Life got busy

Hey everyone, I'm so sorry for the lack of blogg-age this month. As you can tell, May was not as busy as June since I was able to blog about 2 or 3 times a week. Since I got my new job as the Pool program director, and managing my swim lesson side business, I haven't had as much time on my hands to do the things I enjoy ( like this blog) and that is a total bummer. But please, keep checking up on me, because you motivate me to at least get on and write a little something when I can! I hope everyones summer is going great! The weather here is unpredictable, but when the sun shines.. the SUN SHiNES and it is amazing... 4th of July this weekend...who has party plans?!

We're not tourists, we're explorers!

Yesterday, we wandered down to a village called Baden-Baden which is the gateway to the Schwarzwald ( black forest) in the South western part of Germany. Originally, we were just wanting to go drive through the forest, but we ended up stumbling upon a beautiful trail to a waterfall that snaked throughout the forest for about 4 km. It was so amazingly beautiful! Then, we hiked back up and found a point that overlooked all of the valley and villages. On the way home, we neglected to find a restaurant, so we stopped off at a Mcd's... gross, right? Actually, no! Mcdonalds here is so much different than back home in the states! We got a chicken wrap, and they used mixed greens instead of iceberg lettuce, and the quality of the chicken was so much better too! lol, I can't believe I am comparing and contrasting Mcdonald's. But at least it was a pleasant experience. Well, the world cup is going on, and even though Germany lost yesterday.. people are still blowing their obnoxious horns and flying their flags from their cars. you know what I have to say to that? GO USA!!!

Back seat driver

We got a new car this week! Well, not brand new...but new to me! It's an '07 Caliber, which is a big jump from the '93 VW golf we got when we first arrived. When we got home, Hannah jumped right into the trunk like she was the queen of the Caliber. It may look like she doesn't fit.. but you would be surprised. She ended up taking a nap back there for a good majority of the afternoon... now we just need to work on getting her a driver's license!

Would you like a Luxem-burger?

This last weekend, we jumped the border over to Luxembourg with our new friends ( and tour guides) John and Heather. We found out that they speak 4 different languages there: French, German, English and Luxembourgish ( a mix of French and German). Crazy, right? We passed a restaurant that had a Luxem-burger, catchy name, however for the cost of 12 euro, we were not sold. We walked through the Castemates, which were underground tunnels built a super long time ago...and then were used to hide Jews during the Holocaust. Very interesting to see how they were constructed, yet so spooky at the same time. After that, we hopped back over the border to a city in Germany called Trier, and saw the Porta Nigra which was the main gate to the city, and is one of the only parts of the original 4 mile structure left today. Then, there was a Korean man selling handmade wire sculptures on the sidewalk, so I bought a few. He was an extremely odd individual that needed to consume his time with something other than wire bending. When the rain came in, we dipped out... then headed back over to H&J's place for pizza and World Cup action. As they say in Luxembourg...wait, actually no, i don't know what they would say.. so...see ya!

Clash of the Cultures

Last Saturday, I started my new job at the Ramstein Aquatic center on base, as the pool program manager. So far, it's been interesting to learn, there are so many different hats that I have to wear, which is fun because there's always something different to do. Today, I had the opportunity to "expose" my manager skills and take the heat from one of the patrons. There was a woman, who decided to breast feed her baby completely topless on the pool deck. In her defense, she was European, so this is completely natural for her to just whip out the goods, and feed her kid. Unfortunately, we are on a US installation base, and not a European beach. So I walk up to her and have to explain how this is making our male lifeguards feel uncomfortable ( yeah right) and that she had to either cover to a layer of modesty, or go to the locker room. She refused to do both, and started to become irate, and tell me every word in the book. All the while her boob is just flopping out of her suit.. this is very disturbing i know. So I removed myself from the situation, let her cool down.. and came back out later. She told me this time that i was harassing her, and that she would call the police. OMG. this is my third day on the job, and someone is already wanting to call the cops on me, perfect. Myself and another co-worker were eventually able to calm her down, after telling her that we would be calling the cops on her. Some people have nothing else better to do with their time than to start headaches for others.. and you know what i have to say about that... save the drama for your mama... and keep it in your shirt next time.

Exterior of our house!

Sorry it's taken me so long to get pics of the house up... this is all we really have for right now since the inside is in shambles, and we have none of our stuff yet. But it's great, we really fell into a perfect situation.. the previous tenants ( rich and jess rollins who are also in the airforce) were getting ready to move back to the states, so the house was available right when we got here. Our landlords are very nice and helpful, and live right behind us. We have a fully fenced in yard, which is great for Hannah... oh yeah, we re-named our dog Hannah, for those of you who may be confused from my previous post. Anyways, we also have a garage and a sweet balcony which I love to sun bathe on. I will post more pics as furniture comes in, and as the walls get some color on them!

The cooked crockpot

Well...who didn't see this one coming? The other day we got our first shipment of our stuff.. thinking it was going to be things we needed right away like dishes, pots and pans... no. we got our bikes, tv, and a bunch of military deployment stuff... and my crockpot. I figured, at least I got something i could cook with. Today, i was really excited to use it, and didn't think to plug it into the transformer, so I just plugged it into the little converter we had for the outlet. I got the roast in there, and went about my day at Ikea. 4 hours later I make it home to find the handles completely melted down the crock pot ( notice the black goo melted down the side.. and the back handle laying on the counter.) Hard lesson learned, but thankfully we only lost the crockpot, and not the whole house. And, the bbq pork turned out great, so at least the crockpot left on a positive note!