Pre-natal massage

I redeemed my pre-natal massage and facial last Saturday. Oh it was heavenly! The massage was great and felt sooo good. I woke up with both of my hips hurting that morning so it was perfect timing. I was on my stomach and she had a special pregnancy pad for with a hole for my belly. It was very relaxing. I’d never had a facial before and was a little apprehensive about it. I actually dozed off and on for the facial and was sad when it was over. The only thing I didn’t like during the facial was that I was supposed to lay on my back for the duration of it (90 minutes) and obviously that wasn’t possible. I kept having to turn over but I did enjoy laying there on my back for a few minutes. I cannot wait to sleep on my back again.

The nursery is done! Now we just have to do a little decorating. Pictures to come very very soon!

I have a question for you other soon to be moms out there: I’m sure you’ve heard the controversy on the whole bumper issue or not in a crib. Are you using a bumper in your crib? Just curious who is and who isn’t. I registered for one then learned of the controversy and the day I went to remove it from the registry, it had already been purchased! The family gave me a gift receipt for it and I feel bad for returning it, but I am. I’m going to take pictures of the crib with it and send it to the family and then return it. (Is that wrong?!) Plus, I actually like how the crib looks more without the bumper, and a lot of the animal cuteness on the bumper are hidden because we have a few solid crib slats in the middle of the front, so it hides a good portion of it.

I’m going to clean out my car and vacuum the dog hair out of it this weekend and then we’re installing the car seat. The baby’s bag is packed and I’ve made a list of things I want to take for myself, but a lot of what I need to take will be last minute items that can’t be packed ahead of time. I’ve started washing the cloth diapers (you have to wash them multiple times to get them to be full absorbency) so I’ve been doing a load a day.


We have friends coming next week to visit for a few days. We're going to the zoo and just hanging out. We haven't seen them since last April in Germany when the guys got back from Afghanistan. And it's our god-daughter, so we're very excited to see her. Hopefully I don't ruin things and go into labor while they're here!


Last night, I had a dream that I had the baby. Except it wasn't a newborn: it was a 5 year old, fully clothed (jeans and a striped t-shirt), talking, adopted Russian boy! He spoke English and while I birthed him, he was also adopted from Russia. It makes no sense. I think I'm anxious for my 38 week appointment this afternoon to see if I'm dilated at all. I have a fear that I'll go in there, they'll say I'm 5 cm dilated and they'll ask if I'm ready to have the baby today. I've seen it happen on TV and in the movies, so that means it can really happen!

Here’s a picture of me at 38 weeks and 1 day. One day soon, I'll post non-self bathroom pictures. I'm lame. 

(Also, I would like to proudly say, not that it's even noticeable, but the pants I'm wearing here are pre-pregnancy work pants! They are even buttoned in the picture! I don't know how they buttoned, but they did. They weren't that comfortable while I was sitting, but I wasn't wearing them for long).

Husband of the Year

Can I just say I have the best husband and if I knew where to nominate him as husband of the year, I would?! He is always so full of surprises. I like to think I usually know when he’s got something planned, but I was pretty damn clueless this time. However, looking back, there were a few signs between him and my parents and I didn’t really think too much into them. Silly me!

So it’s no surprise that I really haven’t made any friends here (yet). He kept asking me if I was going to have a baby shower here and I kept telling him I really don’t have friends to have a baby shower with.

Back in February (FEBRUARY!!!!!), he emailed one of my best friends from home, Molli, and asked if she would want to help plan/coordinate a surprise baby shower and he would buy me a ticket. Being the super good friend that she is, she agreed to take on this task! (She started a new job in the fall and has been insanely busy with that AND she’s planning her own wedding for July, so I know she’s super busy). I don’t know if it was her or Seth that got my two other favorite coworkers/friends involved in the planning of this, but the same girls that threw me the wedding shower last year are now throwing me a baby shower!! I am soooo excited and literally cry…like right now…when I think of all of them planning this for me. I get to go home to see all of my favorite people in about 2 weeks to have a baby shower.

My parents and brother came up last week from CA and my sister came up from Oregon and spent a few days at our house. We had a bbq with some family friends and my cousin on Saturday and little did I know, it was also a little baby shower then too! They both brought gifts, which I wasn’t expecting. We got a baby bouncy seat (that Patrick just loves!!!!) and a baby swing (which Patrick sooo doesn’t love!!), some clothes, socks and other little toys!

On Saturday night, we all drove down to Oregon for Easter. I was adamant on having an Easter egg hunt with my siblings and our significant others – we colored eggs and stuffed plastic ones with candy. My dad and Seth hid the eggs and off we went to hunt for them. After they were mostly found, Seth was patrolling the yard to see if we missed any and he gave me a plastic one. I figured it had the wrappers of the Cadberry Crème Eggs that I bought specially for him, and didn’t open it right away because I thought it was trash. He told me to open it and I saw it was a piece of folded up white paper and then I figured it was the hotel receipt from the night before. I unfolded it and it was a plane ticket itinerary to go home to Michigan. I was very confused because it was for two weeks away and I didn’t know why I was going…I was seriously clueless. Then he told me that he had been planning a baby shower with Molli and Sarah’s help and he bought me the plane ticket to go home! Damn pregnancy hormones, I’m literally bawling right now! I’m so so so excited that I get to go home and see all these people AND it just so happens to also be a baby shower for me (us). After the Easter egg hunt, we went inside and there was another mini-baby shower with more gifts from my parents, brother and sister, aunt and gramma. And we had delicious cake that I may have had a few bites too many of. 

It was a very good Easter and nothing at all of what I expecting. I'm a very, very lucky girl. :)

Germany - Homecoming Part 3 (finally!!!)

Remember that time I started writing about homecoming and my trip to Germany...back in April? Remember how I never finished those? Whoops, life got a tad busy. Anyways, I have had this written for a long time, just never finished it, and here it finally is. Part 1. Part 2.

The guys were expected home late late on April 6th, or very early morning on the 7th. Amy had been told at an FRG meeting that the activity center would be set up with the banners and podium once we got the 5 hour call that they were on their way home. (When I woke up on the morning of the 6th, Amy told me that she had gotten a call that trail party was arriving at 10:30 am and our guys would be after that). We took Sarah to her play group at 9 AM, which was in the activity center, and found that it already decorated with banners, signs, and the podium. We looked at each other in shock that it was already set up and wondered where our phone call was. We worried that they had called the house phone, not her cell phone like she instructed, but we continued on with play group instead. We killed time that afternoon by hanging out with the wives of the trail party, waiting with them for a little bit, going to lunch on post, me buying some beer for Seth to put in his room, putting the sign on his door that Sarah and I made and very anxiously awaiting our phone call. We would be in our own little world, dreaming of the next few hours, and one of us would just suddenly say a number, or hold up fingers, indicating a countdown of hours until they were expected home.  We talked about if we didn't get a phone call by a certain time, would we give up hope it was happening that night? When should we go to bed? Or should we pull an all nighter? Should Sarah go down for a nap, or should we keep her up and then put her to bed really early, only to wake her up a few hours into her sleep? Our heads were completely spinning with possibilities as we debated this very serious stuff! My heart would literally skip a beat when the phone would ring. We would turn our heads so fast to look at each other, and our mouths would drop and we'd say OMG! THIS IS IT!  Of course, it wasn't THE phone call, but we'd still get super excited.

Finally, after an agonzing day of waiting and thinking, at 7:30 pm on April 6th, we got our 5 hour warning phone call. We were told they landed in Germany and were going through customs. We were told we'd get another call back when they cleared customs and they were on their way to post. This is what I wrote in my vacation journal about getting that phone call: "All afternoon, every noise sounded like the phone ringing. It finally did for real at 7:30 pm and both of us jumped and she ran to get it. I called Sarah and she had a huge smile on her face. When Amy got off the phone, we both screamed and we got Sarah to scream in excitement and I felt like I was going to puke (from excited nerves) and she got a bloody nose (from excited nerves)."  She put Sarah down for bed, so she would have a little bit of a nap before being woken up in the middle of the night to go get her daddy. We tried to stay calm until we received the second phone call, which came at 8:45 pm. They had cleared customs and were really on their way home!! We were told if we got to the activity center at 11:30 pm, we would be there in plenty of time before the guys. We had planned earlier in the day to trade cameras, so pictures of me and Seth would be on my camera, and pictures of her and her husband would be on her camera. (We did have a girl who offered to take pictures for us; her husband was in the field training for a few weeks so she was free. But since it was midnight that that guys were expected home, we didn't ask her to do it after all). We spent the night getting ready and finally left her house at about 11 PM to head to the activity center. (We headed towards the main gate to exit, only to find that it closes at 10, so we had to back track, go further out of the way to exit the other gate to walk to the post that the activity center is on). She got Sarah up just a few minutes before we had to walk out the door, dressed her real quick and we headed out the door. We were practically running to the activity center, because we couldn't get there soon enough. It was pitch black out, a few street lights, a cool night, a car here and there, and us. Amy stopped to get a daffodil, and put it in her hair and kept one for Sarah. As we were getting to the primeters of post, I heard a diesel engine and looked back and said OMG MAYBE THAT'S THEM!!! Then we speculated, and walked/ran faster then determined it wasn't them. As we got closer to the entrance gate, we heard soldiers being loud and said maybe it was them, they had gotten there early, and they were waiting until 11:30 when familes were expected to be there. Amy said she wasn't looking, because she didn't want to ruin the surprise if it was them.

We got to the activity center at about 11:30 and Toby Keith's American Soldier was playing on the sound system. There were red, white and blue balloons everywhere, kids were running around with pure excitement, throwing balloons, chasing each other, jumping up and down. Soldiers were getting the podium in place, there was a slideshow playing on the wall with pictures from Afghanistan and the level of excitement in the room was awesome. Toby Keith's American Soldier song gets me every single time, and now when I hear it, I have the memory of walking into the activity center, getting ready to welcome home my love from his deployment. My heart swelled with an enormous amount of pride and excitement when I walked into the room. Considering it was midnight...and getting later into the middle of the night as the waiting continued, the kids did extremely well. There were no major breakdowns, the kids all played well, and were extremely excited knowing that their mom or dad would be home SOON. The garrison commander walked around and introduced himself and asked who we were and who we were waiting for. He was pretty nice, but I was nervous as hell to talk to him! Finally, around 1:30 AM, the white buses drove by and we could see them through the open doors. Amy and I sat down on the bleachers, switched cameras and tried to remain calm. The fog machine started generating the fog, the lights were dimmed, the music stopped and everyone got quiet and sat down. Suddenly the guys broke through the big red banner that said, "welcome back, Bravo!!" and everyone started screaming and snapping pictures and looking for their loved one. I scanned every face as they walked in and into formation and didn't see Seth. I saw Lee (Amy's husband) and Bubba and recognized a few others, but couldn't find Seth whatsoever. Amy is lucky that Lee is over 6 feet, so he stood over everyone and I got some good pictures of him. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking and I couldn't find Seth. Plus, the fog machine was fogging everything up, so that was blurring the faces. All of them were in, but I still hadn't seen Seth and was getting terrified that he didn't make the flight for some reason. I started re-scanning the faces. I finally found him, in the last row, about 5th from the last! There were a few very short (thankfully!) speeches, and then the soldiers were released and Lee came right over to Amy and I waited to get a few pictures of them before I went and found Seth. Then Amy was right behind me and she got a few pictures of Seth and me. Within minutes, we walked out of the activity center, holding hands, reunited, finally. We walked with Lee, Amy and Sarah and then the guys got their bags from outside, and Amy and I congratulated each other that we finally made it, hugged each other, then went off with our guys. They went home and I snuck into the barracks with Seth for the next few nights.

The next few days consisted of soccer games, in-processing, hanging out with Amy and Sarah, and eating German food. I finally had a chance to meet the soldiers that Seth had talked about so many times too. Seth got a really dirty room and the shower was full of mold. So while Seth was doing his in-processing stuff, I cleaned the hell out of his shower. We had a picnic/bbq with Lee and Amy on a gorgeous, warm, sunny German afternoon. Seth also taught Sarah how to fist bump and it was the cutest thing ever!! Seth accompanied me to the Frankfurt airport (the train was packed for some reason, and I'm pretty sure we walked the whole length of the train cars to try to find a seat...and found nothing. We finally sat down in an area where the doors open and close, because it was a long ride. We hung out at the train station for a little while and then stayed the night at the Sheraton. (That place is really expensive in Euros!)

Ok, if you made it through that long of a post, here are some pictures!!! 

<3

welcome home!!!

waiting to be released!!

armed with tilex to take care of the mold in the shower. i used a clean sock as a face mask and one of those stretchy things to hold their uniform pants up on their boots to tie it to my face. a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do...

german soda

soccer game. or football as they call it. 

walk back to post from lee and amy's

so this banana here? when seth got his stuff delivered from storage,  he got his favorite black backpack and it had mold all over it. he couldn't figure out why and was getting pissed that they ruined it....and then he found a banana sitting in the front pocket. it was so old and gross and hairy and nasty, it didn't even smell bad (thankfully). but he hosed it off the in the shower and it's good as new, as he would say. it's sitting on our living room floor right now. i would have thrown it away if that happened to me.

frankfurt train station

MilSpouse Friday Fill In (#: unknown...I lost count)

Head on over to Wife of A Sailor to link up!!

1. Are you a different person than you were five years ago? submitted by Sisterly Thoughts
   Pretty much yes. I had just turned 22, been at a grown up job for a few months (still at it now), living in ghetto student housing, just doing my thang. Now I'm 27 (eek!), getting ready for our wedding, thinking about babies, getting ready to move to the west coast. Oh, and I'm a puppy mom now!!!
   
   
2. If you could go on Amazing Race, who would you take with you as your partner and why? submitted by Thoughts from a Poekitten
   I would say Seth, but that's just asking to fail. We'd be bad partners. Or should I say, I'd be a bad partner? That's what he'd say, lovingly, of course. He's wayyyyy more competitive than me. WAY MORE. We work very well together, just not on competitive things. Like in Cranium. One time, he was drawing and I had to guess what it was, and I was guessing "wrong" and he got mad at me because his drawing was SO perfect and I clearly wasn't getting it. He threw his pen down and said something like he quit. I then yelled...pretty loudly...in front of our families, "DON'T GIVE UP ON ME! KEEP DRAWING!!!" I still never got it. I'm perfectly fine being the loser of a game. Sometimes, I prefer to lose just so I don't have to hear the other person whine about losing. It's just easier that way, I think. Some people are sore losers; I'm a happy loser. I never played sports in school. Shocking, huh?
   
   All this to say...I'd do it with my sister. She wouldn't give up on me!!!!
   
   
3. Does Facebook or Twitter actually bring more stress or good in to your life? submitted by Just an Arizona Girl
   I don't do Twitter, and I wouldn't say Facebook brings more "stress" but I do wholeheartedly think that it eats up a good portion of my evening. (That's why they shouldn't block Facebook at work...I could easily get my Facebook stalking done during the day while I'm on phone calls. Duh).
   
   
4. June is National Soul Food Month- what’s your soul food? submitted by NH Girl Displaced
   Can I just say food, like, in general? No? Well then I guess I would say potatoes? I love a good baked potato.
   
   
5. If you could live in any other era than the current, which one would it be & why? submitted by Sugar in My Grits
   Instead of an era, can I say the Amish? I would be totally fascinated with being Amish. Of course, I would be totally fascinated with being non-Amish if I were Amish. I could NEVER EVER live without my cell phone (we share a heart), the internet, electricity, etc and work on a farm, but their life style fascinates me. (Funny, yet not is that an Amish teen was recently busted sort of in my area and he was sexting pictures to another Amish girl and decided to meet up with her. That part isn't funny. The funny part is that he drove/rode his horse and buggy down to meet the girl. ahaha horse and buggy. Maybe that's funnier in my head).
   

I'm going over to Molli's tonight. We're playing Jenga and Boggle and maybe other board games and drink lots of wine!

Just for fun, because I'm in love, here are two pictures of Patrick. He was helping my mom garden the other day:

and then promptly went inside and crashed! Gardening wears him out!!


Happy weekend :)

Germany & Homecoming: Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

Amy and Sarah (our God-daughter!) picked me up at the train station and we walked back to their house. We played with Sarah a little bit before Amy put her to bed. We had dinner and we proceeded to talk until midnight. I loved our late night chats, talking about literally everything. I loved talking to her, to be able to have a conversation (in real life!) with someone who understands what the last year was like, and talk about our excitement of the guys coming home. I admit I was a little nervous to stay at their house since we'd only met once before, over a year ago. But it was awesome staying with her.

I went to bed past midnight, which was really late considering the time change and traveling. I wanted so badly to take a shower, but I had no clean clothes and felt gross putting on dirty clothes after a nice hot shower. The airline had given me a consolation overnight kit, which consisted of a t-shirt, deodorant, a toothbrush, toothpaste, shoe polish and some other random little things. Oh, and my feet stunk really bad. My feet never stink (except in high heels!) but they were hot and sweaty from running around in airports and train stations for the last 30 hours. I didn't have any clean socks or underwear and felt extremely nasty. (Note to self: pack a pair of clothes in my carry on luggage!) I slept until 9 AM the next day and it felt amazing. It was a super comfortable bed!!! I checked the status of my luggage and had no idea when it would be delivered so I decided to go to the PX and get some clean socks and underwear, so at least I could feel a little refreshed. We went to another wife's house for dinner that night and I wanted to look half decent, even if my clothes didn't appear so and I had no makeup. I also bought two shirts at the PX.

We spent our days talking, playing with Sarah and taking her to play groups, running around post to post, back and forth, talking and dreaming about what it would be like for the guys to actually be home, going to the commissary to get food for our baking extravaganza, getting on Facebook to see status updates from a particular soldier who was en route home and torturing ourselves with when they'd be home. (I know, he shouldn't have done that, but he did and I'm not one to ignore and not analyze what his posts meant!!) She showed me the ins and outs of Army life and what living on post is like. Most nights we stayed up until midnight talking. I remember one particular conversation we had while we were walking back from a German grocery store. We were talking about how much we had talked to the guys over the course of the year, how they told us they were deploying (she knew for a year beforehand...I found out about 4.5 months before). I told her how the conversation went for us and she said, "see, you were meant to be a military wife!" For some reason, it just was nice to hear. I never, ever pictured myself as a military wife, but somehow this is where I ended up and I like to think I'm doing well so far.

I was there 5 days with Amy before the guys returned. I'm so glad I was able to spend that time with her, get to know her, learn from her and share the excitement with her. She is a true friend and I'm excited to meet more women like her, who understand the lifestyle and will be a lifetime friend.

The next part will be the actual homecoming ceremony :)

Germany & Homecoming: Part 1

It’s now been almost 2 months since this deployment ended (holy crap, it’s been a really fast 2 months!) and I haven’t even blogged about getting to Germany, homecoming and all that good stuff. So I’ll start it now, with part 1, getting to Germany. Future parts will be coming in a few days.

I had my whole trip planned out. I left from my town, which has only two terminals at the airport and then I had one layover only, in Detroit, where I have been many times – it was going to be an easy trip. I was going to go to the USO when I got to Frankfurt the following morning and take the shuttle to Seth’s post, and get dropped off at Amy’s house, who I was going to stay with until the guys got home. Sounds super easy right?

In reality: I had a little puddle jumper plane from my town to Detroit. Except little puddle jumper plane was coming from Detroit and for whatever reason, the pilot wasn’t there. (It was decent weather out, so in my mind there was no reason for any type of delay). I had about a 90 minute layover in Detroit, which was kind of cutting it close for an international flight. When I found out that my flight to Detroit was going to be delayed, I asked about changing it. I walked up to the ticket counter, cut some guy off because he was about to get in line before me, and he cursed at me. But hey, I got the nice lady (who also waived my $150 overweight luggage fee – yes, I am not ashamed to play the military card in situations like this) and she was very nice and helpful in getting me rebooked. First, she said she could send me to Chicago, then Amsterdam then to Frankfurt, where I’d be getting in the following afternoon. She also said that it would be a first class flight because that’s all that was available. I, looking back very stupidly, turned that down because I was scared to go to an international airport alone. Yep, I turned down a first class flight across the ocean. STUPID ME but I wanted as direct flight as possible. So she rebooked me to Chicago to Frankfurt. My plane leaving my town was delayed a little bit and it was nearly impossible to get to my next gate and get my seating arrangement in time for my flight to Frankfurt. I didn’t know this at the time, but I didn't even have a chance of making that flight. It was like a scene from a movie: running so fast with my carry on bag through the very warm Chicago airport, dodging people left and right, hopping over pieces of luggage sitting on the ground, screaming, EXCUSE ME, PARDON ME, COMIN’ THROUGH. MOVE IT OR LOSE IT, LADY! Ok maybe I wasn’t really saying that out loud, but I was in my mind. Running and hopping over luggage did happen though. Anyways, I hop on the tram – my gate is literally on the other side of the airport and realize I have 5 minutes before my flight takes off. And my tram ride was 3 minutes. I was dripping sweat because it was so hot in the airport and I was wearing a fleece jacket. But I couldn’t stop and waste time to take it off. I got to the ticket counter and the lady tells me the doors to my flight have already closed and I can’t get on that flight. I started to cry. She tells me not to cry, it’ll be OK. I tell her, I’m going to Germany to go to my fiancée’s homecoming ceremony from Afghanistan and I don’t know exactly when he’ll be there, so I need to get there immediately. She says to another lady at the ticket counter, oh crap, we don’t have any more flights to Frankfurt tonight. I started to cry harder. She tells me again everything will be OK. She throws some possible flight times out there and I tell her none will work, I need to get to Frankfurt ASAP. She finally says she can send me through London/Heathrow then Frankfurt and I’ll get in at like 5 PM the following day (I was supposed to be in at 7 AM). I say, fine, I’ll take it (not happily). I text my mom and she says: Oh how exciting! You get to go through the busiest international airport! I text back: yeah, I’m really excited. More opportunities for me to get lost. I was assured my luggage didn’t get put on my original flight to Frankfurt, because luggage does not get put on an international flight if the passenger is not on the flight. Good news, right? Yep, until you're rebooked a billion times and your luggage really has no chance of getting to your destination when originally scheduled. I eventually got on the plane to London/Heathrow and only sleep for a few hours in an uncomfortable seat. I got London/Heathrow (thank God they spoke English – that was another fear of going through an international airport) and walked around for a while, like a sweaty, nasty American who has had no sleep. I found this internet café place with free internet access and computers to use so I gchatted with Amy to let her know my new flight info and what time I’m expected in. She informed me that the USO shuttle doesn’t run past noon or something, so I’ll have to figure out the train stations myself or sleep in Frankfurt and get on the shuttle the next morning. I told her I’d call her when I get to Frankfurt and let her know what I decide. I finally got to Frankfurt, go through customs, go to the baggage claim…only to find my luggage is not there. So I fill out the paperwork for lost luggage. I ask where a payphone is, so I could tell Amy that my luggage was lost and I’d be attempting the train stations alone. I find one payphone and couldn’t figure it out for the life of me, using my trusty calling card. I decided I needed to get on a train to get to post and go buy my ticket. It was getting late and I didn't know when the sun went down and I didnt' want to be in train stations alone in the dark. Train ticket lady gave me a ticket to a train that left in 7 minutes from then! So I run again to the train track. Train isn’t there yet, and I see another pay phone right by my train track and attempt to use that. This time I gave up using my calling card and tried using my credit card, and didn’t care how expensive it was going to be. That didn’t work either. I spotted a girl with a big ‘ol backpack, who looked to be my age, American and I kinda kept watching her, wondering if she was getting on the same train as me, if she was nice and if she had a cell phone I could maybe borrow… and if I should talk to a stranger in a foreign country. She got on the train before me and I discreetly followed her. I sat in the seat in front of her. And after a few minutes, I start to cry and couldn't stop. Because I didn’t know how to get in touch with Amy, I didn’t even know Amy’s address so I can’t take a cab from the train station to her house (you know, and kind of surrrrrprise her I’m there), I was extremely tired, jet lagged, gross and sweaty, pissed off my luggage was lost and just frustrated. I cried for a good 10 minutes, alone on a train in Germany. It was a beautiful sunset on the German country sides though. The girl behind me pulled out a cell phone and she makes a call…and starts talking fluent German. Damnit! I can’t speak German to ask if I can borrow her phone! She looked American! I cried again, because I can’t use her phone. I talk some sense into myself to stop being a baby, put on my big girl panties, and tell myself that everything will be fine. Somehow. A few minutes later, I turned around and asked the girl if she spoke English. She said yes, and I nicely asked if I could borrow her phone, to call my friend who is expecting me. I told her I was supposed to call at the train station, but I couldn’t figure out the pay phone (dumb American I am). She said she only has one bar left of battery, but I can use it and I tell her I’ll make it quick. She dials Amy’s number for me and Amy says, Oh thank God! I have been calling the Frankfurt Airport and the USO to see if you checked in!! I told her quickly what happened and then the phone died. We were going in and out of service area and we lost service. Nice girl behind me dialed again and I quickly tell Amy what time I’m expected at the train station in town. She said she’ll meet me there. I profusely thanked nice German girl for letting me use her phone and we chatted for a little while. I had one train station change to figure out. German girl got off the train at the same station and pointed me in the right direction for my train track. I got on a train and hoped to God it was the right one. All the announcing on the trains for the small towns are spoken in German. So I listened for the one key word that I know, which is the name of the city I was going to. I heard them say the town name, but the train station signs above the tracks say a different city and I was really confused. I asked someone if we were in the town I was needing to be in, and she spoke German and we didn’t understand each other. I looked out the windows to see if I recognized any buildings or the train station… and I didn’t. I panicked. But for whatever reason, I got off the train. I started walking around the train station and saw a sign that says the correct city I’m supposed to be in (THANK GOD!!!!) and the train station and other buildings start to look familiar. I started walking around, looking for Amy. I couldn’t find her, and I started to walk around the station and then I heard her call my name. I'd never been so happy to hear her call my name.

Thank God, I somehow managed to make it to Army town, Germany. It was the worst flight and travel experience I’ve ever had.

If you read through that, thanks for sticking around! Here are some pretty pictures (a little blurry because the train was going fast!) of the sunset on the German country side:





(Next post will be the agonizing wait we endured before the guys got home!!)

Us?? God parents??

Seth and I were chatting on gchat the other day, December 13th to be exact. He sent me an IM that had a different person’s screen name, and I thought that he had mistakenly sent me something. I still read it though, and I realized it was a message/question from his friend Lee, who he is deployed with. I met Lee’s wife, Amy, when I went to Germany in March. They have an absolutely beautiful (and very tiny!!) daughter named Sarah. We spent the day together, traveling to Rothenberg ob de tauber, when Sarah was about 3 ½ months old. Amy and I have become fast friends during this deployment and have emailed constantly back and forth. When I met them at their apartment in Germany, I quickly fell in love with little Sarah, who was napping in a bassinet. She was SOOO tiny and SOOO perfect and I made a joke to Seth that I was going to steal her, but he told me not to because 1) well, that’s just wrong to do and 2) it would make our friendship with them weird. Both are valid points. (For the record, I would never actually baby-nap a kid, I just make innocent jokes about it, because I love babies. I’m confident that when we have our own children, I will no longer have the desire to baby-nap kids, and then I’ll be fending off other baby-nappers).

Anyways, back the IM that Seth sent me. He sent me a question from Lee, saying that him and Amy had been talking (he’s home on R&R right now) and they wanted to ask us our opinion on being God parents to Sarah!!!! I am truly honored and so flattered that they would like us to be her God parents!

I’ve never had God-parents or even known anyone who was a God parent. I always thought it’d be cool, but I never thought it would happen! Honestly, I’ve never considered it for my/our future children. I looked it up online to learn more about it, because it really is foreign to me. But I will take my role as her God-mother seriously and I’ll fulfill my duties.

So I have a question to my readers: are any of you God-mothers/parents? What are your responsibilities? What does it entail? Got any advice for me?

(Side note: the day this gchat conversation took place, Seth called me so we could talk a little about it in person. He said that he was excited to have the word “God” in his title. I responded with, “ohhhh God!!!!!” like with a tone of “ohh pleasseeeeee” and he said, “see!! You’re calling my name!!” But in all seriousness, I know he’ll take this seriously too and we’re both very excited and honored to be her God-Parents!!!)