From Gibson to Jasmine...

Well, gosh, how time has a flown by! I can't believe we already went home for Christmas, came back and I've been at work for three days.

We had an absolutely amazing time at home though. I am sorry I haven't updated, but I figured since most of the family was with us for the past week or so, I could wait till we got back to update.

I will try to not write too much since I know that no one really likes to read those super long posts.

Our flight over was pretty grand -- we had awesome seats in the front of the coach section that gave us super extra legroom. We also had Delta on demand movies, tv shows and games on these little tv screens on our seats, so I watched four girly movies and Carl watched five guy movies, so the time went by pretty quickly! We arrived back in the States the evening of Dec. 18, in Orlando. It was neat because we got to spend the evening with my brother who had flown in a little bit earlier in the day as well. We had an amazingly yummy Mexican dinner and hung out talking for a while before we conked out. The next day we got up and had breakfast at the hotel, did some shopping (ahhh Target!!!!) and played a round of mini-golf at a course near Disney. (I won, of course, since I had the highest score.... haha, that's a joke). We checked everyone into our hotel and waited for the others to arrive. Our rooms were really awesome... albeit at the farthest end of the hotel they could possibly be! It was nice though because two of the rooms were adjoining and we were the only ones on our little hallway so it felt like it was our own private suite!

A few hours later there we were standing on the front slope at Shades of Green as my parents pulled up with the sis-in-law and nephew along too. We all made it safely! yay!

Our first day at the Park was much like all the rest of our days at the park -- crowded!! We started at Epcot and hit the big ones like Soarin (my favorite) and Test Track (my other favorite). We visited all the countries, ate a nice food sampling and watched some of the shows. Then we headed back to the hotel to take a break before dinner at the hotel. (For anyone heading to SoG anytime soon: The Garden Gallery is really good; Evergreens Sports Bar & Grill is not so good). Later that night we decided to attempt a trip to the Magic Kingdom to get a jump start on the next day's activities. Carl got sick so he had to stay behind, but the rest of us ventured to the MK and dealt with the crowds. It was awful - we kept getting stuck in the stupid parade crowd! So we stayed for a little while, rode It's a Small World and the Carousel and decided to call it a night.

The next morning we ventured back to the MK and rode some more rides. All the days and rides sort of run together for me now, but I do remember that night we went back to take advantage of the Extra Magic hours (a huge perk if you are staying at a Disney resort. Each night one of the parks stays open up to 3 hours later just for resort guests. nice!) So, we basically got to walk straight on to the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (my favorite) and Splash Mountain (my other favorite) with no wait! It was awesome! We were there till almost 2 a.m., all of us crazy party animals. :)

So the next morning it was time to head to the Animal Kingdom. We got there around 10 I think and headed straight to the Safari adventure ride. That ride is awesome - it is like you are actually on an African safari and the animals are real and so close. We even had a traffic jam at the rhinos as they were blocking the road and running around playing! Very cute! We got our fast pass for Expedition Everest and headed over to Dinosaur. I loved Dinosaur last time we were there, but for some reason I didn't remember it being so scary! I was terrified and screaming but it was fun. The picture was hilarious. :)

Soon it was time to head to Expedition Everest. Oh. My. Gosh. This ride was being built still the last time Carl & I were at Disney, four years ago, so we've been dying to get back and ride it. That is, until I saw that it is a super fast rollercoaster! Eeek! Carl was determined to ride it and forced me to go. I wouldn't go if my mom wouldn't. My mom wouldn't go if Dad wouldn't go, and Dad wouldn't go without Matt. So, it was settled, we were all going. (Jennie and Jacob stayed behind as Jennie couldn't ride any of the rides with Red Triangle warnings. More on that later.) So, yeah, we waited for about 5 minutes thanks to our Fast Passes. I tried to get on and get right back off again but they wouldn't let me. All I can say is I think my hands are still permanently clenched from holding mom's hands. None of us could even scream we were so scared!! We all (except Carl) had our eyes closed the entire time. It was awful!! Once we got off and we all realized we were alive, we admitted it "wasn't that bad..." hahahaha! We are such daredevils!! Good thing we dragged Carl on that ride since we all ended up liking it so much.

Later in the day we split up for a bit and Matt, Jennie & Jacob headed to Hollywood Studios to watch stunt shows while Carl, Mom, Dad & I headed back to Epcot. We met up back at the hotel for dinner and called it a night.

The next morning they headed out on the road home while Carl and I battled the crowds at Hollywood Studios one more day. It was too crowded to ride anything or see any show so we headed out and did some shopping. Our flight to Nashville was the next morning.

Once we landed in Tennessee, Grandma Ger's flight was due a few hours after hours so we ate at Cracker Barrell (My favorite!) and then got her at the airport and headed HOME. My Aunt Nancy and the kids and their ice-mobile finalllly made it to join everyone after spending two days driving through the wicked winter storm all the way from Minnesota. We were all together finally and it was Christmas eve.

Family time in our family means lots of games and trivia contests. Dad made a really great trivia game for all of us and we spent time having "Family Idol" using the Wii American Idol game. It was absolutely wonderful to have everyone together again and be home, sleeping in the bedroom I grew up in. We opened presents later in the day on Christmas Day after M, J & J rejoined us. We all got some nice little things even though we had agreed we weren't doing presents this year since we all went to Disney!

The biggest surprise of all came when M, J, &J handed out their gifts to us. Remember the Red Triangle rides Jennie couldn't ride "because her back hurt"? HA! Turns out they're expecting! Yay for them!!!!! They handed out a riddle for us to all open and read and then we all got little baby-type gifts like booties and bibs (I got an ant necklace in honor of being an aunt! haha). We are all super happy for them. I don't want to post too much since I don't know what they want out there for the world to see. So that's all I'll say is that we are all very excited and can't wait to see the little one.

Now for the blog title... .that goes along with our Family Idol matchup.... that's a joke that you probably wouldn't get unless you were there. :)

Whew! That's a long one and I said I wasn't going to write much. Oh well. I am at work all alone today (well, Scout's with me) so I had some free time to write this. Basically, the trip home wasn't long enough, but no matter what a trip home probably will never feel long enough. Our flight back was decent enough but we didnt' get much sleep and we're still readjusting.

Tonight is New Year's Eve. Wow. What a year 2008 has been. I loved my 2008 and I hope you all can say the same. Here's hoping 2009 is even better.

Not a lot of news, but I figured another update was due

Well, not a lot of news lately for us here. Everything's going well and we honestly just can't believe how time is flying by! We leave next week already to head home for Christmas and we can't wait!! We're headed to DisneyWorld with my family and I am totally pumped!

For the past week and a half or so I've been completely involved with work day and night. Kelli's gone on a work trip, so we've had extra duties as well as I got to be in charge of a briefing. Some of our NATO Soldiers wanted some follow-up media training, so every night for about a week and a half I spent at home working on putting this briefing together. It went very well, I have to admit, and we have a great base to build on for future briefings!

Tonight, Carl is at a championship boxing match in Mannheim. I guess you could say he's having a guy's night because he's there with about six other guys from work. They've been very excited about it for weeks and I think I am happy that I didn't go -- now I get "me time" at the house with just me, the doggies, Churro, the tv and a good mug of fruit tea. :) That reminds me, we have really become addicted to tea as of late because there are so many good tea shops here! We went downtown to the Christmas market last weekend and bought some fresh teas (can teas be "fresh"? Well, you know what I mean!) and they are very yummy. So tonight I've spent some time catching up with my favorite charities online... everyone needs to go to http://www.grpmrt.org/order.htm and order one of the golden retriever puppy mill rescue team calendars. This group stems from the group we used to volunteer so much with in Oklahoma, and also where Noel and Scout were given their second chances at life! While you're at it, also check out http://advocacy.jdrf.org/ and please become an advocate of the juvenile diabetes research foundation - this is helping make life better for all those who are living with diabetes, which is something that is very close to my family's heart.

So, that's about it. Just lots of the 'daily grind' going on here for right now!

Photos from our weekend trip to the Alps

Here's a sneak peak of pictures from our trip!

Me and the doggies in Austria.

The Zugspitze.

The cable car to the top of the Zugspitze... notice how it kind of disappears!

Me in my cute new snow bunny outfit, at the top of the Zugspitze.

Carl in Austria.

Isn't it beautiful??

Now, read the post below to get all the details, and don't forget to check out our Flickr page for all the rest of the photos! http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristenandcarl

Thanksgiving in the Alps!

First, sorry for the delay in this post.

Last Thursday (Thanksgiving day) we took Col. Collin Caliber (our car, a.k.a. "The Colonel") on his first official road trip! We packed up ourselves, the dogs and of course, the camera, and headed to Bavaria. This trip was extra special for me since that is where my family heritage lies.

It only took us around 3 hours or so to get there and WOW, was it beautiful!! We stayed at a cute little hotel in Oberau, just outside of Garmisch, Germany. Basically we were at the foothills of the Alps.

Thursday also was our 4th anniversary. Our hotel (the Hotel Forsthaus) was serving a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but we decided since it wasn't buffet-style, I probably wouldn't get enough to eat since pretty much everything had meat in it.

So, instead, we headed over to the Edelweiss, which is the Armed Forces Recreation Center resort for military personnel, and feasted on their giant buffet dinner. It was delicious! Expensive, but delicious, and we figured since it was our anniversary and a holiday it was okay to spend the money and knock both out of the way with one meal.

Friday we explored the area and went on a super shopping spree for new winter gear! Carl and I each got a new winter coat, ski pants, hats, gloves, scarves, sunglasses and I don't even remember what else. That night, we went to a yummy restaurant around the corner from our hotel that was owned by a German guy and his Irish wife and they were so nice! The food was delicious too! I had spinach dumplings with parmesan... yumm!! Carl had some sort of meat dish, of course. We also were with two of Carl's co-workers and their wives. After we ate dinner we all went back to the hotel and headed to the downstairs game room to play a game. We all had dogs, so we had six people and five dogs sitting in there. The dogs actually got along quite well. We played 'Apples to Apples,' which is a word-card game. Now, I am not a huge fan of games sometimes because I get a tiny bit competitive, but, ahem, I just want to say that I was a good sport and decided to play that night -- and I had a clean sweep of all three games to none over everyone! :)

Saturday, we headed up to the Zugspitze, which is the highest peak in Germany. Shane (Carl's co-worker and work BFF) and his wife Buffy were with us. To get up to the peak, you have to ride this cable car ..... oh my gosh, I was terrified! The view was gorgeous because here we are riding this little cable car up like 9,000 feet, but I was scared, I'll admit.

The Zugspitze is also a ski area, and this happened to be opening weekend. So, we decided that since we were now outfitted in our awesome new ski outfits, that must mean we were ready to ski, right? It's only the Alps, and we sure looked ready!

Umm, yeah.... so, ten minutes after getting the skis latched to my feet I was pretty much in tears and throwing my poles back on the ground.

Let's just say, the Alps are a tiny bit higher than the hills of North Carolina I learned to ski on! Carl tried snowboarding and also decided that maybe next time we should get some lessons first.

Even though the skiing wasn't the best idea, it was stil absolutely breathtaking to see the beauty in the mountains and the snow. It was cold, but, I decided to play the part of snow bunny and just sit and sip hot chocolate to keep warm.

Sunday we headed home, but took a different route, this one that took us through Austria part of the way. It was really pretty in a different type of way than the Germany side of the mountains. Less tourist-y, maybe, or something. Either way, we made it home just fine.

I unfortunately got pretty sick after the trip, just a bad cold, and I'm still getting over it. I guess being 10,000 feet up in the Alps will do that to you?

We are definitely excited to go back and try skiing again, but I think I'm even more excited to go back in the spring and summer and try hiking and biking and see how beautiful it looks without all the snow.

I was sad to miss out on Thanksgiving with the family, but at least Wednesday before we left we were able to get on the Skype and talk to my mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, nephew, aunt and uncle. That was really neat!

Today is my dad's birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!!!!!!!

Snow Days and Skype

We had snow over the weekend! It was so fun! Well, poor Carl still had to drive to work in it, but it was fun for me since I got to stay at home and recover from my week. The doggies really enjoyed the white stuff. We didn't have much, but it was enough to definitely cover the ground and make it awfully pretty around here!

Another fun thing that happened this weekend is that we got our Skype downloaded and the Web cam hooked up. I have had so much fun already talking to my parents and seeing them again and I know it's been fun for them to see us too. Even the dogs (ours and theirs) have gotten in on the act, as well as Jack the turtle and Churro. My mom was even able to remind me to go get my eyebrows done again! haha! ( I already had that appointment scheduled for Tuesday of this week, by the way! haha). We hope to get other friends and family hooked up with it too. It's nice to have our Vonage phone number for regular phone calls, but the Skype is pretty cool to be able to see them too. And it's completely free if both people have it. I've been able to talk to my dad every day as well during the evenings for me and the daytime for him.

As for those eyebrows, I went yesterday and got my hair trimmed and the eyebrows manicured again -- she took longer on the eyebrows than she did on my hair -- but the end result looks good. :)

Today we had a little community relations project at work. Kelli, Lira and I, along with one of our Command Sergeants Major and three other Soldiers, went to a local German school to help the English classes there learn about Thanksgiving and practice their English. It is actually Dan's class. He teaches third and fourth graders at a German school. So we worked with his 4th graders for about two hours today, making turkey hats, talking about what we were thankful for, reviewing the story behind Thanksgiving, and letting the kids try pumpkin pie for the first time. It was really fun.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are headed out of town for the weekend. I can't wait. We are going to Garmisch, which is one of the favorite vacation spots here. It's on the border with Austria and it's in the Alps. We can't wait!!!!

Here are some recent pics:

The red babies enjoying the snowy backyard.

Here is Carl's new car. I took this Saturday morning at about 5:30 a.m. as he was leaving for work. My car, naturally, is in the garage :)

The Wife is back

Well, I made it safely to, from and all around Hamburg last week. I am exhausted, too. It was a lot of fun but by the end of the week I was definitely ready to be back in my own house and away from the hustle and bustle of the big city.

I will have to say that it was really great having Jen along with me, Carl was right on that part of his blog! We were able to have a whole girls' week almost; well, in the evenings anyway. We were at a seminar at the 'Haus Rissen Hamburg Internationales Institut fur Politik und Wirtschaft'... or as we quickly learned, "Haus Rissen." The seminar was titled "Germany's new role in Europe: Political and economic challenges."

It was for German and American military officers and some civilians. We covered topics such as aspects of the German political system, the German security policy, the social market economy, the historical background to contemporary Germany, transatlantic relations, and the future of the European Union. It was: interesting, boring, intriguing, and boring. Lots of lectures from some really intellectual people. I did enjoy myself though and despite the fact that I admit I was bored mindless part of the time, I really did learn a lot! :) I knew nothing about any of that before I went, so all I could hope for was to come away slightly more knowledgeable, and to that I think it was a success.

On to the fun stuff. Monday, Jen and I successfully managed to get lost in Hamburg! Of course, who else but us? We somehow missed our bus stop and then about 30 minutes later we finally realized we should get off the bus.... I know, great logic there huh?.... so I practiced my Deutsch on a nice lady on the bus and busted out with my best "Sprechen sie Englisch?"... thankfully, she got off on the next stop with us and put us on another bus headed in the right direction. We still got ourselves lost after that one more time, but somehow, finally found our way (all were were trying to do was find dinner!!) In our defense, we did not realize that the original stop we were trying to find was not accessible by the bus we were on; we would have had to get off at one stop and get on to the subway. We finally figured that out about four buses and 45 minutes later.

The rest of the week, we headed downtown each evening after the seminar ended. We were normally in class from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. and then had the evenings to ourselves. Of course it gets dark by a little after 4 here, and everything closes really early, but nevertheless we got really good at the bus and train route to the downtown shopping district. Hamburg was pretty much destroyed during WWII, so downtown is now a very modern and upscale shopper's mecca. We had a blast!

Mostly, our logic was that if were are in Hamburg for a seminar on the German economy, we really ought to contribute to their economy while we were there...... well, it sounds better saying it that way anyway. :)

One of our favorite parts of the seminar was the cake break in the afternoons. We really did take a 30-minute break each afternoon for everyone to drink tea or coffee and have some cake. It felt so... European! haha! The funniest part was that during our morning coffee break, Jen and I would head in to the restaurant and get a soda. By the end of the week, the ladies saw us coming and would immediately say "zwei cola light?" and run and get two diet cokes for us. I guess they could tell we needed our caffeine!

The eating was good, the shopping was good, and the weather was cold. Wednesday afternoon our whole class (around 30 of us) was scheduled for a city and harbor sightseeing tour. We went on a bus tour through the city and a harbor boat cruise. Hamburg's port is gigantic and it was actually quite interesting to be out there on the water next to those giant ocean-going cargo ships. To be honest, I think "giant" is an understatement on the size of those things.

Friday morning we woke up to snow!! I was completely giddy! I even tried to hang out my room's window to try and take some pictures. Unfortunately by the time class ended that day at noon most of the beauty of it was gone and it had turned into the slushy, mushy snow. It was still super gorgeous though! We got back to Heidelberg around 10 p.m. after another long train ride through the countryside (the train system here is really great; I did enjoy that part even though it took a long time!)

So, now I am back at the house and this morning when we woke up at 5 a.m. there was snow here too! Poor Carl had to go to work all day so I rested up a little bit and did some grocery shopping. I also posted a bunch of my Hamburg pictures on our Flickr page so please go check them out!

While the Wife is away, the Husband will play....RockBand!!

Okay everyone, here is my first and probably last blog entry. I know that the whole family is very tuned-in with our blog so, I figured since my lovely wife has left me all alone, it is my husbandly duty to carry the torch for her. I want to start off by saying, I am insanely bored! There is one benifit to being here by myself, and that is the fact that I can bang my new drumset to my hearts desire without getting yelled at for being too loud. I can also say, that I can now sing Bon Jovi's Dead or Alive in my sleep! The doggies have both told me that I am a dead shoe-in for American Idol season 8. Churro, however, doesnt agree. He thinks that his mommies' rendition of Ice, Ice Schaby Baby is the cream of the crop. I take everything Churro tells me with a grain of salt though, he is sooo tone def.

Other than the fact that I have been alone for the week, I have actually been pretty busy at work. I have recently been working 10 hour days for 6 days a week. Yesterday we were all told that we will begin 7 day work weeks at 12 hours a day. There are many more drawbacks to this than what you actually think. I am working as a German, and German labor laws are pretty strict about overtime. Germany is a socialist country and although I get free healcare I get taxed for my healthcare at 14%. That tax is on top of the other 30% tax for everything else. Even worse, after I work 52 hours I jump into another tax bracket. After 52 hours my entire check will be taxed at 60%. So to sum it up.....If I work 84 hours a week, I will make less money than if I work 52 hours. Basically, I will be working for free for 22 hours. Under German law, I cannot be forced to work more than the 48 hours a week that is in my contract, however, I am in a 6 month probation period where I can be fired for anything. So, if I anger my supervisors for not working, they can find any other reason to let me go and bring in someone who is willing to work the hours. I guess you can say I am in a pretty tight bind with work....UGHHH!! I just want to let everyone know that I am open to suggestions, right now I am leaning toward becoming a househusband again.

One last thing, Kristen is in Hamburg right now, and she is doing fine. I talked to her tonight, and she is also bored out of her mind in her class. I will let her fill everyone in on the details. The only thing that she has going for her is that she is with her friend Jen, and there are plenty of places to shop. I dont really know if that is a good thing, but I suppose I really dont have a choice in the matter. What man wouldn't want their wife to do some shopping in Europe without being able to say when enough is enough. Lets just all be glad we have already bought our Disneyworld Plane tickets. I hope Matt and Jenny can spot us a few dollars for some churros! HAHA! Well, I suppose that will be it for my first, last, best and worst blog!