Jess and Brian, it's our life!

Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

2011-03-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

pretty lake on the way to the cabins :)

more of the pretty lake :)

camp grounds

Our little cabin for the weekend :)

Well we made it back in one piece which is always good. Nothing broken or really injured! Friday we left to head to Switzerland. We got in late Friday night, checked into the cabins then headed downtown to eat dinner. We had amazingly good food with smelly Swiss cheese on it! A group of us went out for drinks after dinner. It was decided that the group would heli-ski on Sunday due to the cruddy weather that was expected on Saturday. Saturday morning we got up and yup cruddy weather! Nothing but rain on the ground, snow on the tops of the peaks. Brian and I headed up with the group to ski, I didn't make it far at all. My knee was really bothering me so I opted to go back to the cabin and try to rest it while Brian hit the slopes without me. He caught up to the group somehow and stayed with them for the rest of the day. He took a few falls and ended up managing to make it down the one hill before his ski and it attacked his face. Just a little cut later and he is fine!

Saturday night we headed to Interlaken for dinner. We went to Hooters for dinner and it was mighty yummy. It was about a 15 minute drive which wasn't bad at all. Yup out of ten of us, there was only 2 women. At first it was just supposed to be me and 8 guys! LOL I'm glad Jen was able to come with us at the last minute. After heading back to the cabins some of the guys went back out for drinks. I'm pretty sure we ended up going to bed after having a beer at the cabin's bar.

Sunday morning the boys and Jen left for the heli-ski trip. I went back to sleep after they left. I got up a little later and got ready to head to Wengen. As I was waiting for the bus to go to the train station I see a helicopter flying towards the cabins. A few minutes later a car pulls into the parking lot, out gets one of the guys that was with us. He got injured and they brought him back. I made sure he was taken care of (this later paid off!) I then took off 30 minutes later to head to Wengen. It was such a cute little town and had the most amazing views of the town we stayed in! I could have sat there all day looking at the valley and just enjoyed it. So peaceful nothing but the train and the birds could be heard.

Some of the hotels in Wengen

Train Station in Wengen

More hotels in Wengen (The one on the right is a Best Western)

Another hotel in Wengen

Me up by the Chapel on the hill overlooking the valley somewhat!

One of the pretty pretty peaks :)

more of another peak

The Pretty Chapel (I fell in love!)

Taxi in Wengen

I took a video and will work on uploading it so you can hear how peaceful it really was up by the little chapel they had. It had a few benches in front of it on the side of the hill to over look the valley. This was my favorite place up there! I'd give anything to go sit and relax there again. Sunday afternoon came and everyone got back to the cabins safely or pretty safe lol. We went downtown for dinner and had wonderful fondue! Three different types, we shared with a guy on our trip. From there we went out for dessert and then for drinks. Around 12:30/1 am we walked back to the cabins from the bar... Once we got to the cabins I decided to throw the key (wooden block, rope, key) onto the ground to watch it bounce.... Bounce it sure did! Right into the little creek on the camp grounds and floated under the road where it stayed. We couldn't get in our room at all until the next morning. We bunked with the people next door until morning. Once the morning rolled around we waited around for the office to open up and to get the maid to open our door for us. We paid the camp grounds $88.86 US dollars for the stupid key :( lets just say it's a funny story to tell now!

Chapel in Lauterbrunnen

Flowers on my walk back to the cabins

Pretty pretty waterfalls were everywhere this trip!

Amazing brownie and hot chocolate I had on my way back to the cabins :) the brownie had chunks of white chocolate in it and the hot chocolate had dark chocolate shavings on top! YUMMY!!!!

Our one side of the sets of cabins we were in. Our room was the middle door!

The inside of our cabin (it's blurry sorry!)

St Patrick's Day dinner!

2011-03-17T13:07:00.000-07:00

our cabbage and beef meal today! The commissary didn't have any whole heads of cabbage so I couldn't do cabbage rolls hence the cut up cabbage floating around!

busy busy

2011-03-16T12:27:00.001-07:00

Today we went back up to Landstuhl and were given the results of his ct scan. No mass or tumors are present. Um excuse me? We thought this was to check the blood flow and not check for a mass or a tumor. Not what we wanted to hear that's for sure. Brian was told to live with the inconvenience his arm/shoulder is giving him. See when he runs, talks on the phone, plays video games on the Wii, drives, does day to day activities around the house and at work his fingers go numb, they turn white and his arm tingles. He has seen 6 doctors now and has done physical therapy for thoracic outlet sydrome. We are pretty much at the point now it's either suck it up and deal with this on a day to day bases or surgery. While we don't want him to undergo surgery we are wanting to know if it will help. What if his symptoms go completely away after surgery. If we don't go that route, what happens when he goes for a run during pt and his hand turns white, goes numb and he gets frostbite on his fingers because he can't feel them. Then what do we do? It's finding the right doctor who is comfortable in taking steps to help him. I don't think we will find that here in Germany or at ANY military facility. See most of these 'doctors' he has seen haven't graduated Medical school or done anything to get the title of MD. It's frustrating to see someone who has little schooling making these judgments. Oh well such is military life.

Tomorrow I'll spend the day cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and packing for our trip. I also hope to be able to go to see Chief's last flight and help to celebrate it with him. He has been such a wonderful influence and friend here to Brian and I. We are super sad to see him go.

Friday morning we leave to go to Switzerland for the long weekend. Yup another 4 day weekend... The military likes to give us one a month at least if not more! It's super nice and makes traveling around a LOT easier. Brian is going helo-skiing on Saturday while I bum around, study for my certification testing and relax. Sunday we'll ski together (I can only ski one day a trip because of the metal in my calf... It hurts too much to do more) Then on Monday we travel back home to start another week. Brian is going to his new unit this coming week. Among other things. I'm still in the process of trying to get certified so I can maybe teach this upcoming year. Who knows it's all up in the air right now. We are at the mercy of someone hiring me and I'm not wanting to work nights/weekends which makes it a little harder!

V-day and other ramblings

2011-03-01T07:01:00.000-08:00

Ramblings from February

We haven't done too much due to a lot of people PCS'ing in and out of here. We've had to say goodbye to many friends and people we've meet in the last year. Some of them will be greatly missed and others we have already celebrated them moving away from here! This is one part of the military life style that is hard for everyone. Making friends seems to be a hard task when you know either of you will be moving soon after becoming good friends. I guess it's life though.

We did stay up and watch the Super Bowl, but yet again no commercials. It just doesn't seem the same when they have no commercials from the states. Oh well, one more Super Bowl for sure here and then we can watch all the commercials back State side!

For Valentine's day we did a surf and turf type dinner. For Breakfast I made pancakes, bacon and a strawberry sauce to go on top of the pancakes. The strawberries came in heart shaped containers from the commissary. They were super cute!!!

Brian and I went to dinner the Friday before. We went to Tiz for dinner, which as always was yummy. It's an Asian/German place. I use Asian lightly as the food is Chinese or Japanese but with a German flare. They aren't too great at making great Asian food. One thing I miss about the States! Oh well, Brian brought home a dozen tulips for me as a surprise. We had said NO gifts but he spoiled me with tulips! Oh how nice :)

Other than that February was a very uneventful month here. We are looking forward to no more snow and to warmer temps so we can travel easier! It didn't really snow much this month which was wonderful.

Dinner?!?!

2011-02-06T10:05:00.001-08:00

One of Brian's coworkers had a going away party on Saturday night so we piled in the car and drove down to join in for dinner. No one in the party had ever been to this place before. It was a very interesting and unique experience. A place we will go back to a few more times while we are still here. It would be the perfect place to go on a date or for girls night!!!! The food was fantastic and reasonably priced.

Now on to the real story behind this post.

In this restaurant there are NO and I mean NO wait staff. You do all the ordering of food/drinks yourself. Upon walking into the restaurant, you are given a card. With this card you order all of your food on the computers at your table. In the middle of the table is a huge turn table that is two shelves tall. The lower one houses plates, bowls, silverware, napkins, glasses, beer mugs, beer glasses, bottle opener and an empty spot to put your used dishes on. Going around the middle are two computers that are movable around the table so everyone can access them easily. Each chair has a number on the table that becomes your number for the night. When you order on your card, you select your number on the monitor. Upon placing your order, you wait around for not long at all, I'd say no more than 15 minutes for your whole meal to come down to you. The kitchen is up on the fourth floor of the restaurant. The drinks and food are loaded up into little caddies (single item per caddy) and sent down a track system that ends at your table. It is then resting on the top of the middle section of table. It can be spun around the table to the person who ordered it. They place a little sticker on the lid of whatever you order that has your table number, your seat number and a few other things on it. This comes in handy when there are 13 people at your table if in a large group! The food is served in little pots, with lids. On the lid is the steam hole and shoved in the hole is a sparkler. Makes the best presentation ever!!!! Nothing like seeing hot food coming at you with a sparkler attached to it.

Sorry the next few pictures were taken with my iPhone. I forgot to bring a real camera with us the first time we went.

Some of the pictures are from 2 weeks later when we went back with friends for another going away dinner :( BLAH! This is the part I think most of us dislike about the military and all the moving we do. Once we get great friends it seems that it is time for one of us to move.

Will and Papi

Brian

Papi, Jay and Mel

Mel getting some of her food!

Our onion rings :)

The pot holders for the pots

Brian

Julie and Will

Dessert :) yummy!

An empty food holder!

weekend update

2011-01-30T09:49:00.001-08:00

This weekend has been unusually bright and sunny, but it's been FREEZING! This Arizona girl is ready to have some warm sunshine come to our house here in Germany. Man has it been such a tease to have the sun out when it's 18 degrees outside. Makes me really want the rest of winter to fly by and for spring to be here. I can't wait to be able to go travel more and not have to worry about freezing temperatures, icy roads, snowy walks among other things. I also can't wait to go pick flowers again this summer and plant some of my own in plant boxes for the balcony and back windows :) I'm ready to be able to get in the car and not use the seat warmers in the X3. Oh Spring/summer can't come fast enough this year. Nothing will stop us from traveling tons this year!!! Oh and something else that we are looking forward to is going back to visit our families come August/September. Brian's sister is getting married in Sept so we'll visit with his family before she gets married and stay a few days after. We'll visit my parents in the weeks leading up to the wedding and enjoy some warm Arizona sunshine. I also have some new people to meet that I have yet to meet since some of my friends back in Arizona have given birth to new babies in the year that we've been gone for!

Sun getting ready to set in Tucson Arizona, January 2010

Pretty sunset driving on I10 in Arizona last year in January.

Oh and I can't wait to get some AWESOME food from this place either...

Sunshine

2011-01-28T07:49:00.000-08:00

It has been unusually bright outside today. There is something bright in the ski that we don't see often. It normally does not give us much warmth during this time of year. The sun finally came out to play for a day!!! It sure was a bright and sunny day, reminded me of being back home in Arizona well somewhat. I wish some warmth came with it, but I know all too well that in a few short months I won't want the warmth here!

The deep blue clear sky from this evening

Pretty colors off to the side

I see the sun peeking through some trees! This is what we see outside on our balcony :)

Welcome

2011-01-27T05:00:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to my blog. Feel free to stay as long as you want. Hopefully you'll become a follower and travel with my husband and I through Europe.

I started this blog to keep in touch with our families while we travel and enjoy as much as Europe as we can. We have been in Germany for just over a year and have two more years here. I currently am a stay at home wife. I do all things around the house to keep it running. I have several hobbies that I love aside from traveling. They are scrapbooking, crafting and photography.

My husband is currently in the Army and serving here in Germany. He loves to Scuba Dive, anything in the water and outside. He is currently taking college classes to further not only his career but hopefully to finish a degree while he is here in Germany.

We have some of the best friends here and have made them family. We are very lucky to have the chance to be over here. Feel free to look around and stay a while :)

Enjoying a nice cold beer at the top of the Zugspitze. Which is the highest peak in Germany (The Alps).

Visiting the castle in Heidelberg, overlooking the town.

Nuremberg part 1

2011-01-26T04:34:00.000-08:00

Here are pictures from our first trip to Nuremberg, almost a year ago. Here is my original post on this.

The first picture is that of a fountain in the middle of the town square. This has awesome details and tons of little parts to it.

Here is one of many churches in downtown. Unbelievable on how many there actually is!!!

Trip would not be complete without Starbucks :)

One of the bridges that is downtown.

Rothenberg part 1

2011-01-24T06:22:00.000-08:00

We have been to Rothenberg many times now. It never gets old going to this town!

Here are some pictures from our trips down there.

The pipes :)

From the new altar looking down into the church

The Old Altar, from the 1400's I believe ( I could be wrong...)

The new altar

One of the streets of Rothenberg

Pretty neat building!

Some of the center of the town :)

Town Hall

Me with the Nutcracker

Brian with the same Nutcracker!

Pretty Arch in the wall

Part of the wall! We walked up there for a little while

Us in the wall walking around. Not made for tall people

Looking inside of the wall town from up in the wall.

And more

Even more :)

Wine bottles on a wall of a building.

New house pics

2011-01-20T07:34:00.000-08:00

Here are pictures of our newest apartment when it was empty. I'll try my best to get pictures of the new apartment furnished and complete this week!

Our bedroom closets, the four doors on the left have room for hanging clothes with a shelf on the bottom and on top. The last two doors on the right hand side have shelving in them.

Our bedroom

the other wall across from the closets

Our bathroom, toilet is behind the door on the right, then is the shower/bath. On the left hand side we have our washer/dryer and the double set of sinks!

linen closet

Spare Room, see how tiny it is?

Spare room closet/window. Door on right is shelving and the other two have a hanger section with 2 shelves.

Standing in the hallway looking into the spare room

One section of our living room. See the ugly ugly pillar?

Other half of the living room

Half of our dinning room and looking into our kitchen, excuse the mess!

Other half of the dinning room with our back door

Coat closets behind the front door. Right one has shelving but is very shallow, left two doors have the hanger section and 2 shelves again

Our kitchen part 1, a little bigger

Other half of the kicthen

our balcony

update on life

2010-09-28T01:13:00.000-07:00

So there has been a lot that has happened since my last posting. I got offered a few jobs, took the one that would hopefully offer the best options and provide me with something to do during the week. Boy the last part of that is a huge understatement! Brian is wondering sometimes where his wife went and why this hard working woman came home instead. I'm teaching at the local CDC in a Pre-K type classroom. Not my first choice, but out of the options I had last month it was the best because it is teaching!

We have been to many different places since our last update. We went to the Nuremberg Volksfest, the real Oktoberfest, Brian went back to Austria, Rothenberg. In two weeks we will be heading back to Garmisch to stay for a long weekend so Brian can scuba dive and I can go get pampered at the Spa.

Aside from working tons, Brian and I are trying to settle into everyday life yet again. No real word as to where his work 'home' will be or when he will be going there. It is all up in the air like normal around here. Things seem to be settling down around here which is good. The holidays are coming up quickly! We both are very excited to be here in Germany for them. The different markets and shopping areas will be a lot of fun to visit!

I'll be back sometime to post pictures of our latest adventures... It's harder than one would think to sit down and post on here!!

flower picking German style

2010-08-27T10:53:00.000-07:00

Brian and I went to dinner to celebrate my new job. Even if I haven't started it was still nice to go out and not cook dinner at home. On the way home I told him we should stop and pick some flowers. I've been giving him a hard time the last week or so about how I never ever get flowers lol. They grow fields of self-pick flowers all over the place. Normally you see a sunflower patch and then a huge gladiolus field. They are only 60 Euro cent per stem you pick. Pretty cheap for what you get :)

Here are some pictures from our flower picking experience tonight. All in all I think we did well :)

The wonderful trusting sign... Oh how I love it over here!

Look at how cute he looks holding up a stem of flowers :)

Just a view of how long the field of sun flowers are... Huge I tell ya!

Look at how pretty the colors are... Oh so pretty I tell ya! Corn field in the background...

Anyone want a green stem of gladiolus flowers

More view of the one field

Our flowers once we got home and got them in water. Excuse the mess!

So there ya go pops, an update on your children. As far as I know we both are still alive and doing well! Love you and miss you all
Jess

update for April/May

2010-05-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

It's already May, where has the last few months gone? It's hard to believe it's May. It's now official I'm done with my Masters degree. I graduated last weekend while I was home in AZ. Brian flew down to see me walk!!! It was awesome but at the same time tough to say goodbye to my parents again. We got back a few days ago and we move tomorrow to a newly remodeled apartment with the washer/dryer in it. Good news is our new place is right across the street from both the high school and elementary school. Bad news is our bedrooms are way smaller than they are here. I took a bunch of pictures today when I went to hang up the command hooks for our curtains. I'll be posting them sometime this weekend with of course some after pictures of once we get our stuff unpacked! Looks like we will be going to Spain for Memorial Day weekend. I got tons of pictures and stories to post to catch everyone up on our trips from before I left... I better get busy before we add in more trips!!! I'll be back sometime next week with pictures of our new place and that. in the mean time check out this playground that is by our new place.

Oh and dad sorry we don't live in the apartment building that has purple on the stairwells outside!!! Here's a nice picture though of those :) Well one of them, the other building that is by ours has a deeper purple...

new update

2010-04-10T21:49:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I've haven't blogged or posted any pictures in a long time... somethings came up and I flew back home for a few weeks. In other news, I am almost done with my Masters degree and will graduate the end of this month. I'll be heading back on a plane shortly after graduation back to our new home. Once I get back I'll post the pictures I was supposed to a while ago and get back into the swing of things. Everything has been hectic since I last posted! Hope everyone is doing well. Brian and I are fine, I just needed to come back home for a little while for school and my mom. Well it's late and I better head to bed but I'll be back in full force in 3-4 weeks!

update

2010-03-01T11:50:00.000-08:00

Super sorry I haven't posted pictures from 3 weekends ago... I've been busy with school work, house work and unpacking! Yup you guessed it we have all of our stuff. I have a few more boxes to unpack and some organizing to do which I was hoping to get done after this school week (Thursday-Wednesday) but it will have to wait until next weekend. I thought I had a week off but I guess I was told wrong. Oh well just means another week closer to graduation! On another note, my car made it here in one piece so we went from having no car, to one and now two!!!! I've heard a rumor that the school across the street is going to be losing 4 teachers this coming school year, if it is true I will go apply. Strange thing is they aren't hiring until July 15th to those outside of the school district... cross your fingers! I will be dropping off a packet for substituting in the next few days there in hopes of it helping me get my foot in the door. This Saturday we are heading down to the Alps for a night. Brian will be hitting the ski slopes and I'll be at the spa when not doing homework I suppose... so much for a nice relaxing weekend with no homework! I'll be back in a day or so with some pictures we have taken in the last few weeks. As for now I'm going to get ready to head to bed. Oh and ALL of our snow is melted and gone :) this makes me a very happy person!!!

Road trip

2010-02-07T05:38:00.000-08:00

Brian was able to get his car the other day and he has been busy driving all over the place! We both are rather happy he has it so we don't have to walk everywhere, take a taxi or bum rides from others to get there. Friday night we spent a long time at the Pub getting to meet a few new people and some other obnoxious people who decided to sit down with us, which did not last long.

Saturday morning we both got up and decided to head to the commissary to get some groceries there before heading to a German grocery store. Let me just say this the German store was bigger than most Walmart's and Targets back in the states!!!! There was tons of stuff in the one we went into. So much that we almost got lost a few times walking around. We have decided that next weekend since it is a 4 day that we will venture out to visit two other grocery stores on the economy. There are plenty of grocery stories around here, I'd say probably 6-8 if not more in our small little town!

After we went grocery shopping and came home to put up all our food we got ready to head down to Nürenberg for the afternoon. We got in the car and off we went. Oh did I forget to mention that visibility was close to zero because of all the fog that we had floating around us! Today looks a little better though. Anyway back to our trip :) It was a short drive down the road took us only 20-30 minutes to get into town. We were able to drive through several small towns along the way and see some great churches and other things that we will have to go visit in more detail some time soon! We got to Nürenberg and parked at the one train station. After walking around and not finding much to do we decided to Google a castle or two to go visit. We got lost a few times and it took us an hour and half to drive 12km. This isn't far at all considering we drove 50-60 km in less than 30 minutes! Sure it was all a straight shot the first time and not in a major city but still we got lost. We had a wonderful time once we found the castle. It covers a large area well at least the wall does. I didn't get a chance to take many pictures as I was wanting to get something to eat and warm up some! As we were walking around the little town inside the walls of the castle I spotted a Starbucks, this girl hasn't had any in a month and half. I begged to go get something to warm both of us up! Brian also had to pee really bad so we decided to stop in and get something to drink before walking around more. After Starbucks we headed up the hill to walk around some more. I spotted some tents in an open area right outside of a church or two. We walked over to the one tent and I was in even more heaven than with Starbucks! At last I had found the gingerbread cookies that were covered in a powdered sugar icing. Not my favorite ones but it will have to work until the fall when the ones come out that are dipped in chocolate and I can buy boxes to store in the freezer for next year. Some how we got a little turned around and got lost in this little town. We walked up a huge hill and then back down. Brian remembered after we stopped at Starbucks and got the cookies that his iPhone has an application that will save the location of your car and give you directions back to your car when your ready. Needless to say we WILL be using that from now on when we go out and travel on the weekends! We were hungry and decided to head back to Ansbach to go to Da Enzo's Pizzeria for dinner as Brian now has the car and we don't have to pay for the taxi ride to and from which is more than our dinner was last time.

We ended the afternoon at Da Enzo's for dinner. We both had pizza and split a piece of tiramisu which was to die for. After dinner we came home to relax for a bit before heading out to the Pub with our friends for a little while. We all did not want to stay a long time as we were all tired from our trips and what not. Today we are being bums and not doing much. We can hardly wait for dinner because I'm making tacos and all the fixings. Brian isn't sure if he has work in the morning or not. If he does we probably won't stay up to watch the Super Bowl but if he has it off we most likely will stay up to watch it! I'll be posting pictures this week from our trip. I need to downsize them and look through them to weed out the bad ones!

car...

2010-02-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

Brian picked out the car today and put a down payment for it! Hopefully he can pick it up before Friday gets here so we can have a car to ride around in :) woohoooo I can't wait and I know he is super excited.

last few days

2010-02-01T04:20:00.000-08:00

The last few days have been wonderful! We have our unaccompanied baggage which included our tv, a set of 4 folding chairs, a small folding table, pots and pans, baking pans/sheets, plates/bowls, silverware, our Wii, towels, clothes and of course some of Brian's military gear. It all came on Friday pretty early into the day which was nice. They gave Brian a time frame of 7am-7pm which is just nuts. Our place is starting to look more like a house than just an empty place with little stuff in it. We are trying to figure out what the best way is to do the curtains because they all have the German track system and not regular American systems! So for the time being we have sheets hanging up in the dinning room covering the window so when it gets to be sunny we can see inside of our place unlike this past Saturday when I couldn't read my laptop or any of my homework papers!

Brian was able to pass his drivers test last week and can now drive in Germany. This is huge news, I plan to go take the test on Wednesday since my homework was a breeze this week due to group work! I've been busy working on submitting applications for jobs around here in hopes of being able to get something. At this point I would be happy with a job that could give me 25-30 hours a week just to get me outta the house and saving some money to travel with later on. We got spoiled and had 3 home cooked meals this past weekend. It's been so nice being able to cook not only with my own pots and pans but in my own kitchen! We are loving it here and have been able to go out into Ansbach and go walk around downtown. We had a short walk through downtown where all the mom and pop shops are along with restaurants. Before that we stopped at the plaza that is like what we'd call a mall back in the states. We will be heading back down there to get some stuff for our house such as curtains and other things hopefully this week or weekend. Brian is busy looking for a car to buy so he doesn't have to walk places anymore. Hopefully the one he is supposed to look at today isn't too highly priced and is in great shape. I'll post later on about that. Now onto the pictures I took of our place on Thursday. Sorry some aren't great but deal with it! I'll be sure to post pictures later this month once we get our stuff (should be next week when we get everything else!) I'm also hoping that I can go with Brian next week to do "Head Start" with him. This is just like going to school, they teach you some German, take you around town, make you order in German and show you the ropes of things around here. If all goes well I should be able to go all week with him.

On to the pictures:

Our front door, sorry it's a bad picture!

Stairs from the top of our floor, looking down to go down stairs.

Let's start off in my favorite room of the house the kitchen! Here is one side of the kitchen. As my family would say it's a one butt kitchen!

Neat shelving in the kitchen... Oh the possibilities of what to put there!

Other half of the kitchen. Yup hard to cook, do dishes, clean with more than one person in there!

Shelving in our dinning room. It's pretty neat and yet we have no clue what to put there just yet.

Dinning room with the loaner table and chairs. Excuse the mess!

One side of the living room.

Behind the front door is a pretty nice coat/shoe closet!

Other side of the living room.

Our hallway towards the bedrooms and bathroom.

Bathroom, pretty new was redone in Sept of last year. Sadly bigger than the kitchen!

Big linen closet inside of the bathroom which is nice!

One side of the Master Bedroom

Wall of closets in the Master Bedroom.

Wall of closets in the spare bedroom. Brian's Army clothing goes on the left side and the right door is dedicated to my scrapbooking supplies :) How AWESOME is that?!?!?!?!

Spare Room that was pretty empty!

Moving truck that came with our stuff on Friday!

last night

2010-01-27T11:50:00.000-08:00

Tonight is our last night in the Inn!! We move up the street in the morning. Brian has to go take his driving test tomorrow so while he is doing that I will be doing our walk thru on our place and getting the internet/phone set up! We will be calling back home this weekend to give everyone an update and to say hi so look forward to that call. This week brought up the question of what we will do as far as a state side number goes. Our thought is since we will have my old laptop on Friday we can set it up with a Skype account so people from the states can call us and it won't be expensive on either end. As soon as we know what we are doing we will let everyone know. They won't let us use a wireless router or programs such as Skype here in the Inn which is why we've put it off. I know I know shame on us! Oh well. Hopefully we get our unaccompanied baggage on Friday. In there is some of my scrapbooking things such as my Cricut, cartridges and paper so I can have something besides homework to do! We also will have our smaller tv (the one I bought when I first got up to Drum) and our Wii so we can finally play with our present we had for a few weeks before it got packed up. This will be just like Christmas all over again. My class this term is going ok, I can tell the teacher has high high standards (more than in any other class I've taken) which I'm struggling with but will hopefully be able to pull out an A in this class. We are thinking about taking a trip up to the ski resort (a few hours from here) during the first weekend in March. I'll have that week off from classes which will be nice. Brian wants to go ski several times before the close for the season so we'll see what happens! He even said I could spend the day at the Spa while he went to ski... I might just have to take him up on that offer! Today was by far the coldest day we've had yet. It wasn't until around noon when it hit over 10 degrees. By 4:30 tonight it was a cool 20 degrees (the high for the day). Tomorrow is supposed to be 29 and snowing which will be great for my walk up the street. Luckily we have a fellow soldier who is coming over to let us pile our luggage in her car so we don't have to drag it around in the snow/slush crud outside on the street and sidewalk! What is even better is we already know what we will be eating on Friday and Saturday as long as our stuff comes on Friday. I'm off to go work on my application(s) for a few jobs before heading to bed. Hope everyone is having a good week!

Lots of love,
Jessi and Brian

weekend full of fun

2010-01-24T11:15:00.000-08:00

This weekend we were able to get out of the Inn and head down town for some time at a local Irish Pub. One of the guys who picked us up and took us around the first day we were here asked us if we wanted to go out with him and one of his friends he met the first night he was here. We thought it would be a fun time so we went. Sat around in this Pub for a while before anyone really showed up but we were able to meet the lady who owns it with her husband and try out a few drinks before. Brian was able to discover other beers he likes and try new ones while at the Pub. We ordered one type, and decided it wasn't for us. I switched over to drinking Razz the rest of the night with the except of doing an Irish Car Bomb with Brian... the night went well, we both returned back to the Inn safely and were a bit tipsy. All in all it was a nice evening out. We saw a lot of his coworkers at the Pub and found out quick who acts/does strange things and who is level headed real quick.

Saturday morning we went to the gym to workout. Got a nice workout in before heading to get some food for a few meals. After coming back we decided to go bowling after dinner to kill a few hours before heading back to the Irish Pub. Let me tell ya it was a fun interesting night! We spent a while at the bowling alley, our new friend came and hung out with us for sometime as well. After having fun bowling we ended up calling a taxi to take us to the Pub. Since we had been there the night before we were noticed right off the bat and the lady who owns it tried to give us the same drinks from the night before. Talk about a nice family Pub. Saturday night was more interesting than Friday night was only because of the people. We met some really strange drunk people who couldn't leave our table alone! Once again I drank Razz pretty much all night and Brian enjoyed his beer and cola/beer. It is defiantly an acquired taste.

Sunday I spent the day sleeping as my stomach wasn't feeling well and I was sick. Brian was nice enough to do laundry for me and got me anything I needed or wanted. He is such an awesome husband!

Newest updates: last week we toured our place, accepted to live in it and we move in on Thursday! They are lending us a bed, a table and a set of chairs until all of our stuff comes in a few weeks. We get our small shipment on Friday so I can finally cook with my own stuff! I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and stop eating so much junky food that is premade! Brian has work this week, well more like classes and in-processing even more so I will be busy at the Inn until Thursday working on homework and packing up our bags to get ready to move up the street. It is starting to snow again tonight, it hasn't snowed really the whole time we've been here but there is still snow on the ground (not much anymore after the other day's rain storm) from the days leading up to us getting here. I can't wait to have a car so we can drive around and I can take more pictures. I've been slacking on that majorly and will get better. Hey I have 3 years to take pictures right? Well off to get ready for bed and work/homework tomorrow! Hope all had a good weekend and hope this week goes great for everyone.

Lots of love,
Jessi and Brian

good news?

2010-01-19T04:52:00.000-08:00

(Our view from the room at the Inn)

Well it's a pretty nice day out for starters. The sun is somewhat shinning upon the base today. This is great! Brian had work today, all of his in-processing and what not has been going well. Yesterday I was able to pick up an iPhone to use while we are here to help communicate with each other while we are apart. It's been nice to be back in touch with him while he is gone. Brian was told today that tomorrow or Thursday we will be able to go look at a place here on Bismark. If we decide to not take it, we won't be able to get on post housing for a year and will have to look off-post for housing and will be responsible for paying for our stay at the Inn... so all in all we are praying this place is decent enough to live in for a year (rumor has it that since it is the unremodeled place we will be first to get the newest housing either the end of this year or early next year. Unremodeled housing still has the washer/dryer in the basement and this place is on the third floor.... I think I could live with it for a year!) We should find out more this week.

(My Doner Kabab)

I met up with Brian for lunch today at the Pizzeria on Katterbach and we had a pretty nice lunch. Lunch consisted of a burrito like wrap that is called a Doner Kabab. It was super delicious and rather filling. The wrap was larger than my hand and I had to use two hands to hold it because it was so full! The wrap had meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onion and a garlic sauce. Brian added spices to his which made it spicy! He, of course had to finish mine up because I was so stuffed. After lunch Brian was able to find out that our first shipment of goods has made it and will wait for us to get a place. This shipment has some scrapbooking items, clothing, one tv and few other things needed for our sanity! If we are able to get the place I described above we will be able to move in if all goes well on Jan 28th which is next week Thursday! As always it's a hurry up and wait kind of game the Army plays.

Here's hoping we are able to approve the place and to be able to move in next week! Hope all is well with everyone and we miss everyone.

With love,
Jessi and Brian!

past weekend

2010-01-18T06:46:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

This past weekend was very interesting needless to say!

Friday we went to an Italian/German restaurant on the other side of Ansbach. Da Enzo was by far the best meal we have had here. We both had pork, Brian had a pork loin in a Gorgonzola sauce while I had the pork rolls stuffed with spinach and Gorgonzola in the same sauce as Brian's had. Both came with a salad and fries. I had a glass of wine while Brian enjoyed two tall glasses of beer... To end the meal we were given a cherry liquor that was pleasant.

Saturday we did laundry, hung out around the room. Ended up eating at the Pizzeria on Katterbach before we picked up a bottle of Crown Royal and headed back to the hotel to play cards and have a few drinks. We were supposed to go to an Irish Pub but our plans fell through.

Sunday we got up went to the gym, stopped and picked up some groceries on the way home. We ended up at a Greek restaurant for dinner which wasn't all that bad. To start our meal off we both had a shot of Ouzo. We each had gyro's in different sauces, Brian had potatoes and I had pasta with mine. (No flatbread with them though). Our cab ride home was interesting to say the least. After waiting in the cold/rain for 30-40 minutes we finally had a cab. Our driver was an older lady who hit 100mph on the drive back to the gate... Very interesting to say the least. Our night was spent drinking and playing more cards... seems to be the thing now-a-days for us.

Stay tuned for this week's interesting things. Brian goes back to work tomorrow (Tuesday). Hopefully he will find out our housing stuff among other things. Tonight we plan on ordering dinner in and enjoying some relaxing tv while I work on some homework.

free giveaway for Military members!!!

2010-01-18T06:40:00.000-08:00

Are you or you know of someone who is actively serving in the military? If you are then don't pass this great giveaway hosted by ClickClackMom who teamed up with Borders Booksellers and Sony. They will deliver a Sony Touch Reader Digital Book to an active duty member of the military this Valentine’s Day! How about that?!!!

This giveaway is valued at $300 and is a perfect gift for our beloved soldiers this Valentine Day. So what are you waiting for? Head to Click Clack Mom and join to win this fabulous giveaway. Just follow her contest rule and you will be on your way of winning. The contest will close on January 25, 2010. Hurry and join now!

Don't forget to pay attention to the bottom where there are extra comments for more chances to win!!! Help Amy out by making her blog better this year than it was last year!

Here are some more blogs that are also giving away a Sony Touch Read

A Yummy Mommy On A Pink Park Bench

Household 6 Diva

Army Household6

Hellcat Betty

first full day in Ansbach

2010-01-14T05:33:00.000-08:00

Today we woke up in the Inn on Katterbach, got dressed ate some breakfast before taking our showers. Once we were dressed and ready to go we headed down stairs to walk over to the commissary to pick up some drinks and stuff. On our walk we stopped to look at the shuttle schedule and decided to take it, well we spent an hour on the shuttle being driven from small base to small base and then had to wait for the driver on his break before we could head over to the commissary area that is on the base across the street from the one base we are staying at! We did some shopping in the commissary. We picked up a huge sandwich while we were there and boy was it yummy! Makes subway look like nothing :) we headed back to our room after the commissary to eat lunch and relax. It was a nice relaxing walk back to our room. Stay tuned for pictures and what not later on!