We'll just laugh along because we know that none of them have felt this way..

"The only one who's ever known who I am, who i'm not, and who I want to be." The Fray

Ola!

So after a not fun bout with sickness, I am semi fully recovered thanks to John shoving vitamins and other pills down my throat for the past few weeks. The weather has been crazy here, so that is NOT helping. Yesterday it was a beautiful 60 degree day, and barely a cloud in the sky. Today, it is grey, looks like rain, and is super cold. I think its all of 53 degrees right now. Yay for crazy weather patterns and their effects. Not.

Everything is dying. The brilliant colors that once surrounded us when we went into the countryside are no longer there. The trees are either green..or naked. It is only a matter of time before everything is coated in shades of grey, white, and muted greens. The once vibrant countryside is now pretty dull.

John and me played it low key this weekend. Just mainly hanging out around the house and enjoying each others company. I think we both needed a second to just catch our breath before this next week started.

I start classes Wednesday afternoon (can't log in until 5 pm) and even though its a short week I will still have to turn in 6 assignments by Saturday night. So, the fun/pain shall begin. Needless to say, I am going to rush to get done with class stuff so by the end of the afternoon when John gets home I can enjoy time spent with him, and not with my head in a book.

Apparently John has spent his entire military career on a perminate profile. This means that he was never supposed to be a scout, and he was never supposed to deploy to Iraq. The Army finally caught it after 3 years last week when his orders for El Paso started to come in. He has received a waiver however, and will be put on blood pressure medication. If he hadn't received that waiver, then John would have had to go before a medical board and probably would have been given a medical discharge.

Still unsure about the entire Christmas thing. I know John and me are kicking around some ideas for Thanksgiving plans since we will be unable to come back to the United States for it. It is so nice that we are finally going to be able to spend the holidays together. Hopefully next year, we will be able to spend Thanksgiving with our families.

Happy Halloween all, and try to stay out of trouble with those tricks.

You never really change, you just become more of yourself..

"A thousand miles seems pretty far, but they've got plans and trains and cars. I'd walk to you if I had no other way. Our friends would all make fun of us, but we'd just laugh along because we know that none of them have felt this way." Plain White T's.

Aloha! I *wish* we were somewhere warmer. Lol!

So, John had the pleaseant experience of waking up this morning to find that we had finally received ice on our car and well..everything. It has been in the air for awhile, but it finally came today. I am looking forward to the day when snow starts hitting the ground. Being from Texas I never really got to enjoy snow for longer then a day, so I am looking forward to being able to form snowballs without bits of dead grass and leaves in them.

Which these snowballs will be enthusiastically hurled at my husband as he gets out of the car from work. I dare him to get me back.

Not much has been happening with us lately. Generally exploring castle ruins and watching episodes of Smallville together. Work has been exhausting for John. His unit is gearing up to redeploy to Afghanistan (which thankfully John will NOT be apart of) so last week was spent at the rifle range requalifying and shooting. They had their vehicles reissued to them, so days spent at the motorpool is becoming regular as well. It makes for long, hard, and cold days for John. He is often going to PT formation at 5:30 and not getting home until 5:30-6:00 pm at night.

Wednesday John attended his first out briefing to begin to start to out process from this unit. He is thrilled, especially since we got the news that we would be leaving Germany the 20th of December. So, we will make it home in plenty of time for Christmas. Which I am still trying to work out the plans with both families so no concrete plans just yet. But by landing the afternoon of the 20th it gives us some extra time.

Today we received some amazing news about my stay here in Germany. We were afraid that I was on a purely tourist visa, however it turns out that isn't the case. I am here under the US-German military partnership. In June, when we went to Ft. Hood to get me 'enrolled' in the Army I was not supposed to get my military ID, or military passport until they had word that I was command sponsored. However, I was still given them. So I have all the benefits of being command sponsored, including being able to stay as long as John is stationed here. We are incrediably relieved at this turn of events.

As relieved as I am, I have come down with some weird cold or flu bug. I have been pretty sick this past week, which sucks. However, I have an excellent nurse in the form of John. He has taken excellent care of me. I am hoping that I will start to get better so me and John can go out exploring this weekend. John has told me that he really enjoys our weekend excursions together, and so do I. I have planned a huge day for us tomorrow, and now I am hoping that I am well enough to enjoy it. I will probably just bundle up really well and deal with the cold.

We are looking forward to being back, especially 3 days earlier then what we thought. We love and miss everyone.

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.

And I don't feel right when your gone away..

Howdy!

First off, I would like to apologize for it not being so long in between posts. I have by no means any less news or stories to share with both the families and our friends, it's just hard because I now have limited access to the internet. Ever since we moved into our apartment, we lost the WIFI signals that we were getting from the hotels and now we are using John's prepaid internet stick. Or, I make the hike up to the posts library to use their WIFI.

Mind you, the internet issue was already supposed to be fixed by now. John and myself got set up with Deutsche Telekom for internet and phone. The phone is a really good deal, because we can make unlimited amounts of calls to American landlines. Just..we can't accept calls from cell phones or make calls to cell phones because the cost is pretty expensive. Our install date was August 25th, and well..they didn't show. They are now supposed to come out the 31st to do the install, considering some equipment didn't get delivered how it was supposed to. Since both John and myself primary mode of communication to the states is by internet, this is going to be huge for us. Plus, he is excited about playing Halo 3 on XBox Live, and Star Wars Galaxies without the lag that comes from the internet stick.

There hasn't been too much going on here however. John had a nice, long 5 day weekend due to having CQ last Thursday. So, we played video games and hung out around the house watching TV and enjoying each others company. We went to Hanau, Germany and walked around for a bit. Hanau is right around where the Brothers Grimm were given birth to.

John actually baked his first cake the other night. I do have a picture, and I will be posting it (probabely to his embarrassment).

The sunsets have been so gorgeous here lately. It's pretty hard to resist taking pictures of them (I do not have that strong of a will. Lol!). So I have a bunch of sunsets on my camera. I think in part it is due to a lot of the late day storms we have been having lately. It will rain a bit late in the day, and then stop right before dusk. However, today is beautiful, cool, and not a cloud in the sky. The cool/cold mornings are back in season, with it burning off during midday. Fall is arriving like a thief in the night. As I wake up in the morning, slowly I see more and more colors other then green appearing on top of the trees that are outside of our window. It has become cool enough to close the window some nights now. John is in heaven, whereas I am the one curled up underneath the blankets cursing the weather change. I am a North Texan. There is no such thing as 4 seasons to us. It's a myth told to us by northerns. Lol.

We both can't help it. We are looking forward to going back to the states. I am not relishing the thought of a full winter in Germany, and John is obviously sick of this country. We love and miss everyone though, and are looking forward to December and being able to see everyone during his leave.

Until next time.

I wanted you to know, that I love the way you laugh..

I can't say how nice it is to finally have our own place. Even if it takes 3 steep flights of stairs to reach. Once I can finally get my computer fully working, I will download the pictures I took of the view we have. We are at the very top, towering above many other buildings and able to see a birds eye view of Baumholder and Wetzle, the second part of the military post.

It was a very unproductive weekend, and it was even harder for John to want to get out of bed at 5 am for PT then most Monday mornings. He came home from supposedly a trip to the CMR with Guitar Hero and 2 guitars in hand Friday and we played all Friday afternoon, all of Saturday, and most of Sunday. We have a certain riveraly between us, which is odd considering that I am the competitive one whilest he could care a less.

Which is why him playing basketball probabely didn't work out so well Deb.

As far as the dancing is concerned, I am the one with the ability to do most folk dancing, two step, and now swing. John...can swing, and only if that is if I beg him to do it.

We called our families last Monday, I hope that you guys enjoyed hearing from us as much as we enjoyed hearing from you.

You'd like to think that you were invincable yeah...

Ola from the Rhine land!

Just when I thought things had finally settled down for awhile, my normal turned upside down for the second time this week.

Monday when I had checked into that new hotel for us, and moved John's and my stuff over to it I had made the comment to the owner (who was very nice and helpful by the way!) that we had started to look for an apartment but didn't really know what we were doing. Peter, the owner said that he would help. Thursday, he came up to our room and told me that he had found a cheap apartment for us through a friend of his, and what time would we like to set up an appointment with her.

So all things said and done, we moved into our new furnished studio apartment last night before a mandatory fun event and are now in the middle of unpacking. We need to go grocery shopping today seeing has half of our food got crushed in the move and do laundry today. As well as clean and finish unpacking. However, John is sick so I don't know how far we will get on any of those tasks today.

The apartment has the basics. Couch, tables, a lamp, mismatched dishes/pots/pans/utensils. It has a microwave and a TV..and a way for us to hook up internet. It is actually really reasonable a month and is paid on a month to month basis. Which is great, considering we are leaving in December.

Last night, the Family Readiness Group (FRG) held a Hawaiin themed party as a welcome home/have a fun block leave type of thing. It was mandatory fun time, so John and I made an appearance. Of course that not being his scene, he made sure enough NCO's saw him before we left so that there was no question of him having been there.

Thursday, John was awarded the Army Achievement Award/medal during final formation for his outstanding dedication to duty, professionalism, and selflessness during his assignment to 2-6.

Also, Thursday John and I attended our second swing dance class. John has actually become quite good at it, although he says he hates it. He looks great while doing it, although he is convinced that he looks like a retard/gay while doing it.

So much has happened this week, it is hard to keep track of it all. It feels nice to wake up in my own apartment again. We had frozen pizza last night...using an oven was exciting! It's not much, but it is home to us. Anywhere is home to me, as long as I have John right beside me.