Jay and Gina

A Weekend in the Alps

2012-01-22T01:25:00.002-06:00

Last weekend, Jay and I went down to the border of Germany and Austria to do some skiing! This was our first chance to go this winter, and we were anxious to hit the slopes! I was nervous getting started because I'm not very good yet! The first time I skied was our first winter over here. I learned in the Alps, which isn't like your normal bunny hills. I've been slow to learn, but finally got the hang of it this time. Skiing once a year for four years hasn't given me much time to practice. Jay, on the other hand, is an old pro. He skied several times growing up and hit the slopes with no problems!

On Saturday, we went up to the top of the tallest mountain in Germany, the Zugspitze. It was bitter cold and windy up there, but we still had a good day of skiing. Jay stayed with me down the first run, but then he was on his own! He went to the hard hills and I stayed on the easier ones. After lunch, I ventured out and tried a red hill, after being on blues all morning. I met up with Jay later in the afternoon and we went down a couple reds together. It was nice to be able to ski with him, and he not be totally bored!

On Sunday, we decided to rest our legs. We did some hiking instead of skiing. Sounds restful, doesn't it! We started at the edge of town and hiked our way into the mountains. We took a beautiful snow covered trail up to a gorge.

We saw so many picture perfect scenes as we walked...

The snow covered trail.

Straight out of a fairy tale!

We then started in through the gorge. It was absolutely georgous! Even though it was super cold, the freezing water created some amazing sites!

Inside the gorge

It was a little chilly with icles all around!

The amazing view once we exited the gorge on the other side.

We had one more day to ski on Monday. We drove into Austria to try out a different area. As usual, I started on the blue hills. This was a great area where I could get all the way down the mountain without any trouble. I was doing the blues pretty darn well, so we went for a challenge! We tried out the reds!

And I was successful! I made it down every red hill on the mountain... and without falling! Jay skied behind me the entire day, making sure no one was coming behind me to take me out! He was my eyes so I could concentrate on staying on my feet!

Here is a video of me heading down the red hill. Remember.... I'm not very good yet, but I got down the hill in one piece! Don't judge me on my style! Eventually I'll make those s-shapes smaller, but for now, I need to take up the whole mountain to get down!

In this next video, don't worry about watching me ski. Instead, look at the beautiful scenery we get to admire while going down the mountain!

If you're wondering who is the amazing skier who can ski down the mountain while holding a camera and keep it relatively steady..... yup, that would be my studly husband!

And now for Jay, skiing down a black run. Don't mind the extrememly awful video, even though I was standing still at the bottom of the mountain. I forgot you can't flip videos and I lost him when he went behind a hill! I was having more fun actually watching him instead of remembering I should be looking through the camera. I'll do better next time! Sorry folks!

It was a great weekend for us! It made me excited to get back on the skies again. And Jay was excited because we could actually ski together from now on! It's just not as much fun skiing alone all day! We have another trip set for the end of February. It will probably be the last time we'll be in the Alps, so we better make the most of it!

All our Family

2012-01-06T12:45:00.000-06:00

We saw so many people in our two weeks home for Christmas! Here are a few of our family pictures! We were so lucky to spend time with them all. My heart was so content when I got to sit around and rock my boys, especially this one!

With Jay's family

With Grandma Feldt

Jay, Heather (his cousin), and Justy (his brother)

All the Feldt Cousins (except for two)

The Nechanicky Family

My parents with all the grandkids!

Some of my favorite boys watching a movie on New Year's Eve!

I miss everyone oh so much!!! Before we went home, I didn't mind staying in Germany and wasn't in a hurry to get back home. But once we got back to Iowa, I was reminded how much I LOVE being around my family! They all mean so much to me and I want to be able to be with them more! It was SO HARD to leave them and come back here. I had to keep reminding myself that it will be for only 7 more months. I have never had a bad attitude toward Germany, but it's here now! I just want to be home! I love living here and being able to travel, but nothing beats family! Ever since we got on the plane to come back here, I've asked Jay every day to let me go back home! I know the next few months will go fast. I have to finish the school year, which will keep me plenty busy. By then we'll have our orders and will be ready to pack out our house! Time will fly, but right now it seems a long time away!

Family.... thanks for spending so much time with us at Christmas! Thanks for taking time out of your working lives to be at the farm! Even though the kids got most of our attention, I was sure glad to have all of you there! Mom, thanks for making all of my favorite foods! You spoil me rotten, and I love it!!!

New Do for the New Year

2012-01-04T15:42:00.000-06:00

I've been waiting for months to get home for Christmas so I can get my hair cut! Only one person touches my hair with scissors and that's my mamma!!! It had been two and a half years since my last big hair cut! It was definitely time.

After measuring, we went with 11 inches to put into the ponytails.

The sound of the scissors cutting through my thick hair is grueling! It's almost enough to make me cry!!

After we cut the 11 inch ponytails, mom took off another 2-3 inches to make it look nice and give it some layers!

Finished product.... didn't get any pictures of that. You'll have to look at the Christmas pictures instead!

More of our Vacation

2011-12-30T15:36:00.000-06:00

Here's more of what we've been up to the past few days...

Cuddling with my youngest nephew!

Building castles with the kids!

Having a slumber party in our footie pajamas!

Meeting another of our nephews for the first time!

Only a few more days left in Iowa! Our time has gone way too fast. I'm not ready to leave my family, especially all the lil' ones running around! They are going to be so big next time we see them!

We have one more Christmas tomorrow with Jay's dad's side. We'll spend New Year's Eve with both of our families and head to the airport the next day!

First Week in Iowa

2011-12-24T13:41:00.000-06:00

It's so good to be home in Iowa for Christmas! Jay and I arrived to Cedar Rapids on Saturday and have spent the past week traveling back and forth between both of our parents' houses. This has been a pretty calm week, giving us time to catch up on sleep and relax!

Some of the things we've done so far...

We played with our nephews, Carson and Mitchell. Jay and Carson had fun building a tower, which was a new word that Carson learned how to say. Jay would build and Carson would knock it down! I don't think Jay appreciated that too much!

We also went to a UNI basketball game! It was fun to go back to our old stomping grounds.

One of the days, Jay, my sister Nicole, and I went shopping. We spent a lot of money, but all purchases were justified! Jay needed some new shoes and hit the jackpot on Christmas sales! I slurged on a couple of sweaters too!

Last night, I went out with my girl friends, Amy, Ashley, and Nicole. When we were planning our outting, I asked to go to someplace American. We decided that Texas Roadhouse would be perfect! We enjoyed our meal and then dessert at Scratch. This is a new cupcake store! I know the owner and wanted to stop and see her!

On our walk down Cedar Falls Main Street, we took in all the lights. We also stopped at Santa's Workshop, but he had already left to head back to the Northpole! We missed him!

Today is Christmas Eve and we're celebrating very quietly. We're making some last minute food and wrapping presents for tomorrow when the whole family will be together. Our ENTIRE family hasn't been together for 10 YEARS... so this year will be special! Jay hadn't seen 4 of his nephews, so he's excited to meet them! I can't wait to see all of the kids and be able to play with them! Tonight we'll go to the Christmas Eve service at my families church.I love our service, holding candles and singing Christmas songs! It just seems so magical!

We hope everyone enjoys time with all their loved ones this Christmas! It makes celebrating our Savior so much better!

Thanksgiving in Budapest

2011-11-30T07:31:00.000-06:00

Jay and I took advantage of another four day weekend over Thanksgiving! Thursday morning we jumped on a plane to Budapest, Hungary. The trip was meant to be more relaxing than we're used to. Budapest is known for it's spas. There are fresh hot water springs all over the city that fill into pools.

We took most of Friday to soak up the water. The spa complex that we went to had 15 pools in all. We made it into two of them and both of them were outside. It was FREEZING out, but the water was so warm! We had to keep ourselves under the water up to our shoulders in order to stay warm. But, the water was so hot that we had to sit out every once in a while. It was great just to sit and relax in the water. A good stress relief!

These guys were fun to watch. This is a huge tradition in Budapest..... old guys playing chess in the water.

The rest of the time we were in the city, we walked around to see all the beautiful sites. It was freezing out, but that didn't stop us. Well.... at least not Jay! On Saturday, I decided that I would rather stay in the hotel and spend the afternon there. Jay went out on his own to finish seeing the city. I had no troubles sitting in the hotel room, watching a movie, skyping with my family, and writing our Christmas letter.

The BEST part of the whole trip..... we went to the Christmas fair every night! It got better and better each night we went as it didn't actually "open" until Saturday. Several of the booths were open on Thursday, but there were many more by Saturday. We got some great Hungarian food that hit the spot! My favorite part was splurging on a tea pot. I have started a small collection and this one was just awesome! Handmade and cutely painted! I was so excited to get it!

We're home now for three weeks...... and then...... TO THE USA!!!!! I can't wait to be home!!

Summing Up November

2011-11-23T10:22:00.000-06:00

I decided I better make another post in the month of November before it's over! It went so fast.... BUT THAT'S OK WITH ME! That just means we'll be back in Iowa that much sooner!

Over Veteran's Day weekend, Jay and I took a trip to Turkey. We spent four days traveling around Istanbul. The weather was pretty chilly and rainy, but we still had a good trip. It was very interesting to see an entirely different culture! We were able to go into a few mosques and see their style of religion. In order to go in, we had to take our shoes off and I had to cover my head.

One of the full days we had in the city, we bought tickets for a hop-on hop-off bus. It wasn't the best of days, so a good day to be on a bus. We drove all around, getting off to see a palace and a few other sites. The best part about the bus trip was that it took us into Asia! The city of Istanbul is actually on two continents. The west side of the city is in Europe and the east side of the city is in Asia. The city is split by the Bosphorus Strait. We rode over a huge bridge and into Asia. The east side is much more Turkish than the west side, which is much more Westernized. I was excited to have the chance to be in Asia. That was my first time crossing over!

This guy was just fun! And he was posing perfectly!

We really enjoyed the different markets that were spread around the city. We spent a lot of time and money in the Grand Bazaar. That is were most of our family will be getting their Christmas presents! They had thousands of rugs to choose from, but we have plenty from Afghanistan. I tried to keep my eyes away from all the scarves, as Jay has supplied me with lots of those too. We had to try out some Turkish delights. They are little gummy squares covered in powdered sugar. We bought a couple boxes to try out!

It was nice to be traveling again. We haven't been anywhere all fall because of my coaching gig. We had games every weekend, so were stuck in Schweinfurt. We were a little out of practice. We usually don't worry too much and just go with the flow. We had a little trouble getting back home. Our flight left Istanbul late because of thick fog back in Munich (Germany). Once we got to Munich, we had already missed out flight to Nurnberg, where our car was. We tried to catch a train, but being nearly midnight, there weren't any more left until morning. They couldn't get us on another flight until 8:00 the next morning. The hotels were all booked up, so we ended up sleeping on the airport floor. We took some cushions off restaurant benches to make a bed! They worked pretty well. I had to call in and take the morning off since we wouldn't be home in time. Our flight left a few minutes late the next morning, but we made it back at a decent time. Jay drove as fast as possible back to Schweinfurt to get me back by 11:15, when my half day started. We didn't even stop at home, Jay just dropped me off at the school door at 11:18.

This weekend, we are heading out to Budapest, Hungary. We fly out tomorrow morning and we'll be back on Sunday. It's really cold there, so won't be too fun to be outside. Thankfully they are known for their pools and spas! That's where we'll be spending our time!

We hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving! We have so much to be thankful for this year! Things in our lives are just so wonderful. God has really blessed us beyond belief!

Medical Update

2011-11-06T11:33:00.001-06:00

There are times in life when God tests us, wondering how much he can give us before we fully give it all to him. Well folks, the past month has been a test of character for us. A lot has been happening that has kept us busy, made us worry, sent us to places we don't want to go, and challenged us, sometimes more than we care to handle.

Let's begin in the middle of October, since that's the last time I posted. Nothing too stressful to report, just the usual. It's just that our usual is quite full! I was in the middle of my volleyball season, majorly struggling to build a team (that's for another blog). Jay was doing his usual things at work, keeping himself busy. We watched the Houston's a few days while mom and dad were trying to recoop. During the week, besides not finishing up with our day's work until 6:00 in the evening, we have activities every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. All of this we could deal with. It's our normal life routine! But there's more to add...

One of our best friends here in Germany has cancer and is going through chemo. We've been trying to help out the family as much as possible. Jon has been recovering, which means sleeping a lot. Angie got sick herself and ended up spending the night in the hospital also. We took the two little boys for a couple days, got them to school and a babysitter, and then back home to mom and dad. We can't do a lot for them, but we try to do what we can. They are special friends to us and we want to be there for them! On October 21st, I get an email from Jay in the middle of the day to tell me that Jon went to the ER because he couldn't breath. Come to find out he had a collapsed lung. He was going to be hospitalized and would be in for a few days. Jay said in his email that we should go see them that evening, after volleyball. I was at volleyball late because I had to get two gyms set up for a home tournament the next day. Being a new school, we had to make shift a few pieces of equipment to make things work. We got it all figured out thanks to a lot of duct tape!! Jay and I both parked our cars in front of the house at the same time once we were both done at work. I got out of my car and jumped in his to head to the hospital. We called Angie once we got there to ask if we could come up for a few minutes. She was just getting ready to leave for the night, so we quickly went up to say hi. Jon wasn't in a good state, so we gave him our love and walked out with Angie. She had already called for someone to come pick her up, so had to wait for her ride. We walked outside the hospital and were standing on the sidewalk waiting. Jay, Angie, and I were all standing there when all of a sudden Jay fell to the ground. He had his hands in his pockets and fell just like a tree. His chin was the first thing to hit and he bounced. Angie and I both looked down and at first, thought he was joking. It took us 2 seconds to realize that something was wrong. I quickly rolled him over and held his head. Wade, our friend that was coming to get Angie, jumped out of the car and came alongside Jay. He found Jay's pulse through his entirely tense body and started unzipping his coats. All I could do was stay at Jay's head and keep it from hitting the ground. Angie ran inside to get someone out there, who was out there within the minute. They quickly got Jay stabalized and onto a stretcher. They took him straight to ICU, where he stayed overnight and into the next day. That first evening was really rough. Jay had no idea what happened and why he was in there. I had to keep telling him over and over again. On Saturday, Jay was moved to the stroke unit. There they had him hooked up to a heart monitor at all times. We aren't quite sure why they put him in the stroke unit because he didn't have s stroke. It was a seizure instead. Jay was stuck in bed for the next three days, with cords hanging all over him. He wasn't allowed to leave his room, let alone the floor. He wanted to go visit Jon on the floor below us, but the nurses didn't like that idea. After multiple tests, his brain was cleared. He was then taken down to the cardio unit. After another day full of tests, Jay was finally released. All of the tests came back negative, showing no reason for what happened. Since then, Jay's been doing well. His face was pretty beat up for quite a while, but has since healed. The sidewalk definitely got the best of him.

Bruised shoulder...

We still aren't convinced that something isn't wrong. We continue to pray that all is well with him. Jay took a blood test last week and we're waiting for results. From there, we'll decide if we need a second opinion. Time will tell!

To change gears, I had my blood tested two months ago based on a doctor's request. I never heard back from the clinic with any results, so I made an appointment to check it out. All was clear, except for one thing! I have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Not a big deal, just means I take a little pill for the rest of my life! I can deal with that! I looked at all the symptoms and so many of them made sense! Hopefully things will get better for me now!

We're still two very healthy individuals, just with a lot on our plate! But don't think that any of this will make either of us slow down! I certainly know that's not going to happen!! Too much to live for!!

Enough health news! Let's move on!

Victory!

2011-10-10T03:11:00.000-05:00

Just had to share three more pictures of our victory! I think they were a little surprised they did so well!

Team pictures after our first win!

SHS Volleyball

2011-10-09T08:15:00.001-05:00

I am coaching the Schweinfurt High School volleyball team this year. We are half way through our season and slowly making progress. I was real nervous the first week of practice. We had a lot of new girls that had never played before. We spent the first couple of weeks working on fundamentals. We really had to drill them into them.

I'm still getting used to coaching high school girls. They have a lot more attitude and mood swings than I'm used to. I can't keep track of who's fighting with who and who are best friends. Some days they are fighting with each other and the next day they are playing together. They are just typical high schoolers.

All of that has made it difficult to join our team together. We have decent skills, but we aren't playing as a family. We're been working really hard on that. I've tried to be nice, I've tried being mean, I've tried playing games with them, I've tried yelling, I've tried everything. This week I let some of the girls act as the coaches. I wanted them to get a taste of what we deal with everyday. By the end of practice, they were so mad and frustrated. They then made the comments that they see what we have to deal with. It worked perfectly! They saw how stressful our job is because of the way they act. They turned themselves around. Our past couple of practices went really well.

Yesterday we had two games in Ansbach. We WON BOTH GAMES!!! I was so excited and so happy for the girls! They all played together and played very well. It was very fulfilling for me to see them do the things we drilled during practice. We worked really hard on coverage and they did it very well!

We have three more Saturdays to play and then Europeans the first weekend in November. I hope we keep getting better and peak at the end of the season.

Coaching this season has been a great learning experience for me. It has been very difficult, but I'm sure glad I did it. I have really grown in my coaching skills. The high school principal is trying to talk me into coaching track. I'm still debating. If it weren't for all the weekends we would miss of traveling, it would be a no brainer. But I know we don't have much time left over here and we have more places to see! I have two more days to think about it before I have to make a final decision!

Jay's Birthday

2011-09-24T11:33:00.001-05:00

I know I'm really late at posting this, but still wanted to share Jay's birthday festivities! His birthday always lands around Labor Day. This year, his birthday was on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Jay had a four day weekend before that so took a trip to Poland.

Jay and his friend, Jon (who has the same birthday), left Thursday night and drove to the border. They stayed in Dresden, Germany on Thursday and left early Friday morning to get to Krakow, Poland. The toured the city for a couple days, went to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, and then climbed the tallest mountain in Poland. It took them six hours to get up and six hours to get down! Both of them could barely move when they reached the bottom! I think they both enjoyed the trip, at least it sounded like it.

Taking a break on top of the mountain before climbing back down!

On Tuesday, their birthday, we met Jon, Angie, and the boys for supper and then came back here for birthday cake! Angie made a yummy chocolate cake! We put the number 25 in the middle and then added two candles to one side for Jon and four candles to the other for Jay. It wasn't a big celebration, but we had a good time together!

Next year is the big one! It's Jay's last year in his twenties! Yikes!!

Bike Riding Wine Tour

2011-09-18T15:38:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, Jay and I went on a bike riding wine tour. We went with a group of teachers through the vineyards of Volkach. We started in this small town, and traveled through a couple other towns. We took trails through the vineyards. They were all so full of dark, red grapes. The vines were absolutely georgous! I wish I would have stopped to take more pictures.

We stopped at a couple of wine fests along the way. It was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon in Germany.

Edinburgh Military Tattoo

2011-09-18T15:20:00.002-05:00

The day that Jay's parents flew out of Frankfurt to head back home, we flew out of Hahn to head in Edinburgh, Scotland. We had tickets that evening for the Military Tattoo.

We flew in at 4:00, and took a half hour bus ride into the city. Once we got off the bus, we walked to pick up our tickets for the evening. By this time it was raining. We pulled out our umbrellas and walked to find our hostel. Once we got there and got settled, we decided to venture back out. Before doing so, we bundled up with our sweatshirts and winter coats. We walked out the door and it was pouring! We went in to McDonald's to try and wait it out. We figured we might as well eat while we were there. After waiting for awhile, it wasn't letting up. So out in the rain we went.

We had a couple of hours to waste until the doors opened for the show. We went into a few stores to look around. Since we had already been to Edinburgh, there wasn't anything else we needed, but it was still fun to look. We then went to go get in line. By the time we got there, the line was already 200 meters long. They weren't allowing people to have their umbrellas up while in line for safety reasons. We didn't want to stay there and get soaked, so we went and hid under cover for another half hour.

The ran slowed down by the time we went in. And by in.... I mean inside the gates of an open air stadium. That means all the seats were wet. We planned ahead, knowing it rains a lot if Scotland, and brought towels and plastic bags with us. We put the towels in the plastic bags and then laid the bag on the seat. That helped to keep us dry and warm.

The show was pretty good. The bands were fun to watch as each put on a show. They didn't just come out, stand, and play. They all had a theme and people to watch. We were surprised there weren't more bands. The show was only an hour and a half long, but we were getting tired of sitting by then, and we were really cold!

As soon as it was over, we headed straight back to our hostel to go to bed. We slept in the next morning, thinking we had the day to waste. When we checked out at 10:00, I looked at our flight tickets to make sure we got to the airport in time. I thought our flight left at 5:00 that evening, but it really left at 11:30! Yikes!! We sprinted out of the hotel and down to the bus station. The bus was there and waiting thankfully. It took us a half hour to get to the airport and then we ran through the terminal. We got checked in and to our gate with plenty of time. We even sat for 20 minutes before getting on the plane! After we got there we couldn't help but laugh! For some reason we have done this a couple of times to ourselves. But, we have yet to miss our flight (knock on wood).

It was an extremely quick trip, as we were on Scottish ground for only 19 hours. It was great though. We have been wanting to go to the Tattoo for a couple years now, so glad we had the chance!

Summer Recap

2011-09-05T15:42:00.000-05:00

We barely had time to breath this summer, let alone keep you all caught up on our lives. It was an extremely busy few months!

Let’s recap, shall we! Our summer in a nutshell.... the short version!

We left for Portugal the day school got out. We stayed there for a few days enjoying the beaches.

We came home for three days before flying to Romania for a Club Beyond Mission Trip.

We traveled a bit on our own once we were done with Club Beyond. We wanted to see the rest of the country.

When we returned home, I thought that would be the start to my summer break. Not so much! While we were in Romania, we learned that Schweinfurt would be opening a new high school at the start of the school year. So during my week off, I worked at the school all day packing up classrooms.

At the end of the week, my friend Elizabeth came to stay with us for a couple days.

We dropped her off on our way to Luxembourg, where I ran the triathlon.

The next week I worked some more at school while Jay was at work, and we taught a CPR class together.

Then we watched some boys to finish out the week! All their parents came home on Tuesday night and I was headed to the airport Wednesday morning to pick up Jay’s parents.

We stuck around Schweinfurt for a couple of days, venturing out to some local towns.

On the 30^th of July, we flew out for Italy, spending a week between Rome and Venice.

Rome (We were both sick as dogs on this day!)

Florence

Pisa

Cinque Terra

Venice

We returned back to Schweinfurt for two days before heading out to Paris. I went with Jay’s parents to visit the beautiful French city. Unfortunately, Jay had to stay home and work!

We came home for a day, repacked, and then headed to Berlin for the last weekend that his parents were with us. After learning a lot of German and American history, we came back home.

All four of us packed our bags once again. Curt and Nancy packed to head back to Iowa the next day. Jay and I packed our bags for Scotland. On Tuesday morning, we drove to Frankfurt early in the morning. We dropped off Curt and Nancy, watched them go through security and then headed to Hahn for our own flight. We flew to Edinburgh to watch the Military Tattoo. This is a huge band concert with military bands from around the world. We were in Edinburgh for a whole 19 hours before flying back.

I had to be at school the next day for an all day meeting. Came home from school, packed one last time for the summer as headed to Finland the next day. We took a four day trip to try to find Santa Clause. I saw a lot of look-a-likes! What I really wanted to see was a moose or a reindeer! Unfortunately we didn’t see anything, except for some beautiful barns!

We came back home on Monday night at midnight, went to bed, and then both went to work the next morning. It was the start to the school year for me!

And that’s it folks! Time to get back to the real world again! This was a summer of a lifetime. I would catch myself complaining from being so tired, but really, what could I complain about! In two months, I visited seven countries!

I'm Loved!!

2011-09-04T06:53:00.000-05:00

We got a notice that we had a package at the post office the other day. Neither of us had ordered anything, so we're excited to see what it was. Jay picked it up and brought it home for me. He was nice enough to not open it since it had my name on it, from mom and dad. I was super excited to see this when I opened it...

Sent straight from the Iowa State Fair! They know that I love salt water taffy! Mom even knows my favorites and took out the ones I don't like.

My parents love me oh so much!!!

Will life ever slow down?!?

2011-08-23T16:58:00.000-05:00

We're still here.... alive and kicking..... but completely exhausted! It has been one heck of a summer and we are ready for fall! We have been going non-stop for quite awhile now, and the end isn't in site! I started school today, so lots more work in the future! We have slept in our own bed three times in the past month! That's how much we've been on the road or had company!

Hopefully sometime in the next week I will find a spare ten minutes to post about our summer, since I've neglected most of it! I have a ton to share about!!

Hope you all enjoyed your summer and are ready to bring in a new school year!

Luxembourg Triathlon

2011-07-19T13:09:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we traveled to Luxembourg. Six of us girls from Schweinfurt decided a long time ago that we would do a triathlon together. I said I would do it several months ago, but really didn't have time to train. Along with school and everything else I had going on, running, biking, and swimming were not at the top of my list. I didn't sign up for this thing until the middle of last week. I wasn't sure if I could pull it off without training. I did a mini triathlon with the girls the day that I signed up. I barely completed that, but went for the real thing anyway. On Saturday when we got to Luxembourg, I figured it was too late to turn back now!

We went for a little swim in the lake to test out the water when we first got there on Saturday. I tell you what, it was frigid!!!! The water instantly took my breath away! After a few hundred meters in the lake, by body was numb and I was good. We also took a lap around the bike trail. It was a great trail, but I wasn't sure how I was going to do five laps around that thing the next day!
Sunday morning we woke up to gray skies and rain! But that wasn't going to stop us from doing this thing! By the time we got there and got settled in, the rain was done and the sun was trying to peak through, but it was still quite chilly. The water was even colder than it was on Saturday. As soon as the race started and we jumped in, my asthma spiked up and I struggled to breath. The water was just too cold for me. I was gasping and choking on the waves at the same time. After the first hundred meters, I finally was able to calm myself down and get in the groove. The rest of the swimming wasn't too bad. Actually, it was my favorite part of the whole race! I made pretty good time and was out of the water before I knew it!

Then it was off to the races on my bike. Five laps around the track for a total of 20km. The first two laps weren't bad, but by lap three I was getting board. My bike is terrible for racing. Jay and I bought bikes when we got over here, but we didn't get race bikes. Instead, they are more like mountain bikes. I felt like I was pulling a sled the entire race. I defintiely lost a lot of time and went to the back of the pack! I had to keep reminding myself that this race was just for fun. As long as I finished, it was all going to be ok!

I finally finished my last lap and went in to the transition area to put the bike away and start running. As soon as I got off, my feet felt like bricks! I could barely run. It took me at least the first kilometer to get into the groove of running. My legs just weren't too excited about it.

By about the third kilometer, I met up with an old guy. He became my running buddy and my pacer for the rest of the race. He made sure I stuck by him the whole time. I would try to slow down and catch my breath and he would slow down with me. We couldn't say too much to each other, but throughout the race we kept saying "OK" back and forth. When I slowed down, I would try to tell him to go on without me, but he wasn't going to let that happen. He would wait for me and then I would get back going with him. At the end of the race, he let me finish in front of him.

After we crossed the finish line, I gave him a high-five, the American way to say good job. In return, he gave me a kiss on each check. That would be the French way to congratulate someone. I was so glad to be finished!

I had a good time doing the race. I sure wish I was better trained and had a better bike. It's definitely not out of my mind about doing another one of these. I would sure like some warmer water next time though!

Here is a picture of all our supporters! We definitely had the best cheering crowd in the whole race! It was a confidence booster when hearing one of these awesome fans yelling for you, especially lil' Spencer (the littlest red head in the yellow shirt).

But here is the best supporter of them all! He was a trooper for me all weekend. I know he was bored most of the time, but he still let me do my thing!

Raft Race

2011-07-13T15:05:00.001-05:00

On Sunday, Jay participated in a river rafting race. He, along with 10 other guys, pilled into a boat. They were one of 70 teams. Unfortunately, they didn't make it past the first round. It was fun to be out there watching though.

Without any practice or discussion on how everyone would row, their team wasn't too in-sync. Jay was stuck right in the middle. The person in front of him and behind her were exactly opposite on strokes, which meant Jay kept hitting one of them. He enjoyed it nonetheless.

Jay is the third head from the left.

Most of the crew after the race...

Welcome Party

2011-07-11T14:16:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, Jay and I threw a welcome party for our new LTC and his family. We had an ice cream theme and hired in the ice cream truck! We played some great family games throughout the afternoon. It was a great time on a beautiful sunny day!

Our commander's wife told me that I need to be a party planner in my next life. I love throwing parties and coming up with games. I just wish the supplies weren't so expensive!

One of the games we played was a relay race. Everyone was given a task and had to complete it for their team. Some of the events were a little harder than others. Here are some pictures to prove it!

Angie eating crackers and then trying to whistle.

Sarah drinking out of a bottle.

Rebekah trying to put panty hose on with gloves.

Caleb eating sardines.

Josiah hammering nails into a board.

Getting dressed Army style!

LTC Runey digging for worms. He is our new commander and will be Jay's boss! Good thing he's not afraid of getting dirty!

Club Beyond Service Project

2011-07-10T08:07:00.001-05:00

Jay and I spent nearly two weeks in Romania, coming back this past Tuesday. The first week and a half was spent doing a mission project with Club Beyond, a ministry organization for our youth here in Schweinfurt. We met in Cluj, Romania with 400 high schoolers. Most of the kids took around a 30 hour bus ride to get to Cluj. Jay and I were lucky enough to get to fly there!

We had Club every night, singing lots of loud songs and hearing a message from a great speaker. Here they are, jumping around during worship.

During the week, we had four different programs going on... building a playground at a local school, Vacation Bible School, Club, and a Sports Camp. For those of you unfamiliar with Club, it's an hour long ministry opportunity for the kids, playing lots of crazy games, singing songs, and hearing a short message that pertains to their current lives. Much like Chaos and Big House back in Cedar Falls.

Don't these smiles just light up your heart!

Doing a skit for Daniel and the Lion's Den

Jay's job throughout the week was to be hands on with the playground. He and another guy were in charge of it all. The goal was for our high schoolers to do all the work. Jay did a lot of teaching... how to use a saw, how to use a drill, making concrete, digging holes. It was so neat to watch him interact with the kids and give them a chance to try something new. He was so patient and really let the kids try, even if the drill ended up wrapping their shirt up into a knot!

Painting tar on to the beams to help waterproof them before going into the ground.

Do you see the big rocks and pieces of bricks below... those were all dug out of the holes. We dug up more giant rocks than dirt! It made for a much more difficult time digging!!

32 holes had to be dug in all... it was quite a daunting task!

After many laboring hours, this boulder finally was pulled out of the hole being dug. It took a long metal pipe and Jay's belt to finally pull it out! Jay was pretty excited to have that hole done!

The finished product... monkey bars, platforms, balance beam, rings, chin-up bars, and swings.

The two construction contractors... Jay and Kevin.

Enjoying the new swing set.

I worked on the other three parts of the trip. My title for the week was all about Relational Ministries. Before we even left for Romania, I put together a VBS program, Club, and the sports ministry for the week we were there. Thankfully we had some great curriculum to use already, it just took a lot of organizing. Along with the VBS lesson, we did crafts, games, and songs. Club was very similar, but more geared for the older kids. I didn't have to do any of the teaching once we got there. Instead, I handed all the plans over to the high schoolers and let them go. They put together two hours worth of fun for the Romanian kids. When the kids were busy teaching, they were outside playing all sorts of games with the kids. A lot of neat relationships were created throughout the week. The hardest part of it was that we had to say everything through translators. The kids couldn't understand us at all and we couldn't understand them. We had three high school girls with us that translated for us.

One little girl really stuck out to me the whole week. She came on Monday, but was very nervous and shy. She stood in the doorway for the entire VBS portion of the day, not wanting to come near us. We kept asking her to come join us, but she kept saying no. We all went outside to play soccer in the afternoon. The girl came outside with us, but she sat against the fence on her own, not playing or talking to anyone. I went and sat by her, not really sure what to do. You have to remember that they kids speak only Romanian. So holding a conversation was not possible. After sitting beside her for 20 minutes, I finally tried to get her to smile. I picked a thick piece of grass and whistled with it. Then she tried. She would barely smile, but I did see it a few times. Then I went to get some bubbles and we blew a few bubbles together. By the end of the day, she still wasn't too sure of all of us. Nonetheless, Dana came back every day that week. She learned to love us and had so much fun. By Thursday and Friday, she was all smiles. Throughout the week we learned each others' name. That was all we could say to each other. So whenever we crossed paths, we would yell out each others' name and give a hug. Even though we couldn't talk to each other, a hug and a smile went a long ways!
Here she in on Monday...

And by Friday... she was my best buddy.

The last day we were at the school, we held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new playground and then held a carnival. All of our high school kids manned 20 stations that the Romanian kids could go around to. We handed out candy and prizes. It was an awesome afternoon. I really enjoyed just sitting back and watching the work that God had done throughout the week. We have no idea how many lives were touched last week and never will, but seeing smiles and hearing laughter made for an amazing experience.

Jay and I were really blessed to be on this trip. It was such a strong reminder about how spoiled we really are. We had so much more than any of those kids, but you would never know by the smiles on their faces and the light in their eyes. They were just excited to be alive. It didn't matter to them that they wore the same clothes every day, or that their homes didn't have running water, or that the bathroom was really a pipe dug down into the ground in the back yard. They had life and they were happy!

Such a great reminder... God gives us everything we need to live. We just need to be happy with what we have and use it to the fullest.

Club Beyond is heading back to Romania again next year. Jay and I are really hoping we can go back too!

On a side note.... I also got to see this wonderful friend, which made my trip even better!! Elizabeth moved up to England to continue ministry with a new group of kids. I miss her so much, so was glad to be able to spend the week with her!

Portugal Pictures

2011-07-08T01:16:00.000-05:00

I'll try again... loading pictures of Portugal. It really is absolutely stunning. I wish we could go back. These four days were so wonderful! I loved spending time with Jay and not having any distractions!

Amazing right?!?!

To the End of the Earth

2011-06-23T02:43:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we traveled to Portugal. It was the most amazing trip!! We did absolutely nothing... just relaxed! I had to force Jay to sit on the beach and just let time go by. This wasn't our normal vacation, but it sure was fantastic. We spent almost all of our time playing in the water, playing on the beach, or sleeping in the sun! So great!

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Ok.... maybe not. It's been sitting here spinning for over an hour and it's time for me to leave!

Jay and I are heading to Romania this afternoon. We will be spending the next two weeks serving God in a very exciting way. Jay will be working hard the whole time, building play grounds, painting, and doing other odd jobs to make the place look nice. I will be keeping the kids busy. I will be leading Vacation Bible School for the younger kids, Club for the older kids (like a BASIC concept for those familiar with that), and then a sports ministry for all the kids! Our location is very poor and has nothing, but they are the happiest happy! I'm excited and neverous at the same time! It's going to be a great week of seeing God at work. Please pray for us!!

I'll try to post Portugal pictures when we get back. They are beautiful, so I have to share!

School's Out for Summer!

2011-06-16T23:56:00.000-05:00

I'm just getting ready to leave the house for my last day of school!!! Yesterday we had our awards ceremony with the kids and then sent them home for the afternoon. We had the rest of the day to work in our classroom. I could have been done easily, but I decided to dive into the unknown wall of closests and do some MAJOR cleaning. Nothing in these closets is mine and I haven't touched them since I moved into the room. But it was time! It really wasn't that bad. And I'm not afraid to throw things away, so my garbage filled up quickly!

Today we have to go in to do our final clearing and checkout. I get my room inspected at 8:50 this morning, and then will have the rest of the day to do...... Club Beyond planning. We leave for our mission trip in Romania in one week and I have tons I need to do before then. It will be a good time for me to stick myself behind a desk and get some planning done.

But that will only last so long, as we are jumping on a plane to head here this afternoon...

This would be the wonderful, sandy beaches of Portugal! I'm so excited to get away for a few days, slow life down, and simply relax. Jay and I tend to forget what that word means, so we'll see how long we last. We have two options..... we can spend hours on the beach doing absolutely nothing, or we can go inland and tour the country. I'm sure we'll do some of both as neither of us can sit still that long!

The weather is supposed to be absolutely perfect! High of 80, perfect sun, and no chance of rain!!! I can't wait to get there!!

Undefeated Season

2011-06-13T13:34:00.000-05:00

The end has come to our softball season. We finished this past weekend with a tournament. Back to March when we started practicing, I would have told you we wouldn't win a single game. I was so scared with the team I had. The first few practices we had to start with the very basics.... I'm talking the things that you think everyone knows about softball. When I asked the girls to run after they hit the ball, they asked where to run to. When they fielded a ball and I said to go two... the left fielder left the ball rolling and started running to the infield. I had to remind myself that even though these are middle schoolers, some of them had never touched a ball before.

As the season went on, I saw more and more progress out of the girls. They were getting so much better! They could throw, they could catch, they were running aggressively. We were winning one game after another. Up until this past weekend, we were undefeated. We wanted to finish off the season that way! I made sure the girls were focused and ready for their last two games of the season.

Here's how focused we were...
Can you find me? I got piled on!

Then it was pay backs!

The first game we pulled off with an 8 point advantage. The second game.... well, it wasn't much of a challenge. We ended up winning 16-1. It could have been much worse, but I forced my girls to stay at third base instead of stealing home. They are hard to hold back because they've been taught to be aggressive, but enough is enough. I had to remind them about sportsmanship. That's a difficult concept at that age. They just want to play their game and win, they don't care much about the score.

It turned out to be a great season. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to coach these girls. They are such a joy to me. This is my third year of coaching several of these girls. A few of the parents are begging me to move up to coach the next age group next year so their daughters can stay with me. We'll see what next spring brings.

Beautiful Norway

2011-06-05T16:57:00.000-05:00

Over Memorial Day weekend, Jay and I traveled up to the beautiful land of Norway. It is quite an expensive country, one of the most expensive in the world. We did our best to keep it cheap, but it sure wasn't easy!

We were there for three nights and spent two of those nights in the car. The one night we were in a hotel, we paid $180 for a simple two twin bed room. It sure wasn't anything speial for that price! But it was nice to shower and sit on a toilet (not squat in the trees).

Many beautiful country churches. A perfect setting with the mountains in the background.

Also a church, but from 2000 years ago!

We also had to eat very cheap. We ate one meal of McDonalds and one meal of pizza. For the rest of the meals we went to the grocery store and bought bread, peanut butter, and jelly. I was definitely ready for real food by the end of the trip.

It stayed light most of the day and night. At 2:00 in the morning it was still somewhat light. Made it quite hard to sleep in the car! This picture was taken at 10:00 at night. We didn't even realize how late it was.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't the greatest for us while we were there. It rained quite a bit, which made for not such great viewing. There were some things that we wanted to see but didn't get to because of the rain and fog. Nonetheless, it was still beautiful. The mountains, the water, the farm land, everything was so pretty.

This is what we saw a lot of the time! Looking out the window as we waited for the ferry to arrive.

Finally, an almost clear day!

The torch from the Lillihammer 1994 Olympics. We also saw the ski jump and speed skating arena.

Jay and I really enjoyed looking at all the barns. They were so beautiful! We took lots of pictures of them. Several times we felt like we were in Iowa!

As we were driving up a mountain, we passed a bus that had blown a tire. We got about 200 meters up the road and heard a strange sound. We too had a flat!! I went to the trunk to get out the spare, and there wasn't one! Instead, it was a repair kit. After looking at the pictures of the directions, we finally figured out what to do. We had to pour a glue like mixture into the tire, swish it around, pump up the tire (with an electric pump that plugged into the car), and then drive for 10 minutes to let it harden. We checked it after 10 minutes and it was still holding. Two days later when we turned the car in, it was still good!! We were so lucky to not have any more problems. Buying a new tire would have cost a pretty penny!

This is the valley where Jay's Grandma's family came from. It was an absolutely beautiful area, with a stream running through, trees all around.

Overall, we had a good trip. It wasn't my favorite country, but the bad weather and the high prices had a lot to do with that. I'm glad we went though, as it is a great way to remember the awesome creation that God blessed us with.

Night at the Oscars

2011-05-22T11:55:00.000-05:00

Well folks.... it's finally over! Many months of hard work all paid off! Last night was the Schweinfurt Garrison and Community Ball. It was a great time!! The theme for the night was a "Night at the Oscars". We had a red carpet, sidewalk of fame, a big Hollywood sign, and many other decorations to set the mood. We had a fantastic turn out and had to set up two more tables before we ate. What a great problem to have!

Jay and I spent all day at the Mercure setting up. We had a lot of things to build and place. I finally left at 4:00 to come home and shower. Jay came home about 4:20. We were both dressed and back in the car by 5:00 to head back to the Mercure. I left with a wet head, but it all worked. Once we got there, we finished setting up, turned all the candles on, and made sure everything was ready to go. We spent the past month making most of the decorations. We didn't have much money to work with, so lots of handmade things this year. We cut out nearly two hundred stars when all was said and done. But it all still looked good!

This was out in the entryway, before going into the dance hall. you can see the walk of fame. A red carpet ran down it, but you can't really see that. The Hollywood sign is 8 feet long and hanging from the second story. It was to help set the mood as soon as people walked in the door.

I forgot to take a picture before the table was all messed up, but you can still get an idea of the centerpiece!

It was a great night of being with our friends! I really didn't see much of Jay. He was running around with his head cut off! He was the MC for the night, so didn't really sit with us. I'm glad I had other people to be with. Instead of having a speaker this year, we played a trivia game. We had 20 trivia questions about movies along with 20 movie clips. Everyone guessed the answers and we totaled the points. The winning table earned themselves an oscar trophy! I nearly crashed in the middle of the evening, but got another burst of energy at the end! We had a great time dancing all night. A lot of great songs were played. Especially toward the end of the night, I was having a lot of fun on the dance floor!

Here I am with my date! I didn't see him too much more than this!! If I wanted to dance with him I had to force him to slow down!!! I held on tight to him while dancing, otherwise he would have ran away, not because he didn't want to dance, but because he wanted to make sure everything was going well.

Being the MC

Overall, it was so much fun! But I'm also so glad it's over! We put a lot of time and energy to make it a perfect night! I sure hope everyone had a lot of fun!

This is me with my second wind of energy! It was close to midnight around this point!

Crazy Running Man!

2011-05-16T16:31:00.004-05:00

Who wakes up on a Sunday morning and thinks to themselves..... sure, I'll run the half-marathon today! Why not!!! Definitely not me!!

There were a group of peeps heading to Wurzburg to run their annual half-marathon. I was going to watch some kiddos while their mom and dad ran. Jay wasn't sure if he wanted to run or not. He surely didn't want to get out of bed and he couldn't stay awake while driving there. But once we got there and he saw everyone, he got the bug! Of course he wanted to run!

Everyone before the race

How did he do.... amazing of course! I'm so jealous that he can not train AT ALL, and then just go run 13 miles and act like it's no big deal! He was still smiling by the end of it! His legs were quite sore, but nothing he couldn't handle! What a man!!

One-third the way through the race...

Coming in to the final shoot! He made it to the end!

Geerati and Jay after the race!

While everyone was running, I was part of the cheering crew! I kept these four lil' ones as their mom and dad ran. Thankfully there was a bunch of us together, so I had many eyes on them. I was so glad to have more adults around to help corral the kids. They weren't too excited to stand around for three hours, but we survived. I had to break out the big basket of food for the last two hours to keep them occupied.

It was a fun day overall. Everyone was completely exhausted by the end of the race, those who ran and those who cheered!!

Super Saturday

2011-05-15T15:37:00.000-05:00

This weekend flew by oh too fast!! I'll break it up so you don't have to read so much! Saturday will be enough for this post! You'll get Sunday's review soon.

Saturday morning I woke up early and was on the ball diamond by 8:00. We played a double header starting at 9:00. We won the first game 11-9 and then won the second game 15-8. I was so nervous about my girls at the beginning of the season, but they are really pulling it together. I had so many new girls this year so we've had to start from the beginning. The first two weeks of practice were all fundamentals. For example, I would tell the girls to run once they hit the ball. One of them asked me where she was supposed to run to. I had to continually remind myself to stay simple! Nonetheless, they have improved a great deal in the past month. It's been so fun to watch them grow. We have two more games left this season! I hope we can pull them off with two more wins!

We finished our games up by 1:00 in the afternoon. After that I brought two girls home with me to get ready for the middle school formal that night. I did both of their hair for them. I've never done hair like theirs, so it was interesting. They were both pretty cute by the end.

During...

The final products, even though you can't really see them. I wish I had a before picture. Especially of the lion's mane... (yes Mia, that would be you!)

After dropping them off at their houses, I quickly drove back home, jumped in the shower, and was out the door 30 minutes later. I left again with a wet head to go to the dance. The theme of the dance was a Masquerade. Almost everyone had masks on. Everyone looked so great! We had a good time standing around and watching all the kids. I danced my way around a few times. I love the group of sixth grade girls this year, so had fun with them.

Jay being bored before people really began dancing!

By the time we got out of there at 11:30 we were pretty tired. We crashed quickly once we got home!

It was a fun day full of middle school girls! I sure do love my sixth graders! I love how much fun they are, I love all their giggles, I love their innocense!

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T03:41:00.000-05:00

We want to wish our fantastic mothers a very happy day! We wish we were home to celebrate your special day! We love you and miss you!

To my mamma: Thanks for making me feel loved all the way across the world. I love how you send me cards just to tell me you love me and miss me. I love how you send me cookies to make me feel like I'm at home. I love how you send me anything I can't get over here just to comfort my needs. I love how you send me homemade caramels to spoil me. Twenty-six years later and you're still taking care of me, and for that I am thankful for! Someday I hope to follow in your footsteps and love my child as much as you loved me. Thanks for everything mamma. You're the best!!!

To my mother-in-law: Thanks for raising such an amazing son. He means the world to me and I'm so lucky to have him. Thank you for teaching him how to be a protector and a provider. We enjoy all the phone calls and emails to keep us in touch. Makes us feel like we're back home. We are excited for you to come over and visit us this summer. It's going to be a busy trip, but should be a lot of fun.

And to all the mother's out there... Happy Mother's Day to you!! We hope you enjoy your day surrounded by your family!

Adventure Camp

2011-04-24T16:21:00.000-05:00

Over spring break, I went to Belgium with Club Beyond, a ministry for middle school students here on post. We took 21 students from Schweinfurt and met up with 250 other students from Europe in Durbuy, Belgium. We had a fantastic time overcoming our fears. The camp was all about adventure!

Here are some of the amazing things we did...

High-Ropes Course

Rock Climbing

Caving

Laser Tag

Biking (or walking our bikes up hill)

Eating Belgium waffles dipped in Belgium chocolate! Getting these in town is what made the bike ride worth it!

Go Carts

Human Foosball

Archery

Zip line called the Death Ride

Jumping off the mountain...

Gaining speed...

Loving it!

Got twisted around

And finally back on the ground! (Almost)

I spent the week with these five great ladies! We made some great relationships, learning a lot about God and each other!

Country night with a bon fire and smores!

By the end of the week... my girlies were pretty tired out!

This is Crystal. She was our speaker for each evening Club talk! She was pretty amazing! We had some great grown-up talks throughout the week!

And the whole group!

Over all, I had a fabulous time! I definitely forced myself to do things I don't think I would normally do. Usually I need Jay to talk me into things. But knowing that the kids were looking up to me, I put on my game face and looked fear in the face!

After camp, we jumped back on the bus and rode home for 8 hours! It was definitely nice to be back in my own bed!

If you want to see more pictures, I have them up on picasa.

Bull Fight

2011-04-22T06:53:00.000-05:00

A few videos from the bullfight. Let me warn you though.... they aren't pretty! You will see blood! VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK!!

Bull verse Toreros
The matador first confronts the bull with the capote, performing a series of passes and observing the behavior and quirks of the bull.

Three banderilleros each attempt to plant two banderillas, sharp barbed sticks into the bull's shoulders. These anger and invigorate, but further weaken, the bull.

The fight ends with a final series of passes in which the matador with a muleta (sword) attempts to maneuver the bull into a position to stab it between the shoulder blades and through the aorta or heart.

A bull flip, he just got going too fast!

Definitely an experience. It was neat to see such a unique Spanish tradition!

Madrid, Spain

2011-04-21T04:41:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, Jay and I took a trip to Madrid. Jay had a four day weekend and I took two days off. Madrid was such a beautiful city.

The weather was absolutely wonderful. It probably got up into the 80’s each day. I was in shorts and a tank top each day. I’m sure glad I covered myself in sunscreen. On Sunday, it was evident where I missed. I forgot to put it on the tops of my feet and I missed a spot on the back of my shoulder, where I can’t reach! It has soaked in now to a tan. Notice my left shoulder, the inside didn't get covered!

All day Saturday we just walked around town, went into the King’s palace, and took lots of pictures. That evening we wanted to see flamenco dancing, but nothing started until 11:00. We stayed out that late, but still couldn’t find any place that had it, so went home. 11:00 isn't late in Spain. Their hours are definitely different than ours. They eat lunch between 2:00 and 3:00 at night and supper between 9:00 and 10:00 at night. Because the sun stays up so late and the town is so lively, you hardly notice that it's so late.

We found this restaurant on one of the main drags! How cool is that! We didn't eat there though as the menu didn't look too appetizing. And Jay even had his Iowa shirt on, so we had to take a picture!

On Sunday, we bought tickets to the bullfight in the morning. Then we had all day to mess around before actually going to the bull fight. We went and saw some more buildings, took hundreds more pictures, sat in a massive and very busy park for a little while, then went to the bull fight. This park was huge with a lake in the middle. The lake was full of paddle boats. Looked like fun on a hot day!

The bull fight was interesting. It was good to see once, but definitely never again. Thankfully we were prepared for it. We saw some pictures and video that a friend showed us, so we knew what to expect. If it wasn’t for that, I think I would have been totally turned off and wouldn’t have wanted to watch it. We have tons of pictures and video, so you can watch too if you care to see it!

On Monday, we took it slow. We didn’t leave the hotel until 10:00. We left our bags at the front desk because we had to check out, but didn’t fly until the evening. We saw the last few things we wanted to see. We weren’t in a rush, so took it slow, as slow as Jay allows!! We ate lunch at a tapas restaurant. Jay got a whole plate of things I wouldn’t touch!! It was all from the sea. I ordered a plate of fries! That’s all I could handle!

We thought for sure something bad was going to happen on this trip. We tried going to Madrid a couple years ago, but had to cancel because Jay’s commander cancelled the four day pass. The morning we were leaving last weekend, I got a call from my principal saying I couldn’t take Monday off because of the government shut down. They weren’t allowing any paid leave. We talked about it some more and then she said I could take it, but wouldn’t get paid. I said that was fine. So, we were still going. At this point, I was asking why God didn’t want us to go on this trip. He kept trying to keep us home! We drove to the airport and went to check in at the desk. She told us that we were late and wouldn’t be able to make the flight. Even though I looked at the tickets a million times, I switched the minutes for the boarding time and the flying time. I thought we were boarding at 1750, but really we were boarding at 1650 and flying at 1720. We tried anyway! Jay ran through security, where thankfully the line wasn’t long. There was one person ahead of us and Jay asked if he could go in front. They let both of us in front and helped us get through quickly. The gate was just around the corner. We were the last ones to get through the door and the stewardess followed me out to the plane! That was a close one!!! Made us question even more why we weren’t supposed to go on this trip! All went fine while there. We were super careful with our bags, making sure nothing got stolen. Our friend was pick pocketed twice and someone got into his bag while it was on his back. We made sure that didn't happen to us. We made it to the airport in plenty of time on the afternoon we were leaving Madrid to come back to Frankfurt. We had at least an hour to spare before we needed to board. We sat and played a game of cards. The whole time we were playing, they were constantly announcing things in Spanish over the intercom. Finally Jay looked at his watch and realized that we should be going. We assumed our gate had changed at this point since there was no line where our gate was originally suppose to be, so Jay went to go ask. Yup, it did. So we ran down the hallway to find a long line of people waiting to get on the plane. They hadn’t started boarding yet, so all was well! We figured we were going to die on the plane! Something bad had to happen and that’s the last thing that could! Once we landed in Frankfurt, Jay said he better drive home very carefully so he doesn’t get in an accident! Once we got home, we were sure glad God was watching over us! We were being protected the whole trip!!

It was a fantastic weekend overall. Madrid is definitely a great city! It was nice to have a break from real life and be able to relax for a bit!

Fish Market

2011-04-08T03:26:00.000-05:00

What do you see at fish markets....

Fish of course

And a big pirate ship in the middle of downtown! Just what you expected, right!

Last weekend, Schweinfurt had their big fish market. Another great thing about Germany, they make everything into a celebration! That means fantastic food and such a fun environment. We went down to the market after church last Sunday and hung out for a few hours. A few friends were brave and tried all different kinds of fish, including a head of an eel! Jay and I, on the other hand, we stuck with a bratwurst! We weren't quite ready to venture out into the world of fish!

One of the fun parts of the day was watching a guy on a truck fill fruit baskets. He had beautiful baskets that he was filling full of all sorts of fresh fruit and then would sell them for 10 euro each. Getting a basket was no easy task though. It took you getting to the front of the line, holding your hand on the basket to claim in, and then waiting for him to fill it, take your money, and then hand it down to you. Jay got our basket, but was trying to get another for another friend. The guy on the truck was defintiely not going to give him another basket. So I went up and tried my hand and securing a basket. An experience that would probably never happen in the states! Such great adventures around here!

Here's a picture of the empty fruit truck. I didn't have my camera with me the first time. So we walked back down later, but he was out of fruit.

We are off to Spain in a couple of hours! We are heading to Madrid to claim another city and maybe see a bull fight. We are a little nervous about the bull fight as we have heard they are pretty goary. We are hoping to buy really cheap tickets at the top of the arena and be able to leave when we want.

I had to make a decision whether or not I wanted to go to Madrid this morning. Jay's phone rang and it was my principal. Because of the government shut down, I will not be getting paid on Monday. I took the day off as a leave day, but would normally have gotten paid for it! I asked her if I could still take the day and she had to check on the sub. She had to make sure the sub would get paid, otherwise I would have to go in. They continued to read through their document and found that subs would get paid. So she told me I could take it unpaid if I still wanted to go to Spain. It would be a wash for pay. I lose $200 on plane tickets and hotel, or I lose $200 from not going to school. So, we're heading out in a few hours!

I'll be back with more pictures and hopefully fun stories in a few days! I hopefully won't have any bad stories of being pickpocketed to share. That happens a lot in Madrid!

Wrangling and Wrestling

2011-03-27T10:07:00.001-05:00

Jay and I kept our five boys Friday night and all day Saturday. We had a good time and definitely wore everyone out!

On Friday night, we just hung out at home, playing the usual... hockey guys, swords, reading. Saturday on the other hand was quite an active day. We all got up and headed out the door at 8:30 to head to Stuttgart. It was a two hour drive, but all went well. The middle seat was sound asleep, the back seat was either reading or playing games. So Jay and I ended up having a nice talk. Once we got to Stuttgart, we went to the post to watch a little guys wrestling tournament. We had several friends wrestling and this was the last meet of the year. Here's Josiah taking his guy down. He did a great job at the meet.

Josiah's dad is Jay's boss. So while other wrestlers were on the mat, Jay got put to work!

After we saw all the wrestlers wrestle at least once, we headed out for the next adventure. Just a few miles down the road was a HUGE play place! It's a five story high building probably the length of at least a football field. Inside of it were tons of things for the kids to play on. There was a huge pirate ship, water activities, a ball pit where you could shot the balls at others, rock wall, high ropes course, lots and lots of slides, and a whole science center. It was a really neat place! For the most part, we just let the boys go! I stuck with the little two (as best as possible, more on that to come) for most of the time. I was really anxious to go down the big kids slides, but had to wait. #4 and #5 had a blast going down some of the slides. We stuck to the simplier ones, which were perfect for them. We spent more of our time in the ball pit though. #4 loved shooting the balls and watching the older kids shoot. #5 had the most fun staying inside the pit on the ground, playing with the balls on the ground. It was so much action, it was hard to keep track of them both.

Which leads me to the most stressful part of the day! I was sitting at the bottom of a wide slide, watching the two little boys come down. I went down the slide the first couple of times with them, then just stayed at the bottom. As #4 was sliding, #5 was climbing up the steps and as #5 was sliding, #4 was climbing up the steps. I was usually watching the one sliding, which didn't work out so well! #4 came sliding down and was running back to the steps, so I went to look for #5. GONE!!! No where to be found. There is no way he could have gotten past me and he couldn't have gone on the other slide, because it was a big kid slide and was being manned by someone working there. He wouldn't have been allowed down. So where did he go, at this point in time I had no idea! I frantically searched all over the place for him! Found Jay and had him start looking too. Finally I see #3 with #5. I went over to them and #5 was soaking wet, from toe up to his shoulders. He was playing in the water activities. The water is about a foot deep, starting at waist high. It's for kids to stand up to and play with the activities inside. Well, #5 really wanted to play inside. His clothes were soaking wet! I didn't bring any other clothes, so had him in just a diaper and his sweatshirt (that thankfully I had already taken off) for awhile. I let the rest of his clothes airdry. After awhile, I put his pants back on so he could play some more. He didn't seem to mind the wetness. Oh my, the things I need to learn before becoming a parent!!

Here are some pictures of the boys (and my big boy) having fun!

Jay on the high ropes course.

Cutest pictures from the whole day... a three set series.... #5 being Gus (from Cinderella) trying to hold as many balls as possible and walk them to the gun. He was so determined not to drop any!

We met up with Josiah's family once the meet was over. They met us at the play place and the kids got to play together. Julia stuck with #4 for a while and Everett played with #5 in the ball pit while Jay and I went down the big kid slides. They were pretty intense! You would definitely get some air time on a couple of them.

By then, everyone was worn out and ready to go home! It was a very quiet car ride home. The two little ones were out pretty quick! As soon as they got home, to bed they went! And as soon as we got home, we also went right to bed!

It was a fun day had by all! This is a place I would definitely go to again! Too bad it was two hours away though.

Relaxing Weekend

2011-03-21T01:13:00.000-05:00

After a really busy week, it was time for a break! But not until taking a CPR Instructor's course all day on Saturday. We drove down to Ansbach, leaving at 7:00 on Saturday morning. The class was supposed to go until 5:00, but it was a beautiful day outside, so our teacher decided to let us out at 2:00! That certainly worked for us!

We headed to Ramstein from there. It was a two hour dive, which got us there around 4:00. We went to the mall first as we couldn't check in to our hotel yet. After walking through and seeing what was there, we went in to the PX. This place is the largest in all of Germany, maybe even Europe. It's new within the last couple of years, which makes it a very busy place. We walked through, at a very leisurly pace, taking our time looking at things. A couple hours later we walked out with a couple of sacks full. We then meandered through the rest of the stores in the place, just looking, not buying. Around 8:00, we realized we were hungry.

For supper we went to Chili's! Another bonus of Ramstein Air Base. American restaurants!! We went in too close to rush time and had to wait 45 minutes. We realized it was getting late and we hadn't checked in to our hotel yet, so decided to chance it and leave during that 45 minutes. We made it back about 5 minutes late, but they still gave us the next available table. So the rest of the evening we sat and enjoyed our supper!

Enjoying supper at an American restaurant... with the waitress coming over every 5 minutes to make sure everything was ok and give us drinks! Was a little strange, but we sure did like the drink part. Jay finished his first glass in about 2 minutes. The waitress brought out another for him. Another 5 minutes later she came out with another glass for both of us. At this point I had barely touched my first glass. And then as soon as the food was brought out, she brought out two more glasses. Really?!?!?! Did we look that thirsty! Jay downed all three glasses no problem! I pushed to get through two of them. Jay had to take care of my third one. Nonetheless, it was nice not to have to hold back on the drinks, knowing that we could have as many as we wanted.

The other thing that caught us off guard. We weren't even half way through our meal and the waitress came and asked us if we wanted dessert. We said no and so she laid our bill on the table. What?!?! No chasing down of the waitress so we can pay? (Another very German thing) So, when we were finished, we left the money there and walked out! Wow, that was easy! All these things we forget after being over here for awhile... some good and some not so good!

Then we headed to the hotel and slept in Sunday morning. Well, at least until Jay's commander called and needed something signed no later than 6:00 that night. I guess that means we're headed home earlier! It really wasn't a big deal, but did make a rush a bit. Before leaving the hotel, we had to stop and take in what nature was presenting that morning. The sun was shining, the birds were signing, the grass was green, it was absolutely beautiful. There aren't many hotels in America when you can walk out onto the balcony and see nothing but nature. No big building right next door where all you can see is windows! It was so peaceful!

It was really nice to be able to stop life for a day and simply relax. We really needed a day like that. Of course as soon as we got home I had to start in on school work, but I guess that's part of life!

Plum Tuckered

2011-03-16T16:03:00.000-05:00

You know those days, weeks, or even months when you feel like this....

As soon as you walk in the door, you don't even have enough energy to take your boots off. You just want to lay down and not do anything else!

That would be us right now. We have been going so hard lately that we are just pooped! Fortunately I have spring break to look forward to. Poor Jay doesn't even get that. He gets to look forward to his four day weekends, but those are quickly filling up with trips, classes, and lots of other things.

Nonetheless, even when we feel like we're treading water without a wall to hold on, we're still blessed to have everything we have. We both have jobs that allow us to pay our bills, keep the fridge full, and the car running. We have the opportunity to travel around Europe. And we have amazing friends over here that would do anything for us. We are lucky to have a couch to fall on to when we walk in the door (even if it's provided by the Army).

The four day this coming weekend will be a bit of work and a bit of play for us. We have a CPR instructor's course in Ansbach (about an hour away) that will last all day on Saturday. But after that, we're heading to Ramstein to take the rest of the weekend to relax. No classroom to go work in, no office to go in to, just us, with hopefully no distractions! (Even though I will have to write lesson plans sometime during the weekend.)

Our Anniversary

2011-03-13T09:12:00.000-05:00

Three years ago we celebrated one of the best days of our lives. It was a pretty perfect day in every way!

Jay and I celebrated our first anniversary together. Ok.... so it wasn't really our first, but it was our first one in the same country! For our first anniversary, Jay was training in the field in southern Germany and I was in Poland. Last year, Jay was in Afghanistan while I was back here teaching.

We didn't treat the day much different that any other day as we both had to work. But we did go out to eat at a really great restaurant that night. We also exchanged gifts with each other.

We have decided to do the traditional anniversary gifts each year. It's been fun to think up things that go under each category. The first anniversary gift is paper. Because we weren't around each other, we stuck with cards. We'll I wouldn't even go as far as saying cards. Jay wrote me a note on the back of a piece of scratch paper before he left for the field! But it's something I'll always cherish! Last year while Jay was downrange, I sent him underwear! The gift was supposed to be something cotton, so it worked great, and it was something he needed. This year, the gift was supposed to be leather.

Jay got a new baseball glove. I need someone to play catch with this spring.

I got a new scrapbook and a wallet!

The scrapbook will be a running book. We want to do a two page spread for each year of our marriage. Jay put all the pictures in it from the past three years. Our challenge is going to be getting everything that we've done in a year all on two pages! We've been a lot of places and have done a lot of things!!

We hope this next year supplies us with just as many opportunities to travel as the past few years! Jay won't be going to the field or to any schools, so we should be able to go places. We might as well make the most of our last year here!

Next year, it's fruit or flowers! It's a good thing it's an easy one since we'll be settling into our new home at that time. Jay will just be beginning school. It will be a busy time for us.

50th Birthday Party

2011-03-07T15:14:00.000-06:00

Last night Jay and I got all dressed up for a 50th birthday party. Our beloved friend, Joanne, wanted to celebrate her big day in a big way. She is one amazing lady and deserved a fantatic celebration! We are so glad we could join in on the fun!

It was fun to get dressed up, be with all of our friends, and dance the night away. The food was great and the music was hoppin'.

Jay and I spent most of the night on the dance floor! We had to show off when it came to the line dances! Such a good time!!

Elizabeth... thanks for the dress! It worked great! So sad you weren't around to boogy on the dance floor with us! We sure missed you!

February

2011-03-05T11:21:00.001-06:00

February didn't leave much time for blogging, so you get it all in one post! I can't believe the month has come and gone already. Not too much happened for us, but enough to keep us from staying home.

President's day weekend found us on the slopes in Zell am See, Austria. This is an absolutely beautiful location set in the midst of the Alps. While Jay had fun traveling down black hills, skiing from town to town, I spent some time on the bunny hill receiving lessons. I also had some fun going to the top and skiing my way down (but not all the way, too steep). Even though I didn't see Jay for most of the day, we both had a fantastic time. The weather was pretty perfect for us. We saw sun, but not enough to give us sunburn!

View from our hotel room window. Absolutely stunning!! (A picture just doesn't do it justice. It was so much prettier than the picture shows)

Looking across the Alps from the top of the mountain.

Looking down on the city of Zell am See. Our hotel was right beside the lake.

Last weekend we spent all of Saturday at the Little Miss and Mister Pageant. This is an annual event that is held on post in Schweinfurt. Jay videoed the five hour long pageant from the back of the room. To say the least, he was quite tired by the end of it. I was up front as an auditor. After the judges wrote their points down, I was one to add them all up and double check the math. It was fun to see everyone all dressed up, especially the little tiny ones! So cute!!

Jay videoing

This little cutie won her age group. She was just a doll.

The next age group up, adorable. She was blowing kisses to the judges while she walked across the stage.

Enough of the cute girls, time for some sweaty boys! I coached a pee-wee basketball team this past winter. I drug Jay along with me to the practices and games. He ended up enjoying it. We coached the little guys, aging six to seven years. It's kind of hard to teach so many skills within a 45 minute practice once a week. We practiced on Wednesdays and played games on Fridays. Our boys did a good job of picking up what we said and using it in the games. They were just so much fun to watch and see how much they grew within the season. We finished our last game last week! We ended with a pizza party and handed the boys all trophies. Next up, track starts on Monday!

Who needs us to coach?!!? They can do it on their own!

Our half time entertainment for the games. These girls were fun to watch. When not cheering during half time, they were our opponent! So many players moved that we didn't have enough for a full team. So it was the boy basketball players vs. the girl cheerleaders. Made for some pretty funny games!

This weekend was a bit calmer than the last two. Jay and I stayed home, getting things done we really needed to do! Five loads of laundry washed, house picked up, car cleaned out and washed, and grocery shopping. With Jay's new job, I haven't seen much of him lately. He has a lot on his plate and is doing his best to take care of it. Tonight though, we are staying home, watching a movie and playing games. I have a crock pot full of soup and dessert made. We are ready to sit back and relax!!

Change of Command

2011-02-22T13:51:00.001-06:00

A lot has happened in the month of February, keeping both of us pretty busy. That's my excuse for the lack of blogging!!

Last week Jay had his change of command ceremony. He took over as the Garrison HHT Company Commander. The ceremony was pretty great. A lot of nice things were said about both the outgoing commander and Jay. This position is going to be completely different for Jay. It will be a new challenge with a lot of rewards! After the ceremony, the guys had a reception with an $80 cake! It sure was tasty!! I'm really looking forward to the next year with Jay in the position he is. He will be awfully busy, but will be making change strides in the community!

The really expensive cake... that we are still eating a week later!

The Garrison commander, handing company command over to Jay.

Listening to Jay's speech! He did a great job up there!

New company commander (Jay), Garrison commander, and old company commander, singing "The Army Song"

Celebrating afterwards... Jay with all the ladies, and baby James!

(Thanks, Jon, for taking the pictures! We really appreciate it!!)

Why have I been so busy.... I accepted a full time job teaching at the middle school on post. I didn't keep my job from last year because we thought we would be moving right about now. Because I didn't think I would be around all school year, I wasn't able to keep the job. So I spent the beginning of this year subbing in the elementary. In December, I received a phone call asking if I would be interested in a math job. I jumped on it and started at semester. It has been a great start so far. I wasn't sure how I would do with middle schoolers, but I'm really enjoying them. I definitely had to get used to eighth grade male hormones!! They would make me laugh even though I probably shouldn't have been! It's just funny what their minds come up with! I'm teaching three classes of 6th grade math, one class of 8th grade math, and a 7th/8th grade mixed class called Research Projects. All the prep and planning takes up my spare time, but I definitely wouldn't trade it!

With Jay in his new job and me in mine, we'll both be working some long days!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T23:44:00.000-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day to all, but mostly to the love of my life!!

It was so nice to have him around this year! Even though we both worked all day, I had the evening to look forward to. We went out for a lovely supper at our favorite restaurant and then came home to work on school work! Romantic... I know! But hey, the work must get gone!

Speaking of work, it's been busy lately! Jay has been settling into his new position. He took over the office at the end of last week and spent the weekend getting it just the way he wanted it. He was also taking a ton of online courses in order to be prepared for command. The change of command ceremony is tomorrow so he spent the day writing his speech. Tomorrow is the start to the next year! (I'll write more on that after tomorrow) I've been using my time up on school work. Grading papers, writing lesson plans, still arranging my room, the usual stuff! I also recertified in CPR and First Aid last week, which took all the evenings. Nonetheless, Jay and I haven't spent a lot of time at home doing nothing, which was nice about tonight.

Hope you all had a lovely day and remembered all those you love, and who love you!!

Lots of Random Stories

2011-01-29T05:39:00.000-06:00

I've been collecting small (sometimes silly) stories the past couple of weeks. I haven't taken the time to put them up, so today you get them all at once....

BUILDING AT ELIZABETH'S HOUSE
Two weekends ago, Jay and I went up to England to visit Elizabeth. She had some plans to take us to a couple of neat towns around her. On Saturday morning when we woke up, we heard the wind howling and noticed the sideways angle of the rain. Not such a great day to be outdoors. Instead, we decided to stay inside and help Elizabeth get her bedroom set up. Really.... Jay did most of the work and Elizabeth and I played games or talked.

We did help out some though!

CLEANING THE SHOWER
Our shower is about one meter by one meter..... not very big!! Mix that with the extremely hard water in Germany that quickly creates not such a clean shower, and you've got a problem!! I have to clean the shower often to stay ahead of the black stuff that grows in it! I have found that the easiest way to clean it is by cleaning while in the shower. I haven't figured out a better way to clean the inside of the door. Nonetheless..... I was cleaning the shower earlier this week and went to stand up. I hit my head on the handle that turns the shower on. After my head stopped spinning and I got out of the shower, I noticed a massive egg on top of my head. I thought I could shake it off, but it didn't stop hurting after quick awhile. So, I sat in my chair with a bag of corn on my head. Jay got a kick out of it and thought it was picture worthy. It took several days for the bump to go down, which made it difficult to do my hair. I still have a bruise, but no bump anymore, thankfully!

HAIL AND FAREWELL
Last night we had a Hail and Farewell with our squadron. To those that don't know what it is, you hail the new people to the squardon and you farewell those that are leaving. We are leaving and really excited!! Jay switches over to the garrison after next week! He has already been doing some work for them, but we will finally officially be moved over.

Here is what both of us received last night...

A SPECIAL TREAT
This morning Jay and I had some time to ourselves. We slept in and then headed to the PX. They were having a sale on winter clothes and shoes. Jay was hoping to get a pair of running shoes. Unfortunately they weren't on sale. We then headed to the commissary to put up a couple of things. We ended up coming out with four donuts that weren't on the list! It is a rare occcasion that we get donuts, but we sure enjoyed them!

KEYS TO MY CLASSROOM
Yesterday I was given keys to my new classroom in the middle school. I have been hired to teach 6th grade math, a class of 8th grade math, and an applied science class. I have never taught in the middle school and really haven't even thought about it. But when this opportunity came up, I couldn't pass it up! I will be finishing up this school year full time. I'm really excited to get started! I can't get into the room until tomorrow because the old teacher is still moving out. Nonetheless, I have the text books. So today I will start making some lesson plans.

Playing in the Snow

2011-01-28T02:40:00.001-06:00

Being from Iowa, Jay and I both love snow! We can hardly imagine a winter without that flully white stuff! Well, this year we almost missed it. Being on vacation for most of the winter led us to missing several of the beautiful snow falls! We even missed the one day the school was cancelled, which hasn't happened in years!! We were in a warmer place though, so we weren't complaining.

We have been skiing a couple times this winter on a slope just an hour north of us. It has been the perfect place for day trips, and is enough to satisfy Jay's skiing desires.

When it comes to playing in the snow.... we "forced" the boys we were watching to go play in the snow.... really so we could go play with them. They have a nice back yard (that our place is lacking), along with sleds so it was perfect! We told them they couldn't play any electronics until they went outside to play. The response we got back from one of them as he was stomping up the stairs... "Fine, I'll go out now so I can get it over with and come back in to play." He's definitely not an Iowa farm kid!! My mom couldn't get us dressed quick enough in the morning to get us outside! (And I hear the grandkids are the same!)

I got all five boys dressed and outside, along with a bigger sixth boy. Then it was my turn to get bundled up. Thankfully, it really wasn't all that cold out. Here are a few pictures of the fun we had!

When talking about the boys, I use numbers instead of names. It's easier for others to keep track of!

#1 Throwing a snowball.

As you can see, the snow wasn't good for packing. It was too fluffy. As soon as you would throw, it would disperse as a powder.

#2 Taking a break from a snowball attack.

#3 The one that didn't want to go outside.

#4 Clearing off the snowy bench

#5 Wasn't quite sure what to do out there. He certainly didn't like walking in the snow with all of his puffy clothes on. He kept falling over!

#5 and #6 Jay cleared off the slide and made a snow pile at the bottom for them to fall into.

Pulling #4 and #5

I showed #4 what an icicle was that was hanging from the windows. He loved licking it, and even shared with #5.

Once the church bells chimmed for 11:00, I was quickly told by the same child not wanting to be outside that we had been out for about an hour and it was time to go back in. I told him we hadn't been out that long! He said, yes, that we came out at 10:24. So I responded by saying it hadn't been an hour yet. He continued on trying to reason with me, but I was the mean babysitter that made them stay out another 24 minutes!

At about 11:20, #4 was saying he was cold. So Jay took his warm hand out of his glove and put it on #4's cheeks. It looks like Jay is suffocating him, but he was liking it. I finally gave in after this and let them go inside.

Once we went inside, Jay entertained for awhile...

While Jay and the boys were playing, I was in the kitchen making lots of food. This was New Year's Eve day and we were heading to a party that night that we were supposed to take food to! It's so nice to have Jay around to help out instead of doing it all by myself!!

CAV Ball

2011-01-24T05:25:00.000-06:00

Last night we had our 1-91 CAV ball. It was fun getting all dressed up and heading out for the night. This time I even had time to do my hair. For our last ball, it took too long for us to set up that I had to go with a wet head. We were finished decorating by 12:30 and didn't need to be back until 4:30. It was nice to get ready and actually enjoy it! I could have used mom's extra hands to do my hair, but it worked. Jay helped me by holding a couple of times (and by cutting the rubberbands out of my hair at the end of the night.)

Looking our best!

The table decorations that I was in charge of. Not really what I had in mind, but it turned out alright. The glasses were the best part. Something we can actually use around the house!

We had a good time eating and chatting with friends...

And spending some time on the dance floor!

(Sorry, No pictures of us dancing)

Tim and Jay

Waiting for the dance to start

We'll get to go to another one of these this summer, once Jay becomes part of the Garrison. They are fun to go to.... feels like prom again! What makes it great is when the LTC gets out there dancing. No.... our SCO was not out there, but LTC Spain was sure having a good time on the dance floor! That's what will make this summer lots of fun!

An End to Block Leave

2011-01-18T15:09:00.001-06:00

It's all over.... one month of traveling and enjoying the time with my husband. But now it has come to an end and we have to get back to the real world.

Let me recap for you the last week!

Lots of time spent in airports! We played a lot of card games and computer games!

We spent three nights in Beligum. The first day we took a train to Brussels. It rained on us all day, but that didn't stop us from seeing all the sights. We still walked the entire city. Brussels is just a normal European city, nothing too extremely exciting for us to see.

The next day we decided we were tired.... we didn't feel like being wet.... so we took the day off. We went on to an Army post close by, shopped at the commissary and the PX, hit up the library for awhile, and then went back to the place we were staying. We sat and read for awhile before heading to Mons to find some food. It was a nice day to slow down a bit!!

On Friday, we drove to Weeze, Germany to the airport. There, we hopped on a plane heading to Leeds, England. I was so excited to see Elizabeth! She picked us up (thanks for not making us hitch hike!) and took us out to eat. Then we went to her place, which is absolutely ADORABLE!! It is an old barn that has been turned into a little house. I loved the wood beams and the stone walls. She has done well in the past month!

On Saturday, we were going to head to York. But it was raining sideways because the wind was so strong! Instead, we decided to stay in the house and build Elizabeth's bedroom furniture (Jay did most of the work. We played games instead). We stayed in our pj's all day and took care of things around her house! It felt good to just "stay home". That night we were going to go out for fish and chips... but that would have required us to change out of our pj's and that just didn't sound like fun for us! So, it was pancakes instead!

On Sunday, we went to church in the morning. It was fun seeing another chapel and how things were done. Then we went to a surprise birthday party for a middle schooler. Then it was off to Xscape, which was an indoor fun park. It had bowling, mini golf, a rock roll, indoor ski slope, and several other things. It was a teenagers heaven!! Elizabeth needed to check it out before bringing kids there. We were glad to go with her! We played two rounds of mini golf before heading home.

Monday meant we had to go home! After a traditional English breakfast, we were off to the airport. I was sad to say goodbye, but I know I'll see her again! If nothing else, I'll have to go visit again this summer!

Today was the first day back to real life... we had to set the alarms, we had to get up and get going, actually accomplishing things today. While Jay went into work, I stayed home and worked on the house. The Christmas tree and decorations came down, the usual decor came back out, laundry from the past month got washed and put away, supper was made (which I was so glad to do after eating out for the past month), made food for Bible study tomorrow night, and the house got cleaned. It sure feels good to be sitting in a clean house tonight, not needing to get things done (even though I'm sure I could find more to do).

Now we have to get our minds in gear for the next year ahead of us!

Day 6 - Last Full Day in Crete

2011-01-10T14:00:00.001-06:00

It's our last full day in Crete and we are already in bed! That's because tomorrow will come fast as my alarm clock is set for 3:15!! We need to be out the door by 4:15 in order to catch a taxi and be to the airport for our 6:55 flight! It's going to be a long day of traveling, but that happens!!

Today was a day of strike outs! We went to a cave that is supposed to be the most beautiful. After driving two and half hours.... we drove up to closed doors!! Bummer!! In the winter months, they are open only on the weekends! We wish they published this stuff somewhere! So, we drove another half hour to go to another cave. And strike number two! CLOSED!! The gate wasn't even unlocked for us to drive into the parking lot!! So much for seeing more caves today!

Instead we went to Rethymno to see a fortress. It was built right on the shoreline, above the rest of the city, to defend the city from the pirates. Jay really doesn't think it was pirates.... but it sounds cool to me!!! We walked up inside the fortress, walking along the wall. There wasn't much left to see, a church, mosque, and a little house. All locked up, so couldn't see in. But the fortress itself was pretty impressive!

After that we headed back, turned our rented car back in, took the bus back to our hotel, and then settled down for the night. We went to Goody's for supper. Ever heard of it?!? We thought hamburgers sounded pretty good. This place was amazing!! We each had a hamburger and cheese fries with bacon!! It totally hit the spot! We miss our good ol' American food!! We ended the night with an ice cream cone!

A good way to end our stay here in Crete!

Tomorrow... we should be back in Frankfurt in the afternoon and then are heading up to Belgium for three days. This was just planned a few days ago, but we thought we might as well use the time while we had it! Besides not looking forward to the drastic weather change, we're excited to go view the bustling city of Brussels!!

Day 5 - Stalagtites and Stalagmites

2011-01-10T02:27:00.000-06:00

Our goal for the day was to get to the Diktian Cave, which is where they say Zeus was born. His mother fleed his father because he had killed all his brothers when they were born because he had been told one of them would take over reign. So Rhea fleed and had her baby hidden in this cave.

Outside the cave, looking down on a plateau. Hard to believe it's a plateau because we are looking down on it, but we had to remember that we are thousands of feet in the air and this just happens to be several taller mountains. Pretty neat to see such flat ground amongst all the mountains.

We don't really care too much about the mythology, but the cave was quite awesome. The pictures don't give it justice. There were stalagtites and stalagmites EVERYWHERE! It was so neat to see their growth through the thousands of years. After climbing to the bottom, which was very deep, we were able to walk around just a bit. There is a lake down there too, which had crystal clear water from mountain runoff.

After that we drove to Agio Nickolaus, which is a huge tourist town. This is the place to be in the summer as it's packed with vacationers. It was an absolutely beautiful town. And to make it better the sun was shining and warm! I could have sat out on the rocks looking at the water all day! (I'm sitting on the rock below)

Then is was a long drive home. We were home early, by 7:00, so watched a movie before falling asleep.

Day 4 Finding Success

2011-01-08T12:32:00.000-06:00

Well folks.... today turned out a bit more like we planned! We headed out this morning by 9:00, heading over to the eastern side of the coast. Not to the far east, because that would take a long time to drive, but central east. If you think like we did and wonder how it could take so long when the island is only 40 km by 160 km wide. That's because the average speed is about 50 km/h (30 mph). The entire island is made of switch backs that take you through the mountains. As soon as you see a straight stretch and start to speed up, you quickly have to hit your breaks before making a 180 degree turn to head in the other direction.

Fun to drive..... not so fun to ride! Jay will tell you that first hand! He was having fun being a race car driver, but when it was my turn to drive, he wasn't so fond of the curves!! He was holding on pretty tight and taking lots of gasps of air! (Mom... he sounded like you! : )

The first place we went to was an ancient Minoan palace in Knosos. Most of it looked like rubble, but a lot of it had been refurbished. This palace was thought to be built around 6000 B.C. That is so hard for me to even fathom. As Jay put it.... that is three times as many years on the otherside of the timeline than we currently are. (6000 B.C. to 2000 A.D.) We could have taken a tour, but we weren't quite that interested in the place. They had posters up all around that explained what we were looking at. Those were good enough for us.

Our next stop was the Idean Cave. This is the place where Zeus grew up. He wasn't born here (that's where we are going tomorrow) but spent his childhood here. We had to drive way back and up to the top of the mountain. When I say up... that's exactly what I mean! We were above the clouds and into the snow! I felt like we were five steps from heaven! You can tell in the picture below how we were looking down at the clouds.

Once we parked our car, we had a good 20 minutes hike up the mountain. There was somewhat of a path made out of rocks, but it certainly wasn't too smooth. We made our way up nonetheless.... Jay a few feet in front of me. I was gasping for air as the oxygen level was a bit on the low side! Anyway, once we got to the cave, Jay climbed a little higher to get some pictures. The snow got the best of him as he fell through, but thankfully only to his knees. Can you find him in the picture?

We then climbed down into the cave, which was quite scarey. The slope was steep and the snow was slippery. There wasn't much to see down there. It was just dark and wet!

On our way down, I had to try out the snow! It was just like a snow cone, minus the flavor! Not snowflakes like we are used to, but more like ice crystals.

Jay got a kick out of me rolling up my pants, but there was a lot of mud and these pants have to last me another week!

We then headed home again. This is when I got to drive as Jay was tired. Instead, he sat in the passenger's seat and took pictures the whole way home! We have some lovely signs....

But also some great shots...

My photographer... standing on top of the world!! (even above the clouds)

Day 3 Was a Bust

2011-01-07T14:10:00.000-06:00

A quick one here, as the pillow sounds better than blogging! It was a rough day for us today. Our goal was to leave here at 9:00 this morning. I was up, dressed, and ready, but wasn't feeling so wonderful. When Jay got up to get ready, I fell back asleep. He was nice and let me rest, otherwise I would have lost my cookies! Finally by noon I was feeling better and thought I could ride in the car. We hit the road for the central part of the island. After three tries and 2 hours later of trying to find one simple road, we gave up and took a different route. We eventually met up with the road we needed thankfully. Our goal was to get to a location with caves in the mountains. Well.... 5:00 rolled around and we still couldn't find it! Greek roads are difficult. With all the mountains on the island, many of the roads lead to no where! You have to be sure you're on the right one that will take you across the mountains. This is hard to do without a map or any navigation system!!! The road signs weren't helping us out much! After climbing nearly 4000 feet up a mountain in our car hoping to find a big plateau and eventually coming to a dead end, we decided to call it quits and head for him.

So, to sum it it..... we rode in the car for 8 hours to see nothing!!!! Not really nothing, the ride was beautiful with the mountains, the villages, the water, the sunset! So we'll be glad for that!

Now for bed! No pictures tonight! Too tired to take the time! (Or I'm just being lazy)

Tomorrow.... another try at a different set of mountains and a cave.... supposedly where Zeus was born. We shall see what we can find!

Day 2 - Driving in the Mountains

2011-01-06T14:17:00.003-06:00

Today was a relaxing day, especially for me. This morning we took a bus to the airport, where we rented a car. We now have wheels for the next four days. We left the airport heading west, and that's about all we knew. We have our GPS with us, but it doesn't like Greece for some reason and couldn't even find us on the map. It didn't track us when we were on the mainland either. So, we used one of the books that we had and a small map of half the island that the hotel gave us. Using those two things along with the road signs, we made our way around the island. Jay did all the driving and I enjoyed the views... when I wasn't sleeping!

Here are a few highlights....

Tons of orange trees and olive trees

A view from the mountains. We drove up and down them so many times, switch back after switch back. It was a good thing I fell asleep for awhile as Mr. Race Car Driver was having too much fun. I would have been sick if I was awake!

A small little church perched on the top of a mountain.

Skipping rocks on the beach. We would have much rather gotten in the water, but a bit too chilly for that.

We found an anti-aircraft gun along the beach. Jay's exact quotes.... "This is like a swing set. My kids need one of these!" I told him to make one into a potato gun for our kids some day! He was invisioning what it would look like. Five minutes later, I finally made him get off! He was having too much fun raising the gun up and down using the crank and turning the whole contraption around in circles.

This is the car we rented for the week. I am sitting inside scared to death as I cover my eyes. We were on top of the mountain and Jay had to park about three feet from the edge of a 4000 foot drop off!! I was a bit on the nervous side, hoping the rocks didn't give way.

We ended our drive on this beach, watching the sun disappear behind the clouds. It was quite beautiful!!

Once we got back to Chania around 7:00 tonight, we stopped at Domino's Pizza. I know, you Americans probably think we're crazy for stopping there with all this delightful Greek food around, but it was really sounding good to us. And after being ripped off last night, we weren't in the mood to deal with them again! Nonetheless, the pizza was delicious and hit the spot. We then came back to our room after that for awhile and both read our books. I tell ya' what... I haven't read a book cover to cover since probably middle school. I know, it's sad because I'm a teacher and I make my kids read. But it just isn't something that I enjoy, mostly because I can't sit still long enough. I feel like I'm wasting time. But I am 3/4 the way through the book that I checked out from the library and brought along. It feels good to have the time to read. We'll just see if I can keep the habit once we get back home. Before the night was over, we ventured back out for a couple of ice cream cones. Now it's time to jump in bed and watch a movie on the laptop!

Tomorrow... another day of driving around the island, discovering whatever there is to discover!!

Rip Off of a Day

2011-01-05T14:47:00.001-06:00

Our first full day in Crete.... well, it hasn't turned out to be our most prized traveling day. It started out alright, but went down hill from there!

This morning, we slept in until 11:00. Crazy, I know!! I NEVER sleep in that late, especially on vacation. But, Jay wasn't moving and there wasn't anything for me to do. So I slept in with him. So, after an extremely slow morning, we finally rolled out of here at noon.

We walked along the edge of the water to see some of the town and the water front. We enjoyed looking at all the boats and walking out to a lighthouse. We spent the afternoon walking the streets, going in and out of a few shops, and just being rather lazy. We were at a slow pace and just took our time. This is not our normal style as we are usually running from place to place.

We then came back to our place and sat around for a couple hours, playing on the computer and reading our books. Then at 7:30 we decided to go eat supper. At noon today, one of the restaurant guys pegged Jay as a soldier. He talked to us for a few minutes and tried to get us to eat there. We said no as I was in the midle of eating a pop-tart. We told him we would be around for several more days, so would stop another time. We decided to go back to him for supper tonight. We didn't think much else of it and walked right on in. He told us that drinks were on the house, so we each ordered. They didn't bring us any menus after we got our drinks. Finally, the guy came over to us and asked if we wanted food. Of course we said yes. He gave us three options, lamb, fish, or chicken. Jay decided on the lamb and I ordered the chicken. We thought it was just a real personal place that they read the menu to us instead of actually handing us one. They also asked if we wanted salad, bread, and a dip for the bread. Jay said yes to the salad and we took the bread and dip. After a while, they put a bottle of water on the table along with two more glasses. We thought that was nice as we could have used more to drink.

As we were sitting there eating, I was joking about how much this meal would cost us, since we hadn't seen any prices yes. I asked Jay what he would do if they gave us a bill of 80 euro. He told me he would deal with it if it happened. So, we continued eating. When we asked for our bill, they instead brought us each a shot of vodka. Too strong for both of us, so we dumped them into my water glass so it looked like we drank them. We had to ask for our bill again, and finally we were told to go back to the desk in the back to pay. We walked back there and the guy told us 78 euro! We both nearly choked at the sound of that!!! That's $103 for those of you stateside! We were both in shock! I kind of laughed as I had just said that during our meal. Jay talked with the guy for several minutes, telling him how ridiculous the prices were. The guy then told us he would take two euro off the price of the bread. After lots of talking back and forth, the guy finally offered 60 euro and a smile. Jay said absolutely no smile if we have to pay that much. Jay counter offered him 50 euro. We settled on 55 euro just to be done with it all.

The food in this picture cost us 33 euro... and may I remind you that our drinks were "on the house"!!!

Jay walked out of there storming!! He was not a happy camper! We have never paid that much, or even half that much for that matter, for food. Jay made sure the guy knew we were never coming back and that we would tell anyone else to not come back!

The rest of the day had been pretty cheap. We both had lunch for a total of 5 euro and spent about 10 euro on souvenirs. But this just topped it all off! I guess we'll be starving the rest of the week as we don't have enough money to feed ourselves!!

We relearned a lesson we already knew.... never eat at a restaurant that doesn't have a menu with prices listed outside. We knew that!!!! Such a rookie mistake!!

Here We Go Again!

2011-01-03T08:39:00.000-06:00

And we're off again, to another country this time. We're heading southeast to the Greek island of Crete. We are heading out tonight and hope to be there by tomorrow evening. It isn't that long of a trip, but we're taking it easy and giving ourselves some time to relax.

The good (maybe not so good) part of this trip.... we have absolutely no expectations. Many times when we travel, we do a lot of research, plan events ahead of time, and know what we are doing. With this trip... we are simply just going. We have nothing planned, don't know a ton about the island, and not sure what to expect. We want to travel up to the island of Santorini and possibly Mykonos. The hard part is, it is there off season and as far as we can figure out, a ferrie runs only once a week, which would be Wednesday morning at 4:00am. We fly in Tuesday night. The port that the ferrie leaves from is 3 hours away, which would require us to rent a car Tuesday night and start driving around 12:30am. We aren't sure if that sounds like fun or not. Yes we want to go to the other islands, but we aren't sure if we want to take that on. We have decided we'll wait and decide when we get there. Sounds like a plan doesn't it!!!

So, like I said.... no expectations for this trip. Whatever happens, happens. Whatever doesn't, that's ok too. We are going to simply relax and enjoy our time together! It's been amazing getting to spend all the days together lately, without having to go to work or having other priorities. It will just be an added bonus to be together in Crete!

This is the picture we are hoping to get! That is.... if we make it up to Santorini!

Unfortunately for this trip, we still have to wear our coats. Their temps are only in the 50's. No sun bathing this time!! But.... the snow will be seen only on the mountain tops. We won't have to be walking through it!

Be back with pictures in a week!! (Unless I get really energetic and post every night with current pictures!)

2010 Year in Review

2011-01-02T07:02:00.000-06:00

Where to begin... What a year 2010 has been for us. We've had our challenges, and we've had our joys, all bringing us closer together and closer to Christ. We sure have depended on him a lot this year!

Jay was deployed for most of the year. He spent twelve months in Logan Province, Afghanistan. He started the year by working as a troop XO. He was in charge of a lot of property during that time. Part way through the deployment, he switched to S9 and became the governance officer. He worked closely with the local government and the village people. Jay played an integral part of the local elections that were held in their province. It was a big project for him that he was glad to have completed.

While Jay was in Afghanistan, I stayed back in Germany. I finished off the school year teaching fourth grade. It was an absolute challenge, but it certainly made me grow as a teacher. I coached basketball in the winter, along with track and softball for the second year in the spring. I traveled down to Venice, Italy for Carnival and to Oberammergau, Germany for the passion play. To start the summer, I spent a week in Italy on a Club Beyond trip. Club Beyond is a Christian ministry for military kids. I led a small group of girls while I enjoyed myself in the hot sun on the Italian beaches. Shortly after that, I traveled back to Iowa for the rest of the summer. I enjoyed all the great things about Iowa, corn on the cob, picking vegetables, and playing outside with our new puppy.

Jay came back to Iowa at the beginning of August and spent two weeks with me. We started our time together in Cedar Falls, walking around UNI and remembering our time there. We went boating on the Mississippi with his family and spent the night in Guttenberg. We also spent some time at the Nechanicky farm, playing in the sand box and on the 4-wheeler with our nephew. The two of us also made our way down to Des Moines to spend a day at the Iowa State Fair. we enjoyed a wonderful two weeks and didn’t want it to end.

When the fall came around, I returned back to Schweinfurt and began subbing at the elementary school. I didn’t take a full time job because we were unsure of our future. Shortly after the school year started, we received orders to stay in Schweinfurt one more year, working for the Garrison (a different unit). Jay will change over in February, becoming company commander of the headquarters company. In the mean time, I will continue subbing at the elementary school. They have kept me quite busy so far this school year.
While waiting for Jay to return back home, I certainly made the most of my time. I trained for the Army 10 Miler in Washington D.C. I traveled with four other ladies from the 173rd to run this race in honor of our husbands! After the race, I flew to Illinois to visit my sister and her family. I hadn’t seen them for three years and really missed them. During the three years, Andrea had two kids that I couldn’t wait any longer to meet.

We are currently on block leave. Jay received 30 days of leave after the deployment. We just returned from a safari in eastern Africa. We spent a day touring Cairo, Egypt, seeing the pyramids. We then flew down to Nairobi and traveled around Kenya and Tanzania, seeing wild animals in their natural habitat. Later this week we take off for the Greek Isles. We will be staying on the island of Crete and will take day trips to several of the other islands. To end our vacation, we are flying up to England to visit a friend of mine. After that, it’s back to work for both of us!

We hope the year has treated you and your family well! We pray that God blesses you in the next year! Enjoy your family and be thankful for all those close to you!

Happy New Year!!

2011-01-01T11:13:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone had a fantastic day to start off the new year!! We sure did! We are both home and resting after a great day of skiing! After being up late last night and early this morning, we'll definitely be falling asleep early tonight!

We had a wonderful evening last night, which was a perfect way to end the year! We went over to our friends', Jon and Angie, house to celebrate! We ate a ton of fantastic food... too much, but had to try it all!! We then played a game of chicken's foot with dominoes. I had never played before, but had a good time! Unfortunately, the Feldt's didn't do so well. Out of seven people playing, I came in fifth and Jay pulled up the rear!

We had to wait a few hours before midnight decided to roll around. We were getting tired while waiting! I was struggling to keep my eyes home. At 11:30, the boys decided it was time to shoot off their fireworks. We had so many that we needed to start early to get them done in time! Look at the back of the truck... those are the remains after most had been shoot off.

As you can see in the picture, it was lightly snowing on us while out there! It made it absolutely beautiful!!

Jay was having a blast! He loves anything that has to do with fire, so this was quite fun for him. He even let me shoot a couple off. I would light it, throw it, and cover my ears! I'm not a fan of the big booms!!

Angie, our lovely hostest for the night, had fun with the older boys doing sparklers, while I got to cuddle with a sleepy Noah.

This is what Jay and I had to do last year, since we were on opposite sides of the world!

This year, while the midnight church bells were ringing, Jay stopped blowing things up to come give me a kiss! He's just so sweet!! But then it was back to the explosives!!

We hope that God blesses you in many ways this year! We know we have a lot to look forward to! I can't wait for the new year to begin! We'll start it by traveling to Greece in a few days!

US Embassy Memorial

2010-12-29T11:43:00.000-06:00

Our safari trip ended earlier in the day than planned, which left us with most of the afternoon to do some touring in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. We were supposed to have a day to tour before the safari began, but because of our delayed plane, that didn't happen. There isn't much to see in the city and it isn't the safest place for us to be, but we went out anyway.

We had one place we wanted to go and it was only 3 km toward downtown, so we decided we would try to walk it. Normally 3 km would be no big deal, but I was nervous about being out and about. Jay had his map in his hands and I was nervous because it made us look like tourists (which you don't want to be pegged as). But then I realized..... this entire town has black skin and we have bright white skin. I'm pretty sure that pegged us as tourists! Nonetheless, we walked right through an extremely busy park as they were having a festival to celebrate Boxing Day. We got stared at by everyone we passed, but we kept on pushing through. I was scared out of my mind, but Jay was a little more used to it. Once we got through the massive crowd, it wasn't quite so bad.

Anyway, our goal was to get to the Memorial of the US Embassy that was bombed back in 1998. We got to the memorial and had to pay a whole 20 cents each to get in! It was a little park area with a water fountain and a memorial wall, with all the names of the victims. There were several people laying around on the grass and enjoying the beautiful day. The place of the memorial is where the US Embassy used to stand. The building is no longer there and is now the memorial.

We went in to the visitors center to look around and read the stories. It was quite interesting to see it all. We also got to watch a half hour long video of exactly what happened. It reinacted the entire day and explained the FBI investigation that eventually led to the arrest of the terrorist. This terrorist attack that took place in 1998 is the largest attack in Africa thus far, and the sad part is it wasn't even against Africa, it was against the US. 218 people were killed in the attack, most of them being Africans. This attack is compared to that of the Twin Towers in NY. That was the biggest attack on American soil and this was the biggest attack on African soil.

Hukuna Matata

2010-12-28T17:47:00.000-06:00

What you've all been waiting to see.... all the details about our trip to Africa. This may take you an hour to read so you may just want to skim it. I wrote a journal entry each day of the trip so I didn't forget what we did.

SATURDAY – 1

We woke up with intentions to leave for the train station at 0930. We pulled out right on time and were lucky to find a parking spot. It was one of the last and covered in snow. We got the car in place, but weren’t too sure how easy it would be to get out. We walked about three blocks to get inside the train station. We looked up what track our train was on and noticed a message beside it. We couldn’t read it because it was obviously in Germany, so Jay went to ask and our train was cancelled. We needed to be on the train that was ready to leave if we were going to make it in time. We ran out and caught it just in time at 0958 (our train was supposed to leave at 1018). We arrived in Wurzburg at 1025. We were supposed to leave there at 1055. We waited inside because it was freezing and we didn’t have our coats. Our train was delayed another 25 minutes because of the weather. We waited that whole time up top by the tracks and froze because we didn’t want to miss it. We finally rolled out at 1125 and arrived in Frankfurt at 1300, with two hours to spare before our plane left. The airport was PACKED! We waited in line for only 30 minutes to check in. While Jay waited in line, I went to get us lunch at McDonalds. When I got back, Jay was in the front of the line waiting for me to come back to check in. When we went up to the counter, we were told our plane was delayed an hour and a half. They gave us 20 euro in food vouchers while we waited. Unfortunately we just got our food!! So we sat and waited on the floor while we wait (no seats around). The plane was supposed to leave at 1510, but was delayed until 1645. Jay bought at 120 euro pair of binoculars during that time. We got on the plane on time, but then sat there until 1820 before finally taking off. It was a four hour flight to Cairo, Egypt. We arrived in Cairo at 2320 (one hour time difference). We were supposed to be there at 1930 and catch our next flight at 2145. We missed our next flight and there were no more flights for the night. We sat around the airport waiting for our luggage and vouchers to stay in a hotel for the night. They wouldn’t give us our luggage or passports, but made us leave the airport and go to a hotel around 0100 the next morning.

SUNDAY – DAY 2

We left the airport shortly after 0100. We took a short van ride to the hotel that the airlines set up for us. It took an hour to get everyone organized and in a room. Before going to our room, we set up a taxi to take us to the pyramids since our place didn’t leave until that next evening. With a free day in Cairo, we wanted to take advantage of it! After pulling out some Egyptian pound from the ATM, we got to our room at 0230. Jay took a bath and I went to bed. We didn’t have our luggage so couldn’t change or do much else. We woke up at 0700 to meet the taxi at 0730. We had a personal taxi that drove us through downtown Cairo. The driver pulled over a couple times so we could get out and take pictures. We stopped on the bridge of the Nile River. We stopped at a papyrus museum and saw how they make paper. We bought a sheet that had “Feldt” written in hieroglyphics. We then went to the pyramids and the sphinx. The driver took us to a sketchy place that was full of camels. They wanted us to ride a camel up to the pyramids, saying it was too far to walk. After three minutes of them trying to convince us and Jay saying no, the driver finally drove us there, which was about 4 blocks away. It was about a 300 meter walk to get up to the sphinx. We took lots of pictures and walked all around the sphinx and the pyramids. We took the taxi back to the hotel and ate lunch for free, using the vouchers they gave us. We then took the shuttle to the airport to see if we could find anything out. They knew nothing yet. We sat in the airport from 1300 to 1930. Jay read his book, I took a nap, and we played Phase 10. We finally got tickets at 1930, along with our passports back and luggage tags. We went through security and waited another hour before boarding the plane. We left the runway at 2145. We were served “supper” at 2300 and then rested!

MONDAY – DAY 3

We arrived at the airport at 0345. We bought a visa for $25 each. Thankfully we found both of our bags and got on our way. We took a taxi to our hotel for 1700 Kenyan shillings (about $20). The ride took about a half hour. We checked into the hotel and they still gave us our room, even though it was 0500 in the morning. We got into our room, Jay jumped in the shower, I situated our luggage and then we went to bed… for a half hour. I got up at 0545 to shower and get ready. We headed to breakfast at 0630. We met our group leader and got signed in. We left the hotel at 0730 to start our safari! Once we left, we drove all day. We stopped in a few small villages and looked around. One spot had beautiful wood carvings that we thought about buying. They wanted 10,000 shillings $135) and we offered $20. They said $100, so we went up to $40. They didn’t take the offer so we walked away. It was an expensive place! We pulled in to camp in Kisii, Kenya at 1600. We stopped at a grocery store near by to buy drinks and chips. I was feeling really sick, so was glad to stop. The roads were nothing close to smooth. An Iowa gravel road would even have felt nice compared to these!! We had an option to stay in a room for an extra charge for the night. We decided to camp out instead. The tent was easy to pop up. We got our sleeping bags put out and everything organized. We started cooking supper and hung out for a few hours. After supper and cleaning up, we all went to a restaurant across the street for drinks. We stayed for awhile and drank a hot sprite. We asked for a cold one, but they didn’t have any. Once we got back, we crashed for the night.

TUESDAY – DAY 4

We woke up and 0630 to get showered and ready for the day. The common showers weren’t working because the water had been shut off. Jay got a key to a room in another building, so we showered there. After getting ready and packing up, we ate breakfast. We had to wait around afterwards for another hour because the starter in the truck went out. After bringing in a mechanic and replacing it, we finally got moving at 0900. After buying groceries and getting gas, we hit the road to Tanzania. After a half hour, we stopped at a soap stone factory. They walked us through all the stations of making it… sawing the big stones into smaller pieces, chipping and carving them into shape, sanding them smooth, painting, and then polishing them. We spent $35 on our things, which we thought was a good price! We continued driving to the border of Kenya. At the border, we had to get an exit stamp. Then we walked across the border and went into immigration control in Tanzania. We had to fill out another form and pay $100 each for a visa. Those from Ireland and US have to pay $100, all other countries pay $50. Not fair, but nothing we could do about it! We continued to drive for another hour and a half before stopping for lunch. A swarm of children came to watch us eat. They were glad to get our leftover food. The picture below was taken right before we ate. There were several more kids sitting and waiting for food by the time we finished eating. After driving for awhile again, we made it to Lake Victoria (the largest lake in Africa) at 1600. We just sat around the rest of the night, enjoying the sun and the waves. We hit the hay as soon as supper was done.

WEDNESDAY – DAY 5

We got up at 0600 to get ready for the day. I was woken up at 0500 or so by someone singing the Muslim call to prayer. We left the beach at 0815 and headed downtown to the open air market. Lots of stuff to see… clothing, fresh produce, and seeds. We then traveled to Serengeti National Park. Right inside, we stopped for lunch and it started to sprinkle. Once back in the truck, we had 140 km to drive before getting to the middle of the park, where we camped for the night. As we took our game drive, we saw many animals, mostly giraffes and zebras. Once we got to camp (which was extremely full of other campers) we set up our tents and prepared supper. We ate supper around 1930, then sat around the camp fire the rest of the evening. We decided to head to bed at 2200. All night long I heard howling from the hyenas and huffing from water buffalo. A little nerve racking, but very cool. In the morning when our group leader got up, he said three lions were sitting around our camp fire. Jay must have done a nice job of building it! He climbed back into his tent and yelled for everyone to stay in their tent for awhile. A truck soon drove in and scared them away! Good thing for that!

THURSDAY – DAY 6

The alarm went off at 0545 this morning. No shower, just got dressed. The sun wasn’t up yet, but we had breakfast and got ready to go. We didn’t have to pack up because we stayed there the next night too. The bus wouldn’t start again, so they tried jumping it. During that time, we watched the sun rise and the animals creep in to camp. We finally got the truck started and hit the road at 0715. We drove around until noon on a game hunt, looking for animals. We saw lots!! We saw THOUSANDS of wildebeests and zebras that were in the midst of migrating. We spent twenty minutes trying to find a leopard up in a tree. We finally found him and got good pictures. He was sure hiding well! The drive was pretty productive, seeing most of the animals we wanted to see. We made a big list of animals we saw so we wouldn’t forget. We got back to camp around 1130 and ate lunch. Then we had time off until 1500. Jay took a nap the whole time in a hot tent. I enjoyed the heat of the sun and caught up on writing. We also started preparing for supper. We then went out again to see more animals before the sun went down. That night we had another camp fire and enjoyed our calm evening.

FRIDAY – DAY 7

I woke up at 0545 to get a “shower”. Showers aren’t that great or that clean in the middle of a game park where your water comes out of a tank and is freezing cold! After breakfast and packing up, we left at 0810 (after push starting our truck). Just a couple miles down the road, we saw a lion really close to us. We took some great pictures, and then noticed an elephant in the distance. We hadn’t seen an elephant yet, so we were really excited. The elephant was BEAUTIFUL!! He started behind a tree, but eventually walked out for us. He was just eating his morning breakfast of grasses. It was fun to watch him use his trunk to eat. He walked within 10 feet of our truck! He then went in front of us on the road and drank out of a puddle. It was quite amazing!! We spent the rest of the morning driving and seeing animals. We reached the outside of the park by noon and stopped for our picnic lunch. We climbed to a tall rock to see a huge panoramic view of the entire park. It looked like it went on forever! Then we drove on to a gorge. Someone gave us the background information and explained that that’s where humanization began. From there, we traveled to our campsite for the night. We set up our tent. Jay took a shower and I wrapped Christmas presents. Earlier in the week, our group decided to celebrate Christmas together. Everyone bought a $10 gift so we could all open a present. Jay packed duct tape, so I put them in a bag and taped them shut! We decorated a tree that African boys put together for us. We also put red and green balloons on the chairs. After supper, we played dirty Santa. Jay was #2 and I was #11 out of 15 people. Jay started with an African mask, but ended with a bottle of champaign. I stole a present from another person, getting two Africa shaped necklaces and a post card. After singing songs, telling stories and jokes, and enjoying the fire, we headed to bed. It was really cold, so we didn’t change out of all our layers, just jumped into our sleeping bags. We were staying on top of a crater, so were quite high! It didn’t take us long to fall asleep!

SATURDAY – DAY 8

We woke up at 0530 to get an early start, after a long night of rain. We packed up, ate breakfast, and packed a lunch. As we were packing up our things and putting them in the truck we noticed a huge elephant walking right through the camp site. He stayed along side the tree line and then went back into the forest. It was very neat to see. We then packed in a 4x4 Land Rover and headed out at 0700. We went down into Ngorangora Crater, 600 meters down from where we spent the night (at the top edge). As soon as we got to the bottom, we saw two cheetahs. We kept driving around seeing other animals. After an hour, we finally saw rhinos, the last animal we were waiting to see! We had then seen the BIG FIVE (rhinos, elephants, lions, leopards, & water buffalo)!! Our guide said there were only 14-21 rhinos in the entire crater. We were lucky to see them. We continued on and I fell asleep. I took too many pills this morning (including Dramamine) that I couldn’t keep my eyes open. We stopped for lunch by a lake. We had to be careful while eating because of kites (birds) stealing food. We finished with the crater and drove back out. Almost to the top, the engine overheated. We pulled over and our driver poured two bottles of water in. We went for five more minutes and had to pull over again. We had no more water in the truck, so waited for someone to drive by. After another ten minutes, we got going again. I was quite sick by now from all the bumps and crazy driving. My head was right by the window ready to stick it out. It didn’t take long until we had to pull over again. By this time it was hailing pea sized balls. We driver realized that we didn’t have any oil and the engine was steaming hot. Not a great combination. We got another 20 km and met up with another vehicle to take us the rest of the way. We then drove another 40 km to meet the bus. It decided to head on without us since we were taking so long! After quickly walking through a market of pushy salesmen, we finally made it to our camp site (which was a nice place). It had been a long day, so I was glad to be done for the night. Our campsite was right beside a snake zoo. We walked through all the cages, looking at the snakes, birds, and crocodiles. Some of the snakes were huge, being able to eat whole people!! We had another good supper and then ate some cake. Our guides made us a Christmas cake while we were on our game drive in the morning. It was absolutely delicious!! Because it was our last night, we said our good-byes and named our favorite parts of the week. Then we went to bed because we had an early morning.

SUNDAY – DAY 9

I woke up at 0430 and jumped in the shower. I thought I may have a small chance of hot water if I was the first one in, and surprisingly it wasn’t too bad! We loaded up, ate breakfast, and were on the bus by 0700 because we had a long drive back to Nairobi. We made great time and pulled into the hotel parking lot by 1400. The drive was INCREDIBLY BUMPY!! We weren’t able to sleep because we had to hold ourselves down, otherwise we were flying in the air! When we got back to the hotel, we put our bags in a girl’s room and headed out on the town. We walked 3 km to the US Embassy Memorial. The embassy was hit by a bomb back in 1998 by terrorist attack. It was neat to see the pictures of that day and watch the video. Then we walked back to the hotel. I wasn’t very comfortable out on the streets. We were the only white people around and everyone was staring at us. I was glad to be back to the hotel, even though I probably didn’t need to be so nervous. Jay took a shower and I reorganized our luggage, getting them ready for the plane. We ate supper with our group at 1830 and then got ready to head to the airport. We left at 2200 and then waited at the airport.

MONDAY – DAY 10

We sat in the airport until 0130, when the ticket desk finally opened. We then went through security and found a spot to fall asleep. I laid on top of all the bags so they couldn’t be taken. Jay walked around for awhile and then sat to doze. We flew out on time and got to Egypt at 0830. We played Phase 10 while waiting to board our next flight at 1030. We left on time and got to Frankfurt at 1355. We went straight to the train station, after picking up our luggage, to try to get on an earlier train. The train was delayed by an hour and a half, along with EVERY other train. So we sat around and waited for the original train we were supposed to take at 1537. It was also delayed by an hour an a half, so we went back to the first train. It finally arrived at 1620 and we were lucky to find a seat! We got to Wurzburg after two hours and jumped right onto another train to get to Schweinfurt. It was so good to be back in town after such a long day of traveling! Jay went to get the car and had to brush off a good 9 inches of snow! We had been hit by a huge snow storm that day! I loved being back in the snow!! We drove home and crashed pretty quickly! It felt so good to be home again! Traveling is so much fun, but it’s always nice to come back home.

All in all, we had an absolutely amazing trip! We are so glad to have had the opportunity to go on this adventure, as we will doubtfully ever do it again! My favorite part of the trip wasn’t even the animals. I was absolutely intrigued by the African communities we drove through. The majority of these people live in the slums, with houses made out of mud, sticks, grass, or tin. We saw hundreds of villages made out of huts. Their churches looked worse than our old dog house. Their hotels were literally holes in a wall. We saw a lot of people walking around with their traditional clothing. They carried spears and machete knives with them. Many didn’t wear shoes. Those that did have shoes, their shoes were made out of old tires. As I sat on the bus driving by these communities, it was hard to recognize that this is their real life. It’s not just a movie that I’m watching. This is how these people live. Wow!! That’s a life changer. That stops me from complaining about a cold shower because at least I had clean water to bath in, instead of jumping in a lake or using a dirty stream. Never again will I complain if my phone doesn’t have reception or the price I have to pay for gas, because I have other means of communication and I don’t have to walk for miles to fill up a barrel of water and carry it back home on my head. These people live quite a life. It is so different from ours, but they make it work for them. They were all so friendly and happy. They loved having us around and talking with us. The phrase “Hukuna Matata” that makes us all think of the Lion King….. well that’s the motto of their lives. It means not to worry. Everything will work out somehow, no need to fret. As our truck didn’t start every morning, we all said hukuna matata. As our 4x4 broke down half way up the crater, our driver said hukuna matata. When the other truck driver came to pick us up and take us to our bus, that’s the first thing he said when we got in. They make life work, no matter what happens. It’s an amazing attitude to have. It’s definitely something we want to live by. Take life as it comes at us. Much of the time we can’t control what happens, so why worry!

Hotel

Church

To see a BUNCH more photos (not all, because we took nearly 3000 in all) go to my picasa site! That will give you an even better idea of how our trip went!

www.picasaweb.google.com/ginafeldt

Merry Christmas to All!

2010-12-17T16:27:00.001-06:00

I know.... I'm a week early on wishing you all a Merry Christmas, but we head out tomorrow and won't be back until after Christmas. We are all packed and ready to head to Kenya and Tanzania on an African safari! Sounds pretty exciting (and scarey) doesn't it! I can't wait to get there and be in complete culture shock! We will definitely be the minority when it comes to skin color!

I am extremely nervous about our first day in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. This city is not known to be very nice. Bag snatching, jewelry stealing, money taking are amoung the top things that happen to tourists. I just got done reading a site that said that bag snatching is very common, especially to new arriving tourists! Great, that will be us! And unfortunately, we arrive to the airport at 3:45 in the morning and don't meet up with our tour group until 6:00 at night. That means we have all day to figure out what to do. We certainly can't walk around town with all of our bags as that won't be safe at all. We are hoping to get into our hotel early, or at least be able to leave our bags there. We shall see! I already took off all my jewerly, so that won't be an issue. My fingers feel bare without my rings, but at least I know they'll be safe!

The rest of the trip.... traveling the game parks, sleeping with the animals, visiting the small villages.... I am so excited for!! It's pretty sad when I'm more nervous for the thiefs in the city instead of the wild animals in the parks!

I hope you all have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS! Enjoy your time with your family and friends! Eat lots of yummy cookies and candy! I'm really going to miss that this year! Mom brought some over to us, but it was gone within a few days! I wish I could have some more! I guess I'll have to wait until next year! Enjoy the end of 2010!

Look again in the middle of next week. I'll be sure to have some pictures posted of all our animal friends!!

Until then, I'll leave you with a wintery picture. This can be your last memory of us in case we get eaten by a lion!!

Last Christmas Market Ever!

2010-12-12T14:16:00.000-06:00

I'm sad to say it, because I like them so much, but today we traveled to our last Christmas market ever! We have really enjoyed going to different cities to see the markets all over Germany. So far this year, we have been to Schweinfurt, Rothenburg, Erfurt, and Salzburg. Over the past three years, we have never made our way down to the Nurnberg Christmas market. It is supposed to be the largest and most well known in Germany. All of that also makes it the busiest, which has kept me away. But, knowing this is our last Christmas in Germany, I decided I would really regret not getting there if we didn't go this year.

We went down to Nurnberg last week (as you may have read from a previous post) but didn't make it to the market because of the crazy parking. So, after church today we jumped on the train and got down there with no problem. We walked through the market seeing lots of really neat things. This market had a bigger variety of items, so it was fun to look at it all. And of course, we had to try out lots of the food. Between the two of us, we ate a bratwurst, waffle, chocolate covered banana, and a chocolate covered cinnamon cream ball. I really wish we would have taken a pictures of this cream ball. We had never seen them before and it was quite delicious! I could have gone for another one, but I held back.

Unfortantely, the weather wasn't the most pleasant. It was very wet and cold, and it was misting the whole time. But that didn't stop us! After we walked through all the aisles, we stood infront of a live jazz band with a singer and listened to some Christmas tunes. One great thing about Germany, a lot of their concerts are sung in English. I really enjoyed listening and would have even more if it wasn't so cold.

A view from on top of the Christmas market. All you can see if the tops of all the stands.

It was kind of sad leaving, knowing that we are starting to close on this chapter in our lives. I know.... we still have almost an entire year left, but I've loved it so much here. This is the first place we have called home as a couple, so it's special to us.

When we got home, we pulled out our new toys to play with. These are both brain teasers. The first one has lots of strangely shaped figures that fit perfectly in the shape of a cube. There are over 100 different ways to make it fit together. Thankfully we took a picture of each piece being removed. It's the only way I can get it back together!

Here is the second one. It's called a skyscraper. There is a metal rod that can be put into 13 different locations. Then the rest of the wooden skyscrapers have to fit perfectly around it, forming a square. Again, not so easy! Jay tried.... and.... well, you can see how successful he was!

He couldn't quite get it all to fit perfectly. So, instead he has two empty spots on the inside of the city and two skyscrapers sticking out! He was close though!

A Little Basketball

2010-12-08T01:31:00.000-06:00

On Monday night, Jay and I went to see the Harlem Globetrotters. They are touring around Europe and stopped by Schweinfurt. We didn't get tickets to see them because it was the same time my family was here. But, by word of mouth, we found out that we could stand in a line with other nonticket holders in hopes that there would be space for us. We got to the gym at 5:30 and the show didn't start until 7:00. We were about 20 people back in the line, not too bad! Around 6:15, a guy was walking down the line and offering two tickets. Jay said he would take them, so in we went! That was great because it allowed us to get some pretty great seats! We were sitting right on the floor and had backrests on our chairs. Much better than sitting on the bleachers for 2 hours!!

It was a very cool show that they put on. I had never seen them before, so I was intrigued. Jay was taking pictures the whole time, so we have lots to share! Here are a few of the best.

Museum Hopping

2010-12-05T08:00:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, Jay and I went to Nurnberg. We had a two fold mission, but accomplished only half of it. The first thing we wanted to do was go to the court house where the Nurnberg Trials took place at the end of World War II. We have been there before, but saw only the outside as we weren't able to get in. Just a few weeks ago, a memorial museum, including the actual court room, opened up for public viewing. Jay, being the history buff that he is, definitely wanted to see it. It was neat to see Court Room 600, see many pictures and video clips from the trial, and hear all the details. History isn't always fun when reading it out of a text book, but actually seeing these places and sitting where they sat, how can you not enjoy.

After hitting up the memorial, we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the car! Yes, we are lame, but we have to save our money for our trip to Kenya! I would rather buy a giraffe than eat at a restaurant!!

Our next mission was to head downtown and visit the world renowned Nurnberg Christmas Market. This market is huge and extremely overwhelming. Knowing this has scared me away the past two years. We've hit up a lot of smaller ones, but didn't have the desire to be so crowded that you can barely walk. But, this is our last Christmas in Germany and I know I would regret not going to the biggest market when it's only an hour away. So, we drove around trying to find a parking spot that was closer than two miles out. After nearly an hour of driving and trying to find a spot in a parking garage, we were both frustrated and gave up. Instead, we headed to the Hitler Documentation Center. We decided we would ride the train down some weekend and walk to the market. It would be much less hectic doing it that way!

We have been to the area of the Documentation Center many times. This is where Hitler's parade field is and some other big sites of his are. But we had never taken the time to walk through the museum. It was a lot of reading and we have heard a lot about it already, but it was still neat to walk through. No matter how many museums or concentration camps we walk through, I will never stop being amazed at the damage Hitler caused.

After finishing up at the museum and 130 pictures later, it was time to head back home. That was enough history for me in one day! Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we'll have a chance to get to the Christmas market. Actually, next weekend will be our last chance as we head for Africa the following week!!

Spending the Day with Noah

2010-12-02T09:21:00.000-06:00

I got to spend the day wtih Noah yesterday while mommy and daddy were busy elsewhere. He came at 7:00 in the morning and played hard all morning! While drinking hot chocolate and singing Christmas songs, we put together a wreath using Noah's hands. When Jay came home, he laughed at me because he realized it was really more of a project for me more than Noah. Other than tracing Noah's hands, he wasn't too excited about it. I guess it was a bit too difficult for him to cut. Maybe next year!

Once we finished with the wreath, we moved on to building a gingerbread house. I was the builder and Noah was the decorator. I put all the walls together while Noah unwrapped the candy. He did sneak a few pieces into his mouth, but I pretended not to see. I then slapped a bunch of frosting on the roof so Noah could put the candy on. I let him put it on however he wanted. I was really impressed with his designing. He used starbursts for the shingles and even put them in rows.

Here he is in full concentration while putting the candy on. I couldn't help but laugh at the determination in his eyes. It was so important to him! I loved it!

Another funny part was that Noah would "accidently" bump his finger into the frosting while putting on a piece of candy. He would say "uh oh", would then lick his finger, then say "yummm." He said this everytime and I think I giggled everytime. I know I wasn't helping the cause, but it was just too cute!!

By the end of our building, I think he had more frosting on his face than got in his mouth!!

Here is our final product... full with house, sidewalk, Christmas tree, and a fishing pond!

Once we finished the gingerbread house, we played in the laundry that I was trying to fold. I had three sets of sheets that I needed to get put away. I think it took me about an hour to get my laundry done because I had a little boy wrapped up in the sheets. But we had lots of fun playing!! After lunch, Noah crashed pretty hard. It wasn't difficult for me to tell when it was nap time.

Later in the afternoon I had basketball practice and Noah came with me. Jay met me there and played with Noah while I was coaching. They had fun rolling the ball back and forth and shooting a couple hoops!

Then mommy and daddy wanted him back! But we sure did have a great day together! I'm glad we could help out and have fun at the same time!

Visitors

2010-12-01T07:04:00.000-06:00

Last week we had some wonderful visitors come spend Thanksgiving with us. My parents and my sister, Nicole, came to spend a few days here in Germany. While wanting to see our home, our town, and our daily lives, they also wanted to see some different parts of Europe. We took a five day tour around central Europe, heading down south to southern Germany, over to Salzburg, Austria, and then up to Prague, Czech Republic. The time went so fast, but it was so great to have them here while they could. We spent a lot of time in the car, but we saw everything we wanted to see!

I think the best part of the week was going to the Chrsitmas markets. Even though they are a tad overwhelming with thousands of people scrunched into one area, they are still quite the site to see. I love the atmosphere and all the great food!!

The worst part of the week was the weather. It rained/snowed on us almost every day, which made it really wet and cold. It was absolutely amazing to wake up to snow while in the Alps though. You certainly can't get much of a better view than that. Unfortunately we didn't get a very good view of the mountains. It was really foggy while we were down south and never got a clear shot. Nonetheless, the snow made it perfect for pictures.... much prettier than the brown, empty trees.

While they were here, we had some friends over to play a game of Balderdash. Mom had more fun playing with the kids instead!

Pictures of a few of the places we went...

Mannheim

Heidelberg

Neuschwanstein Castle

Salzburg

Salt Mines

Prague

Rothenberg

So... perhaps we decided to be kids again and have a snowball fight. Jay got the blunt of it, but he was a good sport. The people watching us got a kick out of it too!! We have to take every chance to can get to play in the snow!

Jay just got nailed! You'll notice the white on his left hip!

This was the evil look we got after both of us hitting him!

East/West Germany Boarder

Erfurt

The time they were here went entirely too fast! I wish they could have stayed a whole month!!! I had a really hard time telling them goodbye. We won't get to see them again until we move back to the states. It was our choice to stay in Germany another year and we think we made the right choice. But situations like this really make it hard! We know the next year will go by quick as we have a lot planned. Jay has a rough draft of a schedule for trips planned out! We are going to take every opportunity we can get to travel before we head back.

Mom, Dad, and Nicole, thanks for taking the time and spending the money to come visit us! We are so glad you were able to see us and see how we live our lives over here! Can't wait to see you again in a year or so!

Carson's Birthday Party

2010-11-14T13:21:00.000-06:00

The worst part about living in Germany.... we can't be with family when we want to be! This weekend, my entire family got together to celebrate my nephew's first birthday! I was kind of sad I wasn't able to be with all of them, but the next best thing..... SKYPE! My sister brought her laptop to the party and hooked us up! We got to "walk" around the house, talk to everyone, and watch Carson dig into his farm smash cake. The only thing we didn't get to do.... eat mamma's delicious cake!!

Hopefully next year by this time, we'll be back in the states. We'll be able to see everyone more often and celebrate important dates with them! Until then... I sure am thankful for Skype!!

HE'S HOME!!!!!!!!

2010-11-06T07:17:00.001-05:00

Finally.... after 350 days ..... Jay's back in town!! He arrived this morning, with about 40 other guys. It was a long night of no sleep waiting for him! I'm SO GLAD to have him back!! Instead of writing, I'll just put up a few (or a lot) pictures from his welcome home ceremony!!

With Chaplain Martindale. She's been wonderful to have around this deployment.

My photographer for the morning! Thanks Angie for taking all the pictures! We really appreciated it!

Here they come... walking in. Jay's in the middle

The guys in formation.... I'm anxious to get out on the floor!

They've been dismissed.... so I'm going to find him!

Our wonderful reunion!! So glad to have him back!

Our friend Dan came to welcome Jay... and brought him gummies, Jay's favorite!

Jon and the boys! These two will be working together in a few months, for Garrison.

LTC Spain.... Jay's new boss in February.

I just couldn't give him enough hugs!!

Now that we're home.... this is how we're spending our afternoon.... doing nothing! Just simply staying home and enjoying being back together!

This is what Jay walked into when he got home!! These are all the letters that our friends and family sent to him. Thanks for all those that did! Jay was really surprised to see them. He's read a few, but it will take him awhile to read them all.

A flag made out of all your emails!

Thank you God.... for bring him home safe and sound!

Visiting the Dufners

2010-11-01T15:15:00.000-05:00

I haven't seen my sister or her family since Jay and I got married. They came home from China to be in our wedding and we haven't crossed paths yet. When I knew I was going to Washington D.C. I looked into going to Illinois for a couple days before coming back to Germany. It wasn't too much more and I really wanted to see Andrea and the kids, so I decided to go for it!

I loved seeing the kids and spending time with them! Jacquelyn and Jacob have grown up so much!! And I got to see Alex and Carter for the first time. Alex is two years old already, so it was about time that I meet the lil guy! And Carter, I just couldn't get enough of him. He is such a sweet little baby! I held him as much as I could! Here are all my cute little nephews and niece!!

While visiting, we did some work too. Andrea and her family are moving into a new house. They are in the process of getting the house ready to be moved into. Between emptying boxes and painting walls, we had a busy few days. My main job was to keep the kids busy, and I had fun doing that!

I flew out at noon on Friday. That morning we had nothing planned, so we took it easy at the hotel. The kids were all awake by 6:30 and I was already up, so I did my best to keep them quiet....

This is my way of babysitting in a hotel room. We let mommy sleep in since she doesn't get to do that much. After I got everyone dressed and ready, we went down for breakfast. By the time we came back up, mommy was up and ready. We brought her breakfast, so she enjoyed that in the room.

It was really hard to leave them all. It will be at least another year before we get to see them again. They grow up so fast at that age!! I said goodbye to them and started walking into my terminal. I heard Jacob ask where I went and Andrea told him I had to get on the plane. If I would have turned around to say goodbye again, I would have lost it. But then as I was waiting in line to go through security, they all yelled goodbye to me. That's when the tears started! I sure am going to miss all of them!

Thanks, Dufners, for letting me crash your motel room for awhile! I'm so glad I got to see you all!!

Army Ten Miler

2010-11-01T14:58:00.001-05:00

Last weekend I traveled to Washington D.C. to run the Army Ten Miler. On Sunday morning, I gathered with 29,999 other people to run ten miles through the city. The course was absolutely beautiful, passing by the monuments, Smithsonian museums, and most impressive the Capitol building. Five ladies from the 173rd traveled across the ocean to do this race together. We figured since our husbands were deployed, it would give us something to work toward. We had a fantastic time together. The ladies I were with were so great and made the trip even more enjoyable. Some of the things we did...

FRIDAY: Tour the White House.... very cool to see..... the sad part was I compared it to the castles over here and it hardly stands up to them!! Went to Arlington National Cemetary. We visited the graves of all our 173rd fallen sky soldiers from the past three deployments. Unfortunately we have a few there from this deployment, so it was quite a tug on the heart. The best part of that visit...

This is my great uncle's site. He was quite a military man. My dad went out to his funeral early in the year, but never got to see the stone. I'm glad I was able to stop, sit, and take it all in.

SATURDAY: In the morning, we went to pick up our race packets. There were thousands of people in line, so thankfully we were early. There was also an expo there, so we walked through the hundreds of vendors and bought some fun things. The rest of the day we decided we needed to relax.... so that meant shopping!

SUNDAY: We were up and out before the sun was up. The excitement was just brewing in the air. We found our spots in the back of the crowd, about a mile behind the start line. It took us about 25 minutes after the canon went off before we reached the start line. Then we were off. Two hours later I finally finished. By the end, I was not doing too hot. I was barely standing and throwing up. Not really from running, but because I had some sort of a bug. It started on Thursday as I was flying, and still wasn't feeling well yet. On Sunday afternoon, we all got pedicures and relaxed the rest of the day. Our legs couldn't handle much more than that!

Before the race, excited to be there...

After the race, barely standing...

MONDAY: The 173rd commander's wife and I went to Walter Reed Hospital to visit our 173rd wounded soldiers. There were three guys there from Jay's old troop, so I really wanted to visit them. I think they were happy to see us. Any company is good company for them. We also went to donate blood. But unfortunately, I was denied, like usual. Not enough iron! Bummer!

TUESDAY: I flew out early Tuesday morning to head to Illinois. Details on that trip will be in the next post!

Overall this was a fantastic trip! I'm so glad I went, even if running isn't my favorite thing.