Bloggin' on Brugge

So, as my last post promised, I am proud to present some photos and a semi-review from our little 2-day trip over to Brugge, Belgium. It is such a beautiful city and we had an absolute blast. We sipped (okay, guzzled) plenty of good ol' Belgian brew and managed to see nearly every inch of the city's attractions that we had hoped to. So, without further ado, I to give you a small taste of our weekend debauchery, Belgian-style:

This would be the Belfry, or, Bell Tower. I took way too many pictures of this thing. This one wins.


The architechture here is freaking cool.


See. It's just cool. This is the Market Hall.

One of the first of many very cool ice sculptures.

So cute! I took this guy home with me (but the hedgehog had to stay)!


Ummm...I don't know. I just.... I don't know.

This little guy was, of course, my favorite. I have a strange obsession with penguins. I love them! :)

Ahh, yes, the ice bar. Definitely cool (no pun intended, really).

So, since this blogger thing is proving itself to be extremely finicky today, I'll have to share some more pics at a date TBD. (I like saying stuff like "TBD"; it makes me sound really so totally cool and grown up, doesn't it?) Until then (the date that has yet TBD), hope you enjoyed our mini-review of Brugge.

~Cheers!

Road Trip!

Yep, we're hopping in the car bright and early Saturday morning to check out the fabulous city of Bruges, Belgium.

What really sparked our interest was the Snow & Ice Sculpture Festival the city boasts every year around this time. Apparently, it's quite a sight and, from what we've heard, should be well worth the 4-hour drive. From there, we're definitely going to check out the oh-so-cool (no pun intended, really) Ice Bar that should be right up our alley. We'll be back on Sunday with plenty of pictures and stories to share, but in the meantime, here's what we have to look forward to:

The makings of the Ice Bar

Mmmm, I can just taste the Gluhwein!

After knocking back a few drinks, we plan to check out the city of Bruges (which is supposed to be spectacular), as well as, their Christmas Market. Here's what one might expect to see at a traditional Christmas Market, at least in Germany:

The Nurnberg Weihnachts Markt

We can't wait to see yet another part of Europe - this should be fascinating! Bis Sonntag!

*Disclaimer...

...In reference to the below blog. I'm obviously not the hoity-toity snob that the below post makes me out to be. For those of you who feel that I might be, really, it was all written in good humor. Are we going to need some new things for the new pad? Yep, we sure are. Are we going to go out and spend money that we don't have to appear to be something we're not? Absolutely. I mean, absolutely NOT. Really though, who doesn't need a $4,000 couch?

Hey, A Girl Can Dream...

And that's exactly what I've been doing. Since we'll be starting a brand spanking new life in lovely South Carolina in just over 4 short months, we've begun to scratch the surface of the new home search. Soooo, since we'll of course need some shiny new items to fill our lovely new abode, I've gone ahead and taken the headache of shopping around for hours on end and decided upon this fancy-schmancy wish list of some of the things that I think need to adorn our pad. Take, for instance, this fabulous sectional from Pottery Barn:

Ahhh, I can just see me sinking into that marvelous masterpiece sitting in front of this:Of course, that little booger's going to need a home. I managed to stumble upon this snazzy thang: (Love it!)I suppose I shouldn't lounge all evening on the couch. Shall I make dinner? Maybe my new cookware will get the creative juices flowing for a fabulous new recipe. Oh hell, who am I kidding? My cooking skills are not exactly skills. They're more like an adventure of sorts. Nonetheless, I wouldn't mind dumping a box of Kraft Mac 'n Cheese into one of these shiny, new contraptions:
Now, in order to make that complicated mac n cheese, we'll obviously need someplace to store the milk and butter. To keep with the sparkly stainless steel motif, I think we'll need a storage unit that resembles this:

And where oh where will we be chowing down on said meal, you ask? Right here at our lovely new dining room set:

Oh, but wait! Dishes! We need dishes! These will be mine. Oh yes, they will be mine. (And it's important to note here, that this set is now on sale at Crate & Barrel so yes, I see this filling our cupboards sometime in the very near future):
And oh by the way, I guess we'll need to invest in a washer and dryer. I think I'll give Jeff the honor of choosing these, as this just isn't fun for me. I'm not a huge fan of laundry. In fact, I absolutely despise it. If I had my way, I'd have someone come pick our laundry up, wash it, fold it and even put it away for us. But, since that will never happen, I think we're leaning toward the front-load option; something like these:Looks like I ought to get moving on this job search...

The ABC's of Jen...

A - Attached or Single: Attached - very ;)
B - Best Friend(s): Chass & Angie
C - Cake or Pie: Any of Oma's cakes and pecan pie
D - Drink of Choice: Corona baby!
E - Essential Item: laptop
F - Favorite Color: pink
G - Gummi Bears or Worms: Gummi bears - Haribos of course!
H - Hometown: Union Springs, NY
I - Indulgence(s): Shoes, shoes and more shoes (see ridiculous obsession mentioned above)
J - January or July: FREAKING JULY ALREADY
K - Kids: We've got Jeff's little peanuts!! We'll see about more down the road...
L - Life is incomplete without: Family, friends & shoes
M - Marriage Date: 13 Oct 07
N - Number of Siblings: Younger brother who passed away in 1991 & an older half-brother
O - Oranges or Apples: Oranges; I've developed a randomly weird allergy to apples
P - Phobias/Fears: FIRE. I am absoltely terrified of fire.
Q - Favorite Quote: "Light travels faster than sound; that's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak" - Uknown
R - Reason to smile: See 'K' & 'L'
S - Season: DEFINITELY summer!
T- Tag Three: Huh?
U - Unknown Fact About Me: I have an irrational fear of fire. And bugs.
V - Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animals: Mmmmm, gimme a big ol' steak anyday!
W - Worst Habit: Procrastinating
X - X-rays or Ultrasounds: Ummm, I'm supposed to have a preference?
Y - Your Favorite Foods: Currywurst!
Z - Zodiac: Leo

One Inquisitive 5-Year Old

We all know that kids' imaginations are generally fascinating and sometimes even downright hilarious. Take last night for example. Here's a quick blurb from Jeff's conversation with his 5-year old son, Mikey:

Jeff: Hey, Mikey, how are you? How have you been doing in school? Are you feeling better?

Mikey: Hi, Daddy. Ummm, Daddy....

Jeff: Yes, buddy...

Mikey: Um, Daddy, are you guys gonna have a baby?

Jeff: (trying to process the conversation at this point) Uhh, no, hahaha, no buddy, we're not planning on it anytime soon.... (and Mommy is in the background cracking up as well)

Mikey: Oh. Okay, Daddy. Well, daddy, guess what: I'm going to decorate our Christmas tree and I'm going to hang my transformers and my spidermen on it and on the top, I'm going to put my yellow bear.

Jeff: Ooooh, well okay, buddy.... that sounds great! I'm sure everyone will love your Christmas tree...

Mikey: Okay, bye, Daddy....

So, we're really not sure where the baby fascination came from - especially in a 5-year old's mind. He's a smart kid so we can only imagine... Anyway, funny stuff. Let's hope the little guy doesn't have some weird sixth sense about these things... (!)

Let the Countdown Begin...

...Until we're back on U.S. soil, that is! We officially got word yesterday that we'll be PCS'ing (relocating, in human terms) to sunny South Carolina this coming April. We're extremely, extremely happy, as that is where Jeff's little ones are. We can finally be a bigger (and more regular) part of their lives and poor Jeff will finally get some sleep. With the time difference, his weekly Wednesday night phone calls usually put him in bed well past his bedtime. ;) We're really very excited to finally be reunited with them and settle down for the next few years in one spot. We love and miss those little guys so, so much and just can't wait to be there for so many of the things you look forward to in a child's life - the first day of school, school plays, report cards, helping with their math homework (although, I'd be a hopeless disaster in this arena), and the all-important PTA meetings. Even though I'm "just the step-mommy", I love those kids more than I could have ever imagined and truly look forward to having them reunited with their daddy, whom they miss dearly.

I, on the other hand, as excited as I am to be moving forward in our lives (and in a positive light no less), have been furiously scouring web page after web page for potential job prospects. Ugh. I'm finding this is definitely not one of my strong points - dealing with potential employers, that is. Since I used to don the ol' cammo suit myself, I never really needed to find employment. So, this should be interesting. On top of that, I'm taking this next year to really prepare myself for applying to grad school - I'm applying next year (for the fall '09 semester) to USC-Columbia for their Speech Pathology program. I think I've finally pulled my head out of my ass, maybe even grown up a bit (I said "a bit"), and found what I really want to do with my life. So, we'll see how that pans out. Wish me luck!

Along with finding me a job in the sleepy town of Sumter, we're going to work our arses off to get Jeff back up in the airplane - where he belongs! If all goes as it should (since he's healthy as a horse), he'll be back up flying the friendly skies in one of these pupppies:

We'll see. He's got way too much time and heart invested in his passion for flying to let some doctor tell him that he can't fly. It's pure crap. And we're going to do what we can to fix that.

Needless to say, however, we won't be making the trek across the big, blue pond to SC in one of those contraptions - Cool? Yes. Fun to fly in? Yes. Fun to fly in for 4,000+ miles with the jet fuel stench permeating your clothes, hair and burning the insides of your nose? No. I'm thinking the Air Force needs to send us off in style...like this, perhaps?

Hey, a girl can dream, right?

...."I'm flyin' first class, up in the sky...a bottle o' champagne, livin' the life...."

(Yep, you'll be singing that one all day now - you can thank me later.)

On Being Thankful

It's not often that we really take the time to truly be grateful for people in our life. So, on this Thanksgiving, while we are apart from those friends and family that mean to most to us, I'm going to thank the good Man above for the blessings we are graced with. We are extremely lucky, fortunate, blessed, thankful and hold each and every one of you close to our hearts. We love and miss you all! Happy Thanksgiving!

A Note on Personal Hygiene

I find it hard to believe that one can waft in his or her own stench for an entire day and not gag themselves to death. Seriously. Why oh why must I be the one that has the pleasure of sharing an office with the one person in this God-foresaken place that, I'm pretty sure, only bathes when there's a full moon? Personally, I enter super-freak-out mode if I suddenly realize that I forgot to pH balance myself for the day.

I toyed with the idea of leaving a subtle hint - a stick of Degree plopped smack dab in the middle of his desk might be a bit blunt though, no? And I wonder if he'd know that it was me...

Not only am I having to refrain from vomiting all over him (which would be an improvement, really), I get to play hopscotch every time I want to leave the room. Between his 3 (literally) bowls of random glop surrounding his desk - ON THE FLOOR NO LESS - (I'm assuming this is his lunch, but looks more like something you'd scrape off your tire), his chair being pushed out into the middle of the floor every damn time he gets up, and the tornado he calls his desk, I'm pretty sure I might break an ankle one day while attempting to escape my little prison

cell. Do I smell worker's comp.?

I'm not exactly sure how to approach this one but I do know - or at least have been told - that this little "situation" is only temporary. I should have my own little non-smelly, pH balanced cell in just over a month. Let's hope between now and then I don't develop some sort of freaky disorder from inhaling these fumes. Until then, I think I'll be bringing in Febreze by the truckload...

Elastic Waistband, Anyone?

Well, not just yet. But if we keep frequenting these fabulous German eateries, it may very well be in my future. Since we're suffering from some serious Post-Traumatic-Wedding-Disorder (a.k.a. in da po' house), we're utilizing our fabulous little coupon book that we acquired sometime last year that holds the key to a slew of free meals around the area. Anyway, we made our way down to one of my now-favorite restaurants - Brauhaus am Markt - where we proceeded to gorge ourselves on some tasty German fare. We washed it down with their yummy brewed-in-house (hence the name, "Brauhaus") bier (beer, for those that don't sprechen the Deutsch). So, if you ever happen to pop on over to Kaiserslautern, Germany and are looking for a cozy place to pack on the pounds and sip some fantastic local brew, I'd certainly be happy to escort ya on down to this fantastic spot. Although, I'd have to venture to say that the ol' train may your best best since they're also known for their 3-liter tall beers (really, I swear). Stretchy pants, here I come...

Let it Friggin' Snow...

So, I suppose it's better than just being rainy and blah. I suppose it's pretty... I suppose it could muster up some happy holiday cheer. Hmmph. I'll be the first to attest that I am in no way, shape or form ready for any holiday anything, let alone associate this morning's winter wonderland with cheer. I guess I could look at the "bright side" and look at it as an opportunity to pull out all of those cute, warm sweaters; sport some fabulous boots; add to my overly abundant coat collection (which my dear hubby refers to as my "coat museum" and swears we'll start charging admission for viewing...along with the shoes)....




Or I could just bitch about it. And I prefer the latter.





So, without further ado, I present to you, our very first snowfall of the season (I do believe it's technically still fall...)

While I do realize that picture doesn't exactly scream "blizzard", it's still enough slippery, snowy, cold miserableness to make me want to hibernate (literally, like the bears, for the next 6 months or so). So, I just might do that.

See ya all in May.

Ahhh, Wedded Bliss

Yes, I've been a bad, bad blogger. Really my only excuse is that I just haven't been all that interested in writing blurbs about my life. And, well, we just got married (woo hoo!) so that's been a monsterous project in and of itself. Okay, that really was 2 excuses, but hey, who's counting, right? Anyway, the wedding was absolutely phenomenal; everything from the weather, the location (minus the drunken rednecks partying it up on the beach behind our ceremony, complete with Arnold poses and cat-calls from what I'm told), our vendors (our wedding coordinator, Jen, and our photographer, Tim (no, these were not shot by him, by the way), were our absolute favorites and we couldn't have been happier to have them there!), to just having our closest family and friends there to celebrate - everything was way more than we could have anticipated. Here are some shots from the day:

And a classic "Jen" shot...

My beautiful, wonderfully amazing bridesmaids...

And who can forget these?...

Love this shot of all the kiddos dancing with us...

It truly was a perfect day. And from that perfect day (and perfectly crazy pre-wedding stress levels), we ventured on down to Mexico (pronounced "Me-hi-co", according to my oh-so-funny hubby) for an even more perfect vacation. We're seriously considering a return trip to the El Dorado Royale, where they treat you - no pun intended - like absolute royalty. I could handle another couple of weeks here (or quite possibly a lifetime) here:

It really goes without saying that we frequented the swim-up bar:

What a freakin' view!

The obligatory personalized-honeymoon-dessert-plate-shot:

And there you have it. We're married (and of course I just realized that it was our one "monthiversary" yesterday - bad wife!)! I could post tons more pics, but I have a feeling I'd be at this all day. Although, I might have to enlarge one of these beach shots and paste to my window here at work. The snow is falling as we speak. Ugh. Someone please send me some sunshine! (And if you could throw in about 80 degrees, I'd be forever in your debt).

Kids Will be Kids...

So, I'm sitting in my office today, minding my own business, appearing to be busy when I hear this "beep, beep, blip, beep-beep, blip, zzoooomm, beep".

Seriously.

WTF?

Now, mind you, I work in a Pediatric Clinic so the shrill of a screaming tot generally does not faze me anymore. But this God-awful "bleeping and blopping and zipping and zooming"...NOT COOL. Especially when it's right outside my office door. I took a peek out there and lo and behold, some brilliant pre-teen is plugging away at her Game Boy (or whatever the latest gadget is on the market to replace actual interaction with other children and/or physical activity - and I'm sure I am sooo behind the times and there's some fancy new contraption that has replaced the pre-historic Game Boy). Anywho, as I'm generally not known for my ability to use tact in persuading people from being complete morons, I took into account that most kids this age are self-centered and don't generally think of anyone but themselves. (That's a fact by the way, not just my bitching and moaning to conjure up a random statistic). The bleeping continued and, well, instead of asking her to kindly refrain from turning our hallway into a video arcade, I just flashed her "The Look". Any of you that know me are probably familiar with "The Look". Poor girl. However, my evil plan to squash her fun was a miserable failure when "The Look" proved unsuccessful as she continued her bleeping and carrying on.

Right outside my office door.

At an absurdly high volume.

Not cool.

So, as any mature, well-educated adult would do, I promptly shut my door in her face. But I didn't slam it - I shut it just enough so that it didn't close but made it blaringly evident that she was annoying the ever-living-piss out of me. Without hesitation, I caught a faint, "Ooooh, I'm sorry!"... I believe I even heard a few, "Shhhhh..." - I assume this was directed at that devil-device.

Hehehe - I win. ::evil laugh::

I love kids, I really do.

A Fantabulous Weekend, If I Do Say So Myself

So, wow! We had quite an eventful weekend. It started Friday evening with dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant - The Himalaya. Note to self, however: don't order my meal "medium spicy". Ouch. After gorging ourselves like we hadn't eaten in days, we made our way upstairs to a friend's place for what was supposed to be just a "quick appearance" at their "Future Party". You see, theme parties are their forte - a few weeks ago was "Euro-Chic"; the idea behind this week's festivities was to appear to be from the future. Picture lots and lots of foil. Interesting, to say the least. Unfortunately, since we had only planned on making a quick "appearance", we didn't take any pictures to share. If you've ever seen a bunch of drunk idiots dancing around dressed in foil (come on, you haven't?), then you can imagine the antics that took place that fine evening. Us party-poopers didn't participate because, again, we were only supposed to make a quick appearance. That quick appearance put us home at around 2 a.m....


Day 2: Saturday - So, Saturday was reserved for getting our wedding invitations all put together in order to get them sent off today. Well, in order to do that, they have to actually be here. You can imagine my frustration when our mailbox was EMPTY on Saturday. Grrr. I swear there's still going to be a wedding. At this point though, our guests may be getting a 3x5 index card in the mail in lieu of our pretty little invites. Double grrr. (Not going to stress, not going to stress...). Anywho, after that was an obvious flop, I spent the rest of the day rehydrating and getting ready for my b-day dinner that night at another fantastic restaurant - 21. It's one of my favorite places to hang out; but a bit too trendy for Jeff's taste. He played along nicely though and it was a great evening. I even got my sparkler cake that was the driving force behind having my little celebration there. And oh yeah, the mojitos are not cheap. But oh so tasty...

And onto Sunday... So, I was thinking Sunday would be our uber-recovery day (typically what our Sundays consist of...) but after a good night's sleep, gobs of water and my good friend, Aleve, we were good to go (albeit not until roughly 2 p.m.). We decided to take advantage of yet another sunny day here in Deutschland, hopped on Jeff's motorcycle and off we went, finding random places to land. And I got to sport my fabulously cute little motorcycle jacket he got me for Christmas last year. I'm one cool chick. At one point in our little escapade across Germany, we decided we were hungry. We saw a sign for a restaurant in some woods, so decided to take a peek. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. We managed to find ourselves in the middle of some random festival, complete with bratwursts and giant beers. I love Germany. So, we made an appearance there, stuffed ourselves and rode off into the sunset. Well, not really. But we did land ourselves in France. In a town called Bitche. Yes, you read that correctly. I'm so juvenile. I have the picture to prove it. (Pay no attention to my horribly greasy melon and helmet-head).

If you look in the background, you can see a ginormous brick building - that would be the 'Bitche Citadel' - a fortress that was built way back when to keep some bad guys from beating the hell out of the French in 1871. Didn't work so well, however. Apparently, the Bavarians beat the snot out of the French, despite their best efforts to hide out in this collosal monstrosity. It was actually pretty interesting and the view from up-top was stunning. See:

On our tour of the place, they gave us these snazzy blue headsets that eerily knew where you were throughout the site and gave you a brief history lesson of the spot you were standing in. Pretty cool. And stylish.

We've apparently become quite the little world travelers. For my actual birthday this weekend, my wonderful fiance has some surprise trip he's planned... I shall return with a full update and lots more pics. I'm thinking we should probably steer away from stuffing our faces every waking minute, however. Good times.

It's Finally Summer in Germany

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to annouce that summer has finally arrived here in lovely Germany. We had a beautiful weekend - both days were abundantly sunny and temps soared to a delightful 80/85 degrees. Ahhh...if only summer lasted more than one weekend....

Yes, folks, it's going to rain again tomorrow. And, not only are we going to be drowning in what some may consider a welcome break to the summer's scorching temps (think anywhere but Germany), we get to take a trip back in time - to roughly March. The temps will be a lovely 62 degrees tomorrow and we're not holding out much hope for summer to return anytime soon. December, maybe?

At any rate, we thoroughly enjoyed our lovely weekend and managed to take a trip over to Luxembourg City and then down into Metz, France. We've decided we do like driving better in Germany. There are too many speed limits in France. Where's the fun in that? Both cities were beautiful and most of the attractions could be seen by foot. I have some purdy blisters to prove it. (Ewww).

So, here goes...

So, wow. Here I am. An official "blogger". I've always wondered what that word meant. And now I know. Here's where I write something that is supposed to spark the reader's interest. Hmm. Well, this is probably about the most basic blog out there, so after I play around a bit and figure this thing out, I'll work on making it all purdy and fancy.

Any of you that know me, probably know that I'm engaged to a wonderful guy and we're deep in the throngs of wedding planning. Yep, I'm finally gettin hitched. Never thought I'd become a Mrs. and do all those things that "those other people" do (pick up someone else's dirty socks, cook for someone other than myself - okay, Jeff does all the cooking, but still...). And not only am I going to be a Mrs., but I'm going to be a Mrs. Officer's Wife, which, if you asked me 5 years ago what my opinion on "those girls" was, it would have made your toes curl. Eek. I spent enough time on the enlisted side of things to know that I didn't want to be "dependent" upon anyone but guess what, I'm okay with carrying around a pink ID card. Really, I am. I've made a lot of great friends on "the other side" and they're some great girls. Don't get me wrong - I'm still not a fan of those Mrs. "I'm so and so's wife"-types, but there are always a few bad apples, I do suppose. I still work. I certainly don't sit home wondering what to do with my time or debating on whether I want to take the artsy-fartsy pottery class or craft endless scrapbooks of our time here in Germany. Although I wouldn't complain if those were the options I got to choose from everyday. I'd pretty much be okay with my life if I never had to listen to the screeching alarm clock or sit on the autobahn every morning cursing traffic (or the weather. or both). But I digress...

We're making some decent progress on the planning. I'm patiently awaiting my invites to arrive - my own fault that they're not here; if anyone knows me and my immeasurable fickleness then you'll know that I wasn't happy until I made at least 50 changes to them - anywho, they're on their way. I'm thinking we ought to get those out before the actual wedding takes place. Speaking of the wedding - We leave Germany for wedded bliss in exactly 61 days. Holy crap. ::Not freaking out, not freaking out::: We are making some fabulous accomplishments though this week. We've gotten our flower girl dresses ordered, invites are on their way, I've spent gobs of money on crap that we'll probably ultimately end up not needing. Good times. Can't wait to party it up on the beach and flounder on the beach for nearly the entire month of October. I shall post more as the Bridezilla in me rears her ugly head and comes up with more ways to make this thing much more complicated than it should be.