It seems to me that when God moves it’s not just in one way or in one persons life. It seems that when he blesses someone and/or answers prayers it’s not just that one person He blesses.. it comes in multiples. Or at least that’s the way it’s seemed for me this past week!

Last Monday was an amazingly blessed day in Ware Place! My brother Hank and I both received wonderful news about things that have many have been praying about for quite some time. For Hank, an answered prayer in the form of youth minister position in Lexington! I’m so happy for him! And even though I know it will be rough on him and Kristie being apart, I know that if I can get through these past 4 months of Joseph being in Iraq… Hank and Kristie can do this too!  I knew that Hank would be getting a phone call that evening from the church so I thought it better to wait to share my news with the entire family so that Hank could fully enjoy the news about his job!!
As for me, I did tell Hank about what I had learned earlier that day, let’s face it.. I am not a person to keep good news to myself! I had to tell someone and it felt right to have Hank be the first to know! Somethings are best shared with siblings first!

So, what’s going on and how is it a blessing!?  Well, let me back up for a minute first and say this’ definitely a God thing because all odds were against us from the beginning! Joseph and I are PCS’ing in March 2010 and he got a list of basis that were the possibilities of where we would be going for his next assignment. The list consisted of California, Texas, Oklahoma or Virginia. Out of those, Virginia was the only one on our original “Dream Sheet” of bases we’d like to be stationed at. The odds were against us that we’d get Virginia and because even slimmer when we heard that we had a 94% chance of getting Oklahoma. I was quite frankly scared out of my mind. If Joseph got stationed there, he would be deploying on a 6 month rotation and be gone all of the time. From what I’ve heard Oklahoma is not only Tornado Ally, it’s also flat as can be and Joseph and I want to start a family when we get back to the states. If he was to be gone every 6 months one way or another he would either miss some part of my pregnancy or miss the baby being born. This is one of the most dreaded parts, I think, of being a military spouse only second to having your spouse deploy at all and everything that can come with that! With a 94% chance of going to OK I did the only thing I knew to do because even if I knew enough people in high enough ranking places, which I don’t, they really can’t do anything if it’s not in God’s Will. So I prayed. It was probably one of the most honest and terrifying prayers I’ve ever prayed. “Lord if it’s Your Will, then let us go to Oklahoma. But if it’s not, please may your will be done!” I also had to be completely honest and praying “Lord may Your Will be done…” which was usually followed with “… but please don’t let it be Oklahoma!” I prayed about how I felt about the whole situation, as if God didn’t know how I felt already, and left it to Him. Normally I’d be going crazy wanting to know what was going on with the decision about our move but after praying as I had, I had a peace that I couldn’t explain. I wasn’t worried about any of it any more. Even if we did move to Oklahoma I knew God would be there with us and if it was His Will.. then who am I to say no?!

So Monday came and I thought it was going to be any regular day. Until I talked to Joseph that morning and got the news. Through all of the odds and all of the prayers God answered my prayers and the prayers of all those who were praying for us! (Thank you to EVERYONE who prayed for us!!!) We’re moving to Virginia!!! Even better, God saw fit to not only answer those prayers but He also, somehow, put Joseph in a different unit that was listed for him! He won’t be working for his old boss, that moved there last year, like was said and he will still be deploying, but on a more normal/regular basis! God has answered my prayers in more ways than I ever thought He would!

So now the final stretch of this deployment is underway and while I’ll miss everyone here, I can’t wait to be back home with my husband! Despite what some may say, Germany’s a beautiful country and I’ve made a lot of wonderful friends there! There’s something special about your first home with your husband or wife too I think. I love our little apartment and I can’t wait to go back to it!! Then Joseph will come home and I’ll be there to welcome him and the next phase of our life will start. Moving!  But while I’m still here, God blessed us still this past week and got the internet working in Joseph’s room so now I’m getting to see him on Skype again!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!

I know that God has brought us through this first deployment and even though sometimes it felt unbearable it’s almost over now. God will continue to be with us as long as we stay connected and stay in His Will!

I can’t wait to see what God has in store for this week and the rest of the month I’m here in South Carolina! I know it’s going to be busy but it’s going to be a blast!

Praise the Lord for He is Great!

So Hank & Kristie told me about the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer. I had only previously heard of it from seeing peoples away messages about reading it. I’d seen one of the books at the BX but didn’t know what it was and didn’t look to find out. But after Hank told me how quickly Kristie had read it and telling me that I should read it as well, I was pretty interested. It seemed like it was going to be a kids book so I was a little timid at first. When I heard it was about vampires, I was a little more intrigued; as this is a subject I’ve always been interested in.  Joseph ordered Twilight for me on Amazon.com the following week as we’d found out that it is so popular over here that every bookstore on base either had the books on back-order or had a waiting list! Upon reading Twilight, this is what I have to say about the book.

This is the kind of book I’ve been looking for! It’s absolutely mesmerising! I had a book about vampires for the plane ride from Greenville to Frankfurt in 2007 and by the time we got to Cincinnati, Oh; I was board with it.. hoping it would get better I finished it and I really didn’t enjoy that book as much as I’d been expecting. However Twilight, unlike some opinions I got before I started reading, pulled me in from the very first page! Once I started reading it I couldn’t put it down, literally! I read it in my own personal record time.. nearly 500 pages in 2 days! I got so wrapped up in the book, and with my crazy imagination, I felt like I was right there either as a fly in the wall or as one of the characters themselves! I won’t go into any details about my favorite parts, in case someone reading this hasn’t read the book yet… but also because I’d have to tell you the entire story to tell you my favorite part! When I started reading Twilight I tried so hard not to read any reviews, profiles, Stephenie Meyer’s website (as Hank had advised me) and I tried so hard not to watch any of the movie previews. I didn’t want to know what was coming next in my reading! When I did finally finish reading, I immediately watched all of the previews, looked at all the websites and started discussing the book with my friends! I had no idea that the movie originally premiered in the states in November, we’re just now getting commercials over here that it’s coming to AAFES! So I still get to go and see the movie in theaters! I’m hoping that this will be the premier for all of Europe so that I can go see it at the Kino! It’s much better and I’m betting there won’t be as many drooling teenage girls there either! I’m so excited to have my other three books in the saga coming to me in the mail! Although, I pretty much kicked myself in the butt when I read the “sneak peek” for New Moon! It’s not that the beginning of that book is bad.. in fact, it’s the TOTALLY OPPOSITE! It’s like Katie Harder told me.. “my friend told me that if I was planning to read the rest of the books, don’t read that exert!” I wish I would’ve had someone to tell me that! Because now I’m going crazy wanting to read what happens next! It’s like giving a starving man a bite of the juiciest most delicious steak in the world and then not having the rest of it there for him to eat. It’s just WRONG and extremely MEAN! I know it’s my own fault.. I didn’t have to read the expert.. but I was curious to see if the story continued with Edward and Bella or if the characters changed, as I’ve experienced that with home series.  But no! The story continues! And I’m so excited about it! Joseph laughed at me the other day and just shook his head when I finished reading Twilight and then started from the beginning all over again! I figured that I’d read it so fast that 1) I probably missed somethings 2) I can actually slow down to read it.. as the first time I flew through it and 3) I could probably read it AT LEAST one more time before New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn get here! Yeah… Joseph surprised me and went ahead and ordered me the rest of the saga! I’m so excited! He’s so sweet!! He’s just happy that I’ve found a group of books that I’m this passionate about reading! However, I think that I’ll wait till I have all of the books before I start reading books over again. That way I can read them all from start to finish; and like I told Katie, “I think I’d better do some housework before my books get here because I’m going to have to tell Joseph ‘Don’t expect anything to get done when these books get here!’ because my nose will be shoved in the books until I’m done!”

I do believe that Stephenie Meyer has joined the ranks of one of my favorite authors! Katie showed me where I can find Midnight Sun, which I looked at but then took the advice of Mrs. Meyer and from my own experience and have decided to wait until she finished the book before I read it.. it will drive me insane if I start reading it now and get left on a huge cliff hanger! I am really excited about seeing Twilight from Edward’s view! I think it will be VERY interesting! I’m also going to get her other book The Host!

Well, that’s all I have for now. I’ll be posting a book vs. movie review once I’ve seen the movie. I’ve heard it from many people and it’s usually true that the book is better than the movie. I am glad, however, that Hank told me to look at the website so I could get a feel for how the characters look. That, I’m sure, will help me with the movie so that I won’t have a completely different idea of what everyone should look like. I’m just so excited about the books and movies! Stephenie Meyer has done something that most people only dream of, me included. Not just in writing a wonderful book, but taking it from a dream! The fact that chapter 11 is the essence of her dream, it amazes me how she wrapped an entire book .. much less a series..  was inspired by one of her dreams! It’s simply amazing!

To put it lightly I LOVE Twilight!!!!!

So yesterday I was talking to Hank online and he wanted to know if Joseph was home. I knew there was some kind of news.. but didn’t know if it was good or bad. I got worried when Joseph said it was bad news and started looking for plane tickets.. which are more expensive than ever right now. Hank knew that it would be best if I wasn’t alone when I got the news. I stayed off of facebook and myspace as advised by Joseph who found out from Hank the news was all over the internet. I tried to get some sleep after talking to Mom and Dad earlier this morning.. and after an hour I got a little bit of a nap. When Joseph got home I was awake and thought I was ready for whatever news there could be. To be honest, I’d been racking my brain for the past 12 hours trying to think of all the possibilities of what was going on. But nothing prepared me for this. Joseph told me that one of my old but good Salkehatchie friends, Crystal Bryant, died on Friday. I’m still in shock after reading a note from her boyfriend and seeing everything on her facebook. I found her obituary in the Spartanburg paper online this morning after Joseph and I got a little sleep. I found a lot of my old Salkehatchie pictures of Crystal and all the fun times we had. All I can think of is the times we spent together and the picture in my head of what must have happened. I can’t believe that she’s gone and I was just looking at a picture she posted on facebook of her spine only a couple of days ago. I told Joseph, I’ve had people in my lifetime that have passed away.. family, church members.. people that I knew, one family member that I wish I would’ve had the chance to know better than I did.. but never have I lost a friend of mine. She was so young and full of life… she had a joy that was contagious! And now all I have are pictures and old Salkehatchie shirts that remind me of her, around me.
I remember the first time I met Crystal…. It was at Salkehatchie Foothills camp 2001. Our shirts were grey that year. Crystal and I were on the same site and between us and Jenna .. we always had a blast on and off site! We were inseparable! We worked at Mrs. Plumley’s house that year and I was the only one that had been before (of the teens) on our site.. so the girls stuck with me.. and it became a great friendship. Every year after that Crystal and I were on the same site expect for 2, 1 of which we were neighbors! It was always so much fun to work and spend time with her.
Ironically, the first place I really met Crystal, was the last place I saw her. I had been in Inman at a restaurant with my friends from Asbury Hills and had taken my own car. So afterwards, being that nobody was in the car with me, I decided to drive around. I had my map in my car so I pulled over at Grambling Elementary school and found my way to Mrs. Plumley’s house. It was getting late and I just wanted to see how the house was doing. But as I passed her house I passed a little blue VW Bug going in the opposite direction. Knowing Crystal drove the same kind of car and that she now lived in Boiling Springs, I gave her a call to let her guess where I was! To both of our amazement, she said she just passed Mrs. Plumley’s too! So we both turned around and pulled into Mrs. Plumley’s front yard. When Mrs. Plumley heard the car doors shut and girls screaming outside, she came out. She knew Crystal right away as she’d visited her many times before. After she realized who I was we all talked for a little while about the years past and how everyone had been since we were all there together in 2001. It’s been 2 years since that last day. But that doesn’t mean I miss her any less.
It’s like my dad and I were talking about a minute ago.. I know she’s gone.. but there is comfort in knowing that she’s with our Heavenly Father, she’s in a much better place! I will see her again, and that is comforting!

I just wanted to add a quick little spit on here. Besides that this week’s been good and oddly warm, I’m glad this is one of our short weeks!
So, last night after Joseph got home we had a little time to relax which was really nice. Apparently finances still give me a monster headache (just like they did at MCS!) and the food at Ramstein’s Popeye’s made some people sick yesterday.. Joseph included. Apparently it came with a monster headache as well as feeling sick to your stomach (tho Joseph never actually got sick, he just felt kind of bad.) After some extra strength tylenol both of our headaches started going away just in time for our evening events. Yesterday was one of the Lt.’s 30th Birthdays! So around 7:30pm (30 minutes after our normal bedtime, mind you) there were about 11 of us in a little (but true) Italian restaurant in the middle of the German woods somewhere! From what I could tell, the “house” where the restaurant was located really is a house where I’m pretty sure the restaurant is on the bottom floor and they family sleeps upstairs! But I’m telling you, if you want the real deal, what you’d get if you visited Italy and/or if you ate at an Italian’s home.. this was the kind and quality food you’d get!I had the lasagna and oh man was it good!!!! The owner of the restaurant was quite the character too! He knew that we were all obviously Americans and when some of the people couldn’t figure out how to say what it was they wanted to order (and then again when the food was brought out) no one really knew what they had! And boy oh boy did that guy have fun with us! Of course mine was easy.. lasagna sounds the same in Italian as it does in English :p hehehe! There were about 7 layers of pasta, ground beef, herbs, a ton of cheese and a sweet tomato sauce in this lasagna! (I have a hard time with the acid in food-tomatoes being one of them-and even though I love foods with tomato sauces.. they don’t always like me and the resulting matter is horrible heartburn (thanks MawMaw)! But with the sweetness of the sauce, I ate nearly every drop of that sauce and all of the lasagna and felt no pain whatsoever!!!! (I was so happy!) Unfortunately I was still miserable because I still ate too much hehe! They even did a special Italian drink for us at the end and gave Lt. a huge bottle of wine for his birthday! It was really a lot of fun last night! I got to meet some people I didn’t know and get to know some others on a more personal level! I think this Italian restaurant is going to be on the list of “must do’s” when we have guests! My dinner was 6€ with a coke wasn’t much, Joseph had a pasta/seafood dinner w/coke and it was about the same price. From what I looked at on the menu, and based on my experience last night… not only is it inexpensive.. it’s worth even more! They let you take your time eating.. so you don’t feel rushed to eat and leave, they’ll get involved and talk with you and play around, they really care about the people there and the price is well worth the food! The only bad part is if you’re going down the tiny road to find this place, you better be praying you’re the only one on that road! Our little Jetta even felt cramped on this road! It really is just a long driveway! It felt like I was going down my Mom & Dad’s driveway again for the very first time, I thought the road would never end!

Well, I guess that’s all I’ve got for now.. dinner’s already done for tonight, being that Joseph and I started working on it in the crockpot two nights ago. So we’re having homemade chicken and veggie soup! YUM! I don’t know about you, but I’m excited about it! I’m not so excited about straightening up today… but if I can get in a good rhythm… I’ll be okay and will get it done before Joseph gets home tonight!!!
If you ever come this way.. you’ve got to eat at Trattoria da Salvatore  Pizzeria & Heimservice!!!!!!

Well, to say the least, this years Halloween was more eventful than last years!
Last year Joseph and I were in Landstuhl, so there weren’t many kids at all that wanted to trick-or-treat (since everyone around us was German.) This year we’re on a housing base, so it was quite different!
I found out not too far into the evening, once it was dark at 5pm, that in order for me to get rid of the 3 bags of Twix, Hershey’s, and Baby Ruth bars I had, I needed to bare the freezing 30-something degree weather and go downstairs with a couple of other people from our stairwell and wait for the kiddies down there. Even though I thought it would be fun to be all dressed up this year, I knew if I went downstairs looking like I did, 1. I’d probably get some weird looks from my neighbors and 2. I’d freeze into a living Popsicle! And being the only “costume” I had was to dress up like a princess/queen with my tiara from our wedding and my bridesmaids dress from my cousins wedding, I figured I’d look pretty darn ridiculous knowing the other people from the apartment were out there in jackets just trying to stay warm!!! So off with the tiara and dress and into some blue jeans, sweater, jacket and the warmest shoes I have (my house shoes) and downstairs I went. Only to find out that unless I rationed the candy I had, it would be gone in a matter of 10 minutes!!! I had a great time hanging out with my neighbors and waiting for Joseph to come home from work! Being that we’re on an American housing base in Germany, we had a bunch of American kids with their parents and some actual teenagers that were Germans (that I jokingly figured jumped the fences around housing because they knew the Americans on base were handing out free candy!) It became a huge laughing joke to us because the American kids knew what they were and the Germans didn’t! One of the girls would ask “And what are you?” The Americans would say “I’m a pirate, I’m a princess, I’m Wall-i(<- that kid was sooo cute!)” but the German kids just looked at us like “What? um I don’t know!” And since we can buy American and German candy at the BX (like some of my neighbors did) they started handing out the Germany candy (that looked somewhat unfamiliar to most American kids) to the Germans, whose accents gave them away!! I guess it was probably one of those, “You had to be there” kind of things, but it was soooo funny! Imagine if you will..a kid about 9 years old… all decked out with the works: costume, cape, hair slicked back, white face paint, dark eye makeup, red “dripping” out of his mouth and plastic fangs/teeth in his mouth. When asked what he was he just looks and says “Idunno.” Obviously to everyone else he’s a vampire.. but he was having a complete identity crisis!
Some of my favorites were a couple of the older ones (of course the babies were incredibly cute) but one kid, when asked what he was, was not ready for that question! Completely off the top of his head he says “I’ma hobo!” That got us laughing as he was really just out for some free candy and put on all the layers of cloths he could find to try and stay warm! The other guy, probably 17 years old, was dressed up like a BANANA! We all, including the guy, got a good laugh out of his costume when we told him he had to dance for his candy! (He had it coming dressing up like that!!!) So he did a little Peanut butter Jelly dance and he got some candy and off went the walking/dancing Banana! Oh the joys of Family Guy!!!!!
Over all it was a great night, with the kids/costumes, hanging out with Joseph and the neighbors, and hearing the chainsaw from the “Haunted apartment” behind our building.. it was pretty cool! (And of course everyone was safe, even if a guy jumped out at the passers-by from the bushes) Security Forces was driving and walking around last night making sure nothing bad really happened!

I did get to tell a story or two about my favorite Halloween memories last night while waiting for the kids! I think my two favorites are:
1. When Hank was a ninja turtle (or something with a weapon) and I was a princess when we were around 6-7 or 7-8 years old. We went to a house in our neighborhood with Dad and it looked completely safe and innocent. So Hank and I walk through the fence and there’s a guy standing there and he told us to get some candy if we wanted. The huge bowl of candy was sitting in the lap of a dead, fake looking man sitting in a rocking chair. Hank was a little precautious.. but me being the sucker I was… I went straight for the candy and just as I got my hand inches from the bowl the NON-dead dude in the rocking chair jumps out at me and scares the daylights out of me. Meanwhile Hank’s behind me, sward drawn and ready to go TMNT on the guy!! BAHAHA!!! It was awesome!

And.. the classic way for parents to get candy too…..
2. When our parents would “check” our candy after we came home and Dad would take all of our Tootsie Rolls. Not because they were “not safe” but because he told us “Tootsie Rolls will pull your fillings out!” So, believing him as we did.. we’d let him pick them out without any fuss… Only to see a the next day a huge jar of Tootsie Rolls sitting on top of the fridge (out of our reach) that slowly emptied throughout the year. Dad only told us that because they were his favorites and he wanted some! (Nice trick for our treats Dad!)

Well, that’s all I got! I hope everyone had a good and safe Halloween!
L8ers,
~Mindy

It’s been a while since I wrote last, so I figure I’ll just do a recap the past couple of days going from current to past events.

Strings-because a guitar is nothing without them!

So Joseph took my guitar to get it stringed today.. being as it came with one broken string and the rest that needed replacing, and the fact that neither of us has learned how to do this it seemed a good idea to get a more guitar savvy person to do it the first time and let us learn! So Joseph took it with him this morning only to find out that the BRAND NEW set of strings that were sent to with my guitar were completely BROKEN! The guy that was working on it said he’d never seen that happen before, so we have no idea if it is just the quality or what! We did find out that the really good strings cost about $15 for the set, so I guess that $$ does equal quality in this area. :p So hopefully I’ll have freshly stringed guitar when Joseph comes home as he might get some today!!! Like I said, I’d try to string it myself.. but I’d rather learn how to do it right from someone who’s been doing this for a while than for me to do it and really mess it up! The plus side.. I am learning more about my guitar and the accessories, like there are little pieces at the ends of the strings to keep them inside the guitar (which is what was rattling around in it when the last string broke!) So here’s to hoping to have a 6-string again later today!!

Toasty-Just because it’s cold outside doesn’t mean it has to be inside!

So this morning after a couple of hits on the snooze button I woke up at 3:10am to realize I had no idea how to make the french toast I’d promised to make for Joseph this morning… I know Dad’s told me how simple it is to make but being that I didn’t write down what he told me, I forgot. So I got up and grabbed my computer and headed for the kitchen. I searched on my trusty Google.com for French Toast Recipes and found one that I thought would be good. Turns out when I doubled the recipe, I should have used my own judgement because there was WAY too much cinnamon!! When I went to mix everything together (i.e. eggs, milk, salt, vanilla and cinnamon) the cinnamon mostly sunk to the bottom but left a thick enough layer on the top so that when I put the first piece of bread in the mixture.. all I got was cinnamon! After working around that and trying to learn when to and when not to flip the toast, Joseph was up and wanted to help! So we decided that I would make two of mine and two his and we’d compare. We both agreed that it’s hard to beat the taste of something you’ve loved and always had since you were a kid, and those flavors were what we were trying to recreate this morning! Turns out his was closer to the kind Dad used to make and mine just made me say… “I’m full!” LoL! So I’ve still got some playing around to do, but I’m just happy to have some french toast for breakfast! I’ve been wanting some for a VERY long time now and I finally remembered to get everything I needed (which was mostly just remembering the bread since everything else was just staples) when we went to the commy yesterday!!! After that, I was so full from trying to eat all that I made (since I had a lot of the “batter” left I made a few more-and tried to eat them… blach ) I felt completely overstuffed and took a looooong nap with Tessa after Joseph went to work. :p

Fairies-because Tom says it’s a Gnome not a Fairy!

I guess it was on Wednesday Joseph and I were at the BX and there is always a tent outside with some kind of new vendor every month or so… last time it was really nice furniture. When we went outside noticed the vendor had changed and being curious we went inside and found a wall covered in swords, dragons, fairies and wizards! They had everything from that to wooden chests and handbags! We get some of the neatest things around here since this is a large area for countries to sale unique things from their homelands. We’ve got a shop in the BX for Turkish jewelry, German flowers, Wooden shoes, Art Galleries, German coo-coo clocks and seasonal items, Decorative glass, REAL solid wood furniture, Celtic things, a year-round Christmas shop and then everything from a car/Harley dealer to a Cinn-a-bun shop, all in one area! So now, after a lot of looking around, I have a little fairy sitting by my window!! If you want to know why I like fairies so much… that’s a whole nuther blog in itself!

Conclusion… because this’ the end.

Well, I guess that’s it for now.. as you can tell, I’m very random even when I have a topic like I did today. Sorry if it’s hard to follow.. that’s what the different paragraphs are for though! Maybe next time I’ll run with a better theme.. like fall!-it’s a pretty big season over here! Oh! Or my school stuff.. need to update on that! Yeah, I’m going back, teachers beware!!!!!!!

Have a blessed day!
~Mindy

Where to begin?
So much has been going on lately… not just with me… but with my family, friends and the world in general. I guess I’ll just start with September and as I remember things to put in here.. I’ll try to do so! I think it’s easier for me to write in my journals rather than on a blog and that’s why I’m a blogging slacker! But I’m going to try to get better at this!

So the past few weeks of September have probably been some of the most fun I’ve had in a while. Don’t get me wrong I love my life and everything about it..  and I’ve been having fun.. but I guess this month has been more packed with fun stuff rather than mundane things like bills and daily chores. The beginning of the month started out with a lot of fast adjustments for Joseph and I. His schedule was finally due to change after all of June-Aug. being on 12-hour nights. To make things easier for us and so we’d actually get to see each other, I switched to his schedule too. The first week in September he had a class that required him to switch to days, then go back to nights the next week and then he has 2 months on 12-hour days. Thankfully he took some time off the first week of his new schedule for our 1st Wedding Anniversary and his 22nd Birthday! So we had a lot of time to get used to being awake during the day and sleeping when the sun went down (which has actually been VERY nice! even though this shift means more work for him.) The benefit is, that he doesn’t work the normal 5 day week but he works every other weekend : / We’ve adjusted okay and we both really like that although he’s working 12’s.. when he’s off.. he’s off! It’s really been nice!!!
Joseph had nearly 2 weeks off work, since it just worked out great with the weekends, for our anniversary and his bday! We had a lot of fun with a wonderful candlelight dinner at home for our anniversary and we grilled ribs for his bday! Within the time he was off we had a great time and it felt like our honeymoon all over again! We were able to just enjoy each other and have a great time! I found 2 new castles to go visit, one being the famous Burg (castle) Frankenstein!!! Which we’re planning to visit next month! We went to the largest wine festival in the world and it was half wine fest half carnival where we got to ride some fun stuff and see double rainbows on our way home!!! Thank goodness we had a GPS in our car, we never would have found the place!!!!!

As I sit here thinking about the past few weeks, listening to pandora.com (curtisy of my big bro), I feel energized by the upbeat music that flows from my laptop! It instantly puts a smile on my face as the song reflects how I’m feeling right now! Upbeat, energetic and ready to take on whatever happens next!! – Unless it’s the million boxes between the front door and the livingroom…. We also got our household goods from SC last week! I never realized how much stuff I really had.. until it was all boxed up! Now if only I had a walkin closet.. I’d be doing good! ;p Trying to keep our guest room from looking like my old bedroom at Mom & Dad’s is going to probably be harder than I thought! lol
Church has been good and things are changing around here w/PCS season coming and going… your new bff could be here one day and gone the next with only a few weeks notice. It’s something you learn to live with being in the military and hope and pray that they’ll be safe and okay and that maybe one day you’ll run into each other!
Keep your friends close, you never know when they’re going to leave.
Sorry if this’ all jumbeled up… I’ve got a lot I could probably add.. but I’ll save that for later days… Joseph will be home soon and I need to make a list for the commy (commasary) so we can get everything we need!
God Bless!
~Mindy