Goodbyes

Today I had intended on continuing my blog about our vacation home for the holidays. I want to take a break from that and talk about a couple other things going on in my life right now.
1st. Everyone knows I am a military spouse. One of the hardest parts of military life slapped me in the face today. It never gets easier. People often ask for advice about joining. I always make sure to include the phrase "Military life isn't easy, this life isn't for everyone". Today I remember one of the reasons it is so hard. Today I had to say Goodbye to my best friend here in Germany. Being a military family means moving and meeting new people all the time. Sure its fun, but it seems like as soon as you find that one friend you connect with and your husbands get along great....orders come down and its time to part ways. You know its coming, but nothing gets you ready for that last hug, knowing it could be the last one...but praying you will meet again, because after-all we could end up stationed together again. It is crazy how much we experienced in the small amount of times we were friends. Here she is with her adorable son the DAY we met back in 2010.

 

Here we are in NYC! 

Our little families. In the time we have known each other, she had a baby and I had a baby. CRAZY!

 I miss her already! Until we meet again..

And now onto the REALLY tough stuff. I have an uncle who has been battling pancreatic cancer. I woke up to a message today that the Dr's gave him 30 days. This is the saddest news. I remember growing up, we would take vacations to Texas and go to "The Ranch". I remember him loading us into the back of the truck and going to see all the animals out on the ranch. I remember him taking us to see the donkeys on the ranch, crazy donkeys they were LOL. I remember the old red houses on the ranch, I remember the smell of them actually. There was a stuff rattlesnake or something in there... I remember he let me feed a baby calf with this ginormous baby bottle.  Oh the memories... On our last vacation home we went to visit him. While he is very different, the cancer has taken its toll on him, his smile, and sense of humor haven't changed one bit. I am so happy that The Kid got to meet him, I only wish he could make the same memories out on the ranch with him. Here is my dad with two of my uncles, My uncle who I speak about here is in the center...When his time comes, and I will have faith its much longer than 30 days, The Earth will truly loose a great man.

I LOVE YOU TIO!!!!

Almost 6 months.

So I knew I was behind in blogging. Have no idea if anyone reads this things anyways. BUT I just realized I haven't blogged since Thanksgiving. We are almost into Feb of 2012. I am seriously slacking. Today is a good day to update because I am being super lazy. So where to begin. December I suppose.

December 2011

Let's see...what happened in December. Well I turned 25. WHAT THE WORLD!?!?!? I am getting old. So until The Mr's birthday later this year, I am older than him. He likes to tell me how old I am. We also celebrated our 4th Wedding anniversary. It seems like that is the wrong number. This summer we will celebrate 8 years together. That sounds more accurate. I guess when that time rolls around I will do a post about how much life has changed since then. I suppose that is all that really happened the first couple weeks in December. Mid December we headed to vacay in Texas!!! Anyone who knows me, knows that I live for family time. So where do we start...let talk about The adventure of getting to Texas.

Texas or Bust

So we left early early in the am. The 2 hour ride to the airport was easy, nothing eventful. The Kid slept the whole way. I think I slept some too LOL. Check-in...easy and quick. I must say, the staff at Delta in Frankfurt were great with us. I should have photographed the "Family Restroom" in Frankfurt. It was clean and spacious. More public places need to have these restrooms. I hate when I have to change The Kid when we are out and about sometimes, because you just never know what the changing tables will be like. Sometimes I dont event attempt it, I just change him in my lap in the car. Anyways, onto security at the Airport. While it takes a little longer than it used to when it was just me and The Mr. We tried to travel light. But we still had the car seat, car seat base and stroller to break down and put through security. It wasn't bad, just took an extra minute or two. Went through security fine. Get to the gate and someone is holding things up....so we're in this forever long line. Chango didn't mind for a bit. BUT eventually he had enough, he wanted out of his car seat and was hungry. I as trying to wait until we were seated in the gate area but that was taking forever. Luckily, they noticed us in line and waved us to the front and put us right through into the gate area. Now we just had to wait to board. Once again, Delta staff at FRA were great. We prepared the stroller to be gate checked and they took it so we didn't have to fiddle with it anymore. Now here is where i got annoyed and hopefully anyone withOUT kids takes notice. They always board, passengers with kids, wheelchairs etc before everyone else to give them some extra time. AND it DOES take a couple extra minutes to get down the Jetway with a kid, diaper bag, backpack, car seat and car seat base. So they announce they are going to begin boarding with these people and then who would be next etc etc. Of course EVERYONE at the gate decided to huddle around the gate area as though its a race to see who gets on the plane first. Are you kidding me people? You aren't going to be left behind. This was a VERY FULL international flight so it was a ton of people huddled around the gate. So they make the announcement for the people that take longer to go ahead and board. Well how the EFF are we supposed to board when all these people are blocking the way.
Anyways, no one cared to move for us so I just made my own path :) I told some other people with kids who were stuck to just follow us LOL. I was really mad. So if you are ever waiting for a plane, stay in your seat until it is actually your turn to board!!! Okay, that small rant over. Plane ride....Well we got stuck on the runway area for 3 HOURS because the plane was broke. No problem because Chango slept for those three hours...But I knew we still had an 8+hr plane ride ahead of us. The flight wasn't too bad as far as he goes. Just one small interesting thing. This kid poops once a normally. Twice at the most. Well for this flight he decided he was going to poop every hour or two. What the heck kid. Wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have to change him in this barbie size airplane restroom with an equally small changing table. Have you seen this kid? He isn't exactly small. Anyways, Thank Goodness we had our layover scheduled for 6 hours because with that 3+ hour delay we had in Frankfurt, we still wouldn't miss our connecting flight. Our layover was quick. Had enough time to grab some American Mickey D's. let the kid stretch and slowly make our way to our next flight. Here he is loungin around durign our layover.

 

So we boarded our plane home. The Kid was exhausted from our first flight and had enough. He was PISSED the second we put him in his car seat. He started screaming right away. He wouldn't take a bottle, a pacifier, nothing. I knew he was tired and uncomfortable but there was nothing I could do until after we took off. Everyone around us was staring at us. Mind you it was already dark out and most people probably wanted to sleep. They looked ready to strangle us. We could tell by the noise he was making he was about to fall asleep any second. He makes the same noises when he is about to fall asleep. So we just let him be. Well literally the second the plane sped up down the runway to take off, he knocked out. He slept the ENTIRE way. He didn't even wake up for landing. He was OUT. We made our way to our hotel for the night, exhausted. We had an early morning start the next day so we crashed out. Here is the Kid the next morning before we got ready to start our vacation with family!!!

15.10lb Turkey

Been busy lately so I forgot to blog about Thanksgiving. What a great day it was. I was up at 5:30am to get the Turkey in the oven at 6am. I was very worried the turkey wouldn't cook all the way in time because it was a 19 pound turkey...yeah thats a big ol turkey for my little ol' German oven. Thank the Lord it turned out great. At least I thought it did LOL. We had two other families over. Great day.  Here are some pics from the eventful afternoon/evening!

 

 The Kid had his 4-month checkup and shots yesterday. 4 months ALREADY!!! Where has the time gone? He is so full of energy and personality already. 

He weighed in at 15 pounds. CRAZY!!! He is getting so big. It is already late here so this is just a quick blog post. More to come another day!

Familia

So this is what the entire purpose of this blog was, family. We finally had family pics done. It was a very quick shoot because little man was crabby and it was cold out. Once he was cold, we were done. She still managed to get some great pics as always. Enjoy!

11.11.11

I have a few things to touch on today.
First and most important, Chango. He and I ventured out in the cold yesterday for a WIC appointment. He weighed in at a whopping 14lbs 12oz. He is 24 3/4 in long. For both height and weight he comes in at the 75%. He fluctuates so much it amazes me. Good news, I still get my WIC vouchers, YAY eggs and milk hahahaha. Bad news, in two weeks he goes in for his 4 month shots. SHOTS!!!! I hate when he gets shots. I am a worry wart, so it makes me crazy. He seemed to handle the first set well, lets pray he does well again this round.
Onto 11.11.11 news. Today my oldest niece turned 21. Yes I have a niece of legal drinking age. CRAZY!! She is honestly one of the brightest most intelligent people I have ever met. Since she was a little girl she has been super smart... amazing smart. When I think about her age, I am amazed that there is a 21 year difference between the oldest grand-baby (for my parents) and youngest (Chango). So I send her tons of Happy Birthday wishes!!!! May she have an amazing day!!
More 11.11.11 news. When The Mr and I were engaged, I picked a wedding date, TODAY! Yes I picked 11.11.11. How did I pick today? Well I was working and carded someone to buy alcohol. His ID had today as an expiration date. I liked it and went with it. I even asked my niece if it would be okay to have our wedding on her 21st birthday. Didn't want to steal her thunder. Well here we are over 4 years later and no wedding. The Mr ended up enlisting in The USAF. We did a quick courthouse wedding and said we would have a big wedding TODAY, when we could afford it. Well here I am, today, sitting at home blogging, not at my wedding. What happened? Well about a year and a half ago, we started planning this wedding. Started researching venues, caterers, the whole bit. WELL, while researching we started seeing $$$$. It was adding up quick. We didn't want much in a wedding so it was affordable BUT did we really want to spend that much money on one day? It took us all of 5 minutes to decide we didn't want to spend that much money on a wedding. So no wedding. Looking back on it, I am so glad we made the decision not to have it. Not that I think weddings are a waste of money, but I have enjoyed our trips home, the new truck outside, providing for our son etc so much more. Would the wedding have prevented all that? I really doubt it. BUT, I just cant imagine having spent all that money on one day.
I suppose that is all for now. PS. new pics should be up on here within the next couple weeks!

More mini Vacay

Day 3

We fully intended on waking up early early Saturday morning and heading to New York City. Well it took us a while to get going. Then we headed off to Ihop YUMMY with our friends. Well the weather was horrible. It actually started snowing while we were eating breakfast. While at breakfast we decided to go ahead and skip NYC for the day. I was not about to have Chango out in that weather and I don't like to be wet and cold so I knew it was a bad idea. Good thing everyone agreed. Oh yeah, before breakfast we stopped at a WalMart to pick up umbrellas. WOOHOO WALMART!!! Anyone who knows me, knows that I LOVE WalMart. Went in for an umbrella and came out with gloves, jerky, gum (that The Mr & his cousin made fun of me for, haters). Man I love me some WalMart. So anyways, after breakfast we headed to a local mall. Well, when I say local I mean 5000 miles away. As much as I love the States, it was annoying having to drive 20min to get anywhere. Oh well, at least I could read the signs etc on the way :D. It was so so nice to be in a real mall. Good Times!! The rain was nasty out still when we left. We headed to dinner at OLIVE GARDEN woohoo...another American restaurant I like. Of course I know its not authentic Italian but I still like it. They even had my favorite desert of theirs, Pumpkin Cheesecake. That stuff is delicious. I  ate it all by myself. Then it was back to the room to get some rest.

Here we are at Build-A-Bear. Chango made his first bear!! 

Day 4

YAY, NEW YORK CITY!! We woke up nice and early again . Pretty sure we got very little sleep on this trip LOL. We stopped at Mickey D's for breakfast real quick and headed to Penn Station to catch the train to the WTC site.  Here are pics from the day...not much to say other than it was tons of fun!!! PS, hope you can hold it when you visit, no public restrooms anywhere! ha! 

 On the Hop On Hop Off, Double Decker bus tour

 Times Square

 Whats left of the Twin Towers!

We had to return early from NYC because The Mr and his friend were headed to an Eagles game (the purpose of the trip). He didnt get home until SUPER late and we had to be up SUPER early to take his cousin to the airport for her plane ride home.

The Mr at the game! Eagles WON!!! 

Day 5

We woke up at like 3am to take The Mr's cousin to the airport. We got back to the room around 6am and thought we would get some sleep WRONG. I decided to go ahead and start packing because we were going to try and fly out that night. After packing we decided to go ahead and wait until the following day and fly out of a different airport so that we would be on a commercial plane rather than the cold loud military planes. So we got dressed and headed out to go shopping!!! I was going to put the address of a mall I wanted to go to into the GPS but then I saw an Outlet Mall on the GPS. So I decided to go ahead and go there instead. Glad we did. We got some great deals and got lots of shopping done. We actually ended up buying another bag in order to fit everything in. For dinner we picked up food from a Mexican restaurant. Okay, we would have gone in and sat by Chango was beyond fussy. He wasn't having it. I think he had enough of being his car seat. He was in it to fly and all day in NYC. I think he just wanted to relax. Anyways, horrible Mexican food. Super disappointed. Cant wait to go to Texas in Dec and have good stuff!!

This is Chango with the first relative on either side that he met, at like 4am LOL!!

Day 6

Sad sad day. Woke up to head back to Germany. BOO!! We met with our friends to go have some Sonic. YAY, cherry limeade, my fav!! Then we headed to Baltimore to catch our late night flight. Nothing too exciting here. Here is Chango in his stroller like a big boy LOL. I wanted him out of his car seat because I knew he would be stuck in it for the eight hour plane ride. 

 We finally made it back to Germany, exhausted beyond belief.

Mini Vacay

So we just returned home from our little getaway to the States. WOOHOO, oh how I love America. The Mr and his friend wanted to go to an Eagles game. So The Kid and I just went along for the ride, and American shopping and eating of course  :D So the three of us along with our friends and their two children set off on an adventure.

Day 1:

We went to Ramstein to catch a military flight aka free to Baltimore. Well we missed the flight because there were not enough seats on it. BOOHOO!  So we set out to find a room for the night since the next flights out were EARLY in the morning. We tried a couple different hotels and they were either too expensive or no room, bahhh humbug! Anywho, we finally found one for a decent price. It turned out to be pretty nice. Our room was connected to our friends through a doorway, which was nice, their kids could run free. It was The Kid's first time staying in a hotel so of course I documented it. Here he is hanging out.

Day 2

Day 2, we wake up before the Sun and head to the terminal. We got there and it was SUPER packed with troops. So our first chance at a flight was at like 7:30am. Just our luck, cancelled, cancelled, cancelled. All the flights we were hoping to be able to catch that morning were cancelled. Good times, NOT. So we were waiting for one last change flight around lunch time. All  of the sudden they announced a few open seats on a flight to McGuire AFB. We were lucky enough to catch that flight out. (Our friends made the next flight out to Baltimore). So we went on a KC 135. This is not an ordinary plane with ordinary seats and luxuries. It was just the opposite. COLD and LOUD. Ha, but it got us to exactly where we needed to be. So the Kid had his first flight on a military plane, and it was an international flight. He did AWESOME! Only cried twice, and no one could hear it because it was so loud on there. Here is on the plane.

We got to the base, picked up the rental car and settled into lodging for the night. The Mr went and picked up some food while Chango and I got comfy, we were exhausted from a long day of traveling. Late late that night The Mr headed to the Phili airport to pick up his cousin. She was joining us for a couple days!!