we are about to eat pizza.

As we walked back to our home away after a little too much bubbly, we devoured
this pizza, but we liked it so much that we went back the next night and ordered another
pizza as our dinner. Now I know what you are thinking, if I visit France, I don’t want pizza,
but hear me out. France can get pretty pricey and because we were spending so much on
our tastings each day, we decided to save a little and eat pizza two nights in a row. #worthit
On the same road there were some other options like doner, and a sandwich shop if you
want other inexpensive options. 

Symbiose

This restaurant is 2020 Michelin rated and was a true French delight. We chose to book this

restaurant for lunch in between tastings and we did the 5 course meal. You will 100% need a

reservation for this restaurant but I highly recommend it for lunch or dinner.

Paul

If you need a quick pick me up or snack as you are exploring Champagne Avenue, this cafe has

HUGE lattes, plenty of seating, and wifi!

Additional recommendations:

Patisserie Vincent Dallet

Au 36

Le Theatre

Hôtel Restaurant Les Berceaux

Brasserie Le Progres 

Important things to note about the season you choose for visiting! Most of the champagne houses

shut down from the end of November to the beginning of April. If they aren’t shut down they very

likely have very limited hours. With that being said, we took our first trip in mid-November and had

no problem booking tours, but it is something to be aware of if you have your heart set on a specific

place. My sister and I visited in January and it was very difficult to find a place open, and Epernay

was basically a ghost town. Another thing to keep in mind is that the harvest season is in mid-

September to early October. Each house told us this was an exciting time to visit because while you

are there you can take a trip out to the vineyards and witness the process of picking the grapes

(everything has to be hand picked!). I haven’t witnessed this, but I would imagine that some of the

smaller houses will have less availability for tours during this time. 

As they say in Champagne, “the best champagnes are the ones you like.” It’s that simple.

XO,

Theresa