It's not enough to say that I think about you right now..

"Hands down this is best day I can ever remember, always remember; the sound of the stereo, the dim of the soft lights. The scent of my hair that you twirled in your fingers, and the time on the clock when we realized it was so late and this walk that we shared together. The streets were wet, and the gate was locked so I jumped it and let you in; and you stood at your door with your hands on my waist, and you kissed me like you meant it, and I knew that you meant it." Dashboard Confessional

In my former blog (I deleted it ages ago..I am no newcomer to the blogosphere) I usually began my post with lyrics from a song that fit my mood, and would open to the topics in which I would write about. I have decided to begin to do this once more, and as much of a music junkie that I am...feel comforted in the knowledge that I will never repeat lyrics, nor will I ever run out of them.

This past weekend was quite amazing..and I am still running off the high of it. Saturday, John and myself chilled out around the apartment catching up on our various video games together and just generally lounging and enjoying each others company. Sunday we went to Landstul to Scholssruine Nanstein (Nanstein castle ruins) and had a wonderful time exploring the supposedly haunted ruins of the once great castle. The weather decided to take a turn for the worst (it is not the first time that the weather has not cooperated, we were hailed on coming down from Devils Head), but even the rain did not dampen our exploits. The castle was first mentioned in 1116, but is thought to be much older. It offered gorgeous views of Landstul, Sickington, and the surrounding countryside. We capped off the trip with a visit to Ramstein and Chinese food for dinner. We had a wonderful time and it was an amazing way to spend the day.

Yesterday was the grand opening of the Kaiserslautern Military Community Center in Ramstein. There are a bunch of smaller posts/bases in this region and for the most part..our exchanges are pretty limited in their selection. The KMCC is the second largest shopping center in Europe for the US forces stationed here, and it is a huge mall. I convinced John to take me to go walk around the mall when he got off work. It was a madhouse! I have never really seen that many people gathered in the same place. It took us about 40 minutes to find a parking spot. It felt nice walking around together and just looking at random stuff.

It has become harder for me to stay all day in this apartment. I am used to being free to come and go as I please and go outside and wander around. I like to explore the world around me (which sometimes causes John to call me a pain in the ass when I start bugging him about where we will go for our ritual weekend sightseeing). It's not like John locks me in the apartment by any means...it's just that it isn't exactly safe for an American to be wandering around. So to cure my restlessness John and myself go for short walks in the evening to that little lake in the center of town. Sometimes I even take a old loaf of bread with us to feed to the ducks during our visit. Some brave ducks even come to within feet of me and I can toss pieces of bread straight into their mouths.

The trees are beginning to turn more and more brilliant colors. On the main road coming from post it is lined with small chicken wire pillars that hold up a type of ivy. This ivy has turned slowly from green to a bright, beautiful red so small little red pillars line the streets. The mornings are colder now, and the afternoons turning less warm. The air is so clean here and the smells of fall pierce the air and make me want to throw my arms out and welcome it.

Except I remember the fact that I only have 2 sweaters and no coat with winter weather fast approaching. Oops.

John is starting to schedule his various briefs for him to start clearing. He is actually having to reschedule one he was supposed to go to tomorrow because the Army is deeming it necessary for him a group of others to go scuba diving in the pool in the Wetzel part of the post. It is hard to believe that I have been here almost 3 months now, and that we have been married for almost 4. It seems longer somehow.

I have given up trying to upload all the pictures I take onto Facebook and Blogger. I am just going to find a photo sharing website and just throw them all onto there for our families and friends and share the link here and on facebook.

Oh! Lastly, John baked his second cake a couple of days ago. It turned out delicious, and with no sinking in the middle. He was quite proud of himself. Haha.

We miss and love everyone, and hope that everything is doing alright on the other side of the ocean.

And even when your hope is gone, move along...move along 'til you make it through..

Guten Tag!

I do have to apologize for the delay in updating our blog. My attentions have been divereted into other tasks, in which I will expand more on later in this update.

Around the first of this month, we finally got everything straight with Deutsche Telekom and had our internet hooked up. We are no longer surfing the web on the ghetto network that John had rigged up with his prepaid internet stick. From laptops, to gaming systems it works wonderfully fast. It is so nice to finally have real internet again, and John was incrediably excited to be able to play XBox Live and Star Wars Galaxies (SWG).

Last weekend, John finally talked me into giving SWG a try. It is an online roleplay game set during the first couple of Star Wars movies. I actually have been playing pretty consistantly for the past week and have become hooked on the game. It is pretty addictive. John also has been playing World of Warcraft (WoW) for the past week as well. Again, it is an online roleplay game set into a entirely fictional world. I refuse to give WoW a try, instead opting for SWG. I am not a huge gamer, and SWG fits my tastes just well.

We both recieved the packages from our familes. Mine was a bunch of super important documents (marriage certificate, drivers license, and passport plus a bunch of mail), and his included gaming stuff and his birth certificate. Thank you to both sets of parents for putting them together for us and sending them off. You guys are pretty much amazing.

John had CQ a week ago yesterday..and it allowed for us to have a nice, long 5 day weekend together. We spent it playing video games, watching movies, and just generally enjoying one anothers company. The weather was far too icky and cold outside (even for John) for us to want to adventure out too far past our front door. This weekend is a regular 2 day weekend and we have already made plans. Tomorrow we are going to travel to Idar-Oberstein to explore this gorgeous castle and church. The city is famous in Germany for its gem mines and jewelery stores and is just a stones throw away from Baumholder. We are planning on going out to eat in Ramstein as well, so it will be an awesome day. Sunday is laundry, grocery, and just chilling out day around our casa. We are planning on taking a walk down to that little lake to feed the ducks some old bread and just enjoy our quiet day.

My friend Mandy has returned from the states. It is nice to have female chatter again. She and her fiance got married during her visit to the states so now she is an official Army wife too.

This post should be named Ode to my Laptop in it's memory. The laptop that I put through so much hell and travel has finally gone to computer heaven. It had been giving me some major issues all through August. I had convinced John to do a reinstall on it and it really didn't work. I think it just needs another Windows key for the Vista OS and some solitude (and not so much travel) for awhile. I have a replacement system, a wonderfully fast and cheap little Vaio by Sony. I am grateful for it, seeing as my computer is my link to America for the most part.

Earlier this week I recieved my acceptance letter (with in-state tuition as well) to Community College of Aurora. I will be beginning online classes starting the summer semester. John is also talking about going back to college as well, starting the same semester as me. He has yet to apply, but I am hoping for it.

In Army news, John was pretty much given little choice but to promote to E-5 by his Section Sergeant, Sgt. Steffin. He was told today to start getting enough promotion points through correspondence courses and to start preparing to go before a promotion board. He is reluctant to promote just yet, but personally I think he would be happier as an NCO because he would have to deal with a lot less stupid stuff. The downside is that he would have to attend a 2-3 week leadership school. So..seperation. Which of course, being a military relationship is inevitable but we aren't ready to be parted again so soon. Especially being so newly married.

The weather is getting cooler and the leaves are starting to turn beautiful colors outside our windows. You can smell the coldness in the air, and I am beginning to not want to get out of our nice and warm bed into the morning. I am usually only lured out by the promise of hot coffee. Lol. Coffee on a cold morning, is indescribably amazing.

Other then that, we have been both happy and healthy. We are starting to look into travel plans for Christmas. We PCS in 3.5 months. How fast time has flown! We need to start discussing with our families Christmas plans...so I will be getting in contact with both moms for this. Should be an interesting 30 days. Until next time.