James' Mountain Adventure

James got the opportunity to go hike a mountain with a couple of other platoon leaders and his XO on Thursday. Talk about being jealous. Hopefully we will be able to take our own day trip up there soon! It is only about 40 minutes away. Here are some of the pictures from his trip:

Silly Moments

Silly moments are the best. The other day James and I decided that we were going to open a zoo. So of course we got in a serious discussion about what type of zoo. According to me it will be a baby animal zoo with no snakes and baby penguins and polar bears. James on the other hand doesn't want to be animal racist, so we will have snakes. Let's see who wins this one.

I wouldn't have written anything about this, but after we had this conversation we went to the gym and look what I saw on the Today show!!!

I want him. He makes the cutest noises and is seriously the most precious thing ever.

Baby Animal Zoo +1

Christmas Time

I thought last Christmas was hard. I worked Christmas Eve night and flew ALL day on Christmas day-but I got to spend the holiday opening presents with the family, even though we made everyone work around our schedule. You see, I like tradition. I like baking Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve and going to Beverly's party before the Christmas Eve service. I like waking up Christmas morning, opening "Santa" presents, eating sausage and grits casserole, singing happy birthday to Jesus, blowing out his candles on our Christmas morning cake, and then opening stockings and family presents. So I was a little thrown off last Christmas.

So logically, I was probably going to have a melt down this Christmas. Living in a hotel. Across the world from my family. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Leading up to the big day, I started getting anxious. I wanted a tree. I wanted lights. I wanted my Christmas decorations that I bought last year at Hobby Lobby. I wanted to bake cookies. I wanted to put icing on sugar cookies. But I couldn't. It honestly didn't even feel like Christmas, which was not okay.  So I went out and bought a Christmas smelling candle, a poinsettia (our Christmas plant, instead of tree), mistletoe, and an ornament. The Sorenson girls made us ornaments one night out of origami paper and I ended up going to 2 ornament exchanges, so I had plenty of Christmas ornaments to fill our window sill. It was great. The hotel room was looking as much like Christmas as it could given the circumstances. Plus, we received the best package in the world from our parents! They wanted us to have something to open up on Christmas morning, and so they sent wrapped presents. It was seriously, the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done, and James and I could barely speak when we opened the packages and saw the presents. Once again, blessed beyond measure.

But something was still nagging at me...I was getting so frustrated with myself. Then I found this book that I had packed. It's called One Thousand Gifts. My friend Fawn from Georgia gave it me and Meredith as a gift before we left, and we had started reading it together. It is an amazing book- it's all about how to live fully in the moment and be thankful. I realized that I can't live my life always hoping for something else- sounds like a realization I should have made long ago. Right now I have James, a poinsettia, and Christmas presents that our family sent. It also hit me that next year, I will be in a house. I will be able to decorate a tree and hang lights all around. I will be able to bake Christmas cookies, and hopefully see family. But I know Christmas morning I will want to give my right arm to have what I have this year- James and the Ederle Inn. So why think ahead? I stopped being sad at all after I had that realization.


Our Christmas here was incredible. We definitely missed family more than we could have imagined, but our Mom's had already taken care of everything. We literally sat in front of the presents talking about what we did to deserve presents and feeling super guilt that we had definitely NOT been on the ball with our presents :) Whoops. Our family is the best. Hands down.

I even tried to make cookies in the microwave the night before...it was about halfway edible.

We had an amazing breakfast- that took about an hour to cook due to the fact that you can only use one burner at a time because it doesn't fit 2 pans on it... but we kept things warm in the microwave. No worries.

We drank mimosa's with the best prosecco ever and the probably the worst quality of orange juice ever- so it basically balanced things out. We put nutella and peanut butter on our pancakes and devoured the breakfast sausage. It has been a while since we have had a good breakfast around here.

And we opened our presents. Woohoo!! As embarrassing as it is, I am just as excited about opening presents as a 23 year old as I was as a 5 year old. Oh well, I think it's a good thing- most of the time.

We got some wonderful things, but the top 2 presents ended up not being presents at all. First of all the boxes that everything came in have proven most handy when I'm doing laundry! I am no longer dropping random socks as I walk down the hall. Secondly, we got some ziplock baggies! Now we can store food! I'm not sure why we haven't bought baggies at the store yet, but we haven't...probably something to do with the fact that we try and buy as little as possible so we don't look totally ridiculous carrying more than we can handle back to the hotel.

This was extremely long, my b. Hope everyone else had as special of a Christmas as we did!!

Paris

We took our first trip this past week. It was our Christmas present to each other- 4 days in Paris! I am not going to lie, I was a mess leading up to the trip. For some reason thinking about traveling to another country where you can't speak the language just freaked me out...and trying to figure out how we were going to get to the place we were staying overwhelmed me. This is why you stay at actual hotels.

I was introduced to this website this past summer, and knew of a couple that used it they went to Paris as well. All in all, it was wonderful. We paid a reasonable amount of money to stay in an apartment that was literally a 2 minute walk to the Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Elysee and then a 10 minute walk to the Eiffel Tower. The location was perfect. The traffic around the location, not so much. It was very loud, but oh well.

The apartment was cozy enough and it had a low bed, so James was in heaven. So we flew in around 5, but didn't actually get to the apartment until 7ish, because a)we had to at McDonald's- don't judge and b)we were trying to figure out how to get there. Thankfully, James was in charge and I was successfully letting him take the lead on this one. I decided before we went that I wasn't going to freak out anymore. We were going to get there, and it didn't matter if it took us 8 hours to find our way downtown or not, but it would be fun and an adventure either way. Good thing it didn't take us 8 hrs! We didn't have any trouble getting to the apartment, or navigating the metro and trains the whole trip!

Here are some highlights:

Eiffel Tower at night. It was seriously unbelievable. It was rainy, gross, and absolutely freezing, but we decided to venture out anyway and we were so glad we did. We just started heading down the street towards the huge, shiny building that lit up the sky. It was a pretty foggy night, so the top of the tower made the surrounding clouds glow this BEAUTIFUL red hue. We grabbed some hot wine, that I successfully ordered in French and enjoyed the view.

 

There was a little patisserie right around the corner from us, so we ate there in the mornings. Can I just say that the pastries were to DIE FOR. Hot and filled with chocolate- perfection. And we had oranginas. I probably drank 4 Orangina's while we there...so stinkin' good.

Our favorite museum was the Orsay, which kind of surprised me. I thought the Louvre was going to be at the top of the list, instead it was at the bottom... The Orsay on the other hand was awesome! It had a lot impressionist paintings, which are my favorite. I discovered that I really, really liked Monet's paintings. I have never been a big art person- I do think it is beautiful, but I have never really found myself drawn to pictures, but when we found Monet's collection it was a different story, I could have spent hours just looking at them. Here were a couple of my favorites:

James ended up loving all of the sculptures. So he was happy at the majority of the museums :)

Here is our little rant on the Louvre. It is huge. Absolutely massive. And if I could do it again, I would probably do parts of the museum each day, but it is WAY too much to do at once. And it was crowded, obnoxiously crowded. Plus, the Louvre allowed pictures to be taken, which the majority of museums don't, so with the crowds and all of the cameras it was difficult to walk without getting in someone's picture. I was over it in about an hour. The other downside, was that everything was in French- no big deal because we got the main points of all of the paintings, but we really wanted to read about some of the artifacts that they had. The other museums had like 12 different translations for each main event and usually the pictures as well- just kind of surprised me that the Louvre didn't. I'd really like to go back to Paris, and spend more time there, but it was by far the most overwhelming part of the trip.

Notre Dam was another incredible visit. The stained glass windows were breath-taking. We really enjoyed sitting and listening to the organ play and reading about it's history. It took 200 years for this church to be built, and it was built by the people! Everyone chipped in to do their part and construct this beautiful place of worship. That was the part that really got to me and James- the people that started building, didn't finish it, but instead passed down their passion to have a place of worship and didn't only pass it down to one generation, but through multiple! I thought it was so cool! I was also amazed at all of the detail. I mean the stone has beautiful curves in it, and have trouble fathoming how they made the stone curve like that back in the day... I also wonder how many people died in the process of building the church.

My other favorite part of Paris were the cool doors!! James mocked me as I would stop to take pictures, but they were just so cool, old, and were such beautiful colors.

We had a fabulous time. We ate some amazing food- the cheeses were my favorite, and drank a lot of wine. We will definitely have to go back and visit again because there are so many more places that I'd love to see in that city!

Today is sunny

The weather here is struggling. It has been gross. Really gross. And let me tell you what, gross Italy is not what you picture when you think about Italy. And it is a real bummer when you didn't pack rain boots or a rain jacket. But today the sun was shining, so I took some obstructed picture of the view we have when we look out our window:

Yes, snow capped mountains...in the background :)

Overwhelmed by Grace

We made a huge move. Not only did we move across the world, but as James' first duty assignment it was a whole other level of craziness. And for some reason it has gone very smoothly. Something I had to continue to remind myself of before we moved was that God provided for us in Georgia, so he will provide for us in Italy. By reminding myself of the past faithfulness, then my present day doubt and worry seems to subside. We have been here for 2 weeks today and I don't think that I could complete the list of blessings that we have been given, but I will try to explain.

My sister introduced me to this girl. One day her and her friend were chattin' it up and they both realized that they had sisters, who married military boys, and who would be in Italy at the same time. So of course they put us in touch. Kaitlin and I started emailing this past summer about random stuff, but random stuff that helped make the transition a lot easier. Not only did our communication make the jump less frightening, but we found out that her husband is the Chosen Company CO*. Perfect and hysterical. THEN we find out that James good friend from college, Quinn, was the XO* for his company. On our first day we were picked up by Kaitlin, ate Popeye's Chicken :), got James a working cell phone, given a welcome bag with wine and cheese, got settled in the hotel, and then picked up by Kaitlin again and taken to a dinner with all of the other platoon leaders wives and Quinn. We laid in bed that night and literally said, "Did this really just happen?" The next day I got an email from the Battalion Commander's* wife....which meant that she got my email address within 24hrs and already had me on the listserv for the FRG and invited me to an ornament exchange. No big deal. Quinn proceed to walk around with James to introduce him to people and help him get signed in to everything on post. Quinn and his wife Archimedes feed us for the next couple of nights as well- which was much, much better than anything I could make in my hotel "kitchen". We have gotten to spend so much time with James' goddaughter and her siblings, and lets be real, being with kids in general is always good for the soul. It took them a little time to warm up, but now the little one calls Uncle Jimmy her boyfriend, so I think he is in pretty good standings. Me on the other hand, well, I just light up at being called Auntie Anna. It is precious. I have made friends with the other platoon leaders wives. They have invited us to church, picked us up for church, gone to eat dinner with us, and best of all randomly driven around Vicenza looking for this house that we are interested in.

This list barely touches everything that we have been given and probably sounds more like mumbled jargon. Everyone has gone over and beyond to make us feel welcome, comfortable, and as at home as we could feel. They made it possible for us to not be locked away in the little inn and confined to post, which has done a lot for my mental status. The community here is so tight knit, which is awesome, but intimidating- it can be hard to let people into your close circles. Therefore my mindset is to just dive in head first which has more than likely made me look slightly ridiculous, but at this point I can still blame that on jet lag :)

God is great. God is good. And I write this so that on days where I am overwhelmed, homesick, or just want to know how we got in the situation we are in, I can look back and remember that God does have his hand in everything and he does provide, which means that he will provide for the future. Let's hope I can remember that :)

Here is our first bottle of wine!

A military review:
CO= Commanding Officer, or company commander. This guy in charge of all of the platoons in a company. James in charge of 1 platoon.
XO=Executive Officer, or basically the logistic guy for the whole company...very difficult.
Battalion Commander= Usually a Colonel. He is in charge of 3-4 company's. The CO's direct boss.

My first encounter with Italians....

After we landed, I had to go to the bathroom. So I follow the signs with the stick figure with the dress on. It leads me to these 2 entryways. The left had the boy stick figure. The right had the girl. I watched a boy walk into the left entryway, and as I went to the right, there were a group of men standing in the entryway. So I back up. Look at the sign again. Girls check. Look at the men. Watch a gender neutral person walk out of the “girls” bathroom and right as I decide to just hold it and walk away, this man looks at me with an annoyed look on his face and says, “Prego”. It was seriously with the attitude of a 13 year old teenage girl. So I awkwardly walk through the group of men into the ladies restroom. It was awkward.

Travel Days.

Yes days, the plural. We left North Carolina at 1045. Got to the airport a couple hours early- traveling the Monday after Thanksgiving, was crowded but not that bad. Only a few tears were shed as I said goodbye to mom, which I should say was MUCH better than the nightmares that I had been dreaming in my head. It also helped that mom proceeded to take pictures of us in the security line… definitely not allowed to do that at an airport.

Our final goodbyes came at the Atlanta airport. BaaBee, DanDan, and Vivian came to eat with us and say goodbye. It was more than we could ask for. The 2 hours that we had before we could check back in flew by, we got to catch up on life, and I was definitely distracted from getting onto the next airplane. It was the best.

So we checked in with ease. Literally easier than checking in to fly to Atlanta. Go figure. Went and got a cup of coffee. Sat down and watched a movie. Boarded the plane. I expected the 5hours in Atlanta to drag by, but I ended up panicking thinking that I hadn’t gotten to talk to enough people during the wait. Time went by in the blink of an eye. On the plane we sat by a really nice man, who didn’t laugh at me while I was  crying on the phone saying goodbye to my brother. This leg of the trip was a little rougher. We watched 2 movies, at dinner, and then it felt like the plane was literally going to fall out of the sky. It was awful. So I forced myself to sleep, in hopes that if the plane really did crash I’d sleep right to my death. Thank goodness we landed.

The Amsterdam airport. This is going to sound stupid, because I have no idea what I expected it to look like, but it looked just like any other airport in America, with really uncreative store names- The Jacket Store. This is when we encountered our first language barrier. After we found our departing gate, that had had changed 2 times, this lady came up to us frantically trying to seek our help. My eyes just got really big and I shrugged my shoulders. James was trying really hard to tell her that we only speak English- she clearly didn’t understand. So he quickly reverted into big hand gestures and body movements to try communicate to her where her gate was… we have gotten really good at getting what we want via ridiculous hand gestures.

The final leg of the trip! Got on a TINY plane for the 2 hour trip to Italy. Luckily, our bodies thought it was 3am so we fell asleep immediately and woke up in Italy. We made it. Safe and sound, and extremely out of place. 

 Luckily, Kaitlin- the Company Commander's wife, was able to come pick us up. Even though we have never met in person, it was such a relief to see a familiar face (thank you Facebook)! 

More on the first few days to come.

And I'm back

This is what we have been doing the past 2 weekends:

Cooked out! We have definitely been taking the time that we have left here in Columbus to spend time with the neighbors and friends. So what better way of doing that than around food. So we take up a parking space right by the Shear's home, sit all of the camp chairs that we have and steal some of the inside chairs of the Shear's, and put the charcoal grill in the center and gather around. It is awesome. It's great to sit and reminisce about when we first moved here and all of the crazy, fun memories that we have created here.

The best part was the smore's! Even though I made cookies and Meredith made pumpkin pie, and we had a HUGE pot of candy (because there were no trick or treaters), smore's always win out.

Friends are awesome. We have been so blessed having the friends that we do have here...I'm just praying for the ones that we hope to have in Italy!

 Here are a couple of my favorite pictures of the night:

 "Why are you making all of those funny faces mister?"

"What are you drinking?"

How Balanced are you?

My brother came into town this weekend. It was his fall break at Appalachian State and he wanted to spend it with his sister! Woohoo!! I felt very special. We had a wonderful weekend and I didn't take as single picture. Not smart, because now I am sitting here thinking that I will probably never get a picture of my brother here in my apartment ever. Bummer.

BUT we did play this game. Well, not a game- James bought a magazine and inside there was whole section about a balanced body. Flexibility, muscle, blah blah blah. So of course James and Luke want to do all of these "Tests"

Let's just say that neither one of the boys could do ANY of these. I could do 2 out of 3. Girls rule. Lesson of the weekend, we all need to work on our flexibility.