Back to work

Well as Tammy has said I am back to work again and have been for a couple of weeks now.  It is certainly a big job and has been really frustrating to start with.  Unfortunately there are quite a few folks here that seem to have given up on doing things the right way and are just doing enough to get by.  I understand I guess, there seems to be a lot of folks that are on the burnt out side of things.  It is sad to see so many people upset with their current circumstances.  I try to stay positive and I am working my butt off as I have a huge mountain to climb.  The nice thing is that I have good people working with me but I can tell that they are a little fatigued with all of the taskings and high optempo, such is life in the Army though.  Other than that things are going pretty good, Germany is definitely beautiful and it has been fun meeting all of these new people--still missing friends and family though.  Tammy has been burning the candle at both ends if you can't tell, I know that isn't much of a surprise to anyone that knows her.  Looks like AJ and I will be having some fun with scouts this year and am really looking forward to a camping trip that they will do 2 years from now to Normandy.  I guess we might be in one of those photos you see with all of the people spelling out words on the beach!  I think it will be a great learning experience for AJ and as I didn't do scouts as a kid it will be a cool experience for me too.  Already getting into the full busy swing of things here and we really aren't all the way settled.  Tammy and I talked about not doing that but I guess we can't help ourselves sometimes.  I hope that everyone is enjoying the blog and is doing well where ever you are.

So I finally have the pictures of our house, not too many inside yet, it is still a little too messy.  It is getting better, but still finding places for things.  The boys decided since I finally found their floor they wanted to use the boxes for a fort and they had a great time doing it!!  We finally got our tv today, mostly German stations, but we paid for a few american ones so we can understand them.  Actually we got it for David and his sports!  I was able to volunteer at AJ's school this morning and had a great time and was asked if I could volunteer three times next week.  Busy busy.  Michael is still enjoying his Strong Beginnings.  I have had no agrument or fight in getting him to school.  He is excited to go!  He always has something to tell me that was exciting and he is still learning stuff.  :-)  I am hoping our van will get here soon, this juggling with one car is difficult when we are going so many different directions.  Thank goodness Jen lives close to us and works with David.  That helps out a ton!  The big dirt pile next to the house is going away.  I think they are going to start building there soon.  The boys are a little disappointed about the dirt pile going away.  They are building on the other side of us already and their is a huge crane.  They do everything in cement here, no wood.  I found a few things while driving that I really have to remember and pay attention since it is different over here.  The right of way is the hardest and bicyclists have the same rights as cars do.  Also one thing I really like is when the light is about to turn green the yellow light flashes once and then the light turns green.  That way you have a little advanced notice.  I am starting to drive a little more like the locals, only I don't speed.  I have no desire to be picked up by the German police and fall under their rules.  They are a little different.  For one thing if you refuse to take a breathalizer, they can forcefully (punch you in the nose to draw blood) make you take the test.  We are working on getting our first big trip hopefully soon, I have research to do and am soooo excited about it!!!  I can't wait.  I think the boys are settling in more now that we are getting into activities and friends are already coming a knocking to play with the boys.  I knew it wouldn't take too long!  We also finally met our neighbors that are attached to us, they were in the states when we moved in.  They are a couple with no kids and seem really nice.  Hopefully we won't be too loud for them. 

Well it was another busy weekend getting a few more things set.  On Saturday the boys and I had a good day.  We hung out a little, shopped a little, played in the dirt a lot, got a few things put away, like moving up the couch (man I wish there was somebody else who could have helped David up those stairs) and getting ready for a ball.  Yes David figured we had our stuff for less than a week, lets go to a ball!  It was the AG ball and it was a pretty good time.  We are getting old and didn't know a lot of people yet so we didn't stay too late.  On Sunday we tried out our first church and everybody seemed to like it!  It was a special service at a park with bouncy castles and BBQ to boot, so the boys kept saying "Mommy I made some friends!!"  Which made my heart swell!!  Then it was off to Awanas.  It is like scouts except for church related things.  And the boys LOVED it!!!  They are so excited about it and I am soooooooooo glad!!!  Speaking of scouts I don't remember if I let you know that AJ is in scouts for his first time!  He had his first meeting last Thursday and LOVED it!!  They have so many cool things planned this year!!  I think he is going to have a great time!  Michael also had his first day of Strong Beginnings and he LOVED it!!!  Thank goodness!!!  He really had a great time and couldn't stop talking about it!!!  Praise God!!!  He was so happy he was line leader and he learned stuff!!!  So all is well.  I have pictures and I will try and get them posted tomorrow of the house, the dance, and the big dirt pile next door the boys have enjoyed.  Oh and I have found a great running trail which is a bonus because I didn't know it was their.  I can go miles and miles and never have to run on the street!!  The down side is, it is A LOT of up hill, but sooooo beautiful and peaceful!  And everybody has been friendly that I have met on the trail so far!  It is literally right across the street from our house!!  Such a blessing!!!  Well it is way past my bedtime.  I will post pictures tomorrow.  Night all!!

We have INTERNET!!!

So this week has been a loooooooooooong week.  We moved into the house on Monday and Tuesday with our stuff and have been trying to unpack and get things organized ever since.  David has been crazy busy at work and I have been running all over the place for the kids.  Also without the internet at my house I had to go over in the evenings to my friend's house to work.  Thank goodness for them!!!  But we have internet now at our house!!!  I am sitting at our dinning table and looking at our stuff!!  It is amazing how much better I feel tonight getting things done.  We had a surprise visit from our good friend Mat Penney.  He was traveling back from deployment and stopped overnight in Ramstein and I happened to be on facebook, so the next day we were able to have lunch with him and had a wonderful visit!!  Michael enjoyed his time too because he played at the BX playground and found a new friend.  I tried to talk to his grandma, but she only spoke Italian and that is not in my vocabulary at all.  I am having a hard enough time learning German fast enough  :-)  Maybe next year.  So Michael started his school and he really didn't like it at all and to be honest I didn't either.  I wanted him to get into a program called Strong Beginnings.  Well they were full and I was told by the teacher that he didn't know anybody leaving until at least December.  So I asked for prayers and low and behold the next day, not joking, I got a phone call and he is in Strong Beginnings starting on Monday!!!  God is sooo good and has answered so many prayers for me this past month.  It has been a month of learning, stretching and trusting in Him.  I think Michael is very excited also about the new class!!  It is still a long drive, but I will make it with a happy heart!  Thank you for all the prayers!!!!  I haven't taken pictures of the house yet, but I will and try and get them up in the next couple of days.  David and I are going to a military ball tomorrow night, should be fun!!  Luckily I found my shoes today and my dress so that is all good stuff!!!  Nothing like jumping in with both feet!!!  The weather is still holding and we have a HUGE dirt pile next door and the boys played for hours in the dirt!!!  They were so happy and so was I!!  They came in with dirt in every crevice!!!!  It was great to cook dinner in my kitchen tonight, I am still getting used to the German appliances.  I have to get a converter for the temp, I totally guessed tonight and thankfully dinner was good and not under cooked or burnt!!!  I also was able to go to the Ramstein Welfar Bazaar on Thursday afternoon all by myself!!!  No kids or husband and was able to walk around and look.  It was amazing how many vendors they had from all over Europe, the came from Italy, Poland, Belgium just to name a few and had everything there.  It was really neat to see and I bought a few things, but really just enjoyed walking around on my time and not in a hurry!!!!  Well it is off to bed with me!  Miss you all!!!

WE HAVE STUFF!!!

It was a really busy weekend!!   Also with opening football season I couldn't get online at all.  It was quite ridiculous, but now we have moved into our house and have no internet, but we have wonderful friends that are letting me use their internet.  We went to grab something at the shoppette and they had face painting so Mikey decided he wanted to be batman.  AJ didn't want to have it done.  We got our keys on Saturday morning and boy were we excited!!  Then we took the boys to a movie on post, it was the one here on Vogelweh and it was nice also.  It only has a few movies, nothing like Ramstein, but a lot closer that is for sure.  On Sunday we rented a truck and did a lot of running around, we bought a bed, freezer, two couches, a new bar and bar stools, air conditioner and a few other odds and ends.  David was right, I was a buying machine, but got a lot of great deals and I think we are pretty well set.  We spent from about 10 am to after 6 pm on Sunday, that included unloading twice and getting stuff from the hotel.  I do have to say I can't believe how much stuff we had in the hotel.  I knew we had a bit of stuff, but man oh man.  There are a few other minor things we might need, but I really need to get unpacked before I will know.  AJ was also invited to his first birthday party and it was at the Ramstein pool and I have to say, it is a really cool pool!!  The boys had a great time!!  Michael even used his arm a lot which was good for me.  They swam for a couple of hours and wanted to stay a lot longer!  Speaking of getting unpacked, WE GOT OUR FIRST SHIPMENT!!!  It was so great to see the truck pull up with our stuff!!  It has been two months since we saw it and man it is nice, a big job to get everything unpacked, but hopefully by this weekend (well if David has anything to do with it, it will be tomorrow) we should have everything unpacked and put away.  We have our second shipment that will be delivered tomorrow and we will have all of our stuff.  Michael also had his first day of school today.  He said it was okay, but he is also coming down with a fever so I think that is more of what it was.  He might stay home with me tomorrow.  We shall see.  So I forgot to post this picture that David and I took.  We took a wrong turn and saw these two stores.  Look at the one on the left (adult store) and on the right (is a kids indoor play area) only in Germany.  LOL  David is back to work full time and feeling it.  It has been awhile since he worked a full day.  It also doesn't help that the Seahawks were on last night and didn't get over till 2 am our time and who had to stay up and watch it - that would be David.  :-)  I can't fault him, but soon we will have the DVR and he can watch it his leisure.  Hopefully Friday we will have internet and TV.  Keep your fingers crossed.  Still waiting on my van, still on the boat.  I can't wait until we have two cars again!!!

FRIDAY!!

Happy Friday everybody!!!  It is another beautiful day here in Kaiserslautern!!!  We have been having some wonderful weather that everybody tells us won't last, but we are enjoying while we can.  The walks to school in the morning have been a bit chilly, especially since I don't have any gloves or hats for the boys.  You can see your breath in the mornings.  Only one more walk to school and then we will be at the new house and AJ (yes he decided to go back to AJ, wondering if it is because he didn't want to write Albert on all his homework LOL) will ride the bus.  So we had some excitement Wednesday night, the fire alarm went off and man was it LOUD!!  It was around 11 pm all the boys were asleep and what was really funny, David was the only one out of the three that woke up to the noise.  It is like my mom and dad used to say about me, a bomb could go off near my head and I wouldn't hear it.  Well AJ and Michael didn't wake up until we grabbed them up to go wait with the others outside.  Not sure what really happened, I think it was something down on the first floor.  But 30 odd minutes later we were able to go back into the building.  Luckily both boys went back to sleep pretty easily.  On Thursday Michael and I checked out his new school.  He said he wasn't sure about it when he first walked in but as we were leaving he said he LOVED it!!  So that is great!!  He will start on Monday also going in the afternoon time.  I still want to get him in to Strong Beginnings, but we are on the wait list for that.  No huge plans for the weekend.  We get our keys on Saturday so will start to move some of the stuff we brought and bought over to the house so we don't have as much to do on Monday morning when we check out of the hotel.  Yeah to check out!!!!   David had one of many of his first long days, he didn't get home until after 10 pm.  I am hoping he will get the office in tip top shape so that doesn't last for too long! 

Mid -week

We are still trying to finish up getting everything ready for the new house.  Finished one more thing today and Friday we are going to change over electricity and water and the items the military is lending us.  Man it sure does take a lot longer to put things together here.  David is making fun of me because I have been making a few, okay a lot of purchases on Ramstein Bookoo.  It is a great place to get used stuff.  People leaving Germany are selling their 220V items and it will be cheaper to buy them than run transformers for everything.  So I have made a few purchases and probably will have to rent a truck to move everything, only because I wanted a real bed for visitors here and we only brought the bunk bed and a queen bed.  Or so I keep telling myself.  :-)

I went to my first PWOC on Tuesday.  It was really great to meet some new ladies!  It was their kick off so I haven't missed any meetings.  It is a little different than Fort Huachuca, one thing--much smaller and only two bible studies to choose from instead of six and about 24 people here and about 70-80 people back in Arizona.  The ladies seem really nice and inviting so I am excited to get to know them better.  I also found the scout leader for AJ's age group, it is one of the ladies husbands.  So that was great!!  I also met somebody with two boys the same age as mine!!  YEAH!!!  Making some new connections and learning more everyday.  Our next thing is to go and visit churches.  We are hoping to find as good a fit here as we did in Arizona.

Still haven't decided on a cell phone company, so many different things to consider.  You are governed by German laws and their contracts are solid and you can't get out of them for anything.  So we are trying to be really good and do all of our research.

We have the 10th and 11th set up for the delivery of our goods.  The 10th is the big one (wanted to do that one first since we had a choice and that shipment includes our beds) and the 11th is small.  Unfortunately we won't have internet from Monday till Friday.  They couldn't install until the 14th.  Which is better than a lot of what others have had to deal with, some take up to three weeks to get installed, so fingers crossed we have no problems with it and we do get it installed on Friday.

Michael and I went to lunch with AJ today and had a great time!!  I found out he has 15 minutes from the time he enters the cafeteria to the time he has to clean up to get hot lunch, sit down, open items and eat.  This is AJ we are talking about, it is soooo not enough time.  Even with me there getting him to eat, he still can't finish it.  I think that is just not long enough for lunch.  The teacher even let us stay for lunch recess and Michael LOVED that!!  So did AJ he was such a protective big brother, it was cute.   When we walked him back to his class he had to give Michael a hug and tell him he loved him!!  It is moments like those that just melts my heart!!!