Off to Germany

We are off to Germany tomorrow morning, for a short overnight trip. I am really looking forward this outing for two reasons.

Reason 1, I have never been to Germany. We have lived here almost a year and I still haven't been there. Kind of strange. We will only be there for a night and most likely will never leave the base, but I can still check it off the list. Micah has some work to do there so I will most likely be on my own, but it will still be fun. I hear Ramstien, the base we are going to, just finished a new shopping mall of sorts so I am looking forward to seeing that. Depending on how adventurous I feel I may venture off the base for a few hours to take in some sights.

Reason 2 that I am looking forward to this trip is that Micah is going to be the pilot!! Yup, that's right, I will finally get to go on a flight with him while he flying. In all our years I have never flown with him, not even in a little Sessna. So if all goes as planned (which it rarely does in the Air Force) Micah and I will be off to Germany tomorrow morning. How crazy is it that we will go in the morning and be back Saturday evening? So as they say in German, Bis gleich!

Good Things

Wow, not to toot my own horn or anything, but I have been doing pretty good with the blogging these days, don't you think? But I need to warn you, don't count on it continuing, I hope it will last but I have my doubts:).

Something that has been running through my head today is "good things". I think it has a lot to do with the whisper of fall I hear in the leaves. Whenever I start to feel fall coming it just does something to me. When the nights begin to get darker and the mornings crisper it just puts me at peace. So about good things...

For starters I finally finished my substitute application and plus I have turned it in! I got that application in April I think and I have just finally finished it. I can be the worlds biggest procrastinator when I put my mind to it:). I was told this morning that I may have all my clearances done by the time school starts so I can be subbing before I know it! I am excited at the thought of being back in the classroom, even if it's not my own class.

We found out last week that Micah will be going back to the States again for about a month or so for another class. I feel like that boy just never stops. It seems like every time I think things might slow down he is on the move again. So with Micah going to this school in the States I have the opportunity to come back for a little visit myself. I would like to do this, but after all the traveling I have done lately, I just don't know if I can handle another trip the Washington. Time will tell I guess. I have a couple of weeks till I have to decide.

The last good thing I have been thinking about may sound a bit silly to you, but absolutely HUGE to me! There is now a American radio station in the area!!! It is sooo nice to turn on the radio and not hear a British accent! Plus, I have been terribly missing a bit of country music in my life and they play country at night now! So life is good, right?

I hope you all may have a few "good things" that you are thinking about today too, and hopefully they will bring a smile to your face!

U2!!

Micah and I just got back from the U2 concert this morning. We drove to Cardiff yesterday, which is the capitol city of Wales. What should have taken 3 1/2 hours ended up taking almost 6!! It was a long car ride. Cardiff was PACKED with concert goers. We couldn't even get a hotel room. We ended up staying at the Cardiff University dorm rooms. We all got our own rooms with a single bed. It was just like being in college again. When we got to Cardiff we met up with some friends and headed to a pre-concert dinner. We had some amazing Thai food which always puts a smile on my face. We then headed to Millennium Stadium which holds 72 thousand people! And yes, it was pretty much a packed house. We skipped the opening acts on purpose because they were kind of lame. We were hoping that the Black eyed Peas would open because there were rumors...but no:(. When U2 did come on it was incredible! They played for at least a full 2 hours. They hit all the classics and rocked out some news ones too. Even though Micah and I aren't huge U2 fans that follow them every tour, we still really enjoy their music. It was their last concert in Europe for quite a while as they are headed to the States for a bit, so it was nice to see them off. All in all a great experience. Micah and I have not been to a concert together for quite some time and this was just what we needed!

Someone emailed my this picture today. It perfectly captures what I have been saying all along, Micah does not think I am funny. This bothers me a bit because I tend to think I am a little funny. I get a few laughs once in a while. I know I have made a few of you smile. But Micah is a much tougher crowd. I feel like I am always laughing at the hilarious things my husband says and does!! Once in a while I do get a laugh out of him and it feels so good. Although it rarely happens so I doubt a picture will ever be produced. That is all I have to say about this, I just thought I would show all of you my husbands displeasure with my attempts to be funny.

Back in Ely

Micah and I arrived back in Ely yesterday. After 24 hours of traveling we made it back. Although it was nice to be back in the Pacific Northwest, it is awfully good to be back in our home. We had a lot of fun while back in Washington. We were got to see a lot of friends and do a lot of fun stuff. Micah did some crabbing and he even climbed a mountain. His ultimate goal was Mt. Baker but since the weather didn't cooperate while we were home he didn't have a chance to do that. I think he will post some pictures and blog about his climb this weekend.

Our first day back went pretty well. I finished my subbing application today so now all I have to do is go to school and put the info into the computer. I am really excited to start subbing again. It will be nice to have something to do again. And Micah had a pleasant surprise when he got to work today. It ends up that he has tomorrow off. I think in the last 6 weeks Micah has been at work a total of 4 days!! I can't believe it. When he has to start working a full work week again it is going to be tough:). Since Micah has the day off tomorrow we are going to go motorcycle shopping!! We did a bit of shopping for a bike while we were home and now we are ready to get serious about it. Hopefully we will have some pictures to show you all tomorrow!

For those of you who are wondering if we have fallen off the face of the earth...we are still here!! We have had a crazy three weeks. The first two weeks we spent in in Oklahoma City because Micah was there for a class. I was so happy to have a chance to go with him. I was only planning on staying there for the first week and then coming home but my plane was canceled so I was able to spend another week in the States!! I was so happy to live among Americans once again!!! It was such a nice vacation for me. Micah had class everyday but I had nothing so I just soaked up some sun and did a bit of shopping:). I felt like a serious "lady of leisure". So in addition to Oklahoma City we also had a chance to go to Wichita and see some old friends. All in all we had a great time. I never knew I could enjoy the Midwest that much!

The greatest thing we did in OKC was visit the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. I remember when all that happened but I didn't expect it to be so moving. Both Micah and I were blown away but the solemness of the place. They have a beautiful memorial site and they also have a museum. When we left the museum I was emotionally exhausted. I had to fight back tears the entire time we were there. If any of you ever have the opportunity to see that I would strongly suggest it. It shows a different side of terrorism, that's for sure.

When we got back to Ely we immediately started a motorcycle class. Now for those of you who know Micah you much know that he has wanted a motorcycle for sooooooo long. After studying the Harley-Davidson company for his master's class he has been very excited to go out and buy one. In order to ride a motorcycle on any military base you are required to take a 3 day course. I was so happy that Micah wanted me to do this with him. He had three straight days off work and we had a blast! We both passed with flying colors and are very much looking forward to buying a bike. When we get back from our trip to Washington I think we will look into it.

And that brings us up to the next two weeks. We are heading back to the wonderful United State's of America to enjoy the great Pacific Northwest with our friends and family. As you can imagine we can't wait!! This is a very exciting trip for Micah especially because we will finally be able to meet his niece Mariah. So we take off on Tuesday and we get a full 2 weeks. Hopefully we will be able to get together with some of you!

I would like to start this post with a HUGE apology to all those who check in with our blog on a regular basis. What it comes down to is that I am just not a good blogger:). When life gets busy I push the blog to the end of the to-do list. So I will try to catch you all up on what is new in our lives.

I never thought this summer would end up keeping us so busy. To begin with we have had a TON of visitors. I can't believe it! From people staying for a week or two to guests just staying a night or two. But either way a lot of people coming through. This has been nice because it gives us a chance to go see places and do things we maybe would not have done otherwise. Yesterday our friend Kaity from Kansas left us and I think that is the end to guests, at least for a while. While Kaity was here she and I had a short trip to Amsterdam. I was reminded again of how much I love that city. It is just amazing. So beautiful! Kaity's father was born in Friesland so we went and spent a day in the country with her family. It was so fun! Everywhere we went we met a VanderLaan or Terpstra or Feenstra... I felt like I was back in Lynden. It was so nice to see where many people from our home town originally came from. While we were there we toured a few farms and went to a street fair. We had a difficult time communicating with some of the people but we learned that gestures go a long way:).

Micah has been so very busy. After he finished his masters program in May he started preparing for a big inspection at work. All the hard work and long hours paid off because his squadron passed with flying colors. Even though it was a squadron inspection most of the work fell on the shoulders of his office. But fortunately he really enjoys the guys in his office so the long hours weren't so bad. Now that the inspection is over he will be heading to the States for a few weeks to go to a school. It feels like it will never end.

So that is a short update on us. We look forward to our trip back to Washington next month for a chance to relax and hopefully catch up with a few of you!

A Glimpse at Royalty

Hey guys, Micah here.

I just thought I'd tell you about last Saturday, when we went to London with some friends to watch the play "Wicked." By the way, it was a great play, and forget everything you ever learned from the film Wizard of Oz, because it's all just subterfuge and a cover story for what really happened.

Okay, back to the rest of the day in London. As we were walking to the theater (and quite lost,) we saw a big crowd of people gathered near the palace, so we wandered over to see what was going on. We learned that it was the queen's official birthday celebration, and about 2 minutes later prince Harry and William scampered by in a horse-drawn carriage:



Jennie says the woman in blue is Camille. I'm not sure who that is, which probably exposes my ignorance of the Royal Family. However, a few minutes later another woman in blue rode by:




And even an ignoramus like me knows that that's the queen, so needless to say we were glad we stopped by to see what the crowd was all about. After all, the queen is almost as difficult to catch on film as this other camera-shy personality:

Okay, well I'm off to bed, have a happy Tuesday everyone!

Home from the Mediterranean

We came back from our cruise through the Mediterranean yesterday. We had such an amazing time. I wish we could share all the beautiful pictures with you all but we took well over 100 and I don't want to bore you:). But I will share a few of my favorites.

Here are a few pictures we took from the boat as we left Venice. It was beautiful there. We both agreed we will have to go back to Italy soon and spend some time in Venice. Unfortunately this is the most we saw of Italy.



Croatia was our first stop on the cruise. We went to a small town called Split and it could very well have been the dumpiest place I have ever seen. But that was the day we did an excursion and we went out to Krka National Park. It was so green and lush and full of waterfalls. Micah and I hiked around for about an hour and then we toured the mills they had there. They actually used the water to power big stone wheels to grind corn meal. Now being from the Pacific Northwest it will be easy to see why this place amazed us so.

Our second stop was Corfu Greece. Micah and I rented a scooter here and we buzzed all around. The most magnificent find we came across was an old Greek monastery. It had the most amazing view. We also saw the cutest dog EVER fast asleep by a boat because he had just played too hard.


Our third day brought us to Athens. Believe it or not this was probably my least favorite day. It was the nicest day we had had so far on the cruise and all I wanted was a beach and some sunscreen. Instead I got a bunch of ruins and a lot of walking. But I was happy we went because it was amazing. When we first got to Athens and I looked up and saw the hill we had to climb to get to the the Parthenon, I thought there was no way we would make it...but we did and it was totally worth it.


After Athens we went to Mykynos, my absolute favorite stop! Mykonos is the classic Greek island with all the white houses and blue and red roofs. It was breathtaking. We rented scooters this day too and had a BLAST!! On this day we both got our own scooter and scooted all over the island. It was nice to be on our own so we could go wherever we wanted. We went high into the hills and looked at all the houses. I would love to go back at least one more time and spend just a weekend there. So pretty!!

The last stop we made was Katakalon. On the island of Katakalon you can find Olympia. So we went up there and saw the Temple of Zeus and the place where they held the very first Olympics. It was quite something. This first picture is Micah running through the tunnel that the very first Olympians ran through to compete in the first games.

So I don't want to bore you with too much more. I think I may have overdone it already with this post. But if you want to see all of our pictures I will have them on my facebook page so feel free to check that out and look at the rest of our pictures.

I would like to take a moment to brag about my wonderful husband. For my birthday this year he took me into London, made reservations for dinner and took me to the theater to see Les Miserables. How amazing is that? He always tries to make my birthday extra special for me and he always succeeds. I am so thankful to have such a thoughtful husband. I think he lost interest in the musical way before intermission but he sat through it like a champ and never once complain. Then on my birthday he had the day off and he spent the whole day with me. Granted I think he would have much rather done anything else but write papers so it wasn't that hard for him:).

So, on to other news. At the end of the week we are going to have some more visitors. A friend of ours from Kansas is going on a European vacation with her aunt and uncle and they will be staying with us for quite a bit of it. All together they will be here for 6 weeks I believe and coming and going from our house throughout the trip. I think by the end of the summer I am going to feel like we are running a B&B around here:)

Currently Micah's boss is on a cruise for 2 weeks and while they are gone they have asked us to watch their dog! Now most of you know that Micah and I have wanted a dog for quite some time but we just have never felt right about it being gone so much. So this is perfect! We get a dog for 2 weeks and then she goes back home. I am personally LOVING it. She is such a sweet dog and she is so good. It is also very nice to have her around during the day to keep me company. She is really old, I think 14, so she doesn't get around too well. In fact she can't climb our stairs so she just stays on the main floor. Here is a picture of Lucca.