It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

I know we're jumping the gun a bit, but Jay and I went out and bought our Christmas tree tonight. There is only one place for us to get a fake one, and we didn't want to chance them running out... which will most likely happen. After lots of debating and picturing what it would look like in the apartment, we decided on the biggest one. We came home and couldn't wait to put it up, SO WE DID!!! The tree ended up being a lot bigger than we thought. It touches the ceiling, so we had to bend a few of the top branches down. Nonetheless, it's perfect!! We wrapped ribbon around it and put our ornaments on. We looked at buying lights, but one strand was $18, so we decided we could do without. Then I found one strand in my box of Christmas decorations. It wouldn't go around the whole tree, so we wrapped it just in the front. It's very sparse, but it still looks good. We still have a few more things to put on it, and then it will be perfect.

Jay putting the top on

The finished product

With red ribbon

With everything, lights and all


We also put our nativity scene up. I absolutely love my WillowTrees. This is the first time I have had the entire set out at once. I had it up last year, but was missing a few pieces. It's perfect!!

Mommy and Daddy

Jay and I get to try out being parents this weekend! We are so excited, but might not be by tomorrow morning. We are giving our friends a weekend alone because the husband is getting deployed next week. I know they love their little guy and don't want to give him up, but we thought they could really use some TLC before the next year apart. Jay and I know how tough it is to leave the love of your life. So, while we're helping them out, we get to test out our parenting skills. I can't wait for him to arrive in an hour!! I think Jay's a bit nervous, but he's going to have fun. Noah and him are good buddies!! This also may be our incentive to not have kids for several more years. But Noah is a really good boy, so hopefully he won't put any thoughts in our heads!! : )

A Sweet Birthday

I turned 24th yesterday and celebrated in the best possible way. We stayed home the entire weekend and simply enjoyed each other. We have been running so hard lately that we haven't had any down time. All week I was looking forward to a quiet weekend. We slept in on Saturday morning, had pancakes, and bummed around. In the evening we went on post to eat a Thanksgiving dinner put on by the teens. Then we went to our friend's house to play our new favorite game. On Sunday, we went to church in the morning and then had dinner at different friends' house. We stayed there all afternoon and talked. They gave me a bouquet of flowers for my birthday to bring home also. After we got home, I opened my presents from Jay. He got me candle holders that match our lamps perfectly, a sweatshirt from Ireland, and gummies!!! It was all great!! We then played a game of Life, which Jay killed me in. For supper we had frozen pizza and watched a movie. For dessert, we had extra large pieces of confetti cake (my favorite... thanks Erica) that JAY MADE in the morning!! He had some supervison, but did a marvelous job!! It tasted wonderful!!

I know it probably doesn't sound like the most exciting birthday, but I tell you what... being able to be with Jay was simply all I needed. If the Army has taught me one thing, I have quickly learned to cherish every moment I get with my man. Jay was gone for my birthday last year and will be deployed next year, so I took in all that I could. Him being by my side all day was the best birthday present I could ever ask for! God truely blessed me!

My presents from Jay

Flowers from Bill and Marcia

Jay's first cake!!

A Visit to Denmark

Jay and I took advantage of a four day weekend to visit the country of Denmark. We started our trip on the west side of the country. We were able to take some time looking at the North Sea. We saw lots of ships and busy ports. Unfortunately, it rained most of the time, so we didn't walk around a lot. On Sunday, we traveled across two islands to reach the capital city of Copenhagen. In order to get to the city, we had to cross a ten mile long bridge. Once we crossed it, we had to go through a toll booth. Jay pulled out his loose coins and much to our amaze, we ended up paying $40 to cross the brigdge. Yikes!!! The entire country was extremely expensive. We spent $25 at McDonalds. We were trying to go cheap and it didn't work. We also spent $30 on a medium pizza. At least it tasted good. In Copenhagen, we walked around looking at several of the canals. The city is full of them. Jay really enjoyed looking at all of the boats. We went through a Hans Christian Andersen Museum and were able to see several of his stories. We also went through the Guiness Book of World Records. The museum had a lot of hands on activities, so we had a lot of fun in there. We traveled to Odense on Monday, hoping it would get cheaper. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. This is the home town of H.C. Andersen. They had several museums for him here. We took off for home on Tuesday morning. After an eight hour drive, we finally reached our apartment. It was a long trip, but we are glad we had the chance to go!

H.C. Andersen statue

Jay being a race car driver.

One of the many canals.

The 10 mile long bridge.

PWOC Worship and Study

I just returned home from this year's European PWOC Conference in Willingen, Germany. I spent a week with 400 other women learning more about how to submit to our Lord. I had an AMAZING time there and learned so much. We had large group sessions with a wonderful speaker. She was a story teller and would tell a contemporary story and then tell the Bible story that went with it. I was completely focused on her as so was so good!! We also had a night with a christian comedian. She had everyone rolling in their chairs. Before the speaker gave her talk, we spent a lot of time singing worship songs. This was my favorite part as I love to worship God by singing to him. People were dancing and clapping during every song. I even saw 70 year old women shaking their hips. It was great! During the days, we attended classes on a variety of topics. A few of the ones I went to were on devotion, attitute, and personalities. We also had time to spend with the rest of the ladies from our chapter. We had five people from Schweinfurt attend. I really enjoyed getting to know them all better. I roomed with Sandra all week. We stayed up each night at least until midnight and usually much later talking about everything under the sun. She has been such a blessing to me!! Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what the conference looked like.

Where we had all of our sessions...

One of the nights, we sang worship songs by candle light. It was so beautiful!

We did a lot of dancing and grooving while we sang!

We had a banquet our last night there and dressed up like princesses!

Me and my crazy roommate for the week!

A Restless Night

A funny story... the other night when we were sleeping, Jay sat straight up in bed and started to yell in his sleep. He was saying "who the hell is there?" and continued to yell "hello?" This obviously woke me up, so I tried pulling him back down. I was telling him to calm down and relax. Then he fired back at me, "I am relaxed, but someone's out there." I told him no one was outside, he was just dreaming. Then he started to go on saying that we were stuck in the washer. We had to get out of the washer because someone was outside. Once I got him to lay back down, he slept real tight to me the rest of the night, like he was scared of who was outside. When he first layed down, he was shaking. I found this whole thing quite hilarious. Jay on the other hand... doesn't remember a single part of it.

Having FUN!!!

We've been having lots of fun over here in Germany and it's not all because of traveling. We have met some great people that we love to do things with. Here are a few pictures to show how much fun we've been having!

These are at community day. They had several 'rides' outside and the guys took advantage of them. This was a sling shot that threw you into the air. Ieven got to ride this one... but my eyes never opened. A night out for ice cream after watching a play.

An Early Thanksgiving

We had an early Thanksgiving dinner this weekend. There is a couple in our Bible study whose husband is leaving for deployment in a couple weeks. They wanted to have Thanksgiving before he left, so our whole Bible study group brought food together and we had quite a feast. It was all so delicious. After eating and socializing, we played an extra large game of Balderdash. We had a great time together!!

This is half of our group. The other half is in the next room. We're a big group to fit into a house!

Jay and Noah enjoyed lots of yummy food together! Noah was dressed up as a turkey! His daddy is the one leaving.

Happy Halloween!!

We hope you all had a Happy Halloween and were able to eat a few pieces of candy! We spent our evening volunteering at the chapel's Harvest Fest. There were several big, bouncy blow-ups, carnival games, and a maze. Jay worked at the wall of Jericho. I worked a cake walk for PWOC. We were quite exhausted once we got home from all the rug rats that were running around.