All about Germany

Guten Tag!

We are in Germany!  I know I am late getting this out, and I apologize for that!!

We headed out from East Wenatchee airport on the morning of the 9th.  From the get-go, we had issues.  This one was for Petey- and it took awhile, and a few hundred dollars, but finally got that straightened out.  With everything else that had happened with our move, I am pretty sure this just set us over the edge. 

The good-bye that morning and the evening before were so, so hard.  You know the feeling you sometimes get when you think your heart can't possibly hurt anymore?  Times that by a million.  Yeah, it was pretty hard.  Living for the past year in my hometown was probably the biggest blessing out of the entire year.  I grew closer to a lot of family, and I am so incredibly thankful for that.  As much as I disliked the time Bryant and I had to spend apart, I don't believe I would change that year.  I gained a closer relationship with a lot of people that under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have been able to do. 

ANYWAY!.............  We made it to Baltimore that evening around 11pm, and checked into our hotel.  Which, we promptly ordered pizza =)  We were starving!  Didn't end up in bed until 2am- and Bryant and Austin didn't wake until 11:30, and Sydney and I until noon!  WOWZA!  (although, that is 9am Washington time!)

We had time to all get cleaned up for the day, took the shuttle to lunch, back to the hotel to pack, and off to the airport we went.  We had about a 3 1/2 hour wait, but then we finally boarded the plane to Germany. 

And let me tell you- the plane was so freaking huge!!!! I freaked- and Bryant laughed at me.  I have never seen something that big in my life- and honestly- have no idea how it flies.  But it does- and I was shocked at how smooth of a ride it was.  It was the smoothest plane ride I've ever been on.  Whew!

So we made it into Ramstein Air Base, and then had to wait for two hours to get our luggage with someones stinky dogs.  Like- so stinky that we were gagging- NO LIE.

Bryant's sponsors (people from his shop) met us there, as well as our friends Brian and Melissa Hammond.  They brought us a bag of food items, as well as beer and wine to tide us over for a couple days until we could grocery shop.  Let me tell ya, it saved our butts!

The time change was huge.  9 hours isn't something to shrug about!  It took us about 4 days to switch around- and it was rough =)  The kids were up the first morning at 3am (as well as being up through the night ever 45 minutes or so) and the next morning at 5am.  Each morning continued to get better, and we were finally on schedule- although for the first full week and a half we crashed pretty hard around 8 or 9pm. 

Since we have been here- we have been to the BX (actually a HUGE mall in all honesty with tons of shops, and the Exchange itself is ridiculously huge) a handful of times, the commissary a few times, to a couple different towns (Obernheim-Kirchenarnbach which the Hammonds live in, as well as Weilerbach which the Swetmons live in to name a couple) ate a German meal finally last night, and we found a house off base in the town of Brucken Pflaz!  That is VERY exciting for us- as we found out the hard way that we did NOT want to live in the stairwell apartments (which is what we are in right now in TLF) and that the townhomes on base are a mere 1100 square feet.  We have too much furniture for that- but could have made it work if we had to.  Anyhow, we found a house, the town is about 22 minutes away from base, and is amazing!  It's 3 stories, with a garage (which is not common around here) and over 1900 square feet.  With 4 bedrooms, 1.75 bathrooms, and the top floor is a HUGE open studio room.  It's really an awesome house, and by others we have seen, it's fairly rare to find something like this so quick.  So we are incredibly lucky- and possibly one of the only things that has went right for us for this entire move!  Anyhow- our landlords seem to be great people, and also know some English which is a plus.  We move in on the 31st, and it cannot come soon enough!

The weather here has been pretty cruddy lately.  When we first got here- it was just fine- 30's and 40's and we even got to take a few walks around base.  But for the past 4 or 5 days it's rained.  Every day.  All day.  Even as we speak, it's raining so hard that it sounds like the tub is going full blast in the bathroom down the hall!!

Pictures will come tomorrow (I know, I'm sorry!!!) because for some reason it will not let me upload more than 1 at a time- and I'm sorry, I do NOT have enough patience for that! hehe!

xoxo
k.