January 31st 2011

It has been a while since I posted an entry. I intended to write in this much more often but I get sidetracked and don't get around to it. No, I am not too busy to get it done. I generally have plenty of excess time on my hands. However, these last couple weeks have been hectic. The Mr has been out of the country twice this month. First he went to the states for a class. He was gone for a week. That was a very long week for me. It is one thing to be apart while he is at work for the day or whatever but it is a totally different when he is gone all the way to The States. I worry 24/7 while he is gone. Especially because he was on the East Coast and the weather was bad which equals bad roads. Also, he was finally able to attend his a game and watch his favorite team, The Philadelphia Eagles. I think he really enjoyed that. He also got to make me jealous and enjoy some of our favorite American restaurants. Of course, the trip wouldn't be complete without some good ol' American shopping. All in all I am pretty sure he had a great trip. 

Then last week The Mr went to Italy for an awards banquet. Yes, he was up for an award. He won at the first level so he went to Italy as a nominee for the next level. Unfortunately, he didn't win in Italy. Still super super proud of him for not only winning the award, but it is his second time winning that award in his short career. It seems he had an awesome time in Italy as well. He looks pretty cold in all his pics but I think he still enjoyed it. Also, I was shocked to find out that he tried some wine. My husband is not a drinker and on a rare rare occasion will have a beer so for him to try wine seemed pretty crazy to me. Even more crazy is that he liked it. Well he didn't like them all. I am so happy that he tries new things. I could have went to Italy with him but I had just started new classes and had no idea how hard/easy they would be. So I opted not to go in case the classes turned out to be too hard. 

Speaking of school. I am a couple weeks into Spring classes now. I feel a little overwhelmed in one of my classes but I will push through. Luckily the other class is more of a review for me, so far at least. So it gives me the chance to focus a little more in the other class. Also now that I started new classes, I see a lot less of The Mr. We see each other for a few minutes when he gets home from work and then I head out to class. The hardest thing for me has been planning dinner so that its done when he gets home from work. I also have to get ready for school so I have to make sure to get dressed before I start dinner. Today has been the most successful timing wise so far because I am using the crock pot. It is a good thing so many things can be done in a crock pot because I think I will start using it even more on nights that I have class. 

Lets see what else has been going on...

I guess that is about it. Hopefully things get a little more settled in and I have more time to write here...until next time!

The Mrs.

NYE in Paris

WOW, I can not believe we are already in 2011. Happy New Year EVERYONE! Where should I begin...I guess our trip to Paris for New Years Eve. We decided to spend NYE this year in Paris. If we can't spend it with family we might as well spend it at the Eifel Tower. We left early early Friday morning, like 2am early. That isn't much fun. The bus was packed with only 6 seats open. Luckily The Mr and I each got our own set of seats, this was good for sleeping purposes. When we got on the bus The Mr was ready to get off the bus because a family was going to be sitting right behind us. Not that there is anything wrong with kids but a 6hr bus ride with crying kids won't be so great. Luckily the kids in the family were well behaved and the baby slept almost the entire way. About an hour outside of Paris we stopped for breakfast. I always wear something comfy for the ride and then change as we get closer. Well, I forgot how gross and dirty public restrooms are in Paris. EWW!! Luckily this stop had a shower area and while it was dirty there was room for me to hang my bag and change without having to touch all the germ infested surfaces. HAHA, no joke those restrooms make me want to puke. Anyways, finally onto Paris. We had a guided city tour to start the day. Saw plenty and took a bazillion pictures. Okay so maybe not a bazillion but plenty. We stopped at the Eifel Tower for a few minutes to take pictures. The clouds were hanging pretty low that day so it looked like someone had just chopped off the top of the tower. It was freezing outside so I was ready to get back on the bus. In all honesty, I could have came back home and been happy I saw the Eifel Tower and took a picture there. After a couple more stops and sightseeing we checked into our Hotel. This hotel was straight out of a movie. It was so small and quiet, just like in the movies. We get out room key and it was room 265. Well usually that would mean second floor. So we decided to take the stairs. Boy were we wrong. We kept climbing because we couldn't find our room. Finally we reached the 5th floor, had to be our floor because there were no more stairs WRONG AGAIN lol. Our room was on the 6th and top floor that could only be reached by elevator, so we took the elevator up one more floor. After fumbling with the random key we finally made it into our room. The room was SO TINY. Literally the entire room and restroom was smaller than our bedroom here at home. And it was freezing. I didn't really care, I threw the extra blanket on the bed and laid down for a nap before getting dressed for the evening. I woke up from my nap freezing cold, thank goodness the thermostat was easy to figure out, I turned that bad boy up. Finally showered and got ready for dinner. We decided to head to Hard Rock for dinner, so that we could add to our European Hard Rock collection. Well, that was another bad idea. After taking a few wrong trains we got there only to find out they were charging a cover. 55euro PER PERSON just to be seated and that does not include food. Of course its NYE so most places were going to be expensive. But that was just too much for us. So we found a cute little train themed pizza place nearby. The Mr had a pretty good lasagna and I had a pizza. They too had marked up their prices for the night but it was still much cheaper than Hard Rock.

After dinner we went back to the Hotel to go potty ( I wasnt about to find a public restroom) and warm up a little. Then we headed out to Eifel Tower. The Metro (subway) system was starting to get crazy busy. The locals get very aggressive and physical. I was pushed with a lot of force by one woman, yelling at me because I wasn't moving like she wanted me to, too bad I had no where to move, I was surrounded by people. She just looked like an unhappy person so I sent her a big smile because I knew it would make her even more mad. I am sure she was cursing me out to her young daughter, awesome example mom! Anywho we made it to the Eifel Tower. A billion more pictures and freezing temps later we were almost ready for the 10, 9, 8 you get the picture, the New Years countdown. Too bad there was no countdown. The lights that light up the tower every hour on the hour went off and we knew it was 2011. Nothing special. No big fireworks show, nothing. Wait, random people lit off their own fireworks in the crowd. One bottle rocket even failed to go up into the air and flew straight into the crowd, lovely. The people in the area got crazy, people were banging on car windows and jumping on the roofs. It was something you only see on TV only, it was real life, right in front of us. We got out of there ASAP. It wasn't a long walk back to the hotel. Along the entire walk were people getting crazy celebrating. We had been warned that it gets pretty wild for hours after the New Year strikes, and they weren't kidding. Finally we made it back to our warm and toasty hotel room. The Mr crashed out pretty quick, I watched BBC News for a little bit, they were showing the countdowns in other cities. The following day we did some more sightseeing and freezing. I really wasn't too excited, I had seen the Eifel Tower and was ready to be home. We did go back to the Eifel Tower and this time we climbed up into it. Later after lunch we headed home, I was happy.

And that is how we spent our NYE. Hopefully next year we can spend it with family back in the states.

Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas World!

It is hard to believe that Christmas is already here. Once again we are having a white Christmas. The snow is pretty deep outside still. The roads are still icy and not very safe. I am writing this while I take a break from cooking. The Mr is in the other room playing with his new toy so I probably won't see him until the food is ready. Already made his potato salad, but still need to make his rice. Yes, potato salad and rice. It is his favorite combo and we have it with all major meals. Good thing we both like it and can eat it for a couple days as left overs. He even lets me know when he is out of rice so I can make another batch. I think this will be one of the traditions that we carry on for many years.

Speaking of traditions, we really don't have a lot. We try to buy a new ornament for each of us every year. This year we bought a beautiful Mickey ornament from Disneyland Paris. What an important day that was for us. Not only did we get to travel to Paris and The Mr had his first Disney experience but it marked him coming home from his first deployment. Our other new ornament this year is a hand painted Texas shaped ornament. It sits proudly near the very top of the tree. Whenever I see it I think of family back in Texas and wish we could be there celebrating with them. Maybe one day they will all get to see the ornament because our tree will be up in Texas, I can wish can't I? Another tradition we have is opening one small gift on Christmas Eve and the rest on Christmas morning. This year we didn't do the small one on Christmas Eve but hopefully we will keep that tradition.

This brings me to my next ramble. Are we the only ones left that open presents Christmas morning? It seems like everyone was opening gifts all week long or on Christmas Eve. I love opening gifts Christmas morning. DUH, Santa comes the night before so how can you open gifts before then. HAHA, I know its not that serious but I just hope we can keep our traditions year in and year out. I look forward to many many years of traditions.

We haven't really started a tradition in regards to Christmas meals. I think though that I want to start doing a Christmas breakfast and big Christmas dinner. Neither of us eat ham so it will always be turkey but tradition none the less. I had planned on making tamales this Christmas but I dont have masa. So I won't be making them until this week sometime, no big deal because I didn't make them until New Years last year. A friend is sending me a recipe for bunuelos, so I think I will be making those for New Years as well.

The hardest part of the holidays this year is being so far from family. We were away last year too but had just been home for Thanksgiving so I think it was a little easier. The Mr hasn't been home in over a year now. It would just be nice to hang out, laugh and enjoy some amazing food with everyone. Hopefully next year we can back to the States and spend Christmas with everyone. Until then, we are there in spirit!

Well, I better get back to cooking. Luckily I am not making everything this year as we decided to just go with the basics but it still takes time. 

Merry Christmas All!!

Snow Snow Snow

The snow just keeps coming. I just braved the cold to go out and measure. We have 6.5in in the back yard. It is really beautiful out but I really do not like the snow. It is messy, gets tracked in the house and I always manage to step in wet spots in my socks. It makes me crazy. The roads worry me as well. I dont mind snow on the road but I worry about ice on the roads. The roads usually get slushy and wet but I worry about that turning to ice overnight when the temperature drops. We just stay in and avoid the roads.
I think I have pretty much kicked my cold. Finally got a full night of sleep last night. Well not all night because I stay up pretty late. Im pretty sure The Mr is over his cold. He back to being full of energy and making me crazy. He just graduated a class Friday night. I am glad that is over because he was always doing homework for that class and never had time to just relax. Now hopefully he can relax and enjoy his weekends!

London

Okay, where do I start. This weekend we went to London England. It was AMAZING. It is officially my favorite place in Europe. We managed to fill the memory card on the camera to capacity and run the battery out. Both of which we have never done. So we must have really been having a good time. It was a little cold out so we stayed on the tour bus as much as possible. I have to say the shopping in London is AWESOME. I would love to win the lottery and go back and do nothing but shop. I think they had just about every store I could possibly want to shop in. London also has many American Restaurants which I was excited to see because I miss good ol American restaurants. London must have an abundance of wealthy people as well. I saw more Aston Martins, Bentley's, Audi's, Lamborghini's etc than I even knew existed.  It was pretty cool to see all those cars that you normally only see on TV. 

For a few weeks now I have been craving a maple bar (donut). I was super excited when we saw Krispy Kreme. I was able to get a maple donut. I was so happy. It was the perfect ending to an awesome trip.

The ONLY part of London I didn't like was the exchange rate. Highway robbery. 

The Mr has had a cold for a while now and we decided to stop in a little drug store to get him some medicine for the ride home. Well, it was SO nice to be able to walk into the store and read all the labels and know what we were buying. It was especially nice that we even recognized brands that are sold in the US. Not something that happens very often here in Germany and probably would have stressed me out. 

Sorry, this is just a bunch of randomness. I really enjoyed London!! Okay, I LOVED London :) 

-The Mrs

12.10.2010

T.G.I.F!!! 

I happen to really like Fridays. 1) Friday means that the The Mr will be home with me for the weekend and I won't have to talk to myself all day. 2) I do not cook on Fridays. This is a big deal for me. I try to cook us a good dinner the rest of the week. However, dinner on Friday is my day off. Take Out Fridays we like to call it. The Mr usually picks us up something on his way home from work. Most Fridays I pick what I want but occasionally he just surprises me. Even though we don't really have a big selection of restaurants to get take out from, I really like not cooking. This is probably because I am a super messy cook and not cooking = no mess to clean up. 3)Friday usually also means we are getting out of the house at least one day for the weekend. Okay, so some weekends we just head to up the bigger base nearby and do a little shopping or my fav, enjoy a strawberry lemonade at Chilis. At least we are out of the house. So yes I am happy today is Friday. 

This weekend we have a little trip planned. I feel a little bad because The Mr has a slight cold. I hate for him to get even more sick while we are out sightseeing. However, the trip is booked and he says he is fine to go. Someday he will learn to bundle up better and not catch these colds he seems to always get in the winter. I guess that is what happens when you think shorts are appropriate for winter. Oh I just remembered another reason I like Fridays. Most of the time I have my school work all done for the week and don't have to worry about it again until Monday and some weeks I even wait until Tuesdays to start working on it.I can't believe that next week I have midterms already for my current classes. School goes by so quick some weeks. This was the hardest week of work so far this semester. I am glad it is almost over. 

It snowed a lot here yesterday. I am not a fan of snow but The Mr loves it. It is really beautiful outside our kitchen window. Lots of Pine Trees covered in snow. It is so beautiful to see all the chimneys with smoke coming out, with snow covered trees as a backdrop. Almost looks like a photograph.
Until Next Time, The Mrs. 

12.7.2010

Today I decided to make a blog for us. I say US but I am sure The Mr. wont really write anything very often. I however, have nothing better to do and will probably write a lot of random things. I am not totally sure what all I will include in this blog. I just wanted to make one place that the family and friends back in the states can check up on us. Being so far away from family. Also, once I get the nerve up I will probably do some video blogs. We shall see how that goes. For now though, I have to figure out all the settings etc to make this run smooth. Lots of love, The Mrs.