The Next Chapter

Hello, 2012!

2012-01-02T23:46:00.002+01:00

I want to thank Facebook for keeping me from blogging. I've been warned by Dev that I am to keep it up. On my last post we had experienced our first Oktoberfest and I was about to turn 40. Now, we've just finished up another holiday season and have rung in the New Year. Dev is here for another seven days, we've been to the Czech Republic, sent off a few college applications for Drake, Shane is still in a Master's Degree Program, I'm still working at the bank, we have a group of friends we love, Shane's a little grayer, Dev's a little lighter, Drake thinks he's 21 and please no laughing at our Charlie Brown tree. It was slim pickin's this year. I'll be back more often, I hope!

Oktoberfest!

2011-10-10T21:17:00.001+02:00

I didn't really go to Oktoberfest. That would mean I went to Munich. I stayed local and joined my friends for the Volksfest and it was awesome! The swaying, the beer, the half chicken, the heat, the beer, the singing, the dancing. It was a good time. I couldn't help but miss Shane and am already counting down to next year. Loved it. Here's some pics:

In a few days Drake will be turning 18! You know what that means? He can get tattoo without parental permission. Sigh. I'm so nervous he's going to come with some permanent ink. Will he follow in his sister's shoes? The real problem with his birthday? Its mine too and I'm going to be hitting the 40s. I don't want to turn 40!!

My September Project 12! I missed August because when I ordered my pictures I forgot to order August! I will do my August layout when I do Octobers. I'm sad that its just a few more months until the final layout BUT I think they will do it all again so I'm not stopping =)

And for TallyScrapper's Survivor layout...Steve Jobs inspired. If it weren't for his inventions I would never be a runner. I was trying to remember the last time I bought a CD and it must've been 2005. I love being able to buy one song off an album and not the entire album. I love my MacBook Pro. I love being able to travel with my IPad to keep in touch, Facebook. play a little Yahtzee and read whatever book I've downloaded.

And I, finally, finished a Tim Holtz box. I bought these from TallyScrapper months ago. Next will be a Christmas box. I love them.

Back from Toscana

2011-09-11T12:50:00.001+02:00

And it was an amazing trip. We met my brother, sister in law, aunt, uncle, sister in law's aunt and uncle and two other couples at the farm. The farm is a 100 year old Italian home, with million dollar views. It was amazing. I didn't realize but Tuscany is more a region and a very big region. A region full of Chianti, great pizza, vineyards, rich history and leather. We took all of it in.

Our first day we went to Volterra. Yes. The same Volterra that takes place in the Twilight books. We took this photo in the dei Priori square. The town is surrounded by a wall so you can't drive through and holds ancient ruins from 15 BC.

Second stop was the town San Giaggimono. I'm sure I just butchered the name. This town is known for its towers, which were built as status symbols by the wealthy and for protection, at one time the town had over 70 towers.

On our third day-we rested at the farm. It was so nice to take a nap during the day, swim in the pool and lay out in the sun. I even got sunburned and loved it. Our days of warm weather are dwindling here in Germany. I was ready to soak it all in!

We took a trip into Firenze aka Florence. My main reason for wanting to go was to find the pizzeria that Jersey Shore worked at during Season 4. We found it, we got pizza, we posed for pictures. We also found a market and I want to go back just for the shopping! The leather was amazing. The prices were bargains. The city actually smelled of leather. It was awesome. I cannot wait to go back. I saw a few leather jackets that have my name on them.

Hot Air Balloons!

2011-08-21T17:37:00.001+02:00

I have always wanted to see and ride some hot air balloons! Every year, in our area of Germany, they have a Firework Festival. Its a competition to see which country wins the title of best fireworks-judged by Disney. This year was Greece, China and the U.S. We went to China night. I really wanted to go because I read that they would have hot air balloons. They were magical! They are also expensive to ride in soooo we didn't do that but I know what I want for my birthday this year. The fireworks were the best I'd seen. Choreographed to music. Spectacular!

This week I start bowling with the German liga(league). I'm pretty excited. My bowling ball has been drilled and I've started throwing fingertips. I liked it. I thought I was going to struggle but its perfect. Now to practice because I may have to compete with the German women's team. Sigh.

And sorry for the lack of blogging! I quit my job at Aafes to start a new job at a bank. I love it so far. I'm full time this month and I'll be ready for part time hours in September. It is such a relaxing environment and I love the ladies I work with, and my boss is pretty great too.

Dev went back to college this week. I can't believe its been one year since we dropped her off. We've almost been here for a year! Crazy.

Fall was starting but a heat wave has come in. 90 degree temps this week and Germany doesn't have air conditioning. Sigh. It's hot!

Last but certainly not least...Project 12 for July! That's right. I have made it 7 months. Pretty dang proud of myself and I love looking at my album. PS-love the American Crafts glitter paper. It rocks.

Women's World Cup Soccer

2011-07-16T21:55:00.001+02:00

Tomorrow marks the day that I've worn the same shirt, without washing, for six days and it shows! I can only cover up beer and brot stains with so many buttons. I feel like I'm living a dream by attending these games and the bonus is that we've gone with friends. Tomorrow we make the drive to Frankfurt for a little sight seeing and soccer.
Unfortunately, Shane won't be with Drake & I. After Wednesday's game we drove straight to Ramstein AFB to drop Dev off to catch a MAC flight. Two days later Shane went up there to join Dev so she could be bumped to a Category III. She was at a IV. IV's hadn't caught a flight at Ramstein in over three weeks. She couldn't sit there for weeks. They are third on the list and would've already left if almost every flight either cancelled or the plane broke. So tomorrow morning there are 7 flights to the east coast. If just half break, they should be good. What happens with Shane? He fly's over and then turns around and tries to get back on another MAC flight. Pretty miserable but there's nothing he wouldn't do for his kids happiness.

While they've been gone I got my scrap on. This layout is based on the challenge from Glitz! To use a background stamp. Unfortunately, I don't have any of their stamps but some Rollerdoodles. So I stamped some butterflies with the Number Rollerdoodle. I love how their sticker sheets have little alphas with preset sayings or titles. I wanted to showcase them in a different way so I clipped them. I love the look. I had been hoarding this paper. I love it. Love the color and the polka dots. Check out their blog. =)

A Great Week!

2011-07-11T10:50:00.000+02:00

Shane is home from his third deployment to Iraq and he flew in on Independence Day! I think it was his easiest deployment. Not being gone for a year, staying in a place with access to a pool, a more relaxed schedule. He came home looking healthy and tan. We joke with him that he got a spray on. It's always nice to say hello again and feel like your family is whole again. There's always that nagging piece missing while they are away. Things you wish they were there for. Etc. We celebrated the 4th at the base here in Germany. We got together with friends from Shane's work. It was awesome to celebrate with a bunch of Americans.
Yesterday we headed off to Augsburg Germany, Shane's birthplace, to watch Sweden play Australia. If the US had beaten Sweden we would've watched the US play Sweden but it wasn't meant to be and thank goodness because the game against Brazil was an exciting one. We were in a mad dash to get home to watch the game and knew we were going to miss it so we opted to stop at an Italian restaurant to catch the game. They were so accommodating for us. Seating us right under the TV and putting up with our cheers for the team and jeers at the ref. Watching the world cup has been our family, Janet and Ron and Brandi and Gregg. As soon as the game was over we called Drake to purchase us tickets to the USA V. France game. We got 'em. On Wednesday we'll be making the four hour trip north to cheer on USA in the quarter finals. Awesome sauce.
On Saturday we headed to Shane's work for the annual pig roast. It was so much fun. No. Drake is not on his toes. He is getting taller or Shane is shrinking. I love my family. Have you ever made cupcakes in ice cream cones? I will only make them this way from now on. So much easier to eat!
On Thursday Dev will be heading back to the states. I have enjoyed her being here. It went by too fast. She doesn't start school until August BUT she wants to hang with her friends some. We're gonna miss her but that is our life now. We are in the countdown for Drake to head out next summer. They grew up so fast.

Last but not least is my June layout for Project 12. This is the farthest I have gotten and I am committed to this yearly assignment. I am so thankful for those who run it. For this Project 12 I focused on our trip to Rome. I mentioned the rest of the month in journaling. I will never forget that trip.

Women's World Cup Soccer

2011-07-03T23:03:00.001+02:00

My last national soccer game was Washington DC. I was 8 years old and carried the American Flag out on to the field. I don't remember what game it was but I know I was there. Months ago the military offered up tickets to the USA V. Colombia game. I jumped at the chance. It was one of those days where living in Germany ruled. We would never have done this in the states. It was so nice to be around a bunch of Americans again. We didn't know them. They didn't know us. We were all there for the same reason. Loved it. The game was awesome. 3-0. The team dominated the entire match. They scored in the first five minutes. Of couse Dev and I were talking to each other and missed it. We caught on because Drake was out of his seat, waving the flag and screaming. Thank goodness they scored again. Would've hated to have missed the one goal they made. We didn't even hit any traffic. It was an awesome day. And I got to drink some beer and dip my pretzel in it. My favorite thing ever. If US beats Sweden, one of 2 teams to beat them all year, on Wednesday then they will play again on Sunday and we will try for tickets to those. Either way, we'll be cheering them on.

To celebrate the 4th tomorrow-Shane is coming home from Iraq. I've done the math and he's spent 795 days in that country. I think that's enough for a lifetime. He lands early in the morning, his work is picking him up and hopefully he'll be home before I head to work. Then to celebrate Independence Day we are heading on base for hotdogs, friends, beer and fireworks. Pretty excited. Last year we didn't get to see fireworks. This year we will and we'll be together as a family. Doesn't get any better than that. Happy 4th of July!

PS-sorry for the wonky post, I can't fix it cos I don't know why it looks like this. It is what it is.

It was awesome.

Project 12 catch up.

2011-06-28T08:55:00.000+02:00

With the girls visiting I got behind on my P12 AND some of my photos took over 30 days to get to me. I even re-ordered and those made it before my long lost photos did! I can't believe I just scrapped a layout with the hubby leaving for Iraq and within a week he'll be home already! So happy. I knew I should've bought him a ticket to the World Cup USA v. Columbia. I guess he'll have to drive us ;) This is the farthest I've made it Project 12. A few years ago I started and got to February. I'm loving it. Here's my April and May. Can you believe its almost July? Happening so fast!

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-20T08:18:00.000+02:00

A cold front has moved into Germany and NOW I see why everyone said there isn't much of a summer but spring was beautiful. I'm really hoping that summer weather will be back when Shane gets here. Hopefully he'll be here for the 4th of July!

Some of the Dancing with the Stars cast was at the PX yesterday. I wish I'd had my camera with me. I only recognized one woman and she's not on every year.

I was able to scrap with my busy week at work! I love Glitz Designs, always have and always will so I knew I had to take part of their June Sketch Challenge. I love their products and need more!

Finished another LEO Layout for Tally. Drake's second broken bone. Good thing it wasn't his bowling arm.

Saw Super 8 last night and I loved it! It was like a Goonies but a bit more scary. I think I jumped 4 or 5 times. I recommend it! And I'm off to enjoy two days off! Just a few more days before Shane's home AND Women's World Cup Soccer game. Can't wait!!

Pinterest.

2011-06-14T17:24:00.000+02:00

Okay. I'm addicted and I love it. My Pinterest page. I knew it existed but I resisted and then I could resist no more. I especially love that since Shane and I are shopping for land in Florida, to retire on, I have a place to keep everything I want in my home. Its organized. I don't have to waste paper printing off the web. I use enough paper scrapbooking. =)
Dev got a job at Pizza Hut! She's sooo excited. She starts on Thursday. She wants to make enough to leave Germany early. She needs some money to live off of. I think she just wants to get back to Paula. She's been bowling her butt off. I introduced Dev to a friend of mine at work. He's the same age. They've been hanging out. At first Dev thought she was a pity friend but turns out they've hit it off-as friends-pretty well. I knew they would.
Drake finishes school in two days. He's still working and saving his dough. He inherited the good, money saving gene. He's dating a girl I haven't met. I think I heard him mention that she has 36DD's and he can't keep his eyes off of them.
Shane is good, on his last few weeks until he comes home.

I've had to take a break from running. I started having hip pain a few months ago and pushed through it. Then I had a thought that it might not be the best idea! So I'm taking June off to see if it goes away. I'm going to make a doctor's appointment. In the meantime I'm taking extra Vitamin D and Calcium supplements. My grandmother had a fake hip and maybe I have weak bones? I'm also waiting for Jillian's 30 Day Shred Video. I've seen good reviews from other bloggers. I miss running. I have to keep my IPOD uncharged just to keep myself from lacing up and heading for the trails. If its charged-I will go. Today I head to a German dentist. I'm so nervous about it. I've heard bleeding gum horror stories. My appointment is at 7pm. How weird is that? Okay I'm off. Made the PW's Barbecue Chicken today. Gotta get in my third piece before heading out.

June. Already?

2011-06-04T13:16:00.000+02:00

Time sure is flying. In four months we'll have been here for a year! Wow. In the meantime, we've been graced with Jennifer and Toya's presence. Toya is Dev's roommate and best friend in college. Jennifer is like a sister to Dev and a daughter to me. I love them both and love that the three of them get along so well. We did some great traveling but I think, maybe, that they would have been just as happy to sleep until 3pm and then walk back down the street to "their" bar. I guess if I were 19 going on 27 I would be enjoying the 18 years old age limit for drinks.

Aside from them enjoying the bar life we went to a beautiful castle. As far as castles go, this one was relatively new, and one of my favorites. Everything was gorgeous and had lots of history.

We then traveled to Paris. Good times. We even climbed the Eiffel Tower by foot. Over 1400 stairs. This was after a long day on the street. On the way home from Paris my GPS broke. That was a bit scary. The autobahns are not like highways. There are numerous ones and they aren't necessarily clearly marked. Like on 95 in Richmond, Va there's a sign that says Miami, Fl. So I know I can get to SC from that road. Not so in France/Germany. Double the anxiety when you are responsible for someone else's precious children.

Next stop-Southern Germany. To Garmisch. A welcomed time to rest up after a busy few days. The view of the Alps was amazing.

And then-Rome. Upon first arrival I thought the plane had flown to Mexico. It looked very similar on the outskirts and I started doubting the decision to visit. We got checked in to our hotel room and started walking around and as we were crossing a street, we all looked to the left, and boom. The Colosseum. Breathtaking. We walked across the entire city for almost three days. Rome could also be known as the city of stairs. It has been my favorite trip so far. We ate Gelatto-twice a day. We had to refuse numerous beggars. We didn't get robbed. Upon every turn in the city was ancient ruins just waiting for us. We went to the Vatican and saw the Sistine Chapel. We saw the Pope speak. Did I mention we ate some gelatto? I stuck to Pineapple, Drake to Biscotti, Jenn to Chocolate, Toya to Strawberry and Dev to....oops. Dev was sick and didn't make the trip with us. Yep. We all felt terribly about leaving her but we had to do it. I have a feeling she'll make the trip before we leave here.

And that rounded out their time here. Jenn leaves on Monday so the next few days we'll see some movies, eat good and the kids will hit up the bars. Some nights I can hear them walking home, around 130am, from a few blocks away, just laughing and laughing and laughing. It's been nice. I'll miss them.

PS-Dev arrived on the 17th of May and is home on college break. It's so good to see her. She finished her first year with a 3.57 and loved it. She wants to go back early. =( Shane is one month shy of coming home. He's been enjoying flying and has run into a few divers and a friend of ours from high school. He's been networking with pilots from Delta and the State Dept. Retirement is coming.

Ramstein, I love you.

2011-05-01T18:07:00.000+02:00

Nope. Not an old photo! I was at a Chili's, drinking massive amounts of Presidente Margaritas!! At the Ramstein Airbase they have one and a Macaroni Grill. We went up for two days because I had to drop Shane off for his trip to Iraq. Because he's the only one going, in his unit, I could take him right to the airport. There are other men from his unit who have been there for months and just weeks. His unit is also up in another part of Germany so they have guys in Iraq too. We stayed at the Air Force Inn and it had a mini bar, with miniature alcohol bottles, beer, wine, snacks

and chocolate. It was divine. We had a great time. Drake stayed home, to watch the dogs. =) Meet one of our neighbors, Harold. Now that its warm outside the neighbors did a make shift beer garten right out front. They love Shane, Shane loves them, and the endless supply of Heffeweizen they provide. They also love the dogs. They love me, or the wife does and she tells me all the time. And to the right of Shane is Mossimo. He is Harold's daughter's boyfriend. Isn't spring pretty here? And this is our most recent family photo. It may just so happen that the flowers will still be blooming when Dev arrives so we'll do it again, minus Shane. He comes home mid July. His orders are for 90 days and we love that. I'm gearing up for Dev to get here, with two friends. I can't wait. I've already booked a flight to Rome, for three days, over Memorial Day Weekend. We'll also go to Paris and possibly Barcelona and Prague. Can't wait. Her friends will be here for two weeks. I was able to take the time off work. Can't wait. Found a gorgeous trail, Shane found riding his bicycle home from work, and I am excited to get back out there again. I thought my trail was gorgeous but I was oh. so. wrong. Enjoy your Sunday. I'm off to get my scrap on. This is Shane's pic at the terminal. I'll be back there to pick up Dev in 17 days. She's MAC flighting it over. Three flights a week leave Baltimore and she's already on the list. Love it.

Enjoying..

2011-04-20T06:46:00.000+02:00

Enjoying lots of things, finally! Things are getting better around here. Much better. Everyone who had lived in Germany told us how much we were going to "love" it here. We really thought we would. We didn't. We were ready to leave almost immediately. Now, warm weather, Drake has his license, I have a job, Shane is flying and we have a routine again and its not too bad. Beautiful actually. So many fields of flowers.

Shane is headed back to Iraq in 10 days. His orders say for 90 days. So happy about that. He will no longer need to do year deployments. He'll get some awesome flying in and be home.

Dev will be here in one month, with two friends. I can't wait. I found RT tickets to Italy for 12 Euro. Gonna book.

I am, surprisingly, loving my job. I love it. I love working part time. I can still do things that I want to do AND work. It's perfect and I will probably never work full time again. Hoping to find a part time paralegal gig when I leave here.

Have you visited the Hello Cutie Challenge Blog? I love the design and the colors. I've been dying to share my layout for this month. Come on over!

And the latest in Survivor Challenges at Tally. Use a Sheenism title. Worked out great that Drake broke his wrist over the weekend. Longboarding. He chose to jump off rather than get hit by a car, without a helmet on, going 30mph down a steep hill. Wonder if he'll chose to get back on? We find out next week if he needs surgery. They're going to wait and let the bones settle.

Happy Birthday Dev!!

2011-04-13T15:44:00.001+02:00

Just want to wish my little girl a very Happy Birthday!! She's 19 today. She's off in college. I still have a hard time believing it. Shane and I dug out the old photos last night. We can't believe how fast time flew by. Dev...this is for you! Wish we could be there to help you celebrate. Love you <3.

Meac 2nd Place Champs!

2011-03-28T13:56:00.000+02:00

I'm back from my much needed trip to the states. I went alone. Drake and Shane stayed in Germany because Drake had a big bowling tournament. When we had made the plans the tournament was the end of March. Turned out it was during Dev's tournament and when Shane volunteered to stay home-well I jumped at the chance to go. I invited a few friends and family. It was a pretty big deal-the MEAC's. Dev's team has three freshmen. All capable of being national contenders.

Turns out, they surprised a few teams. Namely, Del State. They beat them, twice, to move on to the final match. Which is being televised on ESPN this evening. They lost to Univ. MD Eastern Shores....and badly but they got there. Their team has never experienced the national stage like this. The camera crews on the lane and in their face, the lights, the action. UMES has been there done that. Dev did so well that weekend that she had the most pin count for her team AND she was nominated as All Conference Team. Its an honor to be nominated because its done by all the coaches at the conference. She stood out. Lead bowler. She did great!

And here's her team. One bowler is graduating next year but they are recruiting two, right now, and I know they will win the championship before their four years are up. The lady in the middle-future head coach of MSU. Hopefully sooner than later for she already does the job just doesn't have the title or the paycheck.

And no trip to the states is complete without seeing my BFF. She came down to Greensboro for an overnighter. We managed to sneak away to scrapbook shop. Found a great store in Greensboro NC. Loved it. She's lost 25 more pounds since I saw her last month. She looks fabulous. So impressive. I wish I could have the discipline she has when it comes to eating right.

And Shane's parents and aunt and uncle came as well. It was a good visit. I was thankful they came even though Shane wasn't there. MSU finally had the big cheering section. I also got to see my bro and his wife. They came for a day. Wish they would've stayed longer since we were only an hour from them but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Tomorrow-I start my new job. Working for Aafes until I find something better. Hiring freeze over here isn't helping my cause. Will be nice to have extra money for summer traveling. Spring break is right around the corner and we're wanting to fly to Italy and Spain. Gotta get it all in because when the army tells us its time to go-we'll be soo ready. We like Germany but we don't love it. Kinda wish we never left the states. Can't change it now but if we could, we would.

Spring is coming...

2011-03-08T15:35:00.000+01:00

Cos it has been nice enough to run outside. With a hat, gloves, sweatpants and light jacket-that is. Yesterday I took the dogs and we did 5 miles. I followed a new trail and wound up in the next town over AND it was such a gorgeous view I knew that I'd be running with my camera the next day. The dogs have loved it. We come home and they sleep all day. I guess 5 miles is a lot for small dogs. Can't wait to get a German Shepherd-I'm waiting until we have lots of land and one less dog.=)

I'm going to the states in 8 days! I leave next Wednesday. I fly into Baltimore and then I'll grab Dev's car and drive down to North Carolina for her bowling tournament. Shane's aunt and uncle AND parents are coming up. My brother and his wife will join us for a day and I'm hoping to see Tricia too! Shane and Drake aren't going any longer because Drake qualified in a big German Bowling Tournament and has semi-finals/finals the same weekend. Bummer. I was so glad Shane volunteered to take Drake cos I really need some U.S. of A. right now and he just got to see her bowl while he was there.

Tonight-bowling! Drake and I are on a league and I'm actually enjoying it. Last week, I beat him two games. He did terribly. lol. I'll take what I can get!

Come and Gone!

2011-03-01T16:29:00.000+01:00

Ah...the week went by so fast! I normally like it because in March we're heading to the states to watch our dearest daughter Dev bowl in a Championship Bowling Tournament but not THIS week. Tricia and her sister came to visit! After a depressing start to living in Germany, across the Atlantic Ocean, it was much needed and right on time.
The big plan was to take a Tim Holtz class in London.
The second big plan was to have her sister, Julie, join us in our European adventure. Julie and Drake toured London while we were in our class.
The third plan was to have fun.
One of the nice things to hanging out with Tricia is it just feels comfortable. I can tell her just how depressed I've been with no judgement, we can be silly, we can talk about our poops and have a vigorous competition in Yahtzee.
We traveled all over! Mostly Germany but I would be remiss to not mention that we drove on the wrong side of the road, with a on the wrong side steering wheel, with an on the wrong side of the road manual transmission. Did I turn into oncoming traffic while making a right? Yes. Did I get honked at and a bird flicked at me? Why yes. Did I get lost in the London countryside? Again, yes. Was it the adventure of a lifetime and make me think Tricia and we could be on the Amazing Race and win it, days ahead of other contestants, why yes. It sure did. See the car we rented, the license plate says N MY WINO. You have to scramble the letters but its there!
Our first day we headed to Munich to see Dachau, which was closed when we got there, and then the Glockenspiel. Take a look at this suckling pig we ate. Oh my. So delicious. I don't like porkrinds but that skin was nice and crispy. Yumm.

Second day was a down day in Stuttgart. We bought some really good cheese and saw a movie that night. Black Swan. Wow. Great movie and glad she won the Oscar.

So now I'm back to normal life. In that normal life I'm appreciating the bowling team that Drake and I are on, the fact that in 20 days I'm in the states again, that other wives feel the same way, I'm not crazy, AND that I'm appreciating the life Shane and I have going on right now. Its always been good but right now it's so great! Greater than great. Love getting to this place.
By the way, scheduled my first mammogram today. Yikes. I'm THAT age already. Now let's hope my sugars, cholesterol and thyroid tests come back normal. I gave six vials of blood today. As for running, my hips hurt. They hurt at night while laying on my side. He gave me a stronger anti-inflammatory and if not better in two weeks than xrays. Maybe arthritis? He thought inflammed tendon. He didn't like that I told him I ain't quittin' runnin'. Just not gonna happen. I didn't make my goal of 120 miles this month. I blame February's 28 days. That's 100 for Jan and Feb. Pretty cool.

Survivor is back on...

2011-02-18T14:28:00.000+01:00

and I am so happy. Unfortunately for me I have to watch it a day later BUT at least I get to watch it at all! This year I'm doing one layout per month that follows the Project 12 Sketch. I had tried to follow this in 2009 but didn't make it past the cover page for my album. I have since taken that cover page, ripped off the 09 on the end, and added 2011. Hopefully, we do something exciting every month but if not I have never minded scrapping the laid back times. Here's my January Layout:

Yes, it's of our trip to Paris. I wanted to use these pics cos we were all together. It wasn't necessarily the best trip we've ever been on and I just loved these pics. Even if it was a very cloudy day.

My next layout is from TallyScrapper kicking off their Survivor series again. I'm on Team Russell. He's just so fun to watch on the show. The first night definitely impressed with the drama and how anything can happen. Rob was so smart. I hope he and Russell are long for the game because they definitely make it interesting.

And in two days Tricia and her sister, Julie, will be here! I'm so excited. So for the next two days I'm cleaning, baking and shopping. Two days after that we're seeing more of Germany with a quick trip to London to take a Tim Holtz class! Holy heck I'm so excited. I already know that I have to ship home the class goodies. That's my kind of class right there.

And in more good news...Shane will be arriving in Baltimore on Saturday night to see Dev and to see her bowl in her school's tournament. So excited for them, so jealous, but oh so excited that they get to see each other. =) Ready for Shane to come home too. Wednesday he'll be back in Germany. =)

German Living!

2011-02-15T13:07:00.000+01:00

Ah. It was a tad of an adjustment but one I hope we take back to the states with us. This is my washer/dryer. It holds much less. To wash clothes it takes one and a half hours. To dry clothes it takes two. These are government issue so I'll be giving these back when we leave. They differ from Amer. washers/dryers in size, they use much less water and the dryer does not have a dryer hose. Instead I empty water, ever two loads, into a bucket and it is a lot of water. It makes me wonder where the water goes in the Amer. ones. There's no way it's evaporating this much water and, here, my clothes don't sit in a tub of water either. If they took an Amer. dryer apart would they find mold? They did in my washer before we moved.

Garbage! Almost everything gets recycled. I have three trash bins, four if you include where I go with my aluminum and glass. I collect everything organic. Here I'm throwing away remnants from Banana Muffins I made this morning. As you can see my bin is full of veggies. I never feel bad about throwing these things away. I include my tea bags and Shane's coffee grinds. They pick this bin up every two weeks, I only put it out when it's 1/4 full. That'll change in summer. I can't wait for the smell! Then there's paper. Every little bit of paper gets thrown in here. Cardboard, Drake's old homework, cereal boxes, magazines, even scraps of scrapbook paper. I also have a bag where I collect glass, aluminum and plastic bottles. I take this, once a week, on base to a sorter. Lastly my regular trash. Since being here I have gone from putting out a trash bag once a day to once a week. I can't believe the waste from before. I don't ever want to go back. If anything gets mixed up, like trash in the organic bin, they won't take it. They are very strict about it.

Our kitchen water is heated by solar panels and the yard has buckets where it collects water for rain. Speaking of kitchens-they are mobile. You may look at a place, see the cabinets, like it, want it and then move in and they have taken all the cabinets out. You have to request the cabinets be left. lol. Same with light fixtures. Back to water-I can't imagine why we ever thought it was a good idea to use filtered drinking water on our yard and to wash our cars. Kinda ridiculous if you think about it. When the bucket gets full they just empty it onto the yard. I will add though that Germans don't have land like we have land. The country is about the size of Montana? So they can recycle like they do AND they build UP not out. In other words...they've got very small lawns. Lawn care includes street care. If there is trash in the street and it's in front of your house-you pick it up, leaves-you rake it up. They are often sweeping streets and clearing snow by themselves. Everything is very neat and tidy. The refrigerators are tiny. They don't hold much, they don't get too cold either! We definitely don't keep milk passed the expiration date. Everything has stayed fresh, as far as we know. And kitchens are small, as well. As you can see this kitchen would be considered good size over here.=) When we looked at homes they had tables that pulled out from the cabinets. To eat at. Like we could fit around a tiny table that came out of the cabinet. They are proud of their system and it works for them. Even in the restaurants the tables are very cozy. Not much space for spreading out. So. Could you do it?

Yay!

2011-02-01T17:03:00.000+01:00

TallyScrapper is back up and running-under new management. I'm so excited to be hanging out there with all sorts of crafty women! Today the February Kit is up for sale-go get one!
Shane is on all kinds of flights this week and won't be home for a few days. He is flying around a 4 Star General to all kinds of places. First stop, Berlin. He called from Planet Hollywood where he was eating some fried American food. Tonight he's off to somewhere in Poland. I think Krakow. I have no idea where next. Then next week he is back in the states for a few weeks. More training before heading to Iraq. He's going to Arizona, Kansas and Wisconsin. Wisconsin may be scratched but hopefully he'll be able to see Dev while he's there. In March we are going to try our hand at taking a Mac Flight. A Mac Flight is a free flight from the military, aboard military aircraft, but it means you sit and wait for space available to board. We are leaving here the week of March 18th-ish to North Carolina, Greensboro area, for Dev's final bowling match for the year! They qualified and we are going!! When I told Drake, he cried. He cried for American food. The boy wants a steak, dangit, and we're eating out while there. For sure. The food I miss the most-breakfast. I want over-easy eggs, cheesy hash browns, bacon, I want the fire going at Cracker Barrel. I just want. A steak would be good too;).
So for any who are close to Greensboro-come hang out in a bowling ally with us all day long and then come dine with us as we eat enormous amounts of greasy, fried, cheesy, salty, artery clogging food.

Pittsburgh v. Packers

2011-01-24T09:00:00.000+01:00

Ugh.
That's just how this month feels, so far.
Dev left on the 14th of Jan and I had a hard time. Harder than dropping her off at college. Like a delayed reaction to my child going off to college. She's such the daughter and I miss her. Speaking of her, her bowling team took 1st this weekend at a tournament of 18 other. Big feat. They rocked it.
Took a volunteer position within the FRG-Welcome Wagon! To welcome the new people who come into the unit, the unit's small so not many incoming, and since our arrival was less than informative I figured the best way to change that was to help out.
Drake started bowling again. He had a tournament yesterday and did quite well. It wasn't an individual competition but a team event. In Germany you are an adult at 15 when it comes to sports. He made the top team in the area and bowled against all adults. Pretty cool. Hopefully his Alabama driver's license gets here this week and he can get his driver's license.
Me. I've been in a funk. Feeling depressed. You'd think running 75 miles this month, so far, would give a boost to the psyche but I haven't felt that yet. I read that Jan 17th is the most depressing day of the year. Could be the season? Could it be turning 40 this year? Could it be that I'm feeling more distant from loved ones cos I'm way over here? I need to snap out of this! A great way would be to get a job =) Have an appointment with the Career Counselor this week. My employment history is like a buffet at the Bellagio...a little bit of everything. I don't know how to tie it in for one thing. I am going back to school. My favorite part of my job at the PD was taking reports and so I'm going to get my certificate to be a Paralegal. That way I can do an aspect I love without the crappy hours or the occasional fight with a crack head.
I'm out. Gotta clean up from the weekend and take the dogs for a nice long walk.

Some layouts of late:

Garmisch

2011-01-12T10:10:00.000+01:00

To be honest I'm not sure if its Garmisch or Garmish. I'm too lazy to look it up. Ran 10 miles yesterday and my butt is on the couch, sore. Last night we celebrated Shane's birthday. I still can't believe how we are "getting up there" in the numbers. Weird. When do we start worrying about fracturing a hip or cataracts? I read that those who ran over 10 miles a week were 90% less likely to have eye problems when they are older. Cool cos my eyes suck already.

Garmisch is just two hours away and a lovely, no speed limit, drive. If you don't maintain a speed above 100 you will get run over. You can see them coming in the rear view and you had better get out of the way quickly for they have no time to react if you don't. Germany is full of "gentlemen drivers". They don't mind letting you in, moving out of the way, waiting for pedestrians to cross. It's very different coming from the land of inching up so you won't let someone over or not waiting for pedestrians. They also yield to those on the right, even if your in the right of way. Strange, that one is.

Garmisch! We went to Edelweiss Lodge, owned by the U.S. Military. They don't have skiing on the base but it was just a quick 2 minute drive to the Lodge that is run by the U.S. Working there? Young American adults who came to travel and ski. Pretty cool. The lodge was nice, was looking forward to the 2 queen beds in our room, had a gym, numerous dining options, a great view, Starbucks!, a heated pool and a big ole fireplace that was great for reading.

The skiing was more like base jumping. Straight drops off the side of the mountain. I took the Gondola up and hung out at a hut serving food and Gluhwein. The kids and Shane skii'd. They made a pact to go all the way down the mountain. The mountain had like 5 lifts to the top so skiing down would take an hour, it was that big. Dev ended up walking down, Shane had to ski down holding Dev's ski's and poles, Drake was on a snowboard and they all ate crow. None of them are Olympic skiiers. I don't think they'll go all the way down the mountain again. Our goal is to find some smaller mountains, closer, to learn how to ski in Europe. Clearly its not the same as Virginia.

Shane is back at work. He flew to Belgium the past two days and today is London. He has left at 6am and been home by 1 or 2. How lucky is he. I need him to fly to Italy soon, pick up some of their delicious wine and come on back. He leaves February 10th for the US of A. He's going to school in three states: Arizona, Kansas and Pennsylvania. When he's in PA he'll drop down and see Dev bowl on the 20th. That means he won't be here when Tricia gets here and I really wanted his chauffer expertise. Just have to do it myself. lol. Then he heads to Iraq in April but for six months, however, there is a rumor that he'll be home in the summer cos their job over there ends and switches to Kuwait but the Kuwait job isn't for months later. We'll see!

Dev leaves on Friday. She's got a stop in London, Chicago and then home. She's ready to get back to her friends. She never got adjusted to the time zone here so she would go to bed around 5am and wake up around 2pm. It was so good to see her. Her and Drake reconnected! For the past five years we've had all these kids around and they kinda grew apart. I can see him looking up to her like he did when he was 2. Its so cute!

Running!

2011-01-09T10:45:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to pat myself on the back.
My runs in the past:

Aside from the half marathon you can see what mileage I was sticking with.

And now it's normal for me to be running longer distances. I am so glad that I've taken up running. I never thought I could do it. I was a swimmer, not a runner. Running sucked. Now I love lacing up my Nike's, always an Adidas fan before, and clearing my head while trimming down my waste line. My goal for 2011 is to keep running. To run 800 miles this year. I ran just over 300 last year and didn't start keeping track until June so I figure I can do it. I would love to run a marathon but to do so in one day I'm just not sure about. It takes me a week to hit 26 miles.

We just returned from Garmisch Germany where Shane and the kids went skiing. I did not. I planned on it but I'm glad I didn't. The Alps are unlike anything I've ever seen. I bought Tricia, Julie and I tickets to the Zugspitz. It's the tallest point in Germany and to get to the top you take a gondola, attached to a single metal cable, up over 9000 feet in the air(did you just pucker a little?). It's due to this type of mountain type that I did not ski. It seemed more like base jumping to me. Shane and the kids only did one day. Sore from the skiing. I'll post pics in my next post!

Merci, Paris.

2011-01-02T13:04:00.000+01:00

We made it to Paris for New Years Eve! We actually arrived on Wednesday, after a five hour drive, and immediately hit the ground running. What a site Paris is at night. We walked from our hotel to the Champs Elysees. Only because we were so close did we go. It was something we were going to skip this go round and ending up being a place we kept going back to. Loved it. The Arc de Triumph is way bigger in person. You can climb it, on the inside, and look out over the avenue where France gets together to celebrate World Cups, watch the final leg of the Tour de France or where statesman speak. Lots of fun.

The next day we got up and headed for Notre Dame. I absolutely loved it. I took 100 pics of the statues, the architecture, the chapel. It was amazing. My favorite place in Paris, so far, is this place. I felt refreshed when I left even though the line was long. It moved fast, that line. Just amazing. Built in 1263. Wow.

Next we made our way to the Louvre, which was along the Seine River. This building here is known as the Concierge. It was essentially a jail where the guillotine was used over and over and over again. Marie Antoinette lost her head here. You can make your way in. We didn't.

Ah the Louvre. At first we weren't going to go BUT after reading the entire book on Paris during the drive, due to the fact that I don't like paying attention to the speeds we travel, I changed my mind and we had time. The line was long but it moved constantly and before we knew it we were inside. You enter through the glass pyramid and go down. There are numerous wings but we went for the wing with the Mona Lisa. Wanted to see it. Making our way in was dizzying. So many people that I couldn't enjoy it. We saw the Mona Lisa and left immediately. And by seeing the Mona Lisa I was sandwiched with thousands of other gawkers. Pass. I couldn't tell where they limited the number of people. There was easily 1 million people there. Easily.

Eiffel Tower, obviously, a must see. Again, the size of the pics you see does not do it justice. The only comparison I have is the second floor of the Eiffel, named after Gustav Eiffel-who financed, oversaw, dreamed this for the purpose of the World games with the intent to be taken down weeks later-is the second floor is as high as the National Monument. Seriously. We bought our tickets ahead of time so we didn't have to wait in line. Unfortunately the weather rolled in and we could only make it to the second floor. Still amazing. There was ice skating and restaurants. Tons of people and peddlers. Worth it.

Including this just so you can see how high the second floor is.

And finally on New Years we heard the train was free and running all night for those partying. We went back to the Champs Elysees with a view of Eiffel and was expecting fireworks. There were none. 0. lol. It was fun but lack luster and of course only certain trains ran. We weren't within walking distance at this point and were going to rely on the train. Big mistake. After 4 hours we made it back to our hotel. It was exhausting. Lots of asking people where to go cos the train station we had used and were going to use was closed.

See Paris again=100%
In the winter=can't image a better time to go.
The city at night=more sparkly than daytime.
Not necessarily at New Years for they take your champagne and don't do fireworks.
And for the added bonus I'm confusing French, German and English for key words. For hello I want to say Gutten Bonjour. For thank you I want to say Vielen Merci. I can't imagine when I frequent Italian what it will do to my psyche.

Munich

2010-12-22T20:53:00.000+01:00

Today we went to Munich to see the Dachau Concentration Camp and then, ironically, head to a famous beer hall. The beer hall called the Hofbrau Haus where Hitler gave his first public speech. First though, we had to get there. This means the Autobahn. We travel the autobahn all the time. The autobahn stands for highway and there are places there are no speed limits but for the most part there are. Today however, we hit the no speed limit zone. Scary! I was so glad I wasn't driving until I ended up driving home. lol. Today we hit top speeds of 120mph and we got passed!! Passed like we were sitting still. Scary thing is, if your not cruising at top speeds, you'll get hit from behind!

Onto Dachau. A nice museum with a sad, sad story. The work the prisoners had to do, the lack of sleep, the cold, the lack of food, the medical experiments. Not only were Jewish people held but also political prisoners from other countries. Great museum. Would do it again.

We were then on to the city center of Munich, really known as Munchen. The Olympics were held here in 1972. We got a glance of the stadium. Our goal today was for the traditional beer hall, with the oompah music and steins of beer and bratwurst. We got that. They sell 10 thousand liters of beer a day. Amazing. I haven't found a German beer I like yet so I stuck with cola. I did love my suckling pig that I got. Yum. E.

Some layouts I have done recently. It was good to get away from the Christmas crafts lately.

Dev!

2010-12-18T17:14:00.000+01:00

Here we are at Shane's work's Christmas party. Fabulous time. I enjoyed getting to know some of the pilot's wives a little better. One couple, who I really like, is leaving 2 days after Christmas. Bummer.

Back to my title! Dev has now spent August-December in college and she's come home quite the young lady. It was very hard leaving her because I wasn't sure we had done a good job with her. Would she be okay taking care of herself? Would she fall victim to some of the craziness that happens on college campuses? Would she have some hard times? Would she maintain good study habits without us pushing her? I was so worried about all these things but I knew that she would make friends easily, cos she's a military child.

So she got good grades, she had some rough times, she got one speeding ticket, she had to write a paper on the N word, she got gauges in her ears, she came home liking hot sauce on her pizza, honey mustard with her chicken fingers and still maintains the love of sleeping until noon and came home with a greater sense of humor. She's even more outgoing than before. She has some best friends at college that she's called and shopped for since being here. I love to listen to her stories. I don't like listening to stories of beer pong or the gauges in her ears, even if they are really small.

To me she's still 8 so her growing up has been weird for us. I think she's a beautiful young lady who I am super proud of. I couldn't of asked for a better daughter and am so thankful that God gave her to us.

Tags are done!

2010-12-12T15:20:00.000+01:00

Now I just need a Christmas tree...or should I say a Tannenbaum? Not much sleep has been going on in these parts. Drake headed to a party, with friends, in the city center. Dev and Shane stayed up until 6am watching UFC. I stayed up until midnight making them snacks for the fight. Our neighbors came over and joined them so I had to make something.

I finished the 12 Tags of Christmas. I can't wait to hang them on our tree, whenever we get one.

I'm caught up on the December Daily Album. =)

Now we are off to the gym to work off some of the brot, bread, we ate yesterday. I had mine with buffalo mozerella. Yum! Then maybe the Tourist.

Before we leave I thought I'd tell you about a conversation I had with my German neighbors. I'm getting good at understanding the German language but speaking it is a whole other story. We worked on sentences last night. They told us that we were young parents and asked if we were having any more. In joking I replied, Herr Shane nicht honde. Which translates...Mr Shane no balls. I had the daughter laughing and the mom was confused and kept asking her daughter what I meant. Shane wasn't too happy thinking I had just told them he had NO nuts. They finally understood that he had a vasectomy years ago and we were ready to be grandparents in a few years. Funny though.

Weinacht Markt!

2010-12-11T17:28:00.000+01:00

Today I woke up early for a quick 3 mile run, I did 20 this week so far, and then we hit the PX for Santa photos. The great thing about Dev coming 6 days early was that I was going to be able to make Santa photos. =) Then we headed to downtown Stuttgart for a day of festivities. I would love to tell you it was to drink some warm gluhwein and go ice skating BUT our favorite cheese was there. Gruyere Reserve and we spent 25 Euro for a block of it. Its so good. So, so good. We also picked up our favorite bread, which I will grill later with some garlic and olive oil and grate some of that delicious cheese on. Oh my. I will take a picture later.

Dev made it safe and sound after being at four airports. She left Balitmore for Chicago and from Chicago to Munich, where she hit a slight delay due to snow, and then on to Stuttgart. She looked exhausted when we saw her and I thought I wouldn't cry but I did. She came home and we cuddled, she told me about college life, we laughed and then she passed out. She's sleeping now, even.

And I was caught up on my Tim Holtz tags and the December Daily album as of Thursday. I gave up trying to follow Tim's techniques because I couldn't ship over liquids so I have none of his stuff. I am very excited for London so I can stock up on them AND see him LIVE and in person. I've never taken his class and I believe I'll leave there and never be the same. Sigh.

Tonight this family of four is going to chillax in front of the television and eat some good cheese, on bread, with steak and garlic.

Samstag!

2010-12-04T15:15:00.002+01:00

Saturday! Where are the weeks going. I can't believe its the first weekend in Dezember. I'm going to start incorporating German words just to help me remember them better. All I want for Christmas is to wake up and know the language. lol.

Finished Day 3 for my Dezember Taglich album. It was from when we went to the Chocolate Festival in Tubingen. For the love of all things chocolate. Even chocolate mustard, which I found kinda gross, but Shane bought it for his dad because he thinks he'll like it.

Catching up with my Tim Holtz tags! I didn't care for my Tag Zwei but really like my Tag Drei(Ich ahnlich mein drei etikett). It's probably so far off from how it would be spoken by a German and for that I apologize but looking up small words helps me remember and I really need to learn it!

Oh and here's my day 2! About the weather.

Weather!!

2010-12-02T20:47:00.003+01:00

Today Shimelle's Challenge was to journal about the weather! Perfect timing for we are coming off of a week of snow and the fact that I've been in Texas for the past five years, before that Florida, before that Hawaii...I haven't had a solid winter since 1997. I'm loving it. I want it to snow MORE!

What's strange to me is I've asked the locals...when will it snow? They've all said how green Germany is in the winter. How it doesn't snow much. I was thinking this may be green to them. They even snowplow the sidewalks here. Remember, they don't want to keep you from walking/biking/hiking across the countryside and they mean it. I love that about this place and my dogs appreciate it to.

Got my hair done today and I'll be keeping my new hairdresser(Friseur), Jessica, and she speaks English! Bonus! She's off to North Carolina and Maryland in a month. She's got a boyfriend who lives in the states and if all goes well she'll be moving. =( Sigh.

I'm off. It's been a long day. Tomorrow I'll finish my December Daily Day 2 and TH tag 2 and probably do my three too!

Day 1 down!

2010-12-01T21:34:00.005+01:00

Today I finished Day 1 for December Daily, TH Tag and my journaling. Not to be forgotten the six miles I ran this morning. =)

I documented our shopping for Shane's cousins Marty and Jacob AND a giveaway on Tally AND a box to Tricia's kids. We were heading for the Chocolate Festival today but it started snowing around 11 and at 9pm it hasn't stopped yet. We are going tomorrow because the snow is due to stop in the morning. =)

TFL!

December 1st!

2010-12-01T14:50:00.003+01:00

I have so many things starting today that I'm super excited about!! If you look to the right, below my FB badge, you'll see a list of December Dailys. If your looking for something to keep you crafty and in shape then join me!

I have made my December Daily album(Ali Edwards). It's not 100% complete but will be when I'm done. I may/may not scrap every day of the album but I will most definitely journal(Shimelle). I always lose sight of what's right in front of me and with a journal and album prompt I should have no problems expressing this Christmas and what I want to share with my children.

I also started 50 Miles in December Challenge(CathyZ). I had already planned on running 4 days per week but then Z came along with the 50 miles and I had to do it. If I do 4 days per week at 4 miles per run then I should finish okay. I'm a little worried but I am going to do longer miles to start out just in case my miles towards the holiday get less and less. Dev is coming home and we have lots of cities and countries to see before she leaves. =)

For my journaling for December 1st I had this whole post planned about having a holiday living in a new country and our daughter visiting and traveling during the holiday and what would be. That all changed this morning when I logged onto Facebook and saw that someone I knew had lost her mom and unexpectedly. It made me stop and think, and gave me firepower on my six miler this morning, that I don't have a tradition to honor those who aren't with us this holiday season. I felt grief for the pain that people I know will be feeling for their loved ones who won't be joining them this holiday season either. My whole Day 1 has changed to documenting our lost loved ones and being creative with an idea to remember those who won't be here this season.

Happy Thanksgiving =)

2010-11-26T21:37:00.002+01:00

A day late BUT our German family didn't leave until around 2am and I had wayyyy too much wine! And here in Germany the wine, like beer, has a higher percentage of alcohol. We had our dinner around 7pm and I must say that I preferred it. Normally we would eat by three for the football games but our German family didn't get off work until after 5 so 7 it was. It was the best meal I've ever cooked for Thanksgiving. Everything tasted sooo good. I think it was not rushing. Taking my time on everything.

This is our family here. We get together every Sunday and chit chat and drink beer/wine. Sometimes the guys have a shot of Schnapps. Here in Germany Schnapps is a very good liquor. So Shane bought Harald a bottle of Crown Royal.

I was worried about what they'd think of our home because they have generally small homes OR they aren't small but more than one family would be living in them. They didn't seem to judge and said that my home was very welcoming. I think that's the best compliment I could receive.
Tomorrow we are going to our town's Christmas market. We live in the town of Steinnenbronn. It's very small. I'm super excited. Warm gluwein, fresh bread, shopping for Christmas.

We were able to chat with all of our loved ones yesterday. Dev is at my brother's celebrating the holiday. She has slept and ate good. She had a very good time. Wish we were there BUT we woke up to a winter wonderland. There were a lot of reasons to come to Germany but down deep my reason was for winter. I've lived in the south since 1998 and I have missed this season. All the seasons really.

And I'm running again. Finally. Now that I have my car and my house is more settled. Four days a week for me again. I have to. Am beginning to feel a little more rollie-pollie.

Pre-Thanksgiving Post!

2010-11-23T19:56:00.004+01:00

Sorry it took me a while. I just had to get rid of the negative feelings I was having and refresh! It sure it is easy to do here in Germany. I live near so many trails and one of my favorite parts of the day is walking them for miles! The other morning was absolutely fabulous because it was snowing. I love snow. This is the first place, since 1998, where I'm going to get it every single winter.

For Thanksgiving we are having our neighbors over for dinner. It'll be a later dinner than we are used to-7pm. Our neighbors are all German and its not a holiday for them. I'm not sure they've had turkey but just in case I'm making ham along with mashed potatoes, corn, roasted cauliflower, rolls, cranberry sauce, deviled eggs and stuffing. For dessert its pumpkin pie, banana pudding and chocolate bourbon pecan pie. If they like just one of those things then life is good because I'll have wine and beer and I know they like those things. Every Sunday we go downstairs to their apartment and drink with them, talk about things going on, show pictures of our loved ones, learn new German words and sayings and just enjoy each other. They are Harold, Imgart, Claudia and Mossimo. Claudia is the daughter of Harold and Imgart and Mossimo is her boyfriend.

This weekend starts advent in Germany. I need to look up how long it runs. The good news for me is all of the Weinachtmarkts will be up and running. Our small town is hosting one on Saturday so we are all walking down to shop for Xmas and drink gluwein. I'm excited!! Did I mention its supposed to snow from tonight until next Wednesday. Oh yeah.

I got my car and it failed inspection due to the tint on the front windows so we had to peel those off. They put my car through the ringer but didn't look twice at Shane's 1993 BMW which I know would not have passed. For my license plates my three options were SOB, STD and SEX its followed by about 4 numbers. My temporary tags started with TS. Loved that. We took SOB.

I'm ready to start scrapping for Xmas and make my Xmas book! I love my office, I've got three times the room as before.

Next post...Thanksgiving. Blessings to you!

2010-11-20T09:19:00.001+01:00

What an adventure Germany is turning out to be. I don’t know if adventure is the right word....no. Germany, so far, has been difficult! I blame the Army. Everything takes so long to do, any office is preceded by three other offices to get one thing done. The Army will pay the locals, for services they do and ricki-tick, but pay us for travel, all hotel expenses and food and we won’t see that money until December. It shouldn’t be allowed.

It looks like Red got into our bank account. Not to take anything but to update his info, which wasn’t on our account and we never gave him log-in info, and to try to call the bank and take care of things has proved difficult.

I finally got my license! My car is in Germany but it’s at the bottom of a long list of other vehicles being shipped down before mine. Shane bought a 1993 BMW but it is a gas guzzler. Surprisingly, everything works in the vehicle and the back seats are heated as well. When I drive it, it squeaks, and I feel like a taxi driver.

Our neighbors are fabulous. They are German but a few speak English and so far we’ve joined them for drinks in their home. They are very giving. They are joining us for Thanksgiving. I have no idea how I’m going to cook. My oven is half the size my American one was AND it’s convection. So far I’ve been guessing temperatures when cooking. We aren’t online yet and until then, a week from today, I have just a few minutes to use the internet when I can.

The bread and cheese here...oh my. I ate so much cheese yesterday! Shane and I took the train into downtown for the market. We picked up some local stuff to bring home and have a smorgasboard for dinner. It truly was. And the bread. Oh my. I can’t even think about the hot wine and white chocolate mixture I drank downtown yesterday. Makes my heart break to know it’ll be a while before I’m back down there drinking it again.

Shane is having surgery in less than a week. He’s one of five pilots here in Stuttgart but there are rules to when they fly and because the holiday season is approaching, and he’s the last of three new pilots to arrive, he won’t be in an aircraft until January. So it’s time to have his shoulder fixed from when he was run over by the ATV in Iraq. We opted for him to have it done in a German hospital. The fact that if you have a visitor you take them to the Cafe and get a beer sold us! No, it was the fact that the Chief of that department does the surgery that sold us. The only unknown is that Germans don’t believe in pain medication like we do. An American doctor will arm Shane with pills for the pain, prior to going, but we’re not sure how that works. Shane had the same shoulder done in 2000 at an Army hospital and the doc could see he needed to repair what was done there. Most Americans use the German system. The surgery is Thursday, he must go in on Wednesday and may not be home until Monday. If they don’t let him go home on Friday then they won’t, until the next business day, which is Monday. I won’t be able to take him to the hospital because the people coming to hook up our internet and phone is coming. We’ve had this scheduled for three weeks so I am not missing it.

Drake has a job, at a Mexican restaurant, on base. He buses and washes dishes. So far, he likes it. His school is going good. It’s not my favorite that we’ve been to. Transferring, mid-year, to a DODD school is a pain. They have different rules. He’s made friends and each week goes out with some. If you are 18 you can buy alcohol on base. Shocking to me. Devin will love it when she gets here. I hold the only ration card though! =) Everything here is bought on rations. Alcohol, cigarettes, coffee and gas. We are having to pick him up nightly and forgot how rough it can be when your kid doesn’t have a license. We are just waiting for his Alabama license to get here and then he will be getting the German one and can drive himself home at night.

The dogs are doing fabulous. Minus Posh, of course. She wants to bite the head off of any German dog she sees and some of their owners. I like to let them run off their leash, when we run, but sometimes that is not the smartest idea for them.

We finally have cable! It took a week longer than we thought but we have it. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I MISS AMERICAN COMMERCIALS! lol. Who knew? We had to install, ourselves, the satellite dish, the cables AND had to find the AFN satellite in the sky.

I know this post may be sounding a tad negative. Sorry about that. We are having fun here, loving the country, ready to travel and once we are settled and get the beginning of stuff over it’ll be better. A plus the Christmas markets are starting soon and Dev will be here in one month and for a month.

We signed a lease!

2010-10-23T10:02:00.003+02:00

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We move in either next week or the week after! Signed our lease and that took a few hours because he speaks zero english! We had a translator and then took the paperwork on base to be translated to make sure we were signing what we thought we were gonna sign. The landlord is super friendly and we promised him zwei(two) bottles of Jack Daniels and he is giving us a lot of German furniture. He is a builder in the area and owns numerous homes and was going to take his furniture to Good Will. We gladly took it because we put half our furniture in storage for we were told the Army would provide us with some. They stopped doing that. Other than closets. They give us closets for German homes are built with none. Speaking of homes, for about an hour, they couldn't find our furniture! I was in a panic, Shane's blood pressure was definitely on the rise and all I could think was I lost all my photos. They found them! What they couldn't find was our shipment from Alabama. I'm not going to worry about that right now.

We found a pizza place in Vaihingen. It was the best pizza we've ever had. Margherita pizza. Just hope we have a good one close to where we are moving in Steinenbronn.

Still looking for a vehicle. One is coming from Wiesbaden on Monday and if it passes German inspection we will buy it. An 8 year old BMW for 2 thousand. There are no ugly cars here. The Germans spend on their cars and clothes.

Failed my driver's test, twice. The second time by one. In Germany if someone is on a side street and on your right you must stop to let them out but there are times when you don't have to do that and it confuses me. I have been driving all over, just fine, but I know a camera caught me speeding. I don't know how/when that'll catch up to me.

Drake is in a high school where the majority of the students smoke. I don't like it. I'm afraid he will pick it up. They have open lunch here, on base, so the students stand around smoking. I don't get how the base commander allows it. I told him to start an anti-student-smoking movement but he refuses since he's the new guy. School is going well for him and he is looking forward to having a home again and a decent cell phone and cable for Americans. We have these pay as you go cell phones right now and if you come visit us we will provide you with one while you are here to make your stay more at ease.

The sun has been shinning the past few days. It's beautiful but really cold. Ice on the windows every morning. I don't mind it as much. The dogs don't seem to be bothered by it either, which surprises me.

I've run once since being here and going for a run today. On the other hand I have walked miles each day. For meals we just walk to the town center and see what looks good. We haven't minded that yet. You must pay for parking everywhere you go so walking it is.

There were other things I wanted to say but can't remember. The pics are either of us at the Pizza joint OR our new place OR the view from our new place. I can't wait to decorate. It feels like home without my stuff, I can't wait to get my stuff and get a job so I can afford to decorate the way I want to!

Week 1 almost complete!

2010-10-19T19:33:00.002+02:00

We've been driving over here! Holy Hell! The street signs and the rules of the road are so much different and almost seem a little backward than I am used to. No close calls, should be no problem. We found a place we reallly like. It's a 5 bedroom apartment. The houses here are a tad small and have zero yards, or ones available after PCS season like we are in, so an apartment it is. We like the houses but the apartment is the top floor of a building and we have the entire top floor. It's huge. I'll have my own scrap room, three balconies, the biggest kitchen I've seen yet in Germany, and it's brand new. It's beautiful. We live in the country with a short bike ride to a quaint village. Everything outweighed the fact that we have no yard for the dogs. We will hire a dog walker while we are at work. We are surrounded by mountains and bike trails-it is gorgeous. Got a little lost today looking at another house and were voicing how beautiful the area was and then we passed the place we really want. Waiting for a call back from the realtor-so fingers crossed we get it!

I hit the commissary today. It's nicer than Ft Hoods. Thank goodness. Got an address, its a PO box but whatever, Drake had a successful first day. He's going to join the soccer team at his school, which is ranked 4th in all of Europe and needs a defender. So glad he's doing soccer again. He also joined a ski and snowboard club and on the weekends will be hitting the slopes.

Saturday we are going to a party at our new friends house to meet Shane's co-workers and then Sunday it's a bus trip to Frankenstein's castle for a haunted house where they will touch you-A LOT. Next weekend is the pumpkin festival. I was thinking we had made a mistake moving here BUT am starting to love it.

We both get tears in our eyes when explaining to people where our daughter is. It doesn't seem right that it's the three of us.

Found our favorite restaurant called the Busnauer Hof. OMG. If you visit, I will take you there. The Tricare lady told me about it cos our hotel isn't too far and she was so right. It only has about five tables. The wife is the waitress, husband the chef. Everything cooked after you order it. Holy hell. We had so much leftover it was dinner tonight.

The cream in my tea is so delish, I didn't know what I was missing.
I'm getting sick of lunch meat for breakfast-a German staple. Still loving the cheese though.
Ready to not be living out of a suitcase.
Taking my driving test tomorrow. You can rent a car with your license, if you are a wife, because they act like you are on vacation here.
It's supposed to snow Thurs through the weekend.
The fall leaves are stunning.
The people love when you try to speak their language.

We made it!

2010-10-17T12:09:00.004+02:00

What a trip! We left Alabama a little too close for comfort to drop our car off to be shipped over AND check in AND make sure we only had less than a quarter of a tank in the gas tank. Geesh. Shane dropped Drake and I off, with all luggage and dogs, at the Atlanta airport.

The check in was super easy and we had the nicest lady. She took a verbal yes that we had all the paperwork for the dogs because Shane had it with him and he was dropping the car off to be shipped to Germany. She got a tip.

Shane made dropping the car off by 5 minutes to closing. We thought they were open until five but they closed early that day.

Lufthansa is so nice. We had a whole row to ourselves. We called the fourth seat Devin's seat. There were 12 movies to chose from and they served free liquor. Nice. They didn't really speak english though. It was a pretty long flight. We got some sleep.

Landed in Germany, got the dogs okay, the military was expecting us. Shuttle bus to where Shane would be working. They weren't really expecting us. No hotels for us to stay in. One night stay and then we had to move somewhere. I went to bed not knowing where tomorrow would be but Shane saved the day and found us a place in a German, tiny, hotel. European style accomodations and breakfast. Very good.

I don't have many pics of Germany yet because we have no car, and we haven't been anywhere.

Some things of note:
cold
fall in full swing-beautiful
they say snow by Halloween
I really need to learn German
the towns are so pretty
the chocolate is yum
I know that Pils is a woman's beer
cheese spatzel is delish-like real good mac and cheese
the pork here is so tender and tasty
farlen dank-thank you the way germans like it
tchoos-so long, the way germans like it

Heading to a week of classes tomorrow, renting a car tomorrow cos you can even if you don't have a license. Shane will be deploying to Iraq sometime next year, only for a couple of months though. He's one of five airplane pilots in Stuttgart and will be working butt off to places like Brussels, London, France, Africa, Spain..it'll be such a tough assignment. I've never seen more full blown Colonels without combat patches. Geesh. Get to the show already then tell us how its done.

We have cheesy cell phones and will be looking for an international calling card soon. We look at three houses on Monday. One looks absolutely to die for. Fingers crossed!

Wedding!!

2010-10-12T17:35:00.003+02:00

What a great time we had! Vegas is just fun. So much to do, so little time for sleep, so expensive. lol. I was paying 13.00 for a gin and tonic or bourbon and beer. It really made more sense to gamble for free drinks.

All of my brother's friends were very friendly and I walked away with them now being MY friends too. =) Devin and Drake impressed everyone and Dev has many offers for a place to "get away" if need be.

My brother's wedding was so touching. First, he truly is married to a remarkable woman. So beautiful, a wonderful family. Couldn't ask for better. I little, tiny weight was lifted off my shoulders knowing he was now married. Kinda like how parents feel when their kid graduates. That's how I felt. Like he's gonna be okay. My only wish was that my parents were there. They truly missed out, truly would've loved Noelle and truly would've been so proud of my brother.

Elvis sang at the reception. It was fabulous and not tacky. The almond cake was to die for. The setting at Caesar's Palace was elegant. It was a party! I loved the best man speech. My brother and I are a lot alike in that we keep life long friends. His groomsmen have known him all his life.

I, already, am ready to hit Vegas again. Definitely loved Planet Hollywood. It has a mile mall attached, the rooms were awesome, the roulette wheels were lucky for me and it was cheap!

I got to see Dev and that was icing on the cake. She arrived on Thursday night, during one of the get-to-know-each-other parties. I was already feeling good. She arrived and the tears started coming. Then we all went to play poker and they let her play and gave her beer. She bluffed some of my bro's friends. It was priceless. It was hard to sit there watching this illegal activity BUT luckily I numbed myself with alcohol. lol. Most of my pics are blurry. Wrong setting, no flash, alcohol. But I kinda like it that way. Not one night did we go to bed before 5am. It was so much fun. Dev, this week while we are incommunicato, just remember we are thinking of you daily and love you! =)

We saw the Sin City Comedy Show while there. They don't offer a military discount BUT gave us tickets for over half off for being military. Awesomely funny. The only problem was the act in between the acts, like the shirt before the shirt, was a strip tease and by the last in between act she was topless. So sitting next to Drake and Kevan and Devin was a tad uncomfortable. Then after looking around no one resembled 18 or younger in side. I felt just like I did when I took the kids to see Me, Myself and Irene(they were 8 at the time) except this time they were sitting right next to me so I had to claim them. lol.

As for Germany we leave in the morning. When we dropped the dogs off at the kennel last week we told them what we needed to ensure the dogs making into Germany with no issues. They called us and said, "there's no way to get it all done before you leave." lol. Nothing we could do until we came back so yesterday we were running all over Alabama trying to meet the requirements. Don't trust the actual military website to tell you what you need! They were wrong. lol. At 3pm we go see the USDA person who signs all of our paperwork to make sure our dogs hit no quarantine and get off the plane just like us.

Our sponsor closed his email account so no one in Germany even knows we are coming. That is a little disheartening in case we run into an emergency. We are told how things are going to go but I've learned a few things over the years....don't expect anything OR expect the worst to happen.

Our cell phones get turned off tonight or tomorrow. =(

Enjoy the week! Think of us and for a safe journey. They are calling for fog where we are landing so I have no idea what that means for us. I do not like flying in fog.

M

only one more to go..

2010-10-01T17:05:00.004+02:00

Fridays that is! Next Friday we are in Vegas, staying at Planet Hollywood, for my brother's wedding. We get back and leave for Germany a few days later! The last of our movers come on Tuesday and then we head to Atlanta to fly out. Our movers are picking up any scrap items I ship, our dive gear(that we bought and used twice this summer), summer clothes(highs of 59 where we are moving), bowling balls(Drake will pack three to travel with), and just some odds and ends. We ordered an IPAD. Yikes. Our flights to and from Vegas are going to be long and drawn out and our trip to Germany will not be easy. We wanted something where I could read a book on and Drake could watch movies or play games with. He doesn't know it yet. We'll give it to him at our family dinner in Vegas as an early birthday present. Supposedly when we arrive in Frankfurt a bus will shuttle all the military families arriving that day to Wiesbaden for an all day class, including our dogs, and then the next day or that night will bus us down to Stuttgart. Our plane will leave around 6pm and arrive in Germany at 8 in the morning the following day. It's only about an 8 hour flight but with the time change will feel much longer. I'm going to try out a Tylenol PM before we travel so I'll know if I want to take one for the flight.

I'm super excited to see Dev next Thursday. We're turning our cell phones off as soon as we return from Vegas. I cut my foot and haven't run in two days. I'm missing out on this great weather. I ran on it on Wednesday and it hurt and reopened.

Some layouts I like lately. One for Timeless Daydreams challenge. I like that I have one more to add to my Tally Album AND then this one of Shane. Who treats his body like it's 18 and suffers for it the next day.

15 days.

2010-09-27T18:01:00.004+02:00

And we are on a plane for Germany. I can't believe how quickly this whole thing happened! We sold our truck this weekend. Sold it for 500 under what we were asking, we are satisfied with that. It truly was the best vehicle we've ever owned. It was just getting broken in.

They have harvested all of the cotton and peanuts that have been growing around here this weekend. It's beautiful. The air smells like dirt. I love running around here and am sure going to miss it.

I made the chocolate chip cookies this weekend. The ones with potato chips in them. They're good! I can clearly taste the potato chip. The batter was delicious because it had crunch to it. I will make them again BUT the chocolate chip cookie is so perfect by itself it doesn't really need chips.

We gave Drake an early birthday present. It's more like a gift to the family. This camera. Target was having a 30% off sale on all its point and shoots. What we wanted was one that didn't have a long lag time in taking a picture, thank you Tricia for making us think of that! Devin has a Sony Cyber Shot and it's not my favorite. But this Canon takes a quick pic, had a great zoom and video capabilities. It's small and fits in my smallest purse easily. We don't want to lug my big camera all across Europe. We are extremely happy with it so far and Drake loves it.

We spent the weekend in Hooters watching football games. Every team we wanted to win. Well. They lost. Still fun to hang out with my boys, eating fried foods and drinking low calorie beer.

I saw her!

2010-09-22T19:17:00.003+02:00

One of the things about moving to Germany that sucks is that we will miss seeing Dev bowl. Over the weekend she was in Dallas for her first match, a scrimmage, against Delaware State. She texted me about an hour and said they were streaming it live on bowl.com. Score! I know a bunch of our friends were able to watch, a proud uncle, friends as far as California and Shane from a cell phone while at work. Thank you USBC. We have since watched it three more times. Dev looks so pretty. Her hair is getting so long. I could hear her supporting her team with "hit" and "push". Both of which are urging of the ball to hit the pocket or to get into the pocket. If you'd like to watch it I'm embedding it here so that I may never lose it.

I've done a few layouts and think I'm in a slight slump. lol. A box should arrive that will no doubt light my fire! This weekend is our last weekend in Alabama. Next weekend we are back to Panama City Beach so Shane and his cousin can go fishing. The weekend after that we are in Vegas for my brother's wedding. We are staying at Planet Hollywood and have dinner reservations at Mesa Grill by Bobby Flay. If we don't make our reservation they charge us 200 dollars! We'll make it. =) And when we get back from Vegas we leave for Germany three days later. Yep! We are leaving early. Shane will be done with school more than a week early and there is no time to waste. We are ready to get there. We'll arrive in Germany on our birthday, the 14th! Time is flying. Drake's friends here in Alabama are not happy about this.

Did this layout because I was inspired by a layout done by Mandy Starner, saw it in the Studio Calico gallery, and had no idea it was a Scrapjacked layout. So here's my entry. I glimmer misted with pink and silver and love the look. I've got some red and white mist on its way. Can't wait to play more.

PS-Keep your fingers crossed for us. A guy from Ft. Stewart is coming to look at our truck this weekend. We're asking 13 and have received a previous offer for 11 but the bluebook value is 15 and we definitely want to sell before moving! Cos that would be a pain in the ass to have a vehicle in the states that is still for sale.

Web Surfing...

2010-09-20T17:09:00.003+02:00

Wanted to share some links today. First, ValerieB is having a blog hop with a chance to win prizes! Her blog is here. Check it out for a chance to win!

Secondly, I love food. Yep. I love recipes, watching Food Network and cooking. I've added a new blog list of Food Blogs. One of the recipes that stands out to me is the Potato Chip Cookies. I love potato chips more than anything. I love chocolate chip cookies second. A recipe that combines them and then the baker warns about how great they are. Oh My. Making them this week and mailing off to Dev and Jennifer.

I've also been web surfing for scrap products. Shopped at 3 different places all with different outcomes.

Scrapbook.com was good but took a while to get my package. I'm sure it's due to volume of sales. Waiting is fine.
EmmasPaperie.com I will link them because if you shop somewhere this is the place. Gift wrapped items, a freebie and fast! Got my box in two days.
A Million Memories I used to be on their DT so it was nice to shop there again and support a smaller business. Too bad my experience was awful. I won't say anymore.

In Germany news we leave in less than 30 days now! We really only have two weekends left here in Alabama. One weekend we'll be in Vegas for my brother's wedding and another weekend we'll be in Panama City Beach. I'm started to get nervous and excited and sad to be leaving the states and loved ones but still really, really excited to live abroad.

Happy Monday all.

Some layouts

2010-09-16T22:31:00.003+02:00

Happy Thursday! Just some layouts to share today. I'm almost out of adhesive so this will be it for a few days until I get my order.

Running tonight instead of in the morning to see how I like it. Last night I went outside and it was so cool I wanted a cardigan. I'm hopeful so I can see both my boys off to school and not be rushed and gone when they leave. Plus, Shane can run with me if I go in the evening.

I'm excited for Dev. She leaves for Dallas on Saturday. Her first bowling trip. She's going to the USBC center to practice and then has a match versus Delaware State, which offered her a 65% scholarship to bowl with them. Over the summer we ran into the Delaware coach and had spoke to her. Offering again for Dev to come next year. I'm hoping Dev stomps them. Dev is wanting to bowl the 1st spot. It's a great position for her, I've always liked it so I'm hoping she gets it. We'll see. Wish I was going to be there!

Hump Day!!

2010-09-15T18:33:00.003+02:00

Survivor kicks off tonight. Happy about that but I don't get local channels so I'll be watching online tomorrow! Survivor at Tallyscrapper starts today! Love the weekly challenges and some of my favorite layouts come from them. Sticks & Stones is for the first challenge at Tally.
Timeless Daydreams Back To School challenges have started too. First Tat is for that challenge. I've gotten about 20 layouts done since moving to Alabama!! Shane has finished his second section at flight school and will be done in less than a month. He is loving it. Excited for some upcoming movies. The Town with Ben Affleck and Devil by M. Night. Love his movies. Not all but most. That's it for today. Happy Hump Day!

PS-Tricia is coming to London for the Tim Holtz class!! I'm beyond excited and have started planning our trip. London, Belgium, Germany, Austria. We are going to be some traveling chics!

19 years!

2010-09-14T14:11:00.002+02:00

19 years ago today we were wed! What an adventure. I'd say my word of the year for our relationship is sharing. We've shared things no other people can share with us. One of the big things was taking our daughter to college. No one can be for each other what we were that day. She's ours. We share her and will forever. So thankful we were able to work through the bad times to be able to do that.

For my anniversary Shane bought me a ticket to this. I have to go to London. Poor me. I'm pretty excited. I've taken classes from all types of scrappers but I had never gotten in to a Tim Holtz event, always sold out so quickly. I must've hit it just right because it is sold out now. No surprise there right. I'm super excited!! London, February 2011-here I come!

We leave for Germany in just over a month and while we couldn't fathom wearing a sweater right now in Alabama we have been buying them up! Jeans and sweaters. We have one shipment left and will ship our summer clothes over AND the small amount of scrap supplies I've got here. We cannot wait. Drake's friends don't want him to leave and the mom has invited him to live with them until summer and then he can come to Germany. I don't think so.

Devin is doing good. She's having a good time at college and I received an email from the mom of one of her new friends telling me what a great girl I have. How Dev has become her second daughter and while we are in Europe she will do anything Dev needs. I can say I am so thankful for her BUT I was jealous. She's hugged my child last. Not me. One of Dev's friends is joining her for Thanksgiving at my brother's house. I'm glad there's another person who can't go home either. I say catch a mac flight home but I think she's trying to be more independent.

Back from the beach!

2010-09-09T21:00:00.004+02:00

and we had a fabulous time. The only bad part was that Dev didn't join us. She went to Delaware with her new best friend from college AND her mom bought her some pepper spray. Love it.

The water is just so nice in PCB. I love it.
Scrapping today and uploaded all layouts to Tally but wanted to share this one of Dev. Loved this day. She is so pretty. Miss her. My little sunshine. Bought her a new phone and mailed it. Went big with the Incredible from Verizon. She'll be able to get on line with it. Have over 10k apps. Her phone broke and I know the past week has been killing her since she hasn't had it. What did we do without cell phones back in the day?

This is Tammie and she's one of my faves. I have come to have a great time around the Revels family and realized my feelings for Shane's parents and what they have or haven't done shouldn't affect me and the rest of them. I'm really bonding with the women(Shane's aunts) in that family and can't wait to hang out with them again.

On the subject of pepper spray I've been wearing mine. The dogs were out the other morning and I could see them up ahead. I hadn't tested my sprayer so decided to. They wouldn't come near me. I think they smelled that I had it on and the mean one, the vicious human eater, wouldn't come close to me. Later I was on my way to my hair appt. and my hand was burning. A drop got on me and whoah. Hot. I am hoping they come near me again cos I really want to use it. Speaking of running, I'm getting significantly faster!

Shane's bro talked to us about Germany this weekend and I'm going to have to work out like a mad woman because when I'm in Europe I am immersing myself in taking in the full experience. If that means I eat dessert after every single meal while there then I am. And I'm going to take cooking classes in Italy. I don't care. I'm there for three years. I'm fully going for it. No holds bar.

Gotta go get ready for tonight! We are heading into town to watch the Saints v. Vikings. We don't have basic cable and cant' get it where we live AND just bought the NFL ticket on DirectTV but those are only Sunday games. This Sunday we'll be sitting here, all day, watching whatever game we want. =)

I won!

2010-08-31T23:43:00.003+02:00

I won with my New Orleans layout on the Studio Calico blog!! Yippee.

Here's some new ones to share:

And tomorrow I'll be busy in the kitchen! We are heading to Panama City this weekend to meet a bunch of Shane's family and my bro and his fiance. So I'm cooking. Breakfast casserole, Meatball Sliders, Potato Salad, Fruit Salad, Mexican Garbage and Tres Leche Cake! Since we live close we volunteered to provide a full day's worth of meals.

Drake and I are heading down on Thursday and Shane will be there Friday night, he's gotta work! Some of Shane's family gets in on Thursday night-Friday morning.
I got this dress in the mail today from J.Crew and I can't wait to wear it. Completely flattering everywhere! And 59 bucks. Love this store.

And a pic of Dev and her roomies! All but one are bowlers, the other one(girl in orange named Gabby) is from California on a softball scholarship!

Until then!!

My neighborhood!

2010-08-28T21:06:00.005+02:00

Thought I'd share with you my new neighborhood, where I run, where I walk the dogs and every morning I say hello to the bulls and cows.Wave hello to the farmer or to the group of farmers who stand at the edge of their property to watch me run. One time one asked if I was going to let my "sister" beat me. They were talking about Dev! Booyah. I've been told, "we just don't do that here."

So this is the hill I start on.

Then the long stretch.
Mile marker 2.
Bulls.
One morning the female cows, who weren't there today, actually ran with me. It was raining and they wouldn't have otherwise.

Today's walk inspired my green layout. I had to bite the bullet and place a huge online order for supplies. I should've packed more but I didn't realize I'd do it this much.

I'm hoping it changes to fall colors here before we leave but I have no doubt I'll be seeing all four seasons in Germany.

Friday!

2010-08-27T19:16:00.003+02:00

A layout from today. It's for a challenge at Studio Calico. Love the sketch and these pictures were perfect. It's our first stop in New Orleans on our summer vacation. I misted fabric at the bottom.

I love fridays because it is the day we head out to eat! Tonight is just Shane and I and we're hitting up a Mexican restaurant. Drake has a date tonight with Valerie. Drake told me she had the prettiest eyes. I asked what color and he said hazel. She's got brown hair and is 5'8! I love my boy, all those features are mine too!

Tomorrow we are off to the beach for the day. Shane and Drake are going deep sea fishing at 4am!! Yikes. It's with Shane's classmates. Their class trip. I'm getting up, going to run, then I will leisurely make my way down to the beach, with beer and German Made Simple. They should join me around noon and we will hang out.

We have some last minute things to look at in PCB. Shane's parents, brother, aunts, uncles and cousins along with my brother and future sister-in-law are coming up next weekend so we need to see how they will get on base etc. Can't wait for it!! So happy my brother is coming!!
Have a great weekend!

Karma.

2010-08-26T01:39:00.004+02:00

So today I was prepared for my run, for some spraying and something happened. I couldn't find Hershey. It was 5:45am and he wasn't in the house. The more I thought about it the more I realized the last time I saw him was around 6pm when he and Posh were running around the country fields in hog heaven. I started to panic that wild animals got him. Then I heard a faint bark that sounded like it was coming from the east part of the woods, then I heard a squaking like a vulture, then Posh started barking at the edge of the woods and I thought he was a goner. But he was barking so he couldn't be. I'm backing up to go back inside to make Shane look through the woods and there he is. In the van. Stuck there from the time Shane came home from work yesterday and we didn't even realize. I didn't know if that was the universes way of saying, "don't spray that mean dog up the street" so I didn't. I have a running schedule that I follow. I don't dictate how many miles I do a day. It does. I was supposed to do seven, however, I couldn't bare to go by the dogs house. So two it was. Just thankful that Hershey is a-ok and that it was a rather cool night for Alabama.

Shane got a van from the military because this week he has to drive an hour to school. They pay for the gas too! I will be sad when it has to go back because for right now it leaves me with a vehicle during the day. Soon that'll change and it'll get worse when we ship my car to Germany. Not looking forward to that!

Today I spread out on the floor and scrapped. 4 layouts done and I really like 'em. TFL!

hello

2010-08-24T23:44:00.004+02:00

I did do some more layouts AND got to go scrapbook shopping. I haven't been in a scrapbook store in years and was on a search for embellishments. They are more expensive than I remember! lol. About once a week I take a trip into town...which is thirty miles away. I had to go shop for Devin's first goodie box! I picked a theme and had a great time finding just the right things. Two things didn't fit in the box BUT there will be more mailings so I felt okay leaving them out. I even included some boiled peanuts so she doesn't forget those of us still in Alabama!

We bought Devin a 2008 Honda Civic the day before she left for college. We wanted her in a vehicle we thought she could handle with us far away, that will hold her stuff and be easy for her to travel distances in. The price was right and we got a good trade in on the Rav4. So I had to mail her her plates and couldn't just mail those alone. Speaking of Dev she had one rough day at college. I just wanted her to come home. But she has to go through these things and realize she is going to be okay. It was hard. She's got a great group of friends, that I'm still waiting for pictures of, and they even took in an Orioles baseball game. Love it.

I heard from Justin yesterday for the first time since he left and told me he made it back to Killeen safely. He's spoken to the kids and Shane just not me. I'm still mad at the situation and tried keeping my conversation with him short. I'm ready for it to be normal and just a go with the flow type thing.

The scrapbook store I found was okay. It had a lot of jewelry making stuff there and I'm just not into that. I think Michael's has the same paper it had two years ago when I was there. I'm desperate for Basic Gray's new travel line for Europe.

Drake was nominated to be the main character on the homecoming float for his new high school. They had to pick a cartoon theme and the school chose The Rugrats. He will be playing Tommy. I'm going to have to look it up and see how he needs to be dressed.

We went to travel the other day and the lady in travel said Drake and I had to fly from Texas to Germany while Shane goes from Atlanta. Makes no sense and the lady was such a bitch that I got up and left our meeting. I can't take stupid people. We didn't have our complete orders with us, cos Shane forgot, so we couldn't prove we could fly from Atlanta too. We have another appointment the first week of September with the same lady. If she even remotely does something we don't like we are going to her boss. It was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of.

A dog keeps chasing me in the morning. He won't wander too far from his property, which is how I get away, and yesterday he bit the blond lab that runs with me. Today blondie was caged up so I was solo and I really felt like the bad dog came after me and everytime he gets closer to hurting me. His owner knows that his dog does this. I even helped the owner corral one of his other dogs last week. He's a nice guy BUT the dog is going to bite me. When he bit blondie my leg was inches away. I ordered this and can't wait to use it.

Getting Creative...

2010-08-19T14:25:00.006+02:00

is such a struggle when I've packed bare minimums in terms of product! Trying though. This was for the weekly challenge going on at Tally, which has been super quiet lately. Would love to see it hustling and bustling again!

Devin is adjusting just finely at college. She's made a few friends outside of her roommates and they've been hanging out. Some girls from California there on softball scholarships. Her classes are set. Note about orientation and out of state: if you are in the last orientation group you get the bottom of the barrel classes! M-Th she has 8 am classes. Poor thing. I know she was looking forward to sleeping in but she has a decent schedule AND she'll have no problem making the bowling practices.

Drake has made some friends from school and hung out with them yesterday. Love that. As a mom it's so important when our kids fit in and don't struggle at new schools, at least in the beginning. A benefit of the military child!

We received our passports to live in Germany. We have to have the normal visitor passports for traveling Europe and we have to have one for going to live there! I've ordered two books for learning to speak German and then Italian. I took three years of German twenty years ago and hoping to pick it up quickly so I can learn to speak Italian. I'm excited to study! Our orders changed from Wiesbaden to Stuttgart, which is where we really wanted to go in the first place. Totally happy about it! I found a house, a block from the Black Forest, with a running trail. It'll be gone by the time we get there but still excited to be able to find a place like it. We'll be living off base and just want to fit in like the locals.

Devin took our laptop off to college with her so Shane and I got a MacBook Pro and I love it. Loves how it stores my photos. Programs are easier. I'll never go back and want a desktop now! It also stores my photos by places, which will come in handy when we start our European journey.

This guy often follows me home. He starts following me at the one mile mark. He definitely slows me down because he wants me to pet him, which I haven't yet cos he is always so filthy. His owners tried calling him back but he wouldn't go with them. I didn't try to get him to go back either cos I am in the country. He's my protector. I fill a huge water bowl for him after. I try to get Posh and Hershey to be nice...but they are being so rude! He hangs on the back porch for an hour and then heads home. I don't know his name but I call him Buck. When Shane goes running, without me, he follows him for a while but never all the way home. This guy loves me. The only problem is that he has balls. I jut don't like dog balls. BTW...6 lb weight loss this month!

In her new home...

2010-08-16T14:57:00.005+02:00

We made the trip safely! We drove from Alabama to Charlotte, spent the night with my brother, and then left for Baltimore Friday morning. =) We got there, missed lots of turns, got frustrated, thought we were afraid of the city and nervous about the MSU decision BUT then it all turned out okay. We found a great place to stay and things got easier.

Dev is staying in an apartment, on campus, with 5 other teammates. Only freshmen moved in over the weekend. She's in the athletic complex and it's usually not for freshmen but her coach has some pull and she got in as did the two other freshmen MSU signed for bowling season. Luckily she's on the bottom floor! No stairs. I think the bowlers used to but when they'd move their bowling balls around the other athletes complained. We moved her clothes in then ran to Target and Costco for the extra fun stuff and food! She has an unlimited meal card but she still needed snacks too. =)

I know it's not decorated yet but she's got a full kitchen(although they still have their own fridge in their room to keep from food confusion) and the living area(again needs to be decorated but better than just a dorm room).

We then met another bowler and her family. They were super sweet and from Delaware. They knew that Shane and I are moving to Germany and promised to take good care of Dev. Super sweet. We were really interested in meeting the girl from Minnesota. She's a football player and goalie on the soccer team. Very interesting. She arrived yesterday, after Shane and I left.

We were able to buy lots in the shop. I had to have MSU mom mug and shirt. Shane even got himself some stuff too!

After that we spent the day exploring the inner harbor in Baltimore. It was nice for everytime I've ever been before it's been raining. We then went back to our hotel room and said our goodbyes. So sad. We definitely think how lucky we are to have a daughter like Dev and hope she fully enjoys her college experience! We will definitely miss seeing her smiling face.

Shane and I flew back to Alabama. In the airport I thought I saw my friend Vanessa! I told Shane I was going to say hi that I can't believe she's in the airport. Yeah, it wasn't her. Even the man this lady was with looked like Vanessa's husband. I was so embarrassed! I approached her by rubbing her back. So embarrassed!

Drake has started school and had a semi-successful first day. I had a feeling they weren't going to have his schedule ready and they didn't. He spent periods 1-5 in the counselors office. So today is his first full day. He can't ride the bus until September 1st so I'm without a car for a few weeks!

Saw Eat Pray Love and loved it. Currently halfway through the book and loving it.
Saw The Expendables and loved it a little better. I couldn't believe it. Had some great action scenes that I really enjoyed. Cheesy but thought worth seeing in the theater.

Shane's new job!

2010-08-11T02:16:00.004+02:00

Thought I'd take a moment to update on the goings here in Alabama then do a day by day of our trip up north!

Shane flew his last Blackhawk helicopter months ago. His unit is already back in Afghanistan, God Bless them, and we are happy to be out of Ft. Hood for that reason.

He just finished his last ride in this. It is the equivalent of a Cessna..I'm guessing.
He moves to this after flying in a simulator for a few weeks.
It's what he'll fly in Germany but if you notice the inside looks like a dinsosaur in this shot but the planes in Germany will have all digital screens and buttons. Makes no sense to me as to why the military hasn't upgraded it's teaching tools but what do I know.

This plane is the one he'll do flips in, do rolls in, fly upside down in, stall out in, nose straight up in, nose straight down in. Scary stuff. It's an acrobatic plane with the sole purpose of scary situation practicing. He'll get just over an hour in it and then be done.

So far he has 22 hours and when done with training he'll have flown for close to 60 hours in the airplanes. He ended his Blackhawk career with 3 thousand hours. Today one of the planes had engine failure and had to land in a cotton field.

I don't see how the instructors do it.

By the way...I ran 13 miles on Friday night and it took me 2 hours 44 minutes. It was hard as hell. Hurt like hell. My last three miles a fast walker could've walked past me but I finished. Loving every second and didn't wake up as sore as I thought. I won't do it all the time but I see a marathon in my future.

I may not blog again until Monday due to the fact that I'm taking Dev to college on Thursday and won't be back until Sunday night. I feel sorry for myself already.

New York City

2010-08-03T16:29:00.005+02:00

When we left Virginia we wanted to break up the trip to New Hampshire and decided to stay a night in NYC. I can get a super cheap rate since I worked for the city and took full advantage. We ended up going through the Holland Tunnel and staying in Korea Town. First, I can never drive in NYC. Crazy. Shane had to be so aggressive just to get anywhere. We walked to Times Square and the kids made it onto the JumboTron! Shane and I had a date night, at a Korean restaurant, the kids went to Times Square before us and on the walk in I could see them up there. By the time I got to the square their picture was gone. If you buy something from American Eagle they will put your picture up.

As for the Korean restaurant. I have never tried Korean food. Never wanted to. However it smelled so good that we went. Shane loves the stuff. We got to cook it on our table and it was delicious. Oh My Gosh. I want to go back just to eat it again. Sooo good. I can't believe I ever turned my nose up at it before. So. If you ever go to NYC head over to Korea Town and eat at any of the many Korean restaurants there. So good.

The next day we headed over to the Statue of Liberty. My dad always wanted to take my brother and I but we never went because we didn't behave well enough. We took one of those bus tours and were able to hop on and off whenever. It was nice and cool out, not too hot.

One thing I wanted to do was run through Central Park but I never made it.

In running news I finished a seven miler on Friday, a six miler on Saturday and an 8.38 miler on Sunday. Since June 1st I have run over a thousand miles. I really enjoyed the 8 miler cos it was on a treadmill but the 7 miler was country roads in country heat and it sucked balls. I have lost a few inches and you'd think running over 20 miles six days a week that you'd lose weight. Not when nearing 40 I guess. I'm now counting calories and for right now sticking to less than a thousand a day and those thousand are a healthy thousand. I'm down three pounds and would like to lose 10 more. It's a slow process and it's frustrating. But..I bought a Nike running skirt and love it. I love when these good ole country boys pass me on the road and I'm running hills, in the heat and I'm a girl.

Williamsburg

2010-07-30T15:37:00.004+02:00

We left Charlotte bright and early for Williamsburg. Had to beat the rush at Busch Gardens and that we did. I love that park because on the weekdays it's never too crowded and they keep it so clean. The only difference was this time no free beer. They used to have a shuttle to the brew house but it's gone. Bummer. We rode everything, more than once, and were out of there by 3pm. Awesome.

That night we had dinner with my aunt and uncle. I always love seeing them and wish I could have seen them more but I knew I had some forgiveness to ask for and someone I had to see.

We headed for Shane's old work, the dive det on Eustis, and I knew I'd be seeing Brittany's husband. I had heard she had lost a lot of weight and was running marathons! Shane and I really wanted to get together with our old friends and luckily for us they invited us over and we were able to see a few from the det. We've been friends with some of these people for over ten years and will always will be friends.

I was nervous about heading to Brittany's house cos I didn't know how she was going to take us being there. I thought everything would be okay but the fear of the unknown. She accepted us with open arms and she looked fabulous. I am so happy for her. She runs miles and miles and I can't even get to that level if I tried. She runs 8-10 milers like it's nothing. Yesterday I tried for an 8 miler and could only do 7.25. I'll get there. She's inspirational.

Anyhow after a night of cards and catching up we finally had a moment alone to apologize. I am so glad we did.

As for Williamsburg we headed to the actual living museum that Williamsburg is. Luckily for us Busch Gardens was free for the military and so was Williamsburg. In two days we saved over 400 dollars. Awesome. It was just okay though. Interesting that people are dressed in character and act out what settlers were thinking about England at the time. How they made paper or baskets. We got to tour the Governor's mansion. It was definitely beautiful.

I'll be taking a short hiatus from blogging due to the fact that Drake's friend Kevan is here, Devin's friend Jerica extended her stay so we are heading to the beach this weekend! Four of there friends have visited this summer. It's been crazy. Dev leaves in two weeks for college and we've had no alone family time. Soon though!

Next stop is New York City where I had the best food ever. Shane and I talk of flying up there just to eat it again. lol.

ahh Charlotte

2010-07-28T15:12:00.006+02:00

What a great time we had there. I wasn't sure if we were going to stop there or not. My bro and I hadn't been speaking as much as we used to and he's getting ready for his big wedding but he told us to stop so we did. I am so glad. We had the best time. I love the city. If you ever have the opportunity I highly recommend it. One of my favorite things about the city is everyone is so active. There are lots of cultural things to do, the city itself is so clean, and from my brother's house we just walk everywhere. To the farmer's market, to eat, to the park. It's nice. If you don't want to walk the light rail is convenient too! Oh and the Nascar Hall of Fame is there. We watched the US lose in their last game at the World Cup there. Pretty awesome.

I bought two honey's from a local honey man who has bees on the rooftops of the highrises in Charlotte and those bees fertilize the resident's gardens on the rooftops. He also has a farm outside of town. It's cool. I'm not a huge fan of honey but the cinnamon honey was soooo delicious. I'm hoping to pick up another bottle when I take Dev to college.

My absolute highest recommendation if in North Carolina is the White Water Rafting Training Center. For 49.00 a day you have unlimited use of their facilities. A man made white water rafting trip with guide so your not paddling the rapids on your own, zip lines, canoeing, 40 foot controlled drops, mountain biking and rock climbing. You sign up for a time to do some of the activities so there's no line. You can do everything as many times as you want. The look on my brother's face is priceless as he drops from the platform. So funny.

I wanted to zip line and I did not realize you had to rock climb up a round tree trunk over 40 ft in the air to do it. Exhausting. I had a twenty minute head start on Dev and she got to the top before me. As you can see I was a hot mess. Dev scares me. I don't remember ever having no fear like she does. It worries me. She has no fear of pain. No hands. She just leaps without thinking about it.

Next stop Williamsburg VA!

Shane's parents

2010-07-27T22:26:00.004+02:00

Our first stop was Shane's parents house. We had a good time. I was nervous about seeing his parents again. It's been the big white elephant in the room for so long. Lucky for me I was able to see a lot of Shane's relatives. His parents put on a graduation party for Devin that was very nice. We weren't able to leave on time because Dev got very sick. Every half hour she was puking. I'd never seen anyone throw up so much. We went diving while there. Shane's cousin works on a dive boat and the owner loves the military so we got a free trip. I went down and was doing pretty good and then a school of Barracuda swam by so I was outta there. There is nothing as awe inspiring as being in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, swimming, no land in sight, no other people just a big blue ocean. It was gorgeous. Next stop Charlotte!

Thank you for all the sweet comments about J!
And to my Auntie M...the young man in the photo with me was the 2 year old in my wedding!

Justin...

2010-07-26T19:46:00.003+02:00

has returned to Killeen. I won't say he's gone "home" because for me our home was his home. When we left Killeen it was pretty difficult for him. On the 1st of June his mom and sisters were giving him a hard time via text messages. Things like, "I hope your happy I didn't get my child support check." Then a few weeks later his mom texted him because she was in the hospital and had possibly had a heart attack. I could never confirm whether or not this was true. During our travels it was apparent that Justin had days where he seemed miserable. Then on the last leg of our trip Justin's mom called me. She wanted to know if Justin had spoke to me about his homesickness. I said that he had. She then went on to say that she was having papers drawn up to get him back. I was fine with that. I did not want Justin where Justin didn't want to be and no matter how much we could be there for him if his mom was behind the scenes being unsupportive of his decision and making him feel guilty for his decision (and hers too) then there wasn't much our love could do for him. After a heated argument with his mother where I was accused of holding Justin against his will, that she was going to go to the top military commander on Ft. Hood, or that I wasn't the person she thought I was I had to let go. The next day I called Justin's grandmother and told her what had transpired over the past year and that if she were to hire a lawyer to get him back legally then we would let Justin go back to Killeen. She had no idea of what had happened and paid for the lawyer and bought Justin a bus ticket home. I will never speak to Justin's mom again. I could not trust that she would get a lawyer. She said she had an appointment for two weeks away and I thought if she was serious about getting him back she would have an appointment much sooner. I knew his grandma would make it happen so I called her. I thought it would be hard saying goodbye but part of me was sooo pissed at the whole situation that I'm glad he is gone. I haven't spoken to him and don't know if I can. I think he made a mistake but then again blood is thicker than water. I want nothing but for him to be happy. So we are back to a family of four again. Life moves on and we won't skip a beat. Tomorrow starts the daily blog postings about our vacation.

Abbeville, AL

2010-07-19T14:47:00.004+02:00

After over 4 thousand miles, visiting numerous family and friends, one flat tire, a two car accident (with our own vehicles), hours and hours of bowling, a day of cornholing, food poisoning, reconnecting, traveling through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Tennessee we are home in Abbeville Alabama.

Before I blog our trip I thought I would share a bit about where we live. We are twenty minutes north of Dothan Al. Three bedroom home, well water, no dishwasher, no garbage disposal, it took a month to get internet and we had to do it ourselves...no cable guy to do it for us, our neighbors own cows, there is nothing to do. Here's what we can do: Piggly Wiggly shopping, public library, main street contains three restaurants, a hair salon and nothing else. What we can't do anymore: bowl, movies, out to dinner, no fast food, no pool, no gym, no pizza delivery.

Our neighbor's grew up in the house we are in. The wife owns the hair salon and in sticking with small town tradition when we come home from an outing she calls. =) I haven't had my hair done in two months and I'm terrified. She talks and talks and talks and has 80's hair. We used the public library, which is run by volunteers, and took the books on vacation. They were due while we were gone. I'm sure the whole town is talking. I owe 2.20 in late fees.

Met some teenagers working at the Piggly Wiggly and asked them what there is to do in Abbeville. They told me drugs or working at the PW. Glad I only have to put the boys in school for two months.

When passing a car on the road they don't wave here. They stick up their index finger on their left hand. It's awkward to me but when in Rome...

We have eaten at one of the three restaurants, Huggin' Mollys, and everyone stares. It's an old fashioned soda fountain restaurant, owned by the owner of Yellawood. So cheap and so good.

The dogs are loving the country. The wander for hours.
It's 104 degrees by 10 am.
I've been running and have started training for a half marathon in September. At mile marker two I get chased by the same two dogs. One day they'll stop...right? The owner just watches and doesn't try to reign in his dogs. I need to get some pepper spray.
If I run northbound on our road then I run the risk of running into a pack of wild dogs. I ran north once. Three of the dogs seem harmless but I got the sense that one wanted to hurt me.
We have air conditioning but it doesn't cool evenly.
Our channels on the TV don't include the basic channels. I miss the Today show.
I think the house has a spirit here.
Our bed has a metal headboard and if we just move an inch bowchickabowbow. Killing the sex life.

New Orleans-Stop 1

2010-06-12T01:30:00.003+02:00

We have left Texas! We have left accepting a contract on our house AND got them to pay all closing costs. It took the movers about six hours to box Shane's bike. Crazy. His bike gets packed in a box, in one piece, and shipped with all of our furniture.

The kids all said goodbye to their friends.
Devin graduated!
Justin said goodbye to his family and serious girlfriend. While he was happy to leave he was sad to leave.

We are in New Orleans and having a great time. Last night we walked Bourbon Street. Yesterday we may have been on AC 360. We were walking the Riverfront and Anderson Cooper was filming so we walked by then back by and then by again. This morning I woke up at 7 and went for a run down there and he was back at it again.

Go Celtics!
This was the best caramel apple we've ever had.
Next stop Abbeville Alabama. Population 2k. lol.
Oh and last weekend we went tubing down the Comel River and Devin lost her class ring. Two days later a man facebooked her and said he found it. We sent him twenty bucks. He called. He got the money and is mailing it to Abbeville where his grandmother lives. Small world. So thankful.

17 days left in Texas!

2010-05-24T16:09:00.003+02:00

Time is flying. Today my movers come to pack up things we are storing while in Germany. We've looked at many homes in Germany and the bedrooms are rather small. Queen beds may not work so we're putting them in storage. All of my Christmas and Halloween decorations. Clothes I can't get rid of but won't wear again. I hear that Germany celebrates Christmas in a big way so it's a perfect time to buy all new. The military will pay for so much of our household goods to be shipped so I want to leave plenty of room to collect while there! Right.

Our house has been under contract twice and both times it fell through. Fingers crossed that soon we'll have another offer and the third time will be the charm.

Shane is in college classes, clearing and going through a school so he can make W4 when it's time. It's a crazy time for him.

We got to court on the 27th for Justin. Fingers crossed!

I've been running. Averaging 20 miles per week. I am liking it better than when I first started. It definitely relieves the stress of moving. I just bought the Nike Plus Ipod System for Dev and I. We will train together while we are apart. We're planning on marathoning it when she graduates from college. Even Shane has joined us. Love it.

We are moving to Abbeyville Alabama. We'll be there until October. It's big time country. It doesn't have internet! I imagine we can get it. I hope. Can't argue with living rent free though. All we have to do is pay for the electricity. If we sell our house this will be awesome and if we don't it leaves a great cushion so we don't have to stress about money. We are very thankful and I'm looking forward to the country living.

These pics are from our weekend at a farm where we went to regroup and re prioritize. Shane and I were in a slump and needed some reminding. We got it. We had a great time.

Decisions, Decisions.

2010-04-29T15:51:00.003+02:00

Yesterday was a rough day. After signing the Letter of Intent we got a call from the Dream Bowling College...Delaware State. They're interested in Dev bowling for them and offered her $16,400 to bowl for them. We would have to come out of pocket a few thousand a year. It was a tough call to swallow. Wished they would've called months ago so we could have time to visit them, see what the team is like, check out the campus...etc. There are so many great things about Morgan State: the bowling team is small(she would bowl every match), the girls stay in the same apartment(their close), full ride(pay only for text books). DSU: coach is a pro bowler, may not bowl every match, her first choice. MSU outweighs DSU by a tad. MSU it is but I can tell you we were all conflicted, except the boys, with the decision. Tough one.

In other news we had a family look at our house on Sunday. She loved it. I could just feel that they were going to make an offer. They did. We counter offered. They accepted minus one hundred dollars. Then they were denied approval by their pre-approval. Turns out they missed a payment when they were both serving in Iraq. It shouldn't have caused them to be denied but there are two other lenders offering to give them loans so we are playing the waiting game. We came down from our asking price by 8 thousand and upped what we pay in closing costs but we could leave Texas without the worry of needing to sell our house. Right now we are scheduled to leave on June 8th or so. We are waiting for Germany to give us the go ahead health wise so they can cut our orders. I had to pull Drake out of a TAKS test to get things done. The school was not happy but there was nothing I could do about it.

These pics are from the dive trip/camping trip we went on this weekend. Justin is now fully certified, which is good because we are planning on diving a lot this summer. We even bought three BC's and three regulators for the dive plans.

When we leave here in June we will stop in New Orleans, then Alabama-to unload our stuff and drop off two cars, then to Florida-either Panama City or Ft Pierce first, then up to New Hampshire, then to Virginia, then to Indianapolis and then back down to Alabama with weekend trips to Panama City. If my kids qualify in a bowling tourney they will bowl in Virginia Beach the first week of August so some of the plans may change a little. We are itching to get out of here.

Letter of Intent

2010-04-27T19:09:00.006+02:00

Ellison’s Devin Revels Accepts Bowling Scholarship from Morgan State

Devin Revels, a standout for the state champion Ellison Lady Eagles bowling team, signed her Letter of Intent Saturday to accept a full scholarship to bowl for Morgan State next season. The Baltimore, Maryland-based Bears, a member of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) were ranked 18th nationally this past season and look to improve their status by signing one of the top high school bowlers in Texas.

Revels was a 4-year starter for Ellison, having started bowling in 2005. She quickly and steadily improved her average each year. She finished with a 144 average her Freshman year and 159 as a Sophomore. However, she really took off in her Junior year where she finished with a 201 average and set the girls district record with a two-game total of 508 (254 average). She helped Ellison capture the Region V team championship and also qualified for the match play round at the State Singles Tournament where she lost to state runner-up Sierra Gibbons of Plano East in the Round of 16. In her senior year, she finished district play with the top average of 195 and helped Ellison defend their regional title before helping lead Ellison to a state team championship. She again qualified for the State Singles match play round where she made it to the Elite Eight before falling to state runner-up Jessica Cantu of San Antonio Brandies. She was also the 2009-10 District Most Valuable Bowler.

Before deciding on Morgan State where she plans to study Nursing, Revels was invited to attend several NCAA schools including 2008 national champion Maryland-Eastern Shore.

The NCAA recognized bowling as a women’s varsity sport in 2004 and now has 60 schools competing. Division I schools in Texas include Prairie View A&M, Sam HoustonState, Stephen F. Austin, and Texas Southern. Lamar University will join in 2011.

This is the article being run in the local paper. It's from Saturday. Devin's letter of Intent. So proud of her. Can't believe it happened. Pretty dang amazing. Will be sad to see her go this August. So happy we only have to pay for textbooks. She beat out all the other students at her school for the highest scholarship amount. I can't wait to see some of the Texas football players faces when they realize it's for bowling. lol. Ladies...lunch any day next week!

tatted up =( =)

2010-04-23T19:37:00.003+02:00

She did it. She turned 18 and the next day went to the tattoo parlor and got it done. I really, really, really thought that me telling her NO would keep her from doing it. You know the line: you may be 18 but your living under my roof and when you are on your own you can do what you want. Yeah. Didn't work for mine. So all the discussions we had over the last week about her NOT doing it; she must've walked away, giggled, lifted her pant leg, rubbed on some more lotion over her healing tattoo, and thought to herself I SOOO got over one on this. The good thing is she told me. She didn't let me just find it. Hey. I'm trying to find the positives here.

I was even gonna tell her dad to go ahead and take her. I knew he'd have liked that. I was softening to the idea especially after all my friends on Facebook thought she should do it or wanted to take her. Shysters I tell ya.

When we were driving home from San Antonio yesterday she said, "while we are clearing the air I've got something to share." OMG. I thought she was telling me she had had sex. I thought I was going to puke. So the tattoo really was kind of a relief. But who am I kidding. She goes off to college in 3 months. Sex is coming.

We are off to camp this weekend!
Oh and she got my parent's names on her ankle. I would have preferred color in the stars but maybe she'll get that when she goes in for her touch up. And this much I know is true-she'll have another one within two years!

Naccchhhhhoooooo!

2010-04-22T16:01:00.004+02:00

My bro came into town, Austin, on business so we met him downtown for dinner! We went to a place that served authentic Mexican food and even had the corn on the cob just like the Nacho Libre movie. Yummm! We asked about an ice cream joint and was told Amy's on 6th Street served the best. We walked the city of Austin, like literally from one end to the other, only to find out that they threw their ice cream at you. If you caught it, it was free and your family got 10% off their orders. So The Guy had Justin stand across a three lane road and catch some cookies n cream. He did, so it was free. Then I asked for a photo of the boys with The Guy and he obliged. Let them stand right on top of the place they dish out the ice cream--with their shoes on. It didn't seem to deter any other customers in the store.

Prom Pics!

2010-04-18T03:14:00.003+02:00

So they are off and won't be home until tomorrow. They got a hotel room with a pool and I know one of Dev's friends spotted her a twelve pack. Damn all Chuck E Cheese employees like their booze. Who can blame them, I guess. At least she told me when I asked and didn't lie. And I'm glad it's four of them in one hotel room unlike what my boyfriend and I were at their age!

So today we were up in Dallas. Trying to get Drake Junior Gold qualified. He and Dev qualified last June but turns out that for a year the person running those tournaments were taking everyone's money OR not entering those who won legally. So turns out mine had to re-qualify even though I spent 1800 dollars in a year's time on this person's tournament. Junior Gold is an elite bowling membership and they don't take kindly to illegal tournaments and they don't care if it's about the kids. The past few weeks we've been scrambling to get them qualified. The qualifiers end in two weeks so you can imagine and we knew of only two tournaments in April where one spot would be given away. Luckily Drake was that ONE today. Whew. Cos he was the last to re-qualify and I was nervous he'd spend a week in Indianapolis this summer watching the others bowl.

Made it home in time to see my girl and my son off to prom. I think they look splendid. Wednesday it's supposed to be 85 degrees...can't wait! Oh and that is not Justin's girlfriend but he was gentlemen enough to help out a friend who wanted to go to her senior prom. Love him.

birthday pics!

2010-04-14T03:42:00.004+02:00

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Dev had a massage today then we headed to the Roadhouse for dinner. In these pics you'll notice a table of soldiers behind Dev. They were all too eager to wish her a Happy Birthday especially since she's 18 now. They made sure we heard themselves say, "Oh good she's legal now!" There are no pictures after that due to the fact that I jumped across the table and used some Killeen Police Department Defense Tactics on their asses. Okay...maybe that was just in my head but they are lucky they had a lighter to help us light candles or I seriously would have whooped ass. On to greater stories. Dev told me she's,"getting a tattoo". There's a rule that I feel I've laid out pretty clearly for the past five years and that's no tattoos until you are done with college. Why you ask? Why when I have three myself and the hubsters has seven or so, and all have been covered up a few times?? Cos that's just it. Any tattoo at that age doesn't seem to be something still desired later in life. I think I've earned the respect of waiting til your older to get a tattoo. No? Go vote or buy a lotto ticket or something if it's an 18 and independent type thing. lol. Opinions?

In other news we received a FedEx envelope today. In it a Letter of Intent for MSU. Signing season for bowling starts tomorrow. Waiting on a MSU hoodie before she signs so it looks all cool.

Tomorrow....

2010-04-12T22:17:00.003+02:00

she'll be 18. I was shopping for dinner when I spotted a bottle of orange soda and then it hit me...Tricia picked me up in her Hyundai, tunes cranked to Garth Brooks(the CD that made him famous) and we were cruisin'. We drove around until about 3 in the morning. Drinking apple juice and orange Crush. Eating 7-11 pizza and Wendy's fries with cheese dip. Not thinking that tomorrow would be the morning I wake up and go into labor. I, of course, had heartburn. Thank you 7-11, got up to get a glass of milk at around 5am and woosh. My water broke. Headed to the hospital where the pain was too much for my brain to want to remember. She was pushed out and my mom was there to welcome her to the world. Shane was in Basic Training. The next day I woke up, looked over, and saw the most beautiful baby girl I'd ever seen in a bassinet with these big eyes, perfectly pink skin and she was just looking at me. Oh shit. Hello 19 and responsible. My dad came in to visit and questioned her 11 toes. I thought he was serious. A few days later Shane came home and cried like a baby. She's been worth it. The years of giving up partying, going off to college the normal way, having no money but for diapers and formula. All worth it.

TGiF!

2010-04-09T18:20:00.002+02:00

Now that I'm not working, every day feels like Friday. lol. So today I'm scrapping, going out to lunch and then tonight is bowling. There is a cybercrop at TallyScrapper today! Doing some challenges, cos I haven't scrapped in forever....I think since last year! Sigh. I'll be selling my scrap table at our Yard Sale in a few weeks so I need to get it in now!

Weekend plans:

Want to see the Tina Fey and Michael Scott movie.
Wine Festival in Salado that Shane and I will ride his bike down to.
Sunday bowling tourney in San Antonio that I'm taking Drake to, Dev is off to a high school bowling event with Mitchell and Justin.

Anyone else think Dev and her boyfriend look like brother and sister?

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T20:53:00.003+02:00

I think this is the second year in a row that my kids are hunting for eggs in the rain. This means the poor Easter Bunny can't hide them very well or they'll be in puddles. Owell. Devin's last year at home hunting eggs. Next for her will be, at colleg,e receiving a basket of candy from mom but in the mail. Sigh.

Yesterday went on a Biker day trip. Well I didn't do a lot of riding. Until I have a helmet that fits me precisely it is too painful to ride. Sitting bitch, the non driving spot, I get wind sheer off of Shane's helmet and then my own cos my head sits a good head above his due to our disparity in height. But they had an auction at the last stop, that I showed up for, and due to the economic downturn there weren't big bids. They got to this jacket that we'd been eyeballing, that I know is 249.00 in the store. It's really heavy, thick, rugged and great for German weather OR if you end up skidding across asphalt. At 75 dollars the bids were slowing. I jump to my feet and shout 100! Then a biker dude with chains, chaps, a beard and a gang supporting him clambered in at 125! I won it at 150! Wore it on the bike ride home in 100 degree weather, with sunburn and felt totally cool. The picture of Shane he's about to put on my new biker jacket. Check it.

And this is Dev's boyfriend. Who if all goes as planned will be meeting some of you this summer. He's going to college with Dev and at prom wearing pink for her. Pink. Yes. My daughter is wearing a pink dress.

PS-I miss my job.

Back from State!

2010-03-30T02:38:00.004+02:00

Well we made it back with a State Champion in the house. We were hoping for two but one is good! The first day was girl's team event. They each bowl 3 games and their total pinfall is added together. The top 16 teams out of 36 advance to team play. We were seeded 2nd. The team they played were seeded 15th. You get three chances to win two games versus that team. If you lose you are out of the tournament altogether. Won the first pretty easy. The second easy again. The third was against a team that was tough. They were from Austin and had about 150 cheerleaders in the bleachers. It's tough to compete. First game we lost. Second game all Dev had to do was pick up her spare for the win. She missed. It was a tie. In the event of a tie the first bowler from each team bowls and if they knock down more pins than the other team then they win. Well one of the least experienced bowlers is in the 1 position. The other teams bowler bowled and pulled her arm. We knew it wasn't going to be a strike. She got 6, Amanda went and got 7. We won. Then the next game we mopped the floor with them...on to the final games for 1st or 2nd place. The team they had to bowl were number 1 last year. All of their girl bowlers average over 200. They've been published in magazines and on websites for being the greatest. The first game we lost. The second game we won. The third game didn't start out great for us but when one of their girls missed a spare our team took total advantage and stomped. We pulled the biggest upset in the history of Texas highschool bowling and I'm not sure it will ever be forgotten. I wish we had videotapped. We were the miracle team! They did amazing.

In singles Dev had to bowl 3 games and then like team the top 36 would cut to 16. The cut was tough. Dev bowled a 596..almost a 200 average...to be seeded 13th. So she had to bowl the 3rd seeded bowler. Dev killed her. And once you are beat you are out. Her ball looked good. This is where Dev was beat last year at singles and she was relieved she made it to the top 8 in Texas this year. She had a tough bracket though because we had just witnessed the girl she was to bowl bowl to 250 games to wipe the floor with the girl who was favored to win the whole thing. And she looked tough. The first game the girl bowled another 250 on Dev. Dev kept smiling and came back the second game with a 250 herself. It came down to the third game and Dev opened with a split but she kept herself poised and bowled well and didn't have any more opens. However, it wasn't meant to be. The girl bowled a 240 to Dev's 214. During the middle of the third game Dev's opponent told her, "don't give up. I've never been more afraid to bowl someone in my life. Your ball scares me." We are awaiting the final results but I believe Dev finished 5th in the state of Texas. It hasn't even been 24 hours and another school has called wanting them to bowl for her. She wanted first but only one gets that title. 5th ain't so shabby. I'm so proud of her. She has such a bright future!

The boys team didn't fare so well. After the first three games they didn't make the cut. They didn't bowl terrible just not well enough. I know they were disappointed. No one doesn't want to make it but their competition is stiffer. They hadn't made state in 3 years so making it this year was a great accomplishment.

And now I only have three more days of work until I move to Germany and get a job. I have a huge yard sale to get ready for and we need to get organized before the move!

umm yeah.

2010-03-26T02:43:00.003+01:00

So I had planned on blogging more frequently but my computers crashed and I couldn't find my CD to my camera to download pics. I had to buy a new one cos downloading online is not compatible with Windows 7.

Our house has been on the market for about a month. We've had four people look at it. The first couple the wife scrapbooks. She loved it. Loved the scrapbook room. Her husband gave her a look like Hell to the No. Another lady loved it and wanted to buy BUT she thought we had a pool...I told her pooltable. I'm getting nervous but its also at max price and I am ready to walk away making nothing. If I want to rent it out I'm told it'll be no problem. I just don't want to rent. I won't be back here. We're out.

Devin's boyfriend has applied to Morgan State and wants to go with her. He may be going on summer vacation with us! I'm so excited to leave here in June and head to New Orleans, Panama City, Roanoke, NH. Can't wait.

It's official. We are heading to Wiesbaden. We were told it could be Stuttgart but it's not.
Both of Justin's parents and the District Attorney has signed the papers. Just waiting on the judge to okay everything. I talked to Justin's dad one last time before I told him I won't call anymore. He wants nothing to do with Justin. He has his own family. He needs to know nothing. I'm sad about that.

This weekend we head to San Antonio for State. The girls are ranked 3rd. The boys 8th. Devin 6th. I'm excited. Ready to get there and get bowling over with. It's like March Madness. No time for anything else but bowling.

My bro is getting married at Ceasar's Palace on October 5th. Pretty excited about that. Have already started dress shopping!

Next week Shane'll fly helicopters for the last time. Pretty excited for our new adventure. I've heard so many great things about it. I am jumping out of my skin to get there. Although, Dev and I have had a few cry fests about the next chapter in her life.

long time no blog..

2010-02-24T06:53:00.002+01:00

it's becoming a theme. Yes. I think the only one still reading is my daughter who I will blog for regularly for when we leave her behind to move to Europe. And tonight it's snowing so the cops are inside to stay warm and so are the crooks so it is a slow night in jail.

We fly to Baltimore on Friday to visit Morgan State. She'd be a minority but if they pay for her school and she can bowl we are all okay with it. I really like the idea of her being on the 95 corridor. They are losing three girls this year and are looking to sign 3 200 bowlers, one of them being Dev. We fly in Friday night. The coach is picking us up. We are touring the campus and then the girls are taking Dev out and Shane and I are going to dinner with the Coach. Saturday they are taking Dev to a basketball game and Shane and I are on our own so we'll be going out to dinner in Baltimore with his bro and I'm hoping Tricia can come up. Sunday we'll fly home. Hopefully Dev will sign a "letter of intent" with them. They are a Div I school and will have 6 girls on the team. Some teams have as many as 20 girls and not everyone bowls. This way she'll still be bowling competitively and be a key player on the team. Speaking of Dev she just won bowler of the year for the city of Killeen and is number one in the area for high school. The second best girl is more than 15 pins behind and that is a lot.

Drake and Justin are good. We signed the paperwork to adopt Justin. It should be official April 1st and we'll start collecting child support. Wasn't expecting that but a judge won't sign the order if we don't. Don't have to twist my arm. The only hold up will be Justin's dad who I spoke to once and he's a bitter, bitter man. But I think he'd rather pay us then pay Justin's mom. Just a vibe I get.

The house goes up for sale next week. Hoping to sell by June 19th. Then travel the east coast before Shane starts school in July. October 17th we fly over to Germany.

Work is going good. One thing I'm dying to do is scrapbook. I haven't in so long. I still buy the stuff. I still have my room. I can't wait until we get to Germany for I'm not looking for a job for about a year to scrapbook during the day. Or maybe I'll work part time. We went to dinner with a couple who just returned from living in Germany. They loved it and we are so excited to go after talking to them.

Snow. It snowed from about 8am-still snowing and it's midnight. The roads are clear but the kids got out early today and have a two hour delay for tomorrow. This winter has been the coldest ever. I think it set a record today.

Pictures to come. Two of our computers crashed and I just haven't re-uploaded the software to download after getting them fixed. Will do though. Pics of Baltimore for sure!

Merry Xmas!

2009-12-30T15:58:00.002+01:00

What a great day it was. Snow on the 24th!! Texas weather can be so weird. I worked on the 24th and 25th but I knew that was going to happen. Had to deal with two guys sprayed with OC Spray. Not fun. Me. In the drunk tank. Spraying down someone who can't see. Snot. Makes me cough. Two nights in a row. lol.

In exciting news Dev got an offer to Southern University in Baton Rouge Louisiana. Full ride and then some. 5k a semester, travel expenses and room and board. Being recruited is so weird. You can only speak to the school once a week. They can't make communications any other time and you can't contact them. For bowling you don't sign until April. The coach was very nice. It's a school we sent her video to. They have nursing. We've always liked Louisiana. Hoping for more east coast schools. Not paying for Dev's college education is awesome! lol. We can give Dev or Drake Shane's GI Bill. Boy's don't earn good scholarship money for college so it would be nice to hold onto it for Drake since Dev can get a full ride. We've been in Texas for five years and I would've never guessed that bowling would be something we took seriously OR that it would pay for college.

I'm all out of training. This week I worked 7 out of 8 nights in the jail. Two people sprayed. Two people puked on themselves. One puked and the floor then layed in it. One broken jaw for resisting arrest. Three in the restraint chair. Worked overtime to catch up on paperwork. Just cos it's a Monday doesn't mean there is less crime in the city. My friend put in her two weeks for a better job. Gonna miss carpooling in with her. Gonna miss her in general. Luckily I can see her house from mine so I'll see her again.

We're still on track for Germany. It's a done deal. We've been learning bits and pieces of the German language. Can't wait.

My brother is engaged! He popped the question the day after Xmas!! Got a phone call from my future sister in law and she sounded so excited. Tiffany's ring! Maybe, just maybe, I'll be an aunt afterall.

Enjoy our Xmas pics!!

Have u ever?

2009-12-15T22:03:00.003+01:00

I prefer to wash my dogs outside. When it's cold I make the kids run in and out bringing me buckets of warm water. I never thought of getting half naked and showering with him. lol. When I walked in on this I almost peed my pants. Life is good.

I'm on my last days in training. I'm done on Thursday. I'll work until Sunday on this shift and then move to the 1030pm-630am shift. I'm looking forward to getting on the schedule. I like being home during the day and although working until 230 isn't bad it's never just 230. I will miss the people on the shift. I've got one of the officers perplexed. He reminds me of an old friend, who always has a great story, a tad embellished as they may be. For me though I've got a story to top his story and mine aren't embellished at all. They are real. He thinks I used to be either in the CIA, worked for NASA or that I used to work at the carnival or was a stripper once. Everyone has a good time when we work together cos we keep them laughing. I go home every night and think how great of a life I've lived and how great the people in my life are. We've had some fun.

So we were worried Shane would be stop-lossed due to Obama's plan for Afghanistan. Looks like his unit is moving from a Jan 2011 deployment to a June 2010 deployment. So Shane emailed his branch manager with his concerns. Turns out the stop loss policy is changing in January. We won't be stoplossed at all. To put our minds at ease he went ahead and put us on orders. Shane will go to the July fixed wing school with a follow on assignment in Weisbaden Germany. We'll get there for the tail end of Oktoberfest. His graduation should be 17 October, we're planning to fly out 18 October.

In bowling news things are going great. Last night the phone was ringing and I didn't recognize the name and the area code was vaguely familiar. I answer on the 5th ring cos I was debating picking it up at all. Won't do that again. Morgan State Coach calling cos he's interested in Dev. I'm so glad. It's hard to be known on the east coast when you bowl in Texas. Texas=no problem. We now have two trips to make. One to Pikeville College in Kentucky and one to Baltimore Md. So excited for her. Right now she's number one in the area. As is Drake. We've got a tough match v. Copperas Cove today. Should be a good one. They've got some good bowlers just like us.

And in Christmas news I'm all done shopping. Shane helped every step of the way, which is a BIG first. lol. He said he's getting soft in his old age. He's heading to his family's house this weekend. His parents 40th Wedding Anniversary. Congratulations to them and their family. Quite the accomplishment.

And in all weirdness I took a police report from someone with the last name Flies With Crows. It's true. Car registered that way AND he was in the system with that last name. Had to run his LP just to see if he was telling me the truth.

Have a great day!!

Cranberry Raspberry Cheesecake!

2009-12-01T18:12:00.004+01:00

It's December 1st. Love it. My trees are up. I've got most of the shopping done and I'm 15 days shy of being done with all of my training. =) I'll start with Thanksgiving. I had to work. I didn't take off because I only work until 2:30. What was I missing? According to my son I was making him miss the normal Thanksgiving. My day started out slow. Nothing going on at work until 2:00pm and then I was slammed with a sexual assault case that made me two hours late. I come home and the turkey had been cooking and it still looked raw. Shane said the directions said 325. I don't remember, I just know that sucker was still goobling. We ate around 8pm, Shane passed out at 8:20pm and Drake said, "this was the worst T-day ever." I have a theory. It wasn't eating late, it wasn't that I wasn't there. It was that I wasn't there to make them do the things they hate. Pose for family picture, take a car trip to look at the twinkle lights, decorate the trees....I think that's what he secretly missed. The traditional stuff. I felt bad for him but also felt like get over it. I had a good day. I don't know if I'll be working on Christmas eve or day because they haven't given us a schedule yet. I did request the 28-Jan1st off to have some time with the kids on my break.

My coworkers are always nibbling on the home cooked meals I bring for lunch. This year one approached me with a picture of a cranberry raspberry cheesecake. I said, "looks good." She said, "will you make us one?" How can I refuse. So fresh cranberrys and raspberrys. Lots of cream cheese and cream. Philo dough for the crust. It looks so good!!

For December I'm going to try to take a set of pictures a day. Then make a December 2009 scrapbook.

Over the weekend we went to the Chris Barnes Tournament in Plano. I was able to see my Aunt Marge and my cousins. I love seeing them cos it's family and because Marge reminds me of my mom with her mannerisms. On the way up Drake said, "I feel like I'm gonna throw up." He then grabbed Devin's jacket and puked. We pulled over and instead of puking outside of the car he threw up in her jacket again. Shane yelled the F word and had him get out. A few minutes later we were back on the road and the jacket was left on the side of the road. Dev and Justin did excellent at the tournament. A college scout was there and that turned out good for Dev. We've been faxing scores and getting grades on the NCAA Clearinghouse for the coach.

Victorious!

2009-11-19T01:45:00.005+01:00

I feel like things in our life are in the upswing right now. First, the Ellison bowling team took 2nd and 3rd at a High School Invitational. The Ellison girls took 2nd. They bowled their butts off and bowled great. The boys took 3rd. We had a few of our heavy hitters ineligible and had they not been I have no doubt they would have been first. I am going to miss coaching next year. Yes. That means that we won't be here. We heard from Shane's branch manager and they have released Shane from his blackhawk duties. He no longer has to go to Korea. We were given the option of Ft. Belvoir, Ft. Lewis, Ft. Knox and Germany. Our first choice is Germany. We are taking it and have already accepted. Shane leaves for school in July and immediately following we head to Germany. Not only did they let Shane out of the helicopter they've given him the coosh assignment of flying VIPs. It's everything we could have ever dreamed for I really, really, really didn't want him going to Korea. Enough is enough on the deployments. This time next year we'll be anticipating a white Christmas and planning for a ski trip in the Alps.

Work is fabulous. I'm out of the Comm section and on the front desk taking reports. I love it. It's my favorite so far. I didn't think it would be and I LOVE my trainer. I have a girl crush. She's cool and excellent. I asked to stay with her my entire six weeks and they agreed! I think I'll be staying on the 630-230 shift too cos they like me. I'm hopeful but if not owell. It is painful to wake up at 5am every morning and on the weekends I want to sleep in but at 430 I'm wide awake.

We have all of Dev's videos ready for colleges. Mailing those to the east coast this week. We'll know the end of March which school she'll be going to. Shortly after my house will be going up for sale. We'll be selling our boat and vehicles. I'm gonna leave my Lexus with Dev for I want her to have a safe car to travel with. I'm making arrangements to go see my Aunt Lynda in a few months and I'm expecting to see some of my friends over the summer. I'm gonna get back to my beer and celebrating with my man. Next photos will be of my new Xmas tree. It's SmurfTastic Blue and it's beautiful!

November already!

2009-11-03T02:49:00.003+01:00

Every week just seems to fly by! My goodness. We've been busy with the start of High School bowling. We've been getting everything we need to do with Dev done. I can't believe that in less than one year she will be in college. We are sending off applications next week. I wish I knew what we were going to be doing before she has to have the applications in. Here are the schools I want her to attend in the order I want her to attend:

Farleigh Dickerson-its in Jersey, my Aunt Lyda attended for a class or two there and they have a great women's bowling team
Delaware State-another top 5 bowling team in the country
Maryland-Eastern Shores-top 5 bowling team
Arkansas State
Univ of Arizona
Central Missouri

The whole application thing depends on bowling. She's going to be offered, if not a full ride, close to it. I want her to go to the school in Jersey because she can get to my Aunt Lynda's or Aunt Marilyn's house easily if we are in Germany. In case of emergency. It's on the East Coast so a flight home is not far OR we can come see her. Right now we are just waiting on her senior pics to come in to mail off with her bowling video, her recommendation letters and her bowling resume.

Wanna see her senior pics?? I love them. Go to www.shop.prestigeportraits.com user name is aloharev1 and password is seniorpics

Work is going good. I'm in my last two days in communication. I have Mondays and Tuesdays off right now but that could change come Thursday when I finish up my 2nd phase of training. This training has been tougher. It's major multi tasking. Answering emergency calls, dispatching, printing criminal history's for detectives, entering stolen guns or missing persons into a nationwide database. My trainer is hard. She's to the point, abrupt and not so soft and while I appreciate it because I'm learing how to do my job the right way it's difficult because she makes me nervous and when she's not there I do my job with ease and when she's there I feel like a deer in the headlights. I have two more days with her. I just hope I can get through okay. I'm moving to the front desk next. It's a lot of report writing. Not looking forward to it.

What I do enjoy is on my day off going for a ride with Shane. I tried being stubborn and refusing to ride because I didn't want him to have a bike. BUT I ended up loving it. I love the vibration, the wind, the sun, the open air, and holding on tight to my man. One thing my job has done is put more pressure on us as a couple. It's the adjusting period. I think if I came home tomorrow and said that I was quitting he would thank his lucky stars. He misses me being home. He does do most the daily cleaning and I still cook dinner. I do the laundry, he folds it. I do the deep cleanings on my days off and he does touch ups that need to be done to a home you've lived in for a few years. When I start working the 2pm-10pm schedule we will be on the same schedule but in the meantime I get up at 5 and go to bed early. He gets home late and sleeps in. I've never slept so soundly since working. My job has affected all my relationships. I never hear from those I love. Weird how that worked. I just never thought it would affect that. Was willing to retire in a place not home to me just to be near and now it seems that idea is not so good anymore. Sad. Miss it but no matter how I try I can't change it. And I know I need to be a better niece. Flying to NH in April to be a better one.

Well, I'm going to curl up with a bowl of ice cream and cheer on Drew Brees to pull me ahead in Fantasy Football. I need to scrap too.

OCTOBER!

2009-10-18T05:39:00.002+02:00

Cooler weather, pea soup, bike rides, pumpkin patches, pumpkin seeds and a big bowl of banana flavored laffy taffy. Good stuff. So I turned 38. Weird cos I still feel 20 except I look a tad different. Drake turned 16 and goodness I can't for the life of me stay calm when he drives. I try. I try to let him drive "his way". It's hard people. He cuts corners so fast. He takes chances. I'm hoping he lasts a while before his first fender bender.

Bowling news. Last weekend the kids had a tournament and all three of them won. Dev beat everyone with her scores. Luckily for the boys she was in the girls division cos she stomped all the boys too. Dev took first, Drake took 1st and Justin took third. The tournament was not in our town. I heard people say, "who are all these Killeen bowlers?" It was cool and we walked away with 1200+ in scholarship money. Dev had senior pics that day. OMG. Heart breaking. She looked so grown up. So. Grown. Up. and adorable. They won't be in for 4 weeks but I cannot wait.

Work. I'm still on the 6-2 shift with weekends off. Normally you have to go to a new trainer every three weeks but I managed to stay with mine for 6 weeks. Comms is something not my fave. I probably answer 300 phone calls a day. I dispatch probably 25 of them. I transfer 175 of them. I listen to stupid people on 100 of them. People who take Viagra and then can't get out of their vehicle cos IT won't go down. Or someone wanting to report a wreckless driver and at the end of the call stating that the she "may have been in the drivers blind spot." I've had two where a person was threatening suicide and another who had just been beat up by her sister and was hysterical.

We've started HS bowling tryouts. We've narrowed down schools that WE want Dev to apply to. Saw the movie Law Abiding Citizen and loved it. Damn clever movie. Drake's dating a girl. He took her to lunch the other day. Coped a feel of her boob. He didn't buy her lunch. I've arranged for a few officers to pull him over and give him the business about it. Life is good.

braces are off!

2009-10-05T00:00:00.003+02:00

after two years of having a metal mouth, not being able to gnaw on corn correctly and trying to stay away from sticky candy he can eat whatever he wants. i love his new smile. beautiful. no more monthly ortho visits are nice too! he does have a permanent retainer. a small strip of metal that sits behind his front four teeth. you can't see it from his smile.

i've been scrapping! cleaned up my scrap room. i have boxes and boxes to donate. i've already given a ton of paper to an elementary school. still have some more downsizing to do and i'll always be getting rid of stuff since i'm always buying more. geesh. it's a cycle. i'm used to it. i'm so glad the survivor challenges are back at tally and product is coming in. =)

the rest of the month we have senior pics to take, two big bowling tournaments, high school try-outs, drake's turning 16!

did i tell you we are in the process of adopting justin? his mom seems to be on board. i am hoping so. he got dropped off in 2005 and hasn't really left. since i'm responsible for him i'd like him to have our medical care. have had some teary-eyed discussions with his mom and it's what he wants so we're going to go for it. i will keep you posted. i think i was always destined for three kids. i have been signing all school documents with my name, i go to his parent-teacher nights and hear things like, "i was wondering where justin got his looks and now i see he's a cross between you both." to which i reply, "he gets his red hair from his grandpa." he's got a debit card and cell phone under us, we give him allowance, he vacations with us...but most importantly he needs us. i'm not sure where he'd be if we hadn't opened our door to him. it's really no surprise because i was raised in a home where we always had extras. time for this to be official.

the kids have their first golf tournament tomorrow. they're thoroughly enjoying it. i think they'll do it next year too.

dev got good news at chuck e cheese. she's been working there for over a year. she has a raised and moved into a bigger role there. her hours will be set and she won't have to work weekend nights unless she fills in for someone. proud of her for doing so well. she's never called in sick nor has she ever been late. that's our girl.

you gotta get one of these

2009-09-25T17:43:00.004+02:00

and by you, i mean you. the scrapbooker. i had gotten away from tool purchases after having one too many eyelet setters that didn't set or one too many quickutz fonts that i never used. then i went to the tallyrally. ladies had all kinds of tools that i hadn't seen before. jeng had this photo printer. it's awesome. i got one! 49.99 from target and it prints directly from my camera. i didn't even realize the button on my camera was a print button. but it is. i figured it out without reading the directions, it's that simple! it doesn't print the normal 4x6 but smaller. like a 3x5. however, i love it. and for the price i think you should go get one for yourself. the pogo from polaroid. hooked right up to my cannon and printed these mini pics for scrapbooking. love it.

work is going great. i'm out of the jail. i passed what they call the ghost phase of training and have moved to communications. i'm looking forward to this new phase of training. i won't have to fight any unruly inmates. i will miss magistrating people. i will miss my new girlfriends from the jail. i will miss knowing the job. i never did have to do a strip search on a female and the day after i was done in the jail a woman had brought in a 6 inch crack pipe and baggies of crack via her vagina. would've liked to experience that. they looked at me strange when i asked why no one called me in for that. good times.

i'm working 6am-2pm right now. in communication. i sit all day. sucks cos i lost ten pounds working in the jail because i was on my feet all day but kinda thankful cos i'm recovering from the flu. after hitting 35 i've gotten sick every year. i'm also exposed to all kinds of stuff i wasn't before now that i work outside of the home. had to call in sick for the second time. first time was when i was in the hospital with shane a few weeks back.

survivor is back at tally and so are the monthly kits! can't wait to get one to scrap with my new printer. get on over there and check it out!!

yo!

2009-09-14T03:54:00.003+02:00

It's the middle of September already? Tomorrow is my 18th wedding anniversary. I can't believe that we've been married for 18 years and 18 is the age we were when we got married. The second half of my life has been spent with Shane. I'm still having a good time with him so I guess I'll stick around a while longer. =)

Last week was interesting at work! 3 fights. That's what I got into. The first fight I kinda froze. He was half naked, from the waste down, and on crack. I held his feet and pushed the panic button. The second fight was much funner. A 50 year old woman who was trying to commit suicide by scratching her wrists and trying to choke on her clothes. By choke I mean she was eating her clothes. We decided to put her in a restraint chair and she flipped out trying to fight us so I flipped her on her ass and put my knee into her back until the cops secured her. After that one I was ready to go. In walks a drunk girl. She wouldn't go into her cell. Had resisted at the scene and peed on an officer. I grabbed her and slammed her on the cell bed. She did end up scratching my forearm so they got her with assaulting a peace officer...hello felony offense. Fun times. After that I vowed no more fighting. I was liking it too much. I have found that is the difference between the two shifts. One shift is nice, easy and the inmates always say how nice I am and then the other shift is drunks and resisters and there seems to be a fight every single night. I think I'm finally adjusted to the 10-6 shift. I like coming home from work and cooking my family a big breakfast before they head to school and work. I hit the hay and wake up and am able to cook dinner. It's nice. I don't prefer it but it's not the end of the world.

My computer crashed a few weeks ago and it's not fully back up and running. Sucks butt. Missing lots of things and lots of people. Don't feel like I have any say in the matter so trying to adjust to the way things are now.
Dev bowled a 300 last night. It was at a Pro-Am tournament. Mark Scroggins was one lane over. Very cool. Drake bowled awesome too. A 255, 265 and a 225. Very cool night. Both of my kids have bowled 300's. Excited for them and this year.

Shane is on track to head to the fixed wing school in April. Just after high school bowling ends. We are gearing up to coach again. That'll start next month some time.

And against everything in me I have actually enjoyed riding on Shane's bike. Not on the highway at the end of the day because the last thing I want is a convection oven facial, courtesy of the TX heat, but I am enjoying it.

Lastly, so glad football is season is back again. Thank you Drew Brees for massive fantasy points this week. =)

hi.

2009-08-21T03:34:00.004+02:00

Missing my blog. Feel a tad disconnected from everyone. Call me working girl? Shane and I went on our retreat and had a great time. Too short if you ask me. When it came to vow renewal I tried to keep it together but Shane didn't. My aunt reminded me that he was that way throughout our entire wedding, so she was not surprised.

Update on Shane: he's still on task to head to the Fixed Wing school next spring, after graduation he'll head to Korea for a year and then we'll be heading to Germany. What we'd like to do is for him to head to Korea, return and go to fixed wing school and then head to Germany. Dev will be in college and Drake will finish his senior year in Germany. This will happen at the end of 2010, supposedly. We'll be taking Justin with us, of course. He's now under our cell phone plan and has a debit card under us. His mom has already said yes. Tomorrow he gets his license. I am confident in his driving skills. Speaking of driving Shane gets a big raise September 1st. He decided to spend part of it on a bike. He got a Big Dog Mastiff. I'm totally against it. I even seeked out some marital advice on it. I was told that if we could easily afford it that I had to let him get it. Well, he's got it. It's very pretty. I haven't ridden it yet.

I am still loving my job. I am busy all day except for a period of about an hour. It's nice. Different. I've seen some weird stuff. I've got fingerprinting down to a science. I'm not nervous in front of the judge anymore. Thanks to Dev, one of them likes me. He takes his grandkids to Chuck E Cheese and my daughter just happened to strike up a conversation with him not knowing who he was. Thank you Dev. Totally made up for the fact that I spelled his name wrong one day...it was my first day on the job. The only thing I need to work on is when to waive their magistration and knowing when to let them out of jail. I'll get it. It sure is nice having the salary. I've had to crawl back to the school house with my tail between my legs because I lost my handcuff key. Turned it in to the dry cleaning. Oops. One thing I have enjoyed is reading again. I've been on a 3 year reading hiatus. In the past month I've read Undone, The Time Traveler's Wife and The Shack. Loved them all...especially The Shack. Didn't think it would suit me but it did just fine.

Kids start school on Monday. Dev's senior year. Wow. She's in Dallas this weekend visiting a bowling friend of hers. She'll be getting out of school after lunch for she has finished all of her requirements. Drake won't be doing football this year. He's got a 223 average right now in bowling and we don't want him getting hurt. He, Kevan and Justin are all playing golf instead. We'll see how that goes...if he makes the team. lol.

This weekend we are camping. We've got a small house on the lake, military type quarters, and the boys are popping tents. I work but'll get off at 23o everyday so I won't miss burgers and smores at night. Miss everyone!

home from vegas.

2009-08-06T04:33:00.003+02:00

I had such a good time. You know what I loved about it? That my kids had friends to keep them busy and didn't want to hang with Shane and I and that WE got to spend the quality time together and that I enjoyed it. Married as long as I have sometimes you wonder. Wonder if when the kids leave will you have anything in common. We gambled, not together, we ate, we had some awesome sex. All is right with the world. Vegas and bowling for the kids, well, they struggled. It was Vegas. We'll be back there next summer for the same tournament and you can bet they will do much better. Shane was in Vegas for an hour and won 300 dollars on the slot machine. I got to Vegas and played Roulette, my fave game, and won 170 dollars. Shane spent his money on bowling balls for kids, I still have mine. We saw the BlueMan Group. I highly recommend. Shane and the kids took pics of the Hoover Dam. Wish that I was there to make them park, get out, and pose. But since they drove straight to Vegas-22hours-I'm glad I flew and have pics of Hoover Dam as they drove by. Every night Shane and I went and ate Seafood and I totally enjoyed spending time with him. It was me, Shane and gin and tonics every single night=fabulous.

My job is going great. Today we got sprayed with O.C. It's Oleoresin Capsicum and it's freakin' hot. I was so glad that they drew my name to go first. Shane and kids were there to watch it happen. He sprayed us on the forehead. It runs into the eyes and then we have to open our eyes and it is a blinding pain. You can't see. The body refuses to open the eyes. It's 2million on the Schoville Heat Units-that's hot as shit. After it was over it wasn't my eyes that burned so much but my arms and fingers. It's oil based so getting it off is more difficult. Most people handled it like a champ, one girl kept vomitting and her eyes were spent from the spray. Now I'm O.C. certified and can carry it on me. You must have it done to you to carry it. I don't know why cos you don't have to take a bullet to carry a gun but whatever. I did it. I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I'll get video real soon. Did I tell you that I love my job. Everyone likes me, or so I think. I've got a great friend named Sofia. We carpool together. We all eat lunch together and I love it. I start at the Police Department on Friday. I have the 630am-230pm shift. I work Weds-Sun. I have Monday and Tuesday off and I love that cos when you work M-F it's hard to get personal business done. I will have to do all shifts for the OJT and I'm hoping for either 630-230 or the 1030pm-630 shift. The 1030pm shift will suit my family's needs better but I'm flexible. Love it. Thinking of becoming a real cop in January. We'll see. Oh and I had to wear a shirt I could throw away and the I Love MJ was 4 dollars at the grocery store. I was never a MJ fan.

Shane and I are heading to a retreat for ourselves this weekend. It's in Horshoe Bay, about an hour south of here, and we are going to be renewing our vows. Just he and I and a few other military couples going.

I miss my friends. I miss Tally. I'm scrapbooking on Monday, so get ready ladies. Right now, I love my life.

so long.

2009-07-27T00:00:00.004+02:00

I can't believe I haven't updated this thing in forever!! Shame. Shame. Let me see if I can catch you up. TallyRally09 was awesome. I had the BEST time ever. I got 21 layouts done. Drank lots of drinks. Had the most awesome Jell-0 and got to spend some time with some awesome women. I was so glad that we all got together. I also learned that I want a stripper pole. It's great exercise. I was on that sucker for seconds and the next morning my arms were very sore.

Shane and the kids had a great time in Indianapolis bowling. They did not qualify and Drake was able to come home and make his Disney cruise. In the process of both of them going to Indy one came home with a boyfriend and one lost a girlfriend. I'm so sad Drake and his woman are no longer together. I'm apprehensive about Dev's new boyfriend. We've known him forever. He's a cute blond hair, blue eyed boy. He runs track and is being looked at by Purdue. I'm worried he's going to hurt my kid. So far she really likes him. I'm trying to get a pic but now that I'm working I don't pull out my camera as much.

Love my job. I did the walk through for HepB shots the other day. You know how they caravan you through when you are in the Army. It's the same way with the PD. Right now we are doing Report Writing, which is a big part of my job. Every call that comes and someone wants to file charges I have to take statements and my report has to be good enough to stand up to the Defense Attorney. I love it so far. I love the people I work with. In just two weeks I'll be fully done at the Police Academy and will go into OJT. My last week I will be sprayed with OC spray. They are okay with me bringing my camera! Yay!

Drake went to Florida and then on a Disney cruise with a friend of his. He made it home safely and I was worried the entire time that he would be taken and entered into sex slave trade. Thank goodness.

We got another dog. His name is Hershey and he's a chocolate chihuahua/terrier/dachsund mix. He's very quiet. He's already trained. He was a rescue who had heart worms. I won't tell you about the other dog we tried out. Posh likes him okay.

Shane and the kids leave for Vegas Tuesday. This one they should fair better than Indy. Indy all those who qualified were NCAA college bowlers and it left little room for those in high school. It really left no room for them. Great experience. On Friday I fly out to Vegas and come home on Sunday. Cannot wait to go to Vegas with Shane. Teen Masters will be televised so I'll let you know when!

1st week done

2009-07-07T04:04:00.003+02:00

and it feels good. The classes are getting a bit old. In class from 8-5 with an hour for lunch and all we do is study penal codes, the constitution, court systems...etc. None of which I'll really need to know but the ones who are going to be police officers do so I'm stuck with them. I like the people I'm going to be working with. 3 of us eat lunch together at the academy. I learned real quick it wasn't worth leaving the academy because it's a good drive to get any where and you are expected to be present 10 minutes before you are off the clock for lunch. Cussing. There's lots and lots of cussing. I cussed in front of another PSO, that's me, and she was shocked that I would cuss. She said, "you look so conservative." Um hello. I then went on to tell her some sexual stories, how the hubby likes to sit and pee, and how I really do have a sailors tongue. Me...conservative? I'll just give her a few more weeks or I'm sure she'll see my true language when I get sprayed in the face with pepper spray. Shit. As for physical fitness, it's not a requirement. I do do it. Me and one other girl are the only ones who do the PT part of the academy. My first day was a run and it was about 110 outside. I thought that I would be fine cos I had been running. Then we went up a huge hill, which set my breathing off and the heat and the pressure but I thought I was okay cos if I wanted to walk then I could. Wrong. The cadets will have to double time it back to you if you fall behind or start walking so they'll be doing twice the work. I learned real quick that I wasn't going to have anyone have to double time it and come back and get me. I was in the back with the bigger cadets and I'm okay with it. One day we had a PX90 class and I was a leader. Easy day. Today the cadets were carrying a dummy over an obstacle course and so the other PSO and I asked if we could run and run we did. 2.5 miles. It wasn't as hot today and we did it rather quickly. Tomorrow I have a test on the criminal codes and penal codes. I'll be fine. So far I've gotten 2 100s and one 87.5. The 87 was on the different amendments so I'm cool with it.
4th of July came and went. We had a family over for Cranium. Adults v. Kids and the adults are outnumbered by 4. There was a Mind Meld where the team was given a topic and the team had to write three things associated with the topic. One matching answer between team mates would win them that question. The topic was Angelina Jolie. I got the privilege of reading the kids answers and one of Justin's was: I'd do her. I so can't wait to scrap it. It was the only pic I took on the 4th. And as most of you know the TallyRally is this weekend. Can't wait. Scrapbooking here I come....and jell-o shots.

The Academy Day 1

2009-06-30T03:47:00.003+02:00

Okay so seriously...loved it. I didn't do anything remotely important besides paperwork. Paperwork for 8 hours today. Good times. The family even met me on my lunch break. I got to know the other 7 people in the class. Found out that I finished 3rd out of 35 possible hires. The 8 that are in the class are the 8 that passed the polygraph. They all had to take it three times, which made me feel much better about my own test. I have my photo badge. I'm officer C117. See the book above? I'll be studying that for the next 5 weeks. See the binder above? I'll be filling that full of study guides. See the hubby on the couch above? That in no way represents what he did today. He vacumed, cleaned, unloaded dishwasher, got dinner ready for cooking, folded laundry and got the kids up at noon and met me for lunch.

I asked what the retention rate was after the class and it's 100%. Once they train you they keep you so I officially have the job. I wasn't sure how that worked or if I had to do well at the academy to get the job. My first real paycheck comes on the 8th. It'll be my first salaried job ever. I have really good benefits too. I got fitted for my uniforms, which I can drop off at the dry cleaners and the city pays for it. My uniform is navy blue BDU type pants with a polo shirt with my name embroidered on it. A belt with handcuffs and pepper spray. I have to buy my own shoes and I'm opting for black boots. Can't wait. It'll be three weeks before I get my uniform so in the meantime it's business casual. I'd rather show up in a physical fitness outfit or PTs.

I'll be at the academy the rest of the week at 8am. Tomorrow I'm learning Family Violence SOP's and the US and Texas Costitution, Bill of Rights and Criminal Justice System. I get federal holidays off and I get paid for them. So this Friday is my only day off in the next 5 weeks and I'll be paid for it. I found out that my schedule will be 4 ten hour shifts a week. Love it. And I will be working at the new Police Department being built 2.25 miles from my house.

Well I'm off to study and chill. Tomorrow is my first official day at the Academy. I already have my car packed with work out clothes in case they say that we are running. Bring it.

So hard.

2009-06-25T17:03:00.005+02:00

I had no clue that saying goodbye to a pet could be so difficult. I knew I was going to miss her. I knew it was time for her to go. I just didn't think I'd feel I lost a family member. We felt like Jesse was suffering but we weren't 100% sure. She was older. We thought it was just age. We decided to take her to the Vet to see what they thought. I told them what she was doing and how she's been for months and how I probably should have brought her in months ago. I told them how Shane came home and she didn't eat like she used to. I told them how her belly seemed bloated. The Vet checked her out. Blood pressure was dangerously low. Her liver and spleen were enlarged. She asked us what three things of Jesse's she loved to do. I said eat, play ball and swim. She said, "If she can't do 2 of the 3 it is time." I said, "She can't do 3 of the 3 things she loved to do." So they took her back to put a catheter in her. We were worried that they went ahead and did it even though we said we wanted to be with her. They came in and said they were having difficulty finding a good vein. They finally got it and brought her to us. We sat down next to her, gave her kisses, got the lasts ones from her and just kept telling her what a good girl she had been. We gave them the go ahead. It didn't go as quick as I thought it would but it was still quick. She went peacefully and we were anything but. We pick up her ashes in a few days and are going to take her out to Stillhouse for her final resting place. We took her collar and will keep it on the boat. Always. We miss her. I've dropped ham on the kitchen floor expecting to hear her get up to get it. Poor Posh is taking it hard. She doesn't want to be alone. I forsee another Posh in our future. Okay time to dry the eyes.

I've been working out like a mad woman. Okay, not like a mad woman. Like a woman on a mission though. I get up every other day and run at the park. My family has been going with me. Love it. I also hired my old trainer to help me with weight training.

We had a bowling meeting and the old head coach isn't coming back next year. The parents voted Shane the boys coach. I'm super happy about that. I was worried what was going to happen to the boys.

Shane got picked up for Fixed Wing. This means he'll be going to school to fly planes for the Army instead of the Blackhawk helicopters. I have no idea when. It may not happen until another rotation to Iraq. The great thing is that as a fixed wing pilot his tours are only 6 months long. He is filling out the paperwork now. We selected moving to Hood, Germany and Savannah Georgia. Hood is where we are now and is our first choice. I'm kinda hoping for Germany. None of this is going to happen quickly. We could be here another year before they even send him to school. It does mean he won't be able to retire at 20 years. He'll have to do 5 more years after schooling. He has 2 years before he hits 20 so if he goes to school next year then he'll be in the Army for 24 years. I'm happy about this because his retirement will be double. I'm a military girl through and through. I've never not been in the military. First my dad then with Shane. It's the life I'm used to and I love it.

I start my job on Monday. Today is fingerprints and more paperwork. I'm super excited. We have a bowling tourney this weekend in East Texas. Longview. We'll be there Saturday and Sunday. I'm excited. Kevan and Justin are going with us for they are bowling too.

strawberry scallop salad

2009-06-18T15:59:00.002+02:00

so yummy. made this the other night for shane and i. turned out to be me, shane, justin and kevan. i guess drake's friends like us too cos they came over to visit while the kids are gone. justin spent the night last night and is going boating with us today. lol. it's delish, the salad is.

From Robin Miller at Food Network:
1/2 cup OJ-i squeezed half an orange instead
2 tblspn. lemon juice-i squeezed a whole lemon in
1 tblspn. olive oil
2 tspn. dijon mustard
2 tspn. fresh chives, chopped
salt and pepper
2 cups cooked scallops
2 cups whole strawberries, sliced
1 cup english cucumber, sliced
red lettuce leaves
1/2 cup gorgonzola

I bought fresh scallops, 1.5lbs and cooked them on a griddle. Turned out great. This was delish and I think we'll be eating this the Wednesday before the TallyRally. So Nikki and Christi I hope you like seafood!

Thank you for all your supportive emails and message board posts in my decision to start my career. I thank you. I am very excited. I start the 29th. Can't wait!!

home.

2009-06-17T04:02:00.004+02:00

safe and sound from the biker rally. i was a tad out of my element but relaxed and just enjoyed the fact that shane was there after wanting to be there for the past 3 rot rally's. we met some friends, lugged a cooler full of beer and water around and had fun. I saw lots of boobs. Funny how the women will share their boobs but you ask the guys to see their wieners and you get lots of, "i left it at home" "you don't want to see it, it's really small" or they just look at you like their not sure what you just asked. I didn't ask to see the wieners. Guys are prudes.

Kids are still gone and learning a lot at their bowling camp. So worth the money. Love it. Dev has a 200 average right now. It'll be intersting to see what happens when she gets back. Usually when you work on fixing yourself your average goes down some. They both got new bowling balls at camp and they are pretty cool.

So tomorrow I go for my physical. I got the job at the police station. Some have thought it was a police officer job. It's a public safety officer job. After two years on the job I can transition into the police officer position if I want by only taking the civil service exam but that's not on my list of to do's. I've been working out again. Hired my old trainer. Trying to get ready physically. Working my butt off since I've got everything half off at Tally.

Shane has had an appt for his neck. Turns out he has a fracture in his neck but no new damage. I think when he got run over by the ATV they fractured his neck. Kinda irritating. He has an appt. tomorrow with physical medicine. I'm hopeful he'll be pain free soon. He should hear next week on the fixed wing position.

Well kids are gone, we're going to bed early. Tomorrow I'll post the Strawberry Scallop Salad I made for dinner last night. OMG.

they're gone!

2009-06-13T14:52:00.002+02:00

that's right. the kids have flown to florida. they are visiting shane's family AND going to a bowling camp. this is a good test for shane and i. how are things going to be when they leave for college? will we look at each other like now what? so far so good. last night we enjoyed a great indian meal. spent some good quality time horizontal, kinda. today we are off to a biker rally. it pains shane not to have a harley. i don't know why he wants to torture himself by going. i think it's the possibility of winning this bike. they are drawing three keys to give to soldiers. one of them walking away with this bike. so i'll be here all day, in austin, 100+ degree weather.

but first i'm off in an hour to take a polygraph exam. it's my last step in the hiring process that i've been going through for the past two weeks. sorry i didn't share about it earlier. felt like if i did then something bad would happen and i wouldn't get it. now all i gotta do is pass the exam. i'm pinching myself sometimes that this is really happening. i'm on cloud 9. it looks like i'll be starting my new job as a public safety officer in a few weeks. it's 3 jobs in one and the new police station they are building is about 2 miles from my house. i can ride a bike to work!

ahhh it's been a good week.

2009-06-10T14:57:00.006+02:00

We've had a crawfish boil, played cornhole, tubed and have gone to a bowling tourney. First is the photo of Shane in the water. This guy cracks me up. He just couldn't wait to jump in the lake on his first outing on the boat in 2009 that as soon as we got to the swimming spot he stopped the boat and he dove in. That's nice but when you stop a boat it'll keep going forward from the momentum built up. Yeah. He had some swimming to do to catch up to us. lol. Good times.
Cornhole. Yeah. I'm still the champ. Me and Dev won 21-5. TallyRally ladies...kiss it. You are going down.

Some sad news. See my girl Jesse on the bow of the boat. She's bow riding, which is illegal, but we let her cos she's old. Well. We'll be letting her rest in peace next week. She's suffering. She doesn't like to eat anymore. She hurts. Her daddy is home and she is ready to go. She's lived a great life. Traveled with us from Virginia, to Hawaii, to Florida, to Virginia again and then Texas. She has swam in the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. It's time to say goodbye and end her suffering. She's been a great companion and everyone's favorite. It'll be a sad week in the house when we have to say goodbye.
Crawfish...oh we ate some crawfish. Delish. Bowling update. You know how this summer the kids are going to Indy to bowl in a National Tourney? Well qualifying for the 2010 Tourney has started and we had a tourney on Sunday. The kids bowled the first set and Drake was in 2nd and Dev was in 4th out of 5th. Then they bowled the next set and Dev freakin' killed it. She is the first girl, ever, to go plus at one of these. That means she bowled above a 200 average. She had a 257 game. This was on sport shot. She's one of 3 in the last year to bowl plus. The two other's were boys. They were quite impressed with her skills. What was great was who she beat on the girls side. One girl is attending SFA on full bowling scholarship this fall. One girl is attending Vanderbilt on partial bowling scholarship this fall. It was nice to see. So, both my kids are going to Indy next year. We don't have to do as many tourneys this year for next year cos they are already in. Pretty dang cool. Speaking of kids. They fly out on Friday to go to Florida. They are going to spend some time with their grandparents, Shane's mom and dad, and to a bowling training center. It's called Kegel and it's world famous. Pros head there when they need tweaking in their game. They'll be hooked up to a computer so their approach can be turned into a video so they can see what they need to work on. Their balls will be tracked down the lane. They'll get a new bowling ball and a professional shirt to wear to competitions. They will look at their arsenal, bowling ball, and tell them what they should get or what they should get rid of. They should come home 20 pins better than they went. I wish I could go. If you've watched any pro-bowling on TV you have most likely watched a competition in this center. It's very exciting.

oh my goodness...

2009-06-05T16:00:00.003+02:00

Last week my son's friend Kev told me he wanted to shave his head for the summer. I asked him to let me do it. I have no experience in cutting hair and actually suck at it. When Shane and I were in high school he asked me to trim him up and I made the back of his head look like train tracks. It's bad, me and clippers. I'm older though and thought I would be able to handle it. I started with Kev's hair and then somehow me cutting Kev's hair turned into Shane cutting Justin's hair and then Shane cutting Drake's hair! I had talked Drake out of it...had. He doesn't look so bad. His girlfriend loves his hair. Wonder what she'll say when she sees him today. Today it's tubing when they get out of school, it is the last day of school after all. Gotta have some fun. Tonight a rodeo. Saturday The Hangover. Sunday Bowling Tourney in Austin. Just have to add that the family feels normal again. Farting, laughing, cuddling, telling stories, it's just been a good ole time since Shane has been home. Normal.

videos!

2009-06-02T23:09:00.002+02:00

okay so I guess they were removed for length. Here they are, split into two videos. Enjoy and no crying allowed.