Weekend Update!

Friday

After a (sarcastic) fun day, we made dinner, put the baby to bed, and watched the new "Footloose" movie. I was skeptical, but it was the only thing in the Redbox in the middle zone of movies we both had the potential to enjoy. Actually, pretty good. Kenny Wormald, who plays Ren, kind of reminded me of a cross between the brooding look of Johnny Depp circa the original 21 Jumpstreet & the confident & cool James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause." It was enjoyable, though definitely not as good as the original.

However, the most exciting point of the movie for me was when Ren had to appear in court. Why, you ask? Because as they walked out of the courthouse, got into the truck, and drove away, I paused the screen immediately, pointed at the screen, and said to my husband (very excitedly, I might add), "I know that place! That looks like that place in Stone Mountain! I could swear that's the place! I have to look this up!" And sure enough, it was.

Apparently, it's an old train depot in Stone Mountain, GA.

This tiny town I spent years walking through, driving through, meeting friends in, going to church in, was part of the movie. I rewound it and watched it again. (My husband laughed at me.) I haven't been back to GA since 2009. Well, not outside of the airport, anyways. It was so exciting to tell him that I drove down that street everyday to & from school. Well, more liked crawled in stop & go traffic, but who's counting?

Saturday

We went to a mall a little further out called the The Southlands, which is an ourdoor mall, and walked around in the evening since it's still been so hot during the day. It's a gorgeous mall - and I got to have some delicious bubble tea from Bobalicious Tea House! KR was given a gift card at his welcome briefing, so I used it to get to some icy mango tea, with lychee filled boba & regular sweetness.

And you thought Starbucks was difficult to order!

This is actually the tea I had in Kaiserslautern, Germany, but it's the same concept, and knowing me, the same flavors.

Sunday

We headed out early today. First stop? Starbucks since I had a free card to use, and hey, it's birthday week, so why not! Then we went to Kohl's to spend some Kohl's cash, and we were good and only bought the one item (though I found about a dozen more things I wanted): a memory foam bath mat for our bathroom. It is heavenly (and we will be buying more).

We got lunch from Sonic, and then we headed home!

Not very exciting, didn't get a whole lot done, but it was fun, and we did it together. 

...Just because she's cute! =)

Big Changes Ahead!

Besides the obvious (moving to the other side of the world), we still have more changes ahead. Now that we're starting to settle in to our new place, it's time to implement my evil plan.

Mwahahaha!

But really, we're making some big changes, and I suspect it will be a challenge to stay motivated and on track.

1) Change the way we eat.

This really means the change the way I cook. I already know to buy products full of whole grains, instead of bleached grains, plenty of fruits/veggies, etc. limit sugar, processed foods, the list goes on & on... I know what to do. Now I have to DO IT. And now that we have our kitchen put back together, I can start over, find some really good recipes to add to my collection, and get my act together!

Too bad we're sorta addicted to fast food right now. Baaad family!

2) Work out more.

Ok, ok. Work out, period!

We live on base. The gym is close. The classes are FREE.

I have no excuse this time.

3) Get organized. Stay organized.

As far as difficulty goes, this one just might be the hardest, though none are exactly easy feats. I'd love to be one of those freakishly organized people, but I can never seem to get there! It requires so many items that are, unfortunately, expensive. The Container Store? Great fun. Not so much on the bank account. This is where pinterest & creativity come in handy. But pinterest can easily waste time, which in turns defeats the purpose.

I want to be able to put things away in a place where I'll know where they are so that when we need them, we can find them. Because of us moving, things went only God knows where, and we've been shuffling through piles of paperwork & stuff trying to find it all now that we're in a place. It gets very old. Of course, being in limbo for 2.5 months gets old in and of itself. And the still kinda confused 1 year old makes this task even more challenging. It has been a rough transition for her; she's gotten sick a few times already, and she's stayed in so many new places, she doesn't quite get it yet. She's become very cuddly through all this. That part is kinda nice.

I want things to be organized so that life will run more smoothly and there will be less opportunity for frustrations - because believe me, if it's one thing we learned during this (never-ending) move, it's that everything will take as long as humanly possible, and be as complicated as humanly possible. And that was all uncontrollable - but my home? There it can be controlled. Kind of.

There. Three major goals. Let's see how this goes!

Friends, Family, & Friends that Became Family!

We left Germany May 31, and headed back to the states - first through Baltimore for an overnight there, and then through Atlanta (so close yet so far!) before landing in Milwaukee. Let me just say... 2 days of airplane rides with a 1 year old? Not so much fun. But we survived.

Between jet lag, a confused child who didn't sleep as much as she should've, and just the hecticness of traveling/moving, we were exhausted by the time KR's mom & step dad picked us up from the airport with our hundreds of pounds of luggage (no kidding). We were looking forward to one thing, and one thing only: SLEEP!

The drive was an easy one; we were chatty, had a sort of... adrenaline high at finally being home. For my husband, it had been 2 years since he had been home - since we were married!

We got closer, and opted to skip heading to the store for simply... sleep.

We saw this instead:

KR's brother & sister holding signs to welcome us home.

We were mid-sentence when we saw what was happening, and then it was just silence, followed by overwhelming emotion. Family greeted us at the Boone County fair grounds, along with police cars, fire trucks, and members of the Warrior's Watch.

KR hugging his dad after 2 years apart.

KR's dad is head of the canine unit for a local police department, and was able to set up this surprise.  After an emotional reunion, we get back in the car, and begin the parade route to the community center. Yes, his dad set up a PARADE.

It's too bad you can't see our faces (The window didn't work where KR was sitting.), but I'm certain we both were teary.

At first, it was just random people craning necks to see what all the racket was about, but as we got further down State Street, we started to see faces we recognized.

Family & friends welcoming us home.

But as we got closer to the community center, some of my family was speckled into the mix - and the real kicker: our friends. Most of whom have crazy work schedules and live in the 'burbs of Chicago, if not in the city itself. 

Our friends Andrew, John, Mike, Taryn, & Nate.

All these people welcoming us home and somehow no one let this slip!

Everybody met here after the parade.

And then we naively thought we'd get to have a nice chit-chat with our family & friends.

Instead, this is what happened:

Local reporters were at the scene, full of questions about our travels & time overseas.

And then we got to hug and chat with our family & friends.

I think.

It was really quite a huge blur. One big, emotional overload of a blur, with some sleep deprivation mixed in there.

We're home!

We didn't go to bed early - not at all. After we got the baby to bed, we stayed up way too late with our friends. They were all in town, so we couldn't pass up the chance to be with them all at once.

And because I know I didn't get a chance to say hi & thanks to everyone who showed up at the parade or party we had, THANK YOU! It meant so much to us... You truly have no idea! We love you all!

June 5, 2012: Our 2nd Anniversary!

We didn't have any special plans for our anniversary, but we did finally get to eat our wedding cake! Since we were stationed in Germany, we were unable to eat our wedding cake on our first anniversary, and so it stayed, buried in my sister's freezer another year.

My sister took it out to thaw the night before, and while it smelled a little funny, we cautiously dug in! After the first little taste test, we scraped off the frosting and discovered that the cake was still delicious! The filling, still tasty! The frosting on the outside? Not so much...

So we all dug in, my sister & brother-in-law, the baby, my nephews, my niece & her boyfriend... We devoured the top tier of our cake (sans butter cream frosting), and no one got sick afterwards!

Success!

Cheers to our third year of marriage!

No Colorado Lovin'

Well, it's been a rough couple weeks here in Colorado, and Colorado has not been showing us some love.

We got here on Saturday, June 23rd, and immediately checked into temp housing. We thought we were in our last temp housing, and started to get settled.  Monday, the baby had a fever - and according to my thermometer was up over 104, so we took her to the ER, and low and behold, my thermometer was incorrect, but they did say she had hand, foot, & mouth disease.

Then things got REALLY fun on Tuesday... KR headed to work, and at 10:55, I got a phone call from the front desk informing me we had to leave the room because our reservation was only on a wait list, and we had to go. I tried to explain to her that we talked to them the night before, and was told we were fine, but then the attitude started, and they gave me 1 hour to vacate the room or else someone would come up to remove us from the room. I then said, "Well, my husband is at work, and he can't bring his cell phone with him, and I need to get in touch with him. I have a 1 yr old, I can't really do it by myself." Again, more attitude, with a stern, "Get out." Of course, I couldn't get in touch with him, of course the baby was still feverish, and now didn't get to eat, I was panicking, because where were we supposed to go? And why doesn't it matter that we were TOLD WE HAD A ROOM?! Nevermind that we didn't get any sleep because we were at the ER until late, and even if I could get the stuff ready to go, hubs had the car, so I had nowhere to put it! None of this mattered, though, and the most disappointing of all was the attitude - not sympathy - given to the new family who were stranded with nowhere to go.

After that, we were fortunate enough to stay with his aunt & uncle who live about 10 minutes from base... we were EXTREMELY thankful.

The floor plan we wanted was of course, not available until an unknown date in July, so we were (almost) forced into taking the floor plan we were less interested in.  It had a bigger garage, but smaller bedrooms, and a very tiny kitchen (which is driving me crazy!). But still, at least we had a place!

And then the money-spending began. Seeing as all our stuff was (and still is not) here, we had to buy stuff to get us by. We had our luggage, a couple toys, and... that's about it. No towels, sheets, trash cans... nothing. No TV, no internet... but we had air conditioning!

And then the spider & bug killing began. The place was dirty... The baby has been sick almost the entire time we've been in Colorado, mommy has been sick about half of it, and there was the night the fire alarm (only the one in our bedroom) started chirping and woke us up at 1am and 530am, and then we called maintenance and was up til about 7am.

And today, we need to buy a new pair of tires...

Soooo it's been a rough couple of weeks... Hoping the next couple more than make up for the rocky start!