Our house: exterior and main level

Here is our duplex:

Isn't it cute? We live in the closest side. Our LDS friends live in the far side.

Notice how high this house is. It has three floors and a basement. That's four levels. There are a million stairs (actually 44; I counted). It has more space than I ever could have imagined!

I love this house, and I can't wait to show it to you in person when you come to visit (hint, hint).

This next picture shows our parking situation:

We have a one car garage plus the space in front of the garage and the space between the garage and the house. We could easily fit three cars, but we definitely won't be needing that much space except for when you come to visit (hint, hint again).

Now we move inside the house.

This is my cute kitchen:

Don't you love it? It's very neutral, which is going to look awesome with all my red accessories that are on their way.

I can't get a fabulous picture because it is separated from the rest of the space by a doorway. But it does feel much bigger in person than it looks in this picture. The refrigerator is off to the left on the same wall as the stove. And....wait for it.... it has a dishwasher!!

I know all of my fellow Aggie Village friends are completely jealous of my dishwasher. I am taking full advantage of it. Notice there are no dishes in my sink? Yay!

The next few photos show my living room and dining room (which are actually one large L-shaped room):

The photos all look dark because of the bright light shining in through the windows. This house gets a LOT of natural light, which I love.

In the above photo, I am standing in the entryway looking into the house. The furniture you see is standard government issue. The Army is so nice to loan it to us free until our own furniture arrives in November. It will be here just in time to decorate our house for Thanksgiving.

This photo is looking into the same room from the kitchen:

We have two doorways that lead to the backyard. I closed the shutters on one of them to try to block the glare in the picture.

I have changed the furniture around about five times. It is currently set up at an angle with the TV in the unseen corner. Erick isn't sure if he likes it. He is okay with me moving it around though because he doesn't want me moving our own furniture around too much when it arrives. The movers will place it once, but no more. So I have to decide what I like BEFORE our stuff gets here.

Here is the same room from the other side:

The door on the left leads into the kitchen. The closed door next to the stairs leads to the entryway. Then next picture below shows what you can see when the door is open.

Our neighbors removed both of these doors to keep the area more open. We haven't decided whether we will remove them or not.

The stairs going down lead to the laundry room, a storage room, and our future play room.

The stairs going up lead to the second floor which consists of our bedroom, a super large bathroom, TJ's room, and an office/craft room (I can't wait for my sewing machine to arrive).

The top floor has a large bedroom with slanted ceilings that follow the line of the roof. It is supposed to be the master, but the ceiling slants so drastically that there is really no logical space for a queen sized bed not to mention living space. This floor also has a small bathroom and a storage room. We have decided to give this room to the girls to share. They are delighted!

This last picture shows the entryway. I took it while standing in the dining room looking toward the front door:

The door on the left with four windows is the front door. The opened door to the right leads to a half bath. The tan doors on the right open to lots and lots of closet space.

There you have it. There is our house for now. We love, love, love it!

I will post more when I can.

Limited Connectivity

I have so many things I want to share! I want to blog and blog and blog until you are sick of me. I have seen so many new things and met so many wonderful people.... but unfortunately, I cannot blog much. We do not yet have internet service.

Our neighbors have kindly offered us the use of their wireless signal, but it is extremely weak through the thick concrete walls that separate us. Instead of enjoying lightning fast internet, I am reading the words "limited connectivity" on my computer and praying that our own internet will be working soon.

We have moved into our super cute house. It is located in a small farm town in Bavaria. I love the house, the neighborhood, and the town. I will be sharing many pictures soon.

Our next-door neighbors with whom we share a duplex are from Utah. Can you believe that? Their names are Pam and Pete, and they are LDS (Mormon). Could we be any luckier? I don't think we could. Allow me to list the reasons:

• They have three children that are similar ages to my children. Their oldest child is in 1st grade like Joey.
• They have recently arrived and will be remaining for three years (just like us).
• We have already agreed to exchange babysitting for date nights.
• They drove us to church today and to the store yesterday since we are without a car.
• They have already had us over for dinner, and they have shown us the best ice cream place in town.

I feel like the Lord has really blessed us with our fabulous new neighbors.

But that is not all. I have already met three other women who live on this street. All of them have been kind, inviting, helpful, and friendly. They have informed me that I have moved to the "cool" street. Apparently, the entire neighborhood gets together for barbeques and picnics, Easter egg hunts and more.

We live on a very quiet street. The speed limit is literally 3 miles per hour. The kids run or ride their bikes up and down the street after school while the moms get together and socialize before heading inside to prepare dinner.

Doesn't it sound dreamy?

I'll post pictures as soon as my internet is up and working.

Beautiful morning in Bavaria

Our first morning, we woke up surrounded in a cloud of fog. Erick says it looks like this every morning. It burns off between nine and ten o'clock to display a beautiful blue sky.

Here is a picture of our hotel first thing in the morning:

Here is a tower that we can see from our hotel room and all around the base:

This is what the tower and surrounding buildings look like after the fog has cleared:

There are flowers boxes in nearly every window. I love it!

We made it!

I'm reporting to you now from the beautiful land of Bavaria (If you would like more specific details or contact information, please email me or comment with your information, and I will email you).

I wanted to take a moment to let everyone know that the kids and I survived the trip: a three hour flight, an eight hour flight, and a five hour bus ride.

In our travels, we tried to have as many adventures as possible. We had a picnic on the floor of the airport:

I did my part to make the trip more interesting by forgetting to charge my laptop (aka personal dvd player).

The kids did not even get to watch one full movie. This definitely added to the length of our travel, but my kids travel really well, so we survived with smiles:

Here are Joey and TJ on the final leg of our trip (the bus) playing their personal gaming devices (Nintendo DS and a Leapster). May I say, that these modern conveniences were definitely a lifesaver on this long, long journey:

The views from the bus were breathtaking! The country is covered with rolling hills and lots of trees.  Here is a picture of some trees taken from the bus:

Then suddenly there would be a clearing where we could see a beautiful little farm or a village:

We passed this sign, and I couldn't help but take a picture. I definitely need to learn German because right now I would offend a lot of friends if I tried to pronounce the name on this sign:

Our bus ride ended with a perfect sunset. I don't have a super fancy camera, so this photo is not even close to the beauty that we saw in reality. Perhaps it can give you an idea.

What a way to end a day:

 

*continue reading below if you'd like a funny story from our trip*

The Angry Swede

A funny story from our trip:

On our first flight, we met a man whom I like to call the "Angry Swede." He sat in the window seat  next to TJ. I was on the aisle seat, and the girls were on the same row on the other side of the aisle.

Our angry foreign friend boarded long after we had been settled. So when he arrived, TJ and I moved out of our seats and let him squeeze into his seat. (I say squeeze because, indeed, this man was not only an angry Swede, but also a very large Swede - and by large, I mean extremely round).

As he was placing his luggage in the overhead compartment and then squeezing into the row of seats, I realized that I was staring directly into a large hairy crack (yes, it was his bum) . I diverted my eyes, but the image is burned into my memory forever.

The Angry Swede was wearing tiny gray sweat shorts that were sagging much lower than they should, but amazingly, they were still so short that I almost couldn't see the bottom of them under his belly. I did, however, see his pasty white legs covered with thick black hair.

He was also wearing a T-shirt that was much too short to cover the bottom half of his belly. Needless to say, there was a lot of this man showing.

Once we got settled, I decided I would look past the outward appearance of this man and try to get to know him on the inside. I introduced myself and invited him to introduce himself. But he never gave me his name.

Instead, he said he was from Sweden and then went on a rampage on why Americans were stupid. He explained to me that our new president Obama was the only American that was not stupid. He told me that all Americans hate Obama , but that Obama was the best foreign policy leader that America had ever seen because he admitted to the rest of the world that Americans were stupid.

Now, I am not going to get all political here on my blog, and I didn't get political with him, but I did assure him that not all Americans hated Obama. If they did, he would not have gotten elected.

Wait....this guy just called me stupid. How did I react? With a smile of course, and I did my best to change the subject.

I asked why he was visiting America. Instead of an answer, I received a lengthy reprimand on why all Americans were fat. He finished with a concession that he too was fat, but that it was rare for someone from Sweden to be fat like him, so his government was paying for him to get gastric bypass surgery later in the year.

He asked me where I worked. I was pleased that he had finally asked me a question. I explained that I have chosen to stay home and raise my children instead of working. He thought that was ridiculous. He taught me that in Sweden, a mother gets full maternity pay for 18 months after having her baby. He also assured me that all intelligent women work out of the home.

After that, our conversation dwindled.

His unique behavior, however, did not dwindle. I had my laptop open for TJ to watch a portion of a movie. While he was watching, the flight attendants served drinks.

When the Angry Swede received his drink, he pushed my laptop out of the way so he could place his drink on TJ's tray table. In doing so, the laptop slid over onto my tray table nearly knocking down the drinks belonging to TJ and me.

We were given cans of soda along with cups of ice. The Swede kept over-filling his cup so that it spilled onto TJ's tray table. I had to pick up the laptop to keep it from getting covered in soda. I also had to clean up the soda, since the Angry Swede showed no intention of wiping up the mess himself.

Surprisingly, I was not angry. Instead, I chuckled to myself. This was another adventure along our journey. I do, however, feel a little sorry for the Angry Swede. He is not a happy person.

Eight years together

Today, Erick and I celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary.

Unfortunately we are not together today. Erick is in Germany, and I am in Utah. But last weekend, Erick spoiled me by taking me out for fancy seafood. It was a wonderful anniversary gift.

We sure have changed in the last eight years. Take a look.


This is us eight years ago today:



About five years ago:



About two years ago:



Last year:

Last weekend:

Thanks Erick for eight fun and fabulous years! I love you

Driving to Washington State

Before leaving for Germany, we needed to take our car to a port where it would be shipped across the ocean. Living in Utah, our two choices for shipping were located in Los Angeles and Seattle.

We planned to take it to Los Angeles, since it is the shorter drive, but at the last minute Mom and Dad invited us up to Seattle to visit them. Erick has never been to my grandparents house, so we jumped at the opportunity.

We left our kids in the hands of capable and loving relatives and headed north. On the way, we stopped to see a few sites.

We went to Promontory Point to visit the Golden Spike Monument. I was deeply disappointed to learn that the actual spike is at Stanford University, but they generously left a replica so we could imagine what it was like:

The coolest part of the site was the train:

 

We continued north to a city in Idaho called Hagerman. We visited the Hagerman Fossil Beds national site which was also the temporary location of the Minidoka Internment National Monument. They are rebuilding portions of the original internment camp as part of the site.

I found it extremely interesting. I wasn't aware of all the facts surrounding the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. If you want to learn more about Minidoka, click here.

Here is Erick next to a fossil of a horse-like animal found in the Hagerman Fossil Beds:

 

The rest of our drive was fun but uneventful. We arrived at Grandma and Grandpa D's house at 1 o'clock in the morning.

First Day of School

Bailey started Kindergarten this year! She is so excited to be in school with her sister Joey, who is now in first grade.

We decided to enroll the kids into school here near Grandma B's house because we were unsure how soon we would be headed to Germany. I am so glad we made that decision.

Bailey's confidence is soaring. She loves her teacher and her classmates. And Joey has a teacher that sings with her guitar every day and (get this) is teaching the class German. Is that meant to be or what!

Bailey with fellow kindergartners Parlee (her cousin) and Miriam:

After school Grandma B took Bailey out to lunch at an awesome pizza restaurant. Thanks Grandma: