Nod to the New

In the spirit of new things..... my new move...new house...new friends..... new life...... new experiences..... new frustrations with trying to get settled in Germany....... NEW is everywhere !

I especially want to let you know my friend Jessica from CA is New to the blogging word ( see Jessica's blog on the left side of my blog under Other blogs) Go check out her New blog !!! Way to go Jessica.....

hugs and love to all those I love and Miss back in the US!!!!

Family, Friends and Farewells

The kids and I were fortunate enough to be able to stop in Wisconsin and Illinois to say goodbye to family and friends for our "farewell tour". Thank you to everyone who hosted us, and thank you to those of you who drove to see us. It is often hard to be so far away from those we love. I often miss the everyday chats the birthday's and special events. Know no matter where we roam we think of all of you near and far scattered through out the world.

I had a chance to visit my friend Sarah's new gallery . Sarah has a beautiful framing Gallery in the lovely Third Ward district of Milwaukee. Full of fun treasures and unique artwork it is a must see for my Wisconsin friends.
Sarah has a website for her gallery. SB Gallery please check it out :) Sarah is also a quilter for my other quilting friends.

While visiting Dave and Liz we had an amazing time at the lake....another Wisconsin must ! this is the lake front in Racine and the park was beautiful. There is the Kid's cove a cute nautical themed park excellent for little kids with cabin craze !
Adjacent to the park is the wonderful beach right on Lake Michigan !!!! Chad the kids loved seeing the road to your old house.....and of course everytime we passed the chart room in Racine we waved !

Leaving L.A.

We traveled to LAX to begin our journey out.....to ship our car......and say our goodbyes to sunny California.........

We sailed through airport security...despite all the stuff..... yes that is really what we carried on the plane along with 6 people..... headed for "home" to Wisconsin and Chicago..... excited to see family and friends.

I even flew an airline I vowed never to fly again.... and yes Jenny it was wonderful:) They were so nice and the kids so good. 4 hours and 50 minutes later we landed in Chicago and started another adventure...

Finally !

Finally I have had a chance to figure out how to upload and retrive pictures !!!! so I apologize there will be like 4-5 posts just catching you up on our move......


THE STORY OF A MOVE.....
We have moved border to border and ocean to ocean.......
Now begins the tale of moving across the ocean to another continent.......



The movers came one sunny day to pack all our worldly goods...... I worry about it arriving in one piece I worry about it all finding it's way to Germany. I woried if they wrapped my shoes in paper ( a girl can never be to careful with her shoes) I worried about all the containers holding everything perfectly.... Can you see control freak Heather out on the lawn gawking at the mess !
The movers took everything off it went.

Planting a Seed...Spring will come

I have always been amazed that industrious gardner's can plan and plant gardens in the fall. Even more impressive is that these seeds/bulbs planted in the cool fall survive cold winters to turn into these beautiful plants and flowers come spring. While some of us are just begining our garden planning we have the privlage of viewing all their gorgeous spring blooms...which really cements the end of winter for the rest of us less industrious folks.



When Istarted this blog it was with the intention of this blog becoming a colorful site, with whiyy posts and fabulous ideas and tips . Maryam from My Marrakesh ( see other blogs on the left side of this blog) seems to make this look effortless. Beautiful pictures that transport us away and whitty posts about the exotic life. Rachael with life's moments to make us smile and sigh together.



Now I am here in Germany, and fall is starting to emerge. The trees have leaf tips alive with the starting colors of fall, yellow ,orange and red. I am excitingly taking a page from my gardner friends book. I have started plotting and planning my garden for spring. With this post I am planting the seeds for spring to make thes posts come alive with color and whit..... to bloom with the spring. I hope you will enjoy the evolution with me.



Today has been a challenging day in the "dirt" I still can't get spell check to work and I am dying here with out it. I want to change text add wall paper have music post better pictures and have whitty fonts for my stories. Tomorrow i will settle for spell check and the ability to add a link into the text for you to click on! Keep your fingers crossed that I can be a gardner in my heart and make it all work. Someday I hope to transport you to a beautiful garden full of spring flowers !

We are here in Germany !

We finally made it here to Germany !!!!! The flights over went well. I know I have had a lot of notes curious about flying with the twins. Surprisngly everything went "smooth" Security was my biggest worry...we went through security at LAX, Chicago, and then again at Heathrow..... I was pleased we moved quickly and efficently. I am sure from the outside looking in it looked like orgnized chaos. On all three of our flights the flight attendents made a point of telling me how well behaved and well mannered my children were .... A delightful thing that every mother wants to hear !!!!! I asked twice if they were talking about my kids..... with a smile..... Seriously they were excellent kids. T & H have flown several times before so they knew what to do when and the twins were very quiet on the plane and there was no kicking so that made me very happy !!!! We left on Sunday and of course landed on Monday at night. Mondy we went straight to sleep we arrived at 9 pm Germany time. The kids woke up at 2 am wanting dinner......which made sense it was 5 pm California time. We have had to be up early there are 4 parts to the base here and they are 30 minutes apart. We spend a lot of time shuttling between offices are scattered. I am exceptionally please today we have internet for a few hours ( where we are you pay by the hour) I can blog !!!!! and e-mail I finally feel like I have contact with those I love :) I am also very excited to report that we are among the exceptionally fortunate to have housing !!!!! Yes it is true on friday we will move into a lovely brand new 5 bedroom apartment/stairwell house on the 3rd floor !!!!!! Here because of the new command and the ongoing renovations of base housing most families have to wait up to 6 months for a house. Here at our hotel there are families that have been here for 30 days just waiting for temporary housing on base. Our stuff which was boat shipped won't be here until November along with our car so we will have some renatl furniture until then. I am excited. so far the German people have been wonderful nd welcoming. the scenery is beautiful very lush and green the trees are only beginging to turn colors. the weather is foggy and cool most days yesterday we had some late day sun though. Yesterday we walked to a small village called Moreghen it was really nice full of yummy bakeries. I will have pictures here very soon !!!!!

at the moment spell check isn't working......
( it took me a few minutes to get this site in english) I will come back and correct this later.....

One leg done.....airport security to go.

Today we said goodbye to Lompoc CA. Moves are always bittersweet. I know it hasn't sunk in yet that I won't be driving to our house, to town, anywhere here again. Jessica came to say goodbye to us this morning at the hotel. It was so awesome to see here and I & baby M again and Jessica made me the most amazing picture frame with pictures of us at baby M's birth. I started to cry. I will miss all of our friends here so much and to all of you I say "see you soon" instead of goodbye and that I love you all. Chad came to the hotel here at LAX with us..... poor thing the whole gang and all 14 pieces of luggage we are carrying. it was awesome to hang out and visit .. it is hard to believe that we won't be a few hours away anymore. Chad thank you for all of your help. I know he will be thrilled to be at his very quiet house tonight. I had a Mojito tonight and an awesome one at that while gazing out over LAX the hotel has a cool lounge....yes it was that kind of day :) Actually the kids LOVE our hotel here at LAX it is right in front of the LAX sign ( big metal letters spell out LAX) If Sam shows me where our card reader for the laptop is I will get these pics on this blog. There are these colored light sticks that change colors and as it gets dark of course the colors become very vibrant we are on one of the upper floors so the kids have an awesome view of the lights the signs and the planes..... plus they got to swim in the pool with Dad. so leaving CA hasn't been all bad :) well more later while we are on the move hopefully there will be pictures soon........ Honestly where do my days go to?

P. S. I almost bit a mover

Yes sad but true for once in my life I was pushed to the edge of reason and I considered biting a mover! can you imagine. To be fair it was after 3 days of sleeping on the floor with no stuff and less than 2 hours of sleep....and I was mad that I discovered 3 boxes of non papered breakables...and the same mover had been told 4 times not to pack an area on the desk that was labeled not to pack...and the box with said items was already loaded into a crate and sealed before they realized it. years ago on H's first move... he was 2 1/2 at the time a mover tried to pack his room so he bit the mover . now H was never a biter so this took all of us by surprise ... none more than the mover though. H did this without a word or warning..... so the mover gave him a box and he happily packed his own books and some toys..... and happily everyone was bite free for the remainder of the move. I was sitting on the lawn seething with the mover thinking I had finally gone insane and was going to scream at someone. All my worldly goods were splayed out on the lawn for all the world to see. I decided I didn't like the movers packing style, they weren't listening to me and I was downright tired stressed and angry about their organization. The thought however brief crossed my mind about how I wanted to bite them to get them to listen to reason and treat my things better. The rational thought of a woman my age NO... but none the less for fleeting moments in the sun it crossed my mind. Then I smiled and laughed at remembering the story of when H bit the mover and the silliness of my thoughts. Of course poor H will here this story even when he is 40 and I think I will keep it to myself that I wanted to bite the movers myself on a sunny day in CA before our move :) well maybe when H is 50 I'll tell him he maybe old enough to laugh about it too hahahahahh.

On the Move

I will get pictures up I will get pictures up..... We have officially left our house. Today we walked through the hallow house for the last time. With any move there are bitter sweet moments. All of a sudden the irritations of the place fall away and that rose colored filter comes into view. I looked around and thought of all the family dinners, the times I heated baby bottles in the middle of the night, when I walked in and toured the house upon our arrival 2years ago. it is amazing how much stuff the aura of a house can hold. This is the first and only house P & S have known..... Where H left to go to Kindergarten, where he learned to ride a bike without training wheels, where he picked flowers from the yard for me. Where T had a chance to walk to school by himself or go to the park with friends. never mind the annoying handle on the bathroom cabinet than no workman could fix ( nor I) Never mind the leaky windows and the window that sticks. While military lives up root us often no matter where we roam a part of us is left behind, the roots run deep.

I have been a frazzled crazy lady for this past week Monday and Tuesday saw another mover ( the boat movers) come and go with all our stuff... I almost went postal on a packer who didn't use paper on a porcelain piece.... but Sam talked me off the ledge and the packer gave me some space. I wasn't in charge and could tell everyone how to do it my way....:) see I can laugh at myself. Although they were the fastest packers we have ever had they were the most annoying :) and hope my stuff makes it there safe they were a bit wild. Wednesday saw a cleaning frenzy and a slew of errands and frantic goodbyes. Thursday was the peak of the craze with the third and final installment of movers ( this batch was literally toothless) nice a bit off kilter but nice....... Friday has come we have left our house we are truly on the move . The keys turned in, goodbyes said, stuff cleaned and 4 little kids finally asleep.

I fear for the poor plane we will fly on 6 people and 12 pieces of luggage we are quite a sight. I am a streamlined traveler/packer... and yet we are quite the sight. I laugh at the days I got around with one bag...... 4 kids later and 12 pieces of luggage we will make any TSA faint ..hahahahahahha

I of course have oddles of pictures to share for the week I have to figure out how to get them up to this laptop.... I am a mobile blogger now watch out world :)

The Mover's are Here The Mover's are Here

Friday the mover's came to pack our stuff for storage.. then the race began to pack our suitcases to go and re situate stuff for the next 2 shipments the movers for our boat shipment have arrived this morning and so it is off to pack some more.

 In  2 weeks we will be on a plane to Germany ! I will keep you posted while on the move.  Hopefully with fun and Witty things about moving across the ocean with 4 kids ! Have a great week !  As you can see the twins are enjoying the excitement of their first move.

Crafty Girl Strikes Again !

Yes in the midst of all of this packing I am still finding projects to keep my "idle" hahaha hands busy.  Sunday I finished this cute little cosmetic bag for my sister in law's birthday. The pattern was one of the many free pattern's of the month on Vicki Howell's blog site. the pattern is Rosy Poesy bag. I opted not to add flowers. I have actually made this bag a few times I made a cool black and red one for my other sister in law. I made a purple ( of course :) ) one for myself they are so easy to knit and cute. I find the challenge is the zipper I sew them in by hand and  This project was the first time in my life I had put a zipper into anything. It was actually easier than I expected and I survived intact to put 2 more in :) 

Tonight I had the pleasure of going to my friend Shannon's for a party.... on military bases you'll find that the home based business circuit is heavy:) I went to a Close to My Heart party. I had never heard of the company so I was curious. They offer a wide range of stamps and scrapbook items it is more embellishments than I prefer for my scrapbook and I am not a stamper by trade. They have greeting cards though and other craft projects it was fun to see and do something new. I made a Halloween sucker cover tonight as featured in the picture. I was actually impressed it was only the second time in my life I ever used a stamp.... I thought it turned out cute. I also made a greeting card which is a bit crooked  but that's ok I tried . It was nice to get out and have fun with the girl's and see friends I have known here I will miss everyone when I leave..although like Kelly was telling me the  Air Force is "small" and I'm sure we'll meet up at another base before we know it. Which happens a lot this base as a matter of fact I have 2 friends here from other bases one from New Mexico and another from Montana. This post is for all you crafty and not so crafty gals out there be brave try something new ! 

Only in the Military

I have to start with a story about  conversation I was having with my fellow military spouses. We were talking about moves, requesting absentee ballots and trying to get our drivers licences straightened out. At this party there was one spouse coming into the base, myself leaving the base and then several who had been here anywhere from 1 year to 6 months.  My friend was laughing at having to get a new licences for their car.... Their car is licensed in Virginia  his  drivers lic is from North Carolina hers is from Montana and there permanent and the car insurance is in California. Now to some this may seem odd but in the words of about half a dozen of us " only in the military" I remember when we lived in New York My  drivers lic was from Florida our lic plates from Virginia Sam has an expired drivers lic from New Mexico ( military members may have an expired lic if they carry their military id's to prove they can't get another lic) and of course we had car insurance for New york..... There are many tales like this. each state has a different rule on whether a spouse has to get a state lic or keep our old one. I had to get one for California. Try putting this on an application for an absentee ballot. Sam is an Alaska state resident on paper so we have to get his ballots from there we list a California address a forwarding APO box and  have to list an expired NM lic with a California address and then I had to track down from ( 7 moves ago) the Alaska address from when he was there..... can you imagine the poor confused person opening that application ! Mine wasn't much better..... I am happy to be doing this though and regardless of party likes dislikes or even loyalties it is important for all of us to vote.. even if you choose to vote for snoopy. I was struck with the camaraderie of these spouses myself included that we could help each other manage through how to find things here in the area to " Oh I was stationed there here are some tips" to myself.  In the military we may move frequently but in the " culture" of the military there is a spirit of family that makes me smile. some days it is nice to feel like you belong in the "crowd" I look forward to the new experiences in Germany. I'm an Air Force spouse who will be surrounded by Army families ...despite the military being one culture each branch has it's own "cultural norms" I have friend who are Navy wives and they have unique things to their branch. this is fun and exciting. I guess if I had to liken it to something it would be like all of us being Americans we have a lot in common but have a conversation with a person from Georgia and someone from North Dakota and  California or New Hampshire they will all have regional differences that will make things interesting.  So I am off to finish my absentee ballot request..with 3 different addresses and 2 different state information. Only in the Military :)

Disheveled in California

Well the final count down is upon us. I have moved over 50 times in my life... yes true not an exaggeration.  This is "not my first time at the rodeo", and oddly it feels different than other moves. I know it is international and this is my first international move so in an odd way this is a "first" move. I have heard good and bad things about stuff making it and stuff getting lost and stuff taking forever. Thank you Rachael also for helpful notes on overlapping movers thank you thank you to all of my friends who have offered help and support. Thankfully I have all the movers coming separate days...... Just rotating stuff will be the issue.  this past weekend we took apart the dining room and put all of our storage items in the dinning room. Sam jokingly says as we moved our very large entertainment center to the dining room..." I can see the movers now saying to us " I'm not Martha Stewart but there has to be a better room for an entertainment center than this"... Always the helpful husband.  As you can tell from the picture there is no chance of anyone thinking that this room was arranged this way on purpose. Trust me folks this is the best view of the room the portion that didn't make the picture is packed floor to ceiling with stuff.... boxes pictures and a very odd assortment of items that would never go together. I think this is what is making me feel truly insane is the notion that in every room of the house there is something out of place . The hallmarks of a move the pictures are off the wall the cupboards that store the china are empty. I am excited it is so wonderful to think of this move. In 2 weeks I will be on a plane and starting the  first part of the move ! In our military time we have moved border to border coast to coast and now across the ocean blue!!!! Tomorrow I am going to do a walk about to include any last minute storage items and to begin picturing the next wave of re arrangements. Monday the next set of movers come for the items that will go on the boat to Germany... or the bulk of our items. wish me luck in keeping it all straight... the twins have wandered off with items from the storage room I just hope I have managed to hunt them all down and put them back hahahahahah.