Spangdahlem Open House

This past Saturday our base had an open house so that all the local nationals and military members could come on base and see the various airplanes and other equipment that we have. It was a really nice day so Nate and I decided to take Reese over. I admit that I was really excited and Nate was less than excited about coming since these are the things he sees everyday at work, but once we got there he was really excited to show me the different things.
Reese and I with an A-10 Reese and Nate with an F-16 Reese driving a "jammer" just like Nate does at work
Reese riding on a bomb
Nate showing Reese some of the missiles he works with Getting my hands on a rocket launcher
Sizing Reese up against a mortar shell
Nate and Reese preparing to board a C-130
Reese finding herself a seat on a C-130

Moving and the 4th of July

Nate, Reese, Jaeger and I are no longer residents of Binsfeld, Germany...we now reside in Arenrath which is all of about 3 miles from Binsfeld. We had decided back in March, when we found out that we would be adding 3 years to our stay in Germany, that we wanted to move to a larger house after Reese was born. Finding places out here that are nice and functional is a little difficult to do because Germans build their homes in a very closed off way, there is no openness to the space so things often feel very cramped. Plus there aren't any built in closets so when you look at a room you have to imagine the space that the wardrobes are going to take up in it. Luckily enough, a guy from Nate's shop was moving out of a house in Arenrath and we decided to move in. It's a two story house plus it has a basement and an attic, which is nice because we had zero storage space at our last home. Downstairs there is a large office, a living room, a dining room, a guest bathroom, and a super dinky kitchen (I'll post some pics a little later). Upstairs there are 3 bedrooms and a really nice large bathroom. Basically we have all the space we were looking for and it's nice to have a guest bathroom that doesn't contain the only shower in the house and the washing machine like the last place did. In fact, here we have a laundry room in the basement with an AMERICAN WASHER AND DRYER!!!!! That won't mean much if you haven't seen a german washer dryer, but the german ones are really really small, like they only fit 3 bath towels kind of small, so it takes FOREVER to do the laundry. Plus at the old house I had to take the laundry from the washer and go outside and down to the garage to put it in the dryer, not the most convenient set up. Another bonus of our new place is that we have our own backyard which Jaeger really enjoys. There are definetly things we miss about our old place, but all in all we're very happy with our new place.

Well since we moved into our new house the end of June we decided to have some friends over for a BBQ for the 4th of July. We had a lot of food and Nate even talked everyone into playing Rock Band, which for the record I like to play but he always wants to play so it gets a little old. Once it got somewhat dark we went over to base for the fireworks show which was actually really good. Reese was really cranky when we got there, but she fell asleep a few minutes before the show started and didn't wake up despite the ridiculously loud booms. I admit I was a little scared for her hearing so I covered her ears and held her super close to me. Oh and the next day I checked her hearing by dropping stuff behind her and seeing if it startled her, it did so I guess she didn't have any damage.

Internet=Bad Mommy

They finally sent a tech out yesterday to fix whatever was stopping my internet from working so I'm back online now. Granted when I woke up this morning it was off again and I had to call the help desk and get it fixed so I'm skeptical of how long it will be on this time, maybe I'll have to call the help line every morning to get it turned on. Truth be told, calling the help line is always an interesting situation since my German isn't fantastic (although I've recently been told otherwise....yup that's me patting myself on the back) and it definetly does not cover technical topics. Most the time I get someone who knows enough english that between the two of us we're fine, but other times we have to rely on my German and it's a little touch and go.

Anyways, it's back on now which means that I have a lot of stuff to catch up on and the one who gets to suffer is my poor child. This is the current scene at my house:

That's right, it's one o'clock in the afternoon and Reese is still in her pajamas, asleep in her chair. Granted she's quite content but I still feel a little bad.

Stupid Fat T-Com

So we have no internet at our house and we haven't had any internet at our house for a long time, 3 weeks to be exact, but I came over to the coffee shop to post a couple of pics so you can all see how big my little girl has gotten in the past 3 weeks. She's simply adorable and I promise as soon as our internet is back up I'll regale you with all the amazing stories of the past 3 weeks.

The one short story that I can fit in before the coffee shop closes and kicks me out is of our first somewhat long outing with Reese. We went to Cologne Cathedral last Saturday because Nate's mom was visiting and that was one of the things she wanted to see. So I get up that morning and pack Reese's bag with tons of diapers and wipes and a complete change of clothes and 4 bottles just in case something happens and.....well you get the point that I was trying to be super prepared. So just before we're going to leave I feed her and tell Nate that I'm going to change her diaper right afterward. Unfortunately, I got sidetracked getting things ready and forgot to change her diaper. Anyways, we make the hour and a half journey to Cologne, finally find parking which is a nightmare there in and of itself, and make our way to the cathedral. When we get inside I take Reese out of her carseat to notice that her diaper was leaked and her pants are soaking wet....this is when I remember that I forgot to change her diaper. So Nate and I leave the cathedral to look for a place to change her, the only possible place was a McDonald's on the corner but there was no countertop or changing table or any place other than the bathroom floor to change her so we ended up on a parkbench outside the cathedral trying to discreetly change her diaper and her clothes. Now I stress that we were trying to be discreet because this lady and her 4 year-old come walking over right when we're in the middle of trying to do this just to see Reese. I mean come on folks, when you see me changing my kid, wait til I'm done and then come over to admire the baby. Who walks over to look at your kid when she's naked?!?! Anyways, we got her changed just as it started to rain so we rushed back inside the cathedral. The only damage done for the day was the the adorable outfit I had previously had her in was not in any pictures and instead she's rockin sweats. What can you do? Lesson learned.