Updated pictures on the blog of what the house looks like now!!
Also, found another one of my skype favorite pictures:
Also, found another one of my skype favorite pictures:
4.26.2012
4.23.2012
Block Leave Week 1
We had two weeks, two whole weeks to do whatever we wanted! After James being gone for March and having family in town the week after, staying at home was exactly what we wanted and needed.
Even though it was only a couple of days we fell into our routine. We slept in, made huge breakfasts, went to the gym, ran small errands, drove around Vicenza, watched movies, drank wine, and did nothing. It was exactly what we needed- time to be with each other once again, catch up on the previous month, and spend precious quality time together.
I had booked our "big" block leave trip for the 2nd week, knowing full and well that James wanted to just "chill", but to my surprise he came back from the MRE ready to travel!! On his way back from Germany the boys drove through Austria and into Italy. James said he woke up from a nap some of the most breathtaking views of mountains he had ever seen and that he really wanted to take me. He had driven through Brenner's Pass. This pass is the lowest crossing point through the Alpine Mountains and it in this area is is one of the only passes. As you drive along the highway you can look down and see pastures filled with farms, vineyards, and pastures and then you look up and all you can see is mountain. Huge mountains that tower over the road on both sides. It truly was a majestic sight to see! James and I ended up taking a detour...of course and drove through the Italian portion of the Alps- another sight to behold. It took us 3hours to go about 75km....the "roads" snaked up the mountains and went through several towns tucked away from what seemed to be the rest of the world. We stopped at several places along the way, took pictures, walked around, looked down into some deep valleys, and James tried to throw me over the rail a couple of times. Typical.
Once we drove through Brenner's pass we drove about 45min more and got to Innsbruck, Austria. Innsbruck was an awesome place! First of all it was really, really clean. We kept noticing how nice all of the streets looked- even around the train tracks...which I feel like are usually covered in graffiti.
We ate dinner at this really fancy restaurant...much fancier than we had originally anticipated...called 360 Bar. Bar...thus the confusion about how nice of place it was...oh well. This "bar" was located in the historic part of downtown at the top of a VERY tall building. It took us about 20minutes of walking around to find it. But we got a beautiful 360 view of the town and the mountains that surrounded and the whole city glowed as the sunset. We did forget to take pictures because we were slightly uncomfortable. Whoops.
On our way home we found this cute little bar, "Down Under" and decided to stop in and have a beer. We have just started feeling more comfortable traveling, so we never just drop into bars late at night...but we are SO glad that we did. We chatted it up with the bar tender, asked her about what Austrians drink- which apparently is Jager...without the blood in it and we met a friend! His name is Frank. And he told us that we "sort of" spoke English. **Side note- which actually makes a LOT of sense, the whole time we were in Austria, people were snickering at us and we COULD NOT figure out why...its because we have American accents.** We spent the rest of the night talking with him and his friends about his military experience, learning that he is now in the oil business working for some company that I can't remember and he thought it was awesome that James came from an oil family. We then continued down the very normal conversation of gun control laws in America. Why did we do this? No idea. But it was fun. And we debunked their myth that all Americans walk around with a gun in their back pocket shooting people.
We were SUPPOSE to get up the next morning- explore downtown, go to the Swarvoski Crystal museum and then head home. Instead, we were forced to stay another night because neither one of us were functioning until about 3:00 in the afternoon. Awesome. So, we slept the morning away, drank lots of water, and spent the afternoon walking around. All I wanted to see were the colorful houses along the Inn River...not sure why that was so important, but it was, and it turned out that I got some pretty awesome pictures. We walked around downtown, ate strudel, drank cappacino's, tried on Sound of Music hats, and tried to go into the Emperor's Palace- but we got there too late- only 45min till close and the lady said we needed and hour. Whatever. We did stumble into some beautiful churches- very elaborate and grandiose decor inside. The beautiful moment was short lived as we were slowly outrun by a massive Asian tourist group taking lots of pictures.
The last part of our spontaneous adventures was Swarovski's Crystal World!! I had no idea what to expect, but this was the Swarovski Crystal factory- so it was calling my name. You enter through this massive head...which you find out is basically the B.F.G- Big Friendly Giant. You walk through a maze of displays by several different artists that used crystals in their artwork. It was 10x better than we had initially expected- which was the history of Daniel Swarovski and his glass cutting factory.
The best part of the trip....James got me a present!!!!!
...Just realized you can't see inside my box...sparkly earrings!!
Even though it was only a couple of days we fell into our routine. We slept in, made huge breakfasts, went to the gym, ran small errands, drove around Vicenza, watched movies, drank wine, and did nothing. It was exactly what we needed- time to be with each other once again, catch up on the previous month, and spend precious quality time together.
I had booked our "big" block leave trip for the 2nd week, knowing full and well that James wanted to just "chill", but to my surprise he came back from the MRE ready to travel!! On his way back from Germany the boys drove through Austria and into Italy. James said he woke up from a nap some of the most breathtaking views of mountains he had ever seen and that he really wanted to take me. He had driven through Brenner's Pass. This pass is the lowest crossing point through the Alpine Mountains and it in this area is is one of the only passes. As you drive along the highway you can look down and see pastures filled with farms, vineyards, and pastures and then you look up and all you can see is mountain. Huge mountains that tower over the road on both sides. It truly was a majestic sight to see! James and I ended up taking a detour...of course and drove through the Italian portion of the Alps- another sight to behold. It took us 3hours to go about 75km....the "roads" snaked up the mountains and went through several towns tucked away from what seemed to be the rest of the world. We stopped at several places along the way, took pictures, walked around, looked down into some deep valleys, and James tried to throw me over the rail a couple of times. Typical.
Once we drove through Brenner's pass we drove about 45min more and got to Innsbruck, Austria. Innsbruck was an awesome place! First of all it was really, really clean. We kept noticing how nice all of the streets looked- even around the train tracks...which I feel like are usually covered in graffiti.
We ate dinner at this really fancy restaurant...much fancier than we had originally anticipated...called 360 Bar. Bar...thus the confusion about how nice of place it was...oh well. This "bar" was located in the historic part of downtown at the top of a VERY tall building. It took us about 20minutes of walking around to find it. But we got a beautiful 360 view of the town and the mountains that surrounded and the whole city glowed as the sunset. We did forget to take pictures because we were slightly uncomfortable. Whoops.
On our way home we found this cute little bar, "Down Under" and decided to stop in and have a beer. We have just started feeling more comfortable traveling, so we never just drop into bars late at night...but we are SO glad that we did. We chatted it up with the bar tender, asked her about what Austrians drink- which apparently is Jager...without the blood in it and we met a friend! His name is Frank. And he told us that we "sort of" spoke English. **Side note- which actually makes a LOT of sense, the whole time we were in Austria, people were snickering at us and we COULD NOT figure out why...its because we have American accents.** We spent the rest of the night talking with him and his friends about his military experience, learning that he is now in the oil business working for some company that I can't remember and he thought it was awesome that James came from an oil family. We then continued down the very normal conversation of gun control laws in America. Why did we do this? No idea. But it was fun. And we debunked their myth that all Americans walk around with a gun in their back pocket shooting people.
We were SUPPOSE to get up the next morning- explore downtown, go to the Swarvoski Crystal museum and then head home. Instead, we were forced to stay another night because neither one of us were functioning until about 3:00 in the afternoon. Awesome. So, we slept the morning away, drank lots of water, and spent the afternoon walking around. All I wanted to see were the colorful houses along the Inn River...not sure why that was so important, but it was, and it turned out that I got some pretty awesome pictures. We walked around downtown, ate strudel, drank cappacino's, tried on Sound of Music hats, and tried to go into the Emperor's Palace- but we got there too late- only 45min till close and the lady said we needed and hour. Whatever. We did stumble into some beautiful churches- very elaborate and grandiose decor inside. The beautiful moment was short lived as we were slowly outrun by a massive Asian tourist group taking lots of pictures.
The last part of our spontaneous adventures was Swarovski's Crystal World!! I had no idea what to expect, but this was the Swarovski Crystal factory- so it was calling my name. You enter through this massive head...which you find out is basically the B.F.G- Big Friendly Giant. You walk through a maze of displays by several different artists that used crystals in their artwork. It was 10x better than we had initially expected- which was the history of Daniel Swarovski and his glass cutting factory.
The best part of the trip....James got me a present!!!!!
...Just realized you can't see inside my box...sparkly earrings!!
4.21.2012
Some of my favorite Skype sessions
I have lots more random pictures that I usually snap when people don't know...but I can't find them right now...I"ll have to do some more skyping to get them!!
4.09.2012
Mom's Arrival
Mom came! We both knew she wouldn't last until December...and boy am I glad she didn't wait that long. I picked her up at the airport in tears...first time I've been to the airport- got lost, typical, and I just couldn't believe it was actually time for her to be here!
Her ultimate reason for visiting was to organize my house. It was like my house was 90% finished, but I couldn't figure out how to exactly finish...so she fixed it. The house now looks put together! I will post pictures soon of everything and the headboard we built! Yes, we built a headboard. It was awesome.
The rest of her trip was filled with Venice, Marostica, Nove, and Nicoli. Saturday, I forced Mom to go see the Hunger Games. Thank goodness she was a good sport and even tried to finish reading the first book before we went to the movie. I felt slightly bad but movies only come to post for 2 days...seriously. And we were lucky to get The Hunger Games a week after it came!! So we had to go see it.
On Sunday, we spent the day in Venice! This was the first time James and I spent in Venice during the day, so we were ready to go. We wandered our way around the city. We ate a horrible, horrible restaurant that put canned mushrooms on Mom's pizza and charged 16euro for their house wine. House wine. Not a legitimate place. But we met an awesome couple from Richmond and talked to them during lunch! They were hysterical- apparently the husband was suppose to plan the Venice part of the trip...which turned into, "Everyone says to just get lost in Venice!" and her response, "I am NOT getting lost in Venice."
We even tried to venture into the Murano glass factory...not allowed. We got turned away as soon as we walked through the door. But there was a cute little jewellery shop and Mom picked out a cute little necklace. We wandered all afternoon. We found beautiful bridges, narrow alley ways, and some tasty gelato.
More to come on Marostica!
Her ultimate reason for visiting was to organize my house. It was like my house was 90% finished, but I couldn't figure out how to exactly finish...so she fixed it. The house now looks put together! I will post pictures soon of everything and the headboard we built! Yes, we built a headboard. It was awesome.
The rest of her trip was filled with Venice, Marostica, Nove, and Nicoli. Saturday, I forced Mom to go see the Hunger Games. Thank goodness she was a good sport and even tried to finish reading the first book before we went to the movie. I felt slightly bad but movies only come to post for 2 days...seriously. And we were lucky to get The Hunger Games a week after it came!! So we had to go see it.
On Sunday, we spent the day in Venice! This was the first time James and I spent in Venice during the day, so we were ready to go. We wandered our way around the city. We ate a horrible, horrible restaurant that put canned mushrooms on Mom's pizza and charged 16euro for their house wine. House wine. Not a legitimate place. But we met an awesome couple from Richmond and talked to them during lunch! They were hysterical- apparently the husband was suppose to plan the Venice part of the trip...which turned into, "Everyone says to just get lost in Venice!" and her response, "I am NOT getting lost in Venice."
We even tried to venture into the Murano glass factory...not allowed. We got turned away as soon as we walked through the door. But there was a cute little jewellery shop and Mom picked out a cute little necklace. We wandered all afternoon. We found beautiful bridges, narrow alley ways, and some tasty gelato.
4.05.2012
Promotion Time
I received a text Monday morning that said, I'm getting promoted on Thursday. I had knew it was close to promotion time, but I had no idea that it was actually HERE!! Initially, we were bummed because Mom was leaving on Thursday morning, but James' Battalion Commander was going to have to perform 2 promotion ceremonies so he made one on Wednesday so Mom could attend. We were beyond thankful!! Mama was so excited to say the least! I was too- this is the first time I had been at a ceremony like this since I missed his commissioning ceremony...whoops.
It was wonderful and intimidating and crazy at the same time. Everyone gathered at Battalion headquarters- and by everyone I mean a TON of people. James led me to believe that it was going to be in Col. Larsen's office with me, mom, and his Company Commander...wrong. It was a big deal. People fro the company and battalion were there to support James and the other LT that was getting promoted at the same time.
I was awkward. Per usual. The best/most awkward part was that i was told I was going to have to hit him and kiss him to "make it official". I of course, think everyone is joking. James' Company Commander and Platoon Sgt are both jokers. Big Jokers. So of course- why would I believe them?? I wouldn't. I didn't. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass myself and James in front of everyone. Let me also add here that when the boys are in uniform, there is no PDA. None. Ever. James will seriously not even hold my hand. This just fed my belief that the wool was getting pulled over my eyes. Well needless to say, I was suppose to kiss him. So what it looked like was a SUPER awkward kiss. Col Larsen told me to kiss him, and I looked at him like really?? Is this a joke? Then I looked at James with big eyes like, please don't make me kiss you in front of everyone. He of course grabbed my head and forced the kiss...bless his heart. Now everyone probably thinks we hate each other :)
Our usual picture...James not cooperating.
Finally, a good one
Col Larsen talking about what a horrible job James is doing...
Me looking at the BC saying, "Right now?"
Me awkwardly kissing James and Col Larsen laughing...
It is official!! He is a 1st LT now! Woohoo!!!
It was wonderful and intimidating and crazy at the same time. Everyone gathered at Battalion headquarters- and by everyone I mean a TON of people. James led me to believe that it was going to be in Col. Larsen's office with me, mom, and his Company Commander...wrong. It was a big deal. People fro the company and battalion were there to support James and the other LT that was getting promoted at the same time.
I was awkward. Per usual. The best/most awkward part was that i was told I was going to have to hit him and kiss him to "make it official". I of course, think everyone is joking. James' Company Commander and Platoon Sgt are both jokers. Big Jokers. So of course- why would I believe them?? I wouldn't. I didn't. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass myself and James in front of everyone. Let me also add here that when the boys are in uniform, there is no PDA. None. Ever. James will seriously not even hold my hand. This just fed my belief that the wool was getting pulled over my eyes. Well needless to say, I was suppose to kiss him. So what it looked like was a SUPER awkward kiss. Col Larsen told me to kiss him, and I looked at him like really?? Is this a joke? Then I looked at James with big eyes like, please don't make me kiss you in front of everyone. He of course grabbed my head and forced the kiss...bless his heart. Now everyone probably thinks we hate each other :)
Our usual picture...James not cooperating.
Col Larsen talking about what a horrible job James is doing...
Me looking at the BC saying, "Right now?"
Me awkwardly kissing James and Col Larsen laughing...
It is official!! He is a 1st LT now! Woohoo!!!
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