Yeah...so I obviously don't have as much free time as I did in Italy...hence very scarce blogging. Oh those were the days...sleep in...work out...clean house...blog...and have dinner ready when he got home. I have to admit I did enjoy my time as a stay at home wife, but having a second income is so much more practical.
Every once in a while, I think about this blog and consider starting it up again, but I can't help but thing that my life is too boring and I would have a hard time coming up with something to type about, but Jake mentioned to me this evening that our family really liked reading my blog to keep up to date with what we were up to, so I'm going to give it another try.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Another Update Post
Since it has been so long since I posted any news, I should start back where I ended with my last "update post"
I got the job! I'm working at the CDC (Child Development Center) on base. In fact, I've been working there for about 16 months! It's a great job and wonderful to be able to work on base, but it's not quite what I had in mind for myself when I went to college to get a math degree. But at this time, it works for me! I work in the 1 year old room and have decided that age is the absolute CUTEST age for kiddos! But don't worry, no little Maggies or Jakes will be running around any time soon!
We are still loving the house in Montana! Last summer we did some work inside. We painted the living room and guest bedroom, and did quite a bit of work in the bathroom. Each room will later have individual before/after posts.
As for the rest of our summer, we pretty much hung around Great Falls. We ventured to a few other cities in Montana, and each of us got to go home for a visit, but my visit was for a funeral, so it wasn't exactly a fun trip. I did still get to see the family and feel the Missouri humidity for a few days!
In August Jake left for a deployment to Afghanistan. He was gone for 7 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days...not that I kept track or anything! Really though, the time did fly by! I have a great group of friends in Montana that kept me pretty busy! I'll post photos of some of our fun events!
My friend Jamie's husband was also deployed so we joined Weight Watchers together and both lost a lot of weight! I lost 26.8 lbs total. I'll admit that I gained a little back since he got home, but I'm still feeling good about it!
Jake bought me a kindle! I love it! I used it all the time while we was gone, and even joined a book club, but for some reason now that he's home, I just don't get the time to read as much.
Jake got home in April...and he got straight to work on his baby...his 2000 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. Honestly, I'm glad he has that thing because while he is in the garage, I can work on my own hobbies....sewing and now card making. Jamie sells Stampin' Up products so I've become a papercrafter! I'll post some of my creations in a future post!
That brings us up to this summer. I'm still working days at the CDC, but I got a part time job for evening and weekends selling tickets at the Voyager's games. The Voyagers are a minor league team affiliated with the White Sox. It's a pretty short gig, 53 games from the end of June to the beginning of September. I've only worked 3 games so far, but it seems like it will be fun and it will be great to have that extra play money! I sit in the ticket booth for a couple of hours and then can get into the games for free!
Next week, the 4th of July, will be our 2nd anniversary! We are celebrating again with the 3rd Annual 4th of July BBQ! I'd like to keep the tradition going and have a BBQ every year. I got Jake lots of Trans Am related gifts, some vinyl decals shaped like the firebird emblem, a nice metal sign with all 4 generations of the Firebird, a neon Pontiac clock, a Trans Am coffee table book, and a Fossil Chicago Cubs wallet. They are slowly being delivered and I'm so bad at keeping presents a secret that I've been giving them to him as they arrive. He already stuck one of the firebird stickers on his laptop and loves the metal sign! The book and clock should arrive today!
Now that you are updated, here come the photos!
I got the job! I'm working at the CDC (Child Development Center) on base. In fact, I've been working there for about 16 months! It's a great job and wonderful to be able to work on base, but it's not quite what I had in mind for myself when I went to college to get a math degree. But at this time, it works for me! I work in the 1 year old room and have decided that age is the absolute CUTEST age for kiddos! But don't worry, no little Maggies or Jakes will be running around any time soon!
We are still loving the house in Montana! Last summer we did some work inside. We painted the living room and guest bedroom, and did quite a bit of work in the bathroom. Each room will later have individual before/after posts.
As for the rest of our summer, we pretty much hung around Great Falls. We ventured to a few other cities in Montana, and each of us got to go home for a visit, but my visit was for a funeral, so it wasn't exactly a fun trip. I did still get to see the family and feel the Missouri humidity for a few days!
In August Jake left for a deployment to Afghanistan. He was gone for 7 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days...not that I kept track or anything! Really though, the time did fly by! I have a great group of friends in Montana that kept me pretty busy! I'll post photos of some of our fun events!
My friend Jamie's husband was also deployed so we joined Weight Watchers together and both lost a lot of weight! I lost 26.8 lbs total. I'll admit that I gained a little back since he got home, but I'm still feeling good about it!
Jake bought me a kindle! I love it! I used it all the time while we was gone, and even joined a book club, but for some reason now that he's home, I just don't get the time to read as much.
Jake got home in April...and he got straight to work on his baby...his 2000 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. Honestly, I'm glad he has that thing because while he is in the garage, I can work on my own hobbies....sewing and now card making. Jamie sells Stampin' Up products so I've become a papercrafter! I'll post some of my creations in a future post!
That brings us up to this summer. I'm still working days at the CDC, but I got a part time job for evening and weekends selling tickets at the Voyager's games. The Voyagers are a minor league team affiliated with the White Sox. It's a pretty short gig, 53 games from the end of June to the beginning of September. I've only worked 3 games so far, but it seems like it will be fun and it will be great to have that extra play money! I sit in the ticket booth for a couple of hours and then can get into the games for free!
Next week, the 4th of July, will be our 2nd anniversary! We are celebrating again with the 3rd Annual 4th of July BBQ! I'd like to keep the tradition going and have a BBQ every year. I got Jake lots of Trans Am related gifts, some vinyl decals shaped like the firebird emblem, a nice metal sign with all 4 generations of the Firebird, a neon Pontiac clock, a Trans Am coffee table book, and a Fossil Chicago Cubs wallet. They are slowly being delivered and I'm so bad at keeping presents a secret that I've been giving them to him as they arrive. He already stuck one of the firebird stickers on his laptop and loves the metal sign! The book and clock should arrive today!
Now that you are updated, here come the photos!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Easy Beef Burritos
I'm a lame blogger. I haven't posted in over a year, but I finally have internet at home, so I'm planning to try to get back into blogging.
As my first post back, I would like to start off with an awesome easy recipe. Jake found this crockpot recipe and it became a new favorite.
Ingredients:
2-3 lb boneless beef chuck shoulder
large jar of salsa
flour tortillas
optional toppings (we had shredded cheese and sour cream)
Directions:
Cook beef and salsa in a crockpot for 8-10 hours on medium heat.
Take beef out and pull apart with two forks, then mix back in the salsa.
Cook another 2 hours on high. (we only cooked an additional 30 minutes because we were hungry!)
Serve on tortillas with your choice of toppings.
As my first post back, I would like to start off with an awesome easy recipe. Jake found this crockpot recipe and it became a new favorite.
Ingredients:
2-3 lb boneless beef chuck shoulder
large jar of salsa
flour tortillas
optional toppings (we had shredded cheese and sour cream)
Directions:
Cook beef and salsa in a crockpot for 8-10 hours on medium heat.
Take beef out and pull apart with two forks, then mix back in the salsa.
Cook another 2 hours on high. (we only cooked an additional 30 minutes because we were hungry!)
Serve on tortillas with your choice of toppings.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
I'm still here!
Don't worry folks. I know you were all so very worried that I hadn't posted in two and a half months, but I didn't quit blogging, I just haven't had internet. Here is a quick update on what has been going on in my life since Thanksgiving. Since I'm using the Library internet, I can't post photos, but those will come soon!
Right after Thanksgiving, the movers came to our apartment in Italy and packed up our stuff and sent it to Montana. Luckily, the big couch belongs to the landlord so we at least had something to sleep on instead of the floor!
On December 8th, I flew to Missouri to stay with my parents. First place I ate...St. Louis Bread Co! (better known to those who don't live in Missouri as Panera Bread) I spent those weeks before Christmas playing with my nieces, helping my friend Shannon plan her wedding, and looking for Jake's Christmas present (more info coming later!)
On December 22nd, Jake was supposed to fly home, but Italy got a freak snowstorm and his plane couldn't land on the base. Luckily, the snow melted quickly and the plane did come the next day. He made it home on Christmas Eve. Yay!
Christmas Day we opened presents in the morning at my brother's house. We were completely finished opening present and were just starting to dig into the cinnamon rolls, when there was a knock on the door...and in walked the present I got for Jake. A boxer puppy! Jake got a boxer puppy as a High School graduation present but since he had joined the military, the dog (Diesel) had been living with his mom. Jake had planned to take Diesel to Montana with us, but sadly, he died in October. I knew Jake was pretty bummed and he had even talked about looking for a boxer puppy. I convinced him that we should wait until January to start looking so I could surprise him with one on Christmas morning. Jake loves the puppy and also named this one Diesel. He is a beautiful full breed brindle boxer. (The puppy story isn't over yet...more later!)
Christmas afternoon we drove down to Jake's mom's house. We spent a few days there, visiting his family and friends. Then on December 29th the movers came to pick up my stuff from storage to send to Montana. Another highlight of our time in Missouri was going to the Zac Brown Band Concert on December 30th. I can't even remember the last time I went to a concert and this one was very good!
On New Year's Eve, we spent a quiet night at my parent's house. We had an early day planned for the next day, so we were in bed by 10. New Year's Day, we dropped off the dog for the breeder to baby-sit because we drove across the state to my grandparent's for the extended family Christmas get-together. When we came back that night, we sat and talked with the breeder for awhile. She told us she wasn't having any luck getting the runt sold, and even mentioned that if she didn't have him sold by that Tuesday, she would probably give him away. Jake jumped right in and said "We'll take him!" Two dogs...yikes! (continued later)
We originally planned to leave for Montana on January 2nd, right after my niece's birthday party. We were planning to take both cars, the car I drove when I was living in Missouri, (which was being stored at my parents house) and Jake's truck that had been stored at his mom's house since he left for Korea 4 years ago. Needless to say, his truck needed some work, which took a couple extra days than expected, so we weren't quite ready to leave for Montana until January 6th.
Meanwhile, the breeder still hadn't sold the runt...so the day before we left, we stopped by and got ourselves a second puppy. This one we named Campbell (we were so thankful about getting a free full-bred boxer that we named him after the breeder's last name)
We packed up both cars and headed off to Montana on the 6th. Now, if we had left on the 2nd we would have had fantastic clear weather and made it there in 2 days. But, since we didn't leave until the 6th, we hit a snowstorm before we even made it to Kansas City and ended up traveling about 10 mph while heading north from Kansas City to Sioux Falls, SD. We already had reservations for a pet room at a hotel in Sioux Falls so we were determined to make it there that first night. We really should not have been on the roads, but we made it, at 1 am, but we made it!
The next morning, we found out they had closed I-90 across SD, so we didn't even try to find an alternate route, we just stayed at the hotel another night. On the 8th, the roads were clear so we headed for Buffalo, WY. No bad weather so we made it easily. Our last day of travel, the 9th, we drove the rest of the way to Great Falls, MT and arrived at about 4pm. We checked into the hotel on base, which only has 3 pet rooms which were already occupied, so we took the puppies to a kennel downtown. I hated leaving them while they were so young, but we went to visit them everyday.
On the first day of in-processing, we checked with housing to see how soon we could get a house on base. The housing on base is brand new and very nice, but since we have no kids, we were only authorized for a 2 bedroom house. The list for people in line for a two bedroom house is about 70 people long! Since Jake is an NCO, it bumped us up to #33, but that was still a 4-5 month wait. No way were we going to stay in the hotel that long, or rent an apartment for a few months (the only apartment's available that would allow dogs were pretty scummy looking) so we started looking to buy a house. Before we even left Italy, we had talked about buying a house, but we wanted to live in the area for awhile before buying, so we had planned to live on base for a few months, then start looking for a house. We decided to instead start looking right away, and if there was nothing we fell in love with, we would wait it out in a crappy apartment.
We got our approval from the bank and got connected with a great realtor. He showed us over 20 houses in just 3 afternoons. We knew we wanted a house with at least 3 bedrooms and 2 baths and that did not need a lot of updates. We also preferred that it have a fenced in back yard for the dogs and a large garage because Jake recently bought a third car to use as his "project car." On the second day we viewed a great house that had a very nice updated kitchen and a 2 car garage with extra space for a workshop. The house is small, but it has a fully finished basement and a TALL fence in the backyard!
After looking at the other houses, we decided the smaller house with the bigger garage was perfect for us! We are closing on the 19th! We really wanted to get out of the hotel on base and didn't want to keep paying to keep the dogs in the kennel, and the home owner had already moved to a different home in town, so we convinced him to let us rent for a few weeks until the closing date. We moved in on Saturday, our shipment from Italy came yesterday, and my shipment from Missouri comes tomorrow! The boys love the backyard and now we can really crack down on this potty training thing!
I had an interview for a job today and I'm really hoping I get it. I'm ready to have my own money again. I really hate asking Jake for money everytime I want to get a new pair of jeans, or pick up a few groceries, or buy decorations for the house. I should know by the end of next week if I got it, but I'm going to continue applying at other places in the meantime. Wish me luck!
As I promised earlier, I will post photos once we get internet at the house. Photos of the puppies, of the house, of Montana, of my new life as a military wife at Great Falls, Montana!
Right after Thanksgiving, the movers came to our apartment in Italy and packed up our stuff and sent it to Montana. Luckily, the big couch belongs to the landlord so we at least had something to sleep on instead of the floor!
On December 8th, I flew to Missouri to stay with my parents. First place I ate...St. Louis Bread Co! (better known to those who don't live in Missouri as Panera Bread) I spent those weeks before Christmas playing with my nieces, helping my friend Shannon plan her wedding, and looking for Jake's Christmas present (more info coming later!)
On December 22nd, Jake was supposed to fly home, but Italy got a freak snowstorm and his plane couldn't land on the base. Luckily, the snow melted quickly and the plane did come the next day. He made it home on Christmas Eve. Yay!
Christmas Day we opened presents in the morning at my brother's house. We were completely finished opening present and were just starting to dig into the cinnamon rolls, when there was a knock on the door...and in walked the present I got for Jake. A boxer puppy! Jake got a boxer puppy as a High School graduation present but since he had joined the military, the dog (Diesel) had been living with his mom. Jake had planned to take Diesel to Montana with us, but sadly, he died in October. I knew Jake was pretty bummed and he had even talked about looking for a boxer puppy. I convinced him that we should wait until January to start looking so I could surprise him with one on Christmas morning. Jake loves the puppy and also named this one Diesel. He is a beautiful full breed brindle boxer. (The puppy story isn't over yet...more later!)
Christmas afternoon we drove down to Jake's mom's house. We spent a few days there, visiting his family and friends. Then on December 29th the movers came to pick up my stuff from storage to send to Montana. Another highlight of our time in Missouri was going to the Zac Brown Band Concert on December 30th. I can't even remember the last time I went to a concert and this one was very good!
On New Year's Eve, we spent a quiet night at my parent's house. We had an early day planned for the next day, so we were in bed by 10. New Year's Day, we dropped off the dog for the breeder to baby-sit because we drove across the state to my grandparent's for the extended family Christmas get-together. When we came back that night, we sat and talked with the breeder for awhile. She told us she wasn't having any luck getting the runt sold, and even mentioned that if she didn't have him sold by that Tuesday, she would probably give him away. Jake jumped right in and said "We'll take him!" Two dogs...yikes! (continued later)
We originally planned to leave for Montana on January 2nd, right after my niece's birthday party. We were planning to take both cars, the car I drove when I was living in Missouri, (which was being stored at my parents house) and Jake's truck that had been stored at his mom's house since he left for Korea 4 years ago. Needless to say, his truck needed some work, which took a couple extra days than expected, so we weren't quite ready to leave for Montana until January 6th.
Meanwhile, the breeder still hadn't sold the runt...so the day before we left, we stopped by and got ourselves a second puppy. This one we named Campbell (we were so thankful about getting a free full-bred boxer that we named him after the breeder's last name)
We packed up both cars and headed off to Montana on the 6th. Now, if we had left on the 2nd we would have had fantastic clear weather and made it there in 2 days. But, since we didn't leave until the 6th, we hit a snowstorm before we even made it to Kansas City and ended up traveling about 10 mph while heading north from Kansas City to Sioux Falls, SD. We already had reservations for a pet room at a hotel in Sioux Falls so we were determined to make it there that first night. We really should not have been on the roads, but we made it, at 1 am, but we made it!
The next morning, we found out they had closed I-90 across SD, so we didn't even try to find an alternate route, we just stayed at the hotel another night. On the 8th, the roads were clear so we headed for Buffalo, WY. No bad weather so we made it easily. Our last day of travel, the 9th, we drove the rest of the way to Great Falls, MT and arrived at about 4pm. We checked into the hotel on base, which only has 3 pet rooms which were already occupied, so we took the puppies to a kennel downtown. I hated leaving them while they were so young, but we went to visit them everyday.
On the first day of in-processing, we checked with housing to see how soon we could get a house on base. The housing on base is brand new and very nice, but since we have no kids, we were only authorized for a 2 bedroom house. The list for people in line for a two bedroom house is about 70 people long! Since Jake is an NCO, it bumped us up to #33, but that was still a 4-5 month wait. No way were we going to stay in the hotel that long, or rent an apartment for a few months (the only apartment's available that would allow dogs were pretty scummy looking) so we started looking to buy a house. Before we even left Italy, we had talked about buying a house, but we wanted to live in the area for awhile before buying, so we had planned to live on base for a few months, then start looking for a house. We decided to instead start looking right away, and if there was nothing we fell in love with, we would wait it out in a crappy apartment.
We got our approval from the bank and got connected with a great realtor. He showed us over 20 houses in just 3 afternoons. We knew we wanted a house with at least 3 bedrooms and 2 baths and that did not need a lot of updates. We also preferred that it have a fenced in back yard for the dogs and a large garage because Jake recently bought a third car to use as his "project car." On the second day we viewed a great house that had a very nice updated kitchen and a 2 car garage with extra space for a workshop. The house is small, but it has a fully finished basement and a TALL fence in the backyard!
After looking at the other houses, we decided the smaller house with the bigger garage was perfect for us! We are closing on the 19th! We really wanted to get out of the hotel on base and didn't want to keep paying to keep the dogs in the kennel, and the home owner had already moved to a different home in town, so we convinced him to let us rent for a few weeks until the closing date. We moved in on Saturday, our shipment from Italy came yesterday, and my shipment from Missouri comes tomorrow! The boys love the backyard and now we can really crack down on this potty training thing!
I had an interview for a job today and I'm really hoping I get it. I'm ready to have my own money again. I really hate asking Jake for money everytime I want to get a new pair of jeans, or pick up a few groceries, or buy decorations for the house. I should know by the end of next week if I got it, but I'm going to continue applying at other places in the meantime. Wish me luck!
As I promised earlier, I will post photos once we get internet at the house. Photos of the puppies, of the house, of Montana, of my new life as a military wife at Great Falls, Montana!
Thursday, November 26, 2009
What I'm Thankful For
It's Thanksgiving and as always, I stuffed myself! We went over to Betsy and Jason's house. Since none of us has ever hosted a Thanksgiving dinner, Betsy was daring enough to take on making the turkey and the rest of us brought a few side dishes. I took my Grandma Jack's Sweet Milk Rolls and the Thanksgiving standard Green Bean Casserole.Well, on to the traditional "What I'm Thankful For" speech.
- Most of all, I'm thankful that even though we are in a foreign country, we still had the chance to spend the holiday with family. My sister, brother-in-law, and niece are here visiting!
- I'm thankful that Jake and I are finally married. We are both really enjoying married life.
- I'm thankful for my new friends here in Italy that have become like family to me, and glad we were able to share the task of making Thanksgiving dinner together.
- I'm thankful for the health and happiness of our friends and family.
- I'm thankful that we are heading to Montana in January, it was on of our top bases of choice!
- I'm thankful that we will be in Missouri in December and will get to spend Christmas & New Year's with our families.
- I'm thankful to see Shannon in two weeks to talk wedding plans!
Here's wishing that you also have a lot to be thankful for today!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
ACES BCAW
Haha...that stands for Aviano Community of Enlisted Spouses and Breast Cancer Awareness Walk. When I first joined ACES back in August, they were talking about planning their annual BCAW. I knew I would only be here until December, but I also knew I wanted to get into at least 1 committee while I was in Aviano, to add to my resume to show that even though I didn't have a job while living in Italy, I did volunteer my time. Well, the BCAW committee seemed like the perfect opportunity, since this event traditionally took place during October (BCA month)
My friend Meagan and I both joined the committee and got started right away, designing flyers, designing and ordering t-shirts, rounding up volunteers, etc. We chose two possible dates to hold the walk. The base kept telling us they could not approve our dates for the walk yet. The president of ACES was calling everyday to check on the status and was always told it would be just a few more days until it could be approved. Well, our first possible date passed, then our second possible date passed. Finally once October was almost over, we found out the event was approved for November 7th, and we had 2 weeks to pull it all together!
We had a few frantic days of changing and printing off flyers, then rounding up volunteers again to pass out flyers at the base BX, finding donations of water and granola bars, gathering decorations and supplies used in past years, and rounding up more volunteers to bake muffins and cookies. It was a busy few weeks, but we made it and had a fantastic event! Lots of people made it out for 8am on a Saturday morning and we raised over $4200! YAY ACES! And a big thank you to Jake, who came with me at 6:30 that morning to set up tables!
My friend Meagan and I both joined the committee and got started right away, designing flyers, designing and ordering t-shirts, rounding up volunteers, etc. We chose two possible dates to hold the walk. The base kept telling us they could not approve our dates for the walk yet. The president of ACES was calling everyday to check on the status and was always told it would be just a few more days until it could be approved. Well, our first possible date passed, then our second possible date passed. Finally once October was almost over, we found out the event was approved for November 7th, and we had 2 weeks to pull it all together!
We had a few frantic days of changing and printing off flyers, then rounding up volunteers again to pass out flyers at the base BX, finding donations of water and granola bars, gathering decorations and supplies used in past years, and rounding up more volunteers to bake muffins and cookies. It was a busy few weeks, but we made it and had a fantastic event! Lots of people made it out for 8am on a Saturday morning and we raised over $4200! YAY ACES! And a big thank you to Jake, who came with me at 6:30 that morning to set up tables!
Bavarian Chicken
If you remember my Oktoberfest post, I LOVED the chicken we got there. We decided to try to make it, and found an incredibly easy recipe online. It said to stuff the inside with a huge handful of parsley and put lots of butter on the skin. How much easier could it be?
Well, again our Commissary failed and had absolutely no whole chicken, frozen or fresh. We decided to settle with a few frozen cornish game hens. We stuffed them full of parsley and rubbed butter all over them. It did taste good, but Jake thinks that was just because of all the butter on it. It still wasn't anywhere near as good as the Oktoberfest chicken.
I served it with french fries, just like they do at Oktoberfest, and the meal was incredibly filling, so we put the leftovers in the fridge. The next day the skins looked so wrinkly that I couldn't bring myself to eat it anymore. I don't know if I'll ever try to make it again with a big chicken. I might just let myself remember the chicken we had in Germany as the best chicken ever and never try to match it!
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