News...news...news...

First off, the baby news. Well this isnt new news to most of you but in case I missed telling anyone I'm posting it here anyway. We had our doctor appointment on Monday and unfortunately little squirmy didnt want to cooperate and show off his or her "goods". So the baby is still a mystery. But on the good side lil' he or she looks to be healthy. We saw a heartbeat and the spine and all the important parts. The doc measured and we're still on time for around Christmas for he or she to be born.

In other news, this should be real news to most of you, we have finally received a date to move into our new house. *does the happy dance* D. is going in for a contract review with housing on Thursday and we should be good to move in on Friday. We're trying to get a hold of TMO and everything to get the ball rolling on getting our stuff over there soon than later. It's going to be very painful sleeping on hard wood floors. I need to hit the thrift store to start collecting area rugs and curtains for all these windows. LOL

But pretty much that's it in the news over here. We are losing the internet on the 14th. (The clear to move in the house came just in time... what is the saying? "God is never late, never early but always just in time.") So you wont be hearing from us until we get all that stuff set up at the house. Hopefully that wont take too long.

Venting the Exhaustion

I'm so exhausted right now. You can probably chalk this all up to pregnancy hormones but have you ever had one of those days where you just want to say "I give up" and crawl into a cave? Forgive me, but I'm going to let these pregnancy hormones come loose.

I could never be one of those people that spends their entire life living out of a hotel. As nice as this place is, I hate it here now. Did I say hate? I mean despise, loathe, detest...LOL Yes, there is too much of a good thing. I'm sick and tired of depending on housekeeping to clean up. Yes, you read that right! haha I could tell her not to come in but then I have dust and dog hair floating around all day *gag*. I'm sick and tired of having to get dressed every morning to go to breakfast. Sometimes a girl just wants to sit around in her pjs. Worst of all, the boys are bouncing off the walls. I try to get them out but, really, there's just nothing to do outside either. And I cant just say "go outside, get out of my hair" when they're going bonkers.

The outlook for us to get out of here? still unknown, even though we do have a house. The landlord is out of town this week so there wont be a contract reveiw for at least another week. I guess we should maybe count that as a blessing because somehow we need to come up with $8k to put down on this house. The military hasnt been exactly faithful to paying us back the money we need for the hotel - which is over $2k every 8-10 days, mind you. Not to mention all the other things that we need to buy/pay for. Our savings is quickly becoming a memory.

Money worries are probably another contributer to my exhaustion. I know "worry" is a sin. I shouldnt worry, I'm trying not to worry - though D. probably would say otherwise. lol It's taking a real mental effort on my part not to worry over this... haha which that effort is probably exhausting me as well. Darn those double-edged swords!

And probably the number one reason for all of this exhaustion and worry is lack of sleep. I love being pregnant, I really do. I love being able to feel the baby kicking and moving, which is happening very frequently now. I love the unexplainable feeling you have while your pregnant. The only thing I dont like is not being able to sleep. I know, I know, it's God's way of getting us ready for "things to come" but I wanna sleep!! *throws a tantrum like a 2year old* I have dreams that are something out of some wierd psychotic sci-fi movie. My dreams have gotten so bad that I actually dread going to bed at night. *song from Nightmare on Elm Street begins to play* No, no, dont think about that, that's not helping.

So that's the jist of what's going on here now. Mom frazzled and kids bouncing off hotel walls. LOL I will keep you updated as things change. Also, Monday is the "big day". I have my next doctor's appointment then and hopefully this time the baby will show his or herself off so we know to decorate in blue or pink ;).

Blessings!!!

This year, the Lord has given us so so many blessings. Some of them even blessings that I didnt ask for but He knew was in my heart's desire. Today was absolutely no exception! We are in love! We took a trip to a little village called Weil der Stadt (click on the link there to read some facts about the town), it's called the gateway to the BlackForest, to see a house we were considering to rent. We were told, on paper, this was a roomy house but only had 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. The house had lots of potential to us but we were holding out hope for another house we were told about. This other house wasnt going to be available until mid September AND it was further out and off of the school bus route. But it was bigger and sounded very nice, that and we were able to see pictures at least of that bigger house. Today, all that has changed.

This house we looked at today was severely misrepresented LOL, but in a good way. The first thing we noticed was that the neighborhood is VERY quiet. There was a large front and back yard, both fenced in, lots of room for kids and dog to play. :) The inside is VERY roomy, three floors plus basement and a garage. The basement has an possible extra bedroom and another bathroom - lots and lots of storage, which we appreciate. :) The ground floor has the living room/diningroom mix and kitchen. The kitchen is a bit small but there's a lot of counter space and it's "workable". Upstairs has three bedrooms and a balcony that leads out one of the rooms. They're "ok" size, big enough for the kiddos at least. There's also another bathroom (thankfully another misrepresentation, there is more than one bathroom lol). Finally upstairs, the "attic" is one GIANT room, wooden paneled walls and floor, gorgeous room. This is one we're planning to make the master bedroom. We've counted a possibly 4-5 bedroom house. I have no idea why they're advertising as a 3 bedroom lol. It's a duplex but you, honestly, cant tell. The houses are connected in a caty-corner sort of way so you dont even see the other house. We were just completely impressed with this house and on Monday we should be making it final that yes, we want to live there.

After viewing the house, we decided to take a look around the village and get a feel for it. We went over to the "old town" area and since it was Saturday morning, it is also market day. The town?! GORGEOUS!! Oh my gosh, it looks like something out of a story book. I took pictures but it really doesnt do it any justice. Cobblestone roads, storybook looking houses, a giant church in the middle. I feel like writing a postcard to all of you with "wish you were here".

Here are some pictures of the beautiful town we will be calling home for the next three years, God willing: (remember, click the pictures to enlarge them for a better look)

Here's a picture down one of the cobblestone streets in the city center area.

Here is an awesome fountain we found in the town. It has all kinds of fun and cute characters in it. If you look off to the side there are even a few sitting in benches or standing on the stairs.

Today was market day, you can see some of the vendors here set up selling their VERY fresh fruits, veggies, eggs, etc. The peaches were the size of melons!!!! I plan on visiting this market quite a bit. lol :)



Here is a view from the Markt square, you can see the church tower in the backdrop. We werent sure what the white building in front is, we think it might be a town hall.



And here's a view on our way out of the city wall, just gorgeous:



For a small town, there's no shortage of shops or places to get what you need, especially icecream parlors. LOL There's even a main hub train station so if we need to get to town and we dont have a car... OR... even if we want to go travel anywhere by train, it's within walking distance. I wish I was able to get pictures of the house, but I would have felt awkward doing that with the landlord there. I promise pictures when we start moving in. :)

And one final note, I just wanted to say Happy 33rd Anniversary today to Mom and Dad! You two are amazing and I love you very much! I hope you're having a great time together today!! :)

Catching Up

I realize I've been a bit slack on the posting the last few days. Really, there hasnt been much to post about.

Last Sunday, the weather turned out better than expected so we decided to so some walking around with hopes that we'd run into a fest. It didnt take long to find one. LOL We started seeing signs for a Kinderfest (children's festival) in the next town over so we asked a few people and with much pointing a nodding we found our way to the fest.

We arrived JUST in time to see a parade. Lots of children marching down the road with their little clubs and orginizations. There were schools and preschools represented, some swimming clubs and let us not forget the all important Football (soccer) clubs. Everyone in the parade were dressed up in little costumes and pretty much every group had candy or a toy to throw out to the children standing on the sides. The boys' pockets were flooding with candy!

After the parade was finished, everyone flooded into the town square and promptly stood in line for all the food and beer you could get. There was a playground off to the side so we shuttled the boys over there to play while D. went off to locate the beer stand. :) Tons of children were playing in the playground and as children always do, language barriers never stop them from playing together. The boys had a great time.

Through the week, not much happened. We went to housing, hoping to find a house, unfortunately the jury is STILL out on that. We made two appointments to visit houses while we were there. One of the appointments was yesterday, but we were supposed to wait for an email confirmation before we could go see it. That never came. Thats ok though, I wasnt overly excited about living in a 3bedroom apartment anyway. The 2nd house is another 3 bedroom but it's a duplex and further out into the countryside - at the verge of the Black Forest. We are due to see that tomorrow afternoon. This one I'm more excited about.

We rented a car so we could easily get out to these places to see these homes. Today we decided to take a trial run out to the village of the house we're going to see tomorrow, and I'm glad we did. The exit we were supposed to take on the Autobahn (like an Interstate for the US) was closed so we got NICE and lost in the country side. HAHA! BUT, it was a good lost! We got off at the next possible exit and sure enough we see backroad type signs that pointed toward the village we were destined for. It was soooooooooo gorgeous out there!! Farm houses, country settings, TINY little roads LOL. I just enjoyed all of it. I tried to take pictures while we were on the road. They didnt turn out the best but there are a few below of some of the buildings.



Click on these to make them bigger.



This here is a HUGE farmhouse we saw on the side of the road:

And these are the signs that were posted outside of it. They had eggs, onions and potatoes.
Here is a road up into one of the little towns we came upon (I dont remember the name to be honest, Mirklinger? maybe)


And some pretty little houses along the side of the road

OH! and I almost forgot, before we took this little road trip, we had to take the dog out of the hotel for about an hour so they could paint some things in the room. We took Copper and the boys over to a playground on base. They had a good time and I was able to snap a few pictures of them. :)

Trip to town with PICTURES

Yay!! I finally remembered to bring the camera with us to town!!

We had a good day today. We took the train back into the center of town - to the Schlossplatz - where they were having a United Buddy Bear exhibit. I mentioned it before in another post, but a quick recap, they have bears painted individually representing all the nations in the world. They're beautifully painted and on display for you to take pictures and look at. They travel with this exhibit, apparently, all over the world. We got lucky to catch them in Stuttgart.

After looking at the bears we took a walk around and looked at some places we didnt get to see last time. Today was market day but unfortunately we missed most of them but we did get to go into the more "prestigious" (ie expensive) one LOL. The food in there was FABULOUS. It all looked like it was plastic. They had fruits and veggies and meats and cheeses from all over the world. It was a food connoisseur's dream, Dad, I think you would have loved it. I was tempted to buy something but I mostly just wanted to look for now. Of course, I'm not regretting it because I cant get the thought of those rasberries out of my head. LOL

Ok, I took TONS of pictures. Most of them I put in a slideshow at the bottom of this post here for you all to look at. If I put them up individually, this post would be FOREVER long. But I will point out a few here and tell you about them. :) (remember you can click on these pictures to view them in full size)

Here is one of the many Buddy Bears we took pictures of. Of course, this one is the bear representing the USA.



These two here are Schlossplatz. The bears are all lined up around these fountains. There's also a lot of nice lush grass to lay or sit and have a picnic in. :)




This is a gorgeous little market square right next to the Schlossplatz. The church, the building on the left, is both a protestant and a catholic church all in one. D. was told on his German orientation class about this building. The instructor pointed out that at the top of the church is a cross and a rooster. The Cross represents the Catholic and the rooster is for Protestant (because of the cock crowing 3 times before Peter betraying Jesus). You can just see them on the top of the church there in this picture.



Below is the slide show, it might take a few minutes to load there are a ton of pictures in it. Each picture is labeled with a title to give you an idea of what it is. :) Enjoy!

An Unexpected Suprise

Alright, it's official, as soon as we're financially secure over here and setttled, I'm getting a small camera to fit in my purse.

Today, after the pouring rain had passed, we took the train out to the shopping plaza where the doctor's office is located. We wanted to make sure we knew where we were going and how long it'd take to get there. All the shops here are closed on Sundays so I didnt expect to be doing anything but locating the office and heading back to the hotel before the next rain wave came through.

As we're walking towards the plaza we hear the faint sound of music but dont think much of it. We walk into the square and there's this little "fest"going on. There's some children's rides and a bouncy castle. There's even a human game of Fooseball. The children were holding on to these large poles like they were the plastic pieces to the game and they were kicking the ball, trying to get it into the goal. It was adorable!

The boys got to jump around in the bouncy castle for a while. They really enjoyed that. There was this other boy in there, he looked like he was about S.'s age but twice the size. He wasnt fat but just a big, strong, looking boy. I was wishing I had my camera. Just the way he looked and in his over-alls, he was like the poster-boy for Germany. Very cute! hehe

Then in the center there was a stage and music playing with some folk dancers in traditional style dress. They actually had several different "shows"while we were there. There were some children dancing to what looked like an Alice and Wonderland story and another was what looked like some dancers to a traditional Greek or Turkish style dance.

They had a bunch of food vendors there too. This was very different for us in the way that you ordered and payed. They had a central cashier where you ordered your food/drink and then she gave you a ticket for each item. You then take your ticket to the booth that serves the food and exchange it. One of the things D. ordered was a beer and he got 2 tickets one says it's for the beir and the other says it's for the beirglas (beer glass). So we're confused now and think, well maybe it's for the glass, they give it to you to take home. Of course, I think we were the only English speaker's there but the people are very patient with us and through sign language and lots of pointing and nodding we find out that you are supposed to turn the glass back in and you get your 2 euros that you paid for it back. Kind of like insurance they get their glass back. :)

It was a surpisingly good day. Here we thought we'd be dodging rain and just running out quickly and we find a hidden little fest and get to mingle with the culture a bit. Who says there's nothing to do here on Sundays?!

Baby News!!

Nope, sorry, we dont know whether the baby is a he or she just yet but we should know very soon. :)

D. took time off his special German orientation class and we went to base to get a few things settled. One of which, was to get my referral from Tricare (the military insurace) so I can see a doctor in town. They got me all set up! I have my very first appointment on Monday morning. I'll be seeing a female doctor and... get this... they have the 3D ultrasound so I'll be able to see pictures of the baby in 3D!!!! Yipee!!

This is NOT our baby (I repeat, NOT OUR BABY) but incase you didnt know what a 3D ultrasound picture looks like, this is an example I found on the web:


I promise, as soon as we get a picture, and have internet access again (since we'll be losing the internet just a day short of the appointment), I will post a picture of our baby. I think we will be getting the internet again. Maybe not quite right away, but soon after we get some pay sorted and things all figured out again.

Also today, while we were sitting in the Tricare office a big ol'storm passed through. It was funny because we got held up because of some computer glitch and she had to wait for our referal to pass through. Good thing too because this was quite a storm. It just started pouring and then all of a sudden the outter doors few open and we saw ALL this hail coming down. I wish I had my camera (again another instance where a tiny camera for the purse would have been great hehe). I've never seen hail come down like that - only on TV have I seen that. Even the German lady helping us with the Tricare referal said she's never seen that before, it's very rare in Germany. I laughed and said we must have brought the storms with us. Yep, ma, the storms are still looking for me, even across the ocean. hahah!!