"And i miss you, I’m goin back "home" to the west coast..." - From the song West Coast

   So you've guessed it, I'm back in California. Well, I've been back in California since the 21st. haha...oops. We of course had a party where I got incredibly drunk, which, I never do anymore. I need to remember to eat more next time. Sigh. Oh well. At least I wasn't the only one!
   Since I've been back Tyler's parents had the party, I've got to see two of my best friends and some of Tyler's family and their friends. It's all been very nice, but as my time here is coming to a close, I feel like I could use a couple more days. I mean, I feel like I need to spend more time with friends and do more things while back in the states. So much to do...so little time. Such is life huh?
  Christmas was relaxing, we got some nice gifts and had fun with the immediate Berry family. We even played Risk, which got really intense! Man, to think I've had two Christmases this year! One in Texas with my family, and one here with his family. I feel so blessed. Tyler and I have been talking about how good this year was to us a lot lately. I mean, yes it sucked that I was separated from him for a year, but in other ways, we were blessed. He came back from Afghanistan with literally a scratch, I graduated from college, we've been married over a year (though most of it we were apart), we made lots of money and have done well since the deployment even with my student loans,  my paper work finally went through so I can live in Germany (yessss! God is good!) and we finally got to spend our first Thanksgiving and Christmas together as a married couple. :)
Now, I don't want this to come across as me bragging because I am honestly truly grateful for all of this, but sometimes it's hard to express how grateful one is. We are trying to give back by giving money to charities we believe in, so there's that. What else? We're also trying to save up for things we want/need to do like travel around Europe, our celebration of marriage, our new home in Germany...stuff like that.

Anyway, it's getting late. Here are some pics from my time thus far in California for y'all to enjoy! :)

Party time: One of my best friends, Joelle

Me, my wonderful hubby and my amazing sister-in-law:

All the "kids" on Christmas Day :

"An old friend never can be found, and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost." -Samuel Johnson

   First post with my new computer! Who's excited?! haha. It's really ok if you're not, I'm just excited to have a computer that doesn't randomly crash, runs at a fast pace and can read script (whatever that means anyway). Plus, my wonderful husband bought it for me as a birthday/Christmas present! :) Love that man. The only downfall is that I'm going from a wonderful Macbook back to a PC. Oh well.
   Speaking of not knowing what things mean, I've decided that I need to learn how to make my blog fancier, er, well, I need to make it look better. I also need to remember to label things in my posts. The problem is, I suck at almost all things computer. Granted, I took computer classes and stuff in high school, but for some reason, this stuff is hard for me. Sigh. Maybe the hubby can help. He's good at this stuff. He's actually really smart in general; it's kind of intimidating.
   Today, Tyler, my parents, my sister and I went to the Dallas Zoo. Man, I hadn't been there in ages! They've really improved things.Tyler's hand got licked by a giraffe, we saw male lions getting trained...where can you really do/see that? Of course, it's no San Diego Zoo, but hey, I liked it. Side note, it was REALLY nice outside...like 75 and sunny. AMAZING!
   If I've lost you by now, sorry. It's honestly just how fast my brain works, well, or it could just be that my life isn't to exciting right now haha.
   Tyler and I leave for California tomorrow. I am excited about it, but I will miss my family and friends here in Texas. It was nice to be home for a little though. It's nice to know that after all this time, that I still have friends (two in particular) who really care about me and hang out with me whenever I'm here. The two in particular are even going to be bridesmaids. :). I hope and pray I can say the same about some of my friends in California. I know I have to "move on" and make new friends where I'm at, but I still want to remain friends with at least some of them in California. I mean, it's not like I will be gone forever. Tyler and I are planning on coming back to California after he's done. Sigh. I hope it works out. I really do. I like my friends there lots. Even love many of them. Some are even like family to me. Wow, I sound pitiful. But, alas, it's how I feel. I've had a lot of ups and downs this past year (my husband being deployed, graduating college...just to name a few), but I feel if these friendships and my marriage have made it, man oh man, nothing can stop me now! (I hope.) Here's to looking on the bright side of things!

Back in the US of A

   Well folks, we made it; we're back! And man oh man did we leave Europe just in time! So many people are having problems getting out now because of the weather. I'm praying that you all make it out quickly and safely return home.
   Here's how our journey to the states went: we woke up 5:30am Wednesday to shower and make sure we had everything together. Before 7 we were out the door to load the car and get gas. We made it to Frankfurt by 8:15 or so. After we painlessly returned the car, we made our way to the Terminal to check in and check the one bag. Our flight wasn't until 12:45, but we decided to bite the bullet and go through security and just wait around there. To board the plane, they loaded us on to buses and took us to the plane. It was really weird. I was standing next to this really obnoxious man on the way to the plane. He was saying how he was pissed that there were all these soldiers here. He was like, why can't they contain them somewhere and let all the normal people board the plane first. This really pissed me off. How can someone even say that. Yes, there were a lot more soldiers than normal, but that's because many are on leave after being deployed. What an ass. Ugh. I mean, maybe he was just upset that there were so many people there, but none of the soldiers were being obnoxious, annoying or disruptive. They all just wanted to get home. Other people were worse. Some people just really piss me off ugh.
  Anyway, we left late since it was an extrememly full flight, but somehow we managed to land in Chicago an hour early. WOAH. So, instead of 6 hours of layover, we now had 7. haha. Oh joy. After we took off in Chicago I heard about an hour or so later it started to get really stormy. God must have been looking out for us! Long story short we made it to my house in Texas about 11:30pm central standard time. It's nice to be home with the family. Getting some good games in, Christmas shopping, seeing old friends...life is good.
Tuesday we leave to California to spend Christmas with Tyler's family, and I'm excited to be back in Cali and see friends there :)
Really, I'm just glad not to be in snow and that I'm seeing the sun! haha.

   I know this was kind of a boring post, but I hadn't updated in awhile and I thought that y'all would like to know what was going on. I'll try and attempt to put pictures on since I'm using a different computer now. I also have been inspired by a blog my friend showed me, so I'll try and be more exciting and inspiring. :)
We'll have more trips to talk about soon, and I may just start to blog more about everyday life. I enjoy writing and talking, so that will work for me! haha.
Ok, enough for now. Have a great day!
  

Time to Learn

   So, there's really not much to catch you up on this past week, I mean, Monday, I went to the Christmas Market/downtown to walk around and buy new boots. I finally got some! woohoo! I'll take a picture of them soon. I also got a cheap black scarf. Always nice. The Christmas Market is always fun too. Very cheery. I also saw kids taking pictures with St. Nicholas.He kind of looked like the pope haha. Tuesday, Tyler had his wisdom teeth out...all 4. Yikes. Now, I have not had the pleasure of doing that yet, but I hear it sucks. Though, I must say, he's being quite the trooper. He isn't puffy and says that he isn't in that much pain. :) He has off for the next few days to recover, so we're just hangin' out and watching some TV and movies and his computer. Always good to relax. So in a nutshell, that was most of my week.
    On Thursday, I went to school with Jessica. She wanted to to come to be interviewed by 14 and 15 year-olds who are learning English. They also were very curious about America. She picked me up from my hotel around 6:50 in the morning. Gross. haha. The weather was terrible! Luckily, we made it in a timely fashion. School and starts at 8, and so began my interview. We started off by going over stereotypes. They would tell me the sterotypes of America, and I would tell them if they were true or not, and yes, I had to explain several things. Some of the stereotypes were really funny and unfortunately expected like, for example, Americans are loud and obnoxious. Sigh. I knew it was coming though. The ones that made me laugh were, we eat fast food all the time, we love coke with ice and we carry guns. haha. Oh good. After we finished that, they made me come up with stereotypes about Germans. Jessica had warned me about that in the car, and I asked how mean I could go? And she said please be as mean as you'd like. Well, here it goes...you have a harsh/angry language, you're strict, you're always on time, you are modern and technological especially with cars, you drink beer all the time, Oktoberfest, leederhosen, you all are Nazis and hate Jews. haha. Yup, totally said that. hahaha. But they actually responded well and I think helped them to be more comfortable talking to me. Then, we started the next portion of the interview...question and answer. There were questions about how I grew up, the school system, when I learned to drive, my hobbies, favorite TV show, movie, singer, politics, sports, friends and dating...we covered a lot. They were so shy, but I could tell wanted to ask me a lot. The hardest part for me was remembering to slow down when I talked and explaining things like the school system. In turn, I asked them questions about growing up in Germany and the differences. It was very interesting. I really had fun doing this, and I hope I can come do it again. They were so precious.
   That night, there was a Medic Platoon party at this restaurant on base. It was to get everyone together and say bye to those who were leaving. So many people are leaving! It's shocking. Like, all these people I thought I could be friends with, nope, leaving. At least Jessica and her hubby will still be here. Anyway, if they were an NCO, they got a saber and their wife got flowers. It was nice.
  Well, today everything is covered in snow, but it's sunny. I haven't seen the sun in awhile, it's a nice change. Have a good day everyone! :) 

Catching up

Apologies for the lack of posting! Not that I've forgotten about this, but sometimes there is just other things to do, people to see, TV shows/Movies to watch...ya know? Ah well. I will try and be better about keeping up with this again.
   Lets see, last I left you it was before Thanksgiving! Yikes. My bad. Well, Thanksgiving for us was kind of, well, not boring, but it was close. Our dinner plans fell through, and it was to late to tell the others who invited us, "haha! Just kidding, we're coming!" That would've been rude. Tyler also didn't want to take me to the Cafereria thing they have because he said, "Only losers go there on Thanksgiving." If any of you reading this went there on Thanksgiving, you are not a loser. In hines sight, we should have just gone there. We did have a nice relaxing day just sitting around watching TV/Movies off his hard drive. And for Thanksgiving dinner, we have German food. We actually never left the hotel room; we ordered in. Tyler did venture out to the Cafeteria to get us some pie. haha.
   The next day, Tyler and I went grocery shopping. In our room we had a fridge with freezer and a microwave. In the other building, there was a community kitchen, so we could cook. Score! That night, we went out for Jessica's birthday. Greek food. Delicious. It was really fun :). The rest of the weekend, we just relaxed and figured out some celebration of marriage things. All in all a good time. Ok, so, that's not all we did. Sunday, we went to the Christmas Market in downtown Schweinfurt. So cute! I loved it! I can't wait to go to the bigger ones someday. There was a band playing, a horse and carriage, all these cute little vendors and delicious food. Can't forget about the Gluwine. mmm. It's strong, heated up wine. We had two cups. We also had a creepe and candied nuts.
   That week Tyler went to work, I ran some errands and we just enjoyed each other. We would cook dinner together almost every night. :) It's been really fun. Yes, some days I'm lazy and don't do much, but I figure, when else in my life am I going to get to do this?
   This past weekend, we moved to a new hotel on Saturday. wooo? Third one since I've been here. haha. Luckily, they have great internet. Score. That night, we went to Lisa's birthday party. Tyler calls her the mom of the platoon because her husband is the Lt. She turned 30...oooo! We started off the night shopping at H&M to get Tyler a new coat and some socks. It's a nice coat. Then we hung around the Christmas market to kill time before the party. The party was supposed to start 7 ish, so naturally, Tyler and I get there about 6:55. They were still setting up everything at this Indonesian restaurant, which Tyler and I had been to before. It's delicious btw. It's called Mega's. Tyler and I were put to work hanging streamers. Eventually her husband goes off to get her. More people start to show up. By 8pm, they still weren't there. People were getting antsy. Finally, by 8:30, they arrived and the party could start. After gross red wine, a few shots and a Rattler (either beer with lemonade or beer with 7up) it was off to the Salsa club. We stayed there for a bit and I danced with the other wives and the bday girls husband. Hell, I even got Tyler to dance two songs! hehe. But after some time there, we were getting really tired so we went home to our hotel. Yesterday, Sunday, we luckily got to be lazy and sleep in and just hang out and watch TV/Movies.
   Today, Tyler had to wake up early to make sure he could make it to PT on time. Gross. I have problems getting back to sleep after he leaves, but I managed. Then, around 9 I went downstairs and had breakfast. I stayed there for about 40 minutes, giving them time to clean my room, but when I went back up, they hadn't even started cleaning any room! haha. Oh good. They can just do it this afternoon :p
I'm thinking about going to downtown Schweinfurt and just walking around. I do want new boots. Plus, it's something to do. There's always the Christmas Market.
   Well friends, I think it's time to start my day. I've had fun catching you all up. I will try to be more religious about updating this. Have a good day!