Nice Long Weekend

I feel like I haven't posted in a really long time but at least our time was being spent well! Friday morning Deaner and I took off for Garmish in hopes of escaping the heat for the long holiday weekend. It has been relentlessly hot in Wiesbaden the past week and we were really looking forward to some cooler mountain air and the luxury of AC in an American hotel. Well, traffic was HORRENDOUS on the way down and it took a lot longer to get there than we anticipated. Oh well, there was nothing we could do about it right? After we got checked in I was disappointed to figure out that this American hotel DID NOT have AC! How un-American can you get?? I guess I never realized this because we have always stayed here during the winter! Again, not a deal breaker because it was actually much cooler there anyways. The view from our room was quite nice.Friday night we ate dinner at the hotel (Deaner could eat 3984 of their chicken wings if they would serve him that many) and it was a semi early night because Deaner wanted to wake up on Saturday morning and go hiking. He picked a trail where he could hike for several hours and then I could take the gondala and meet him at the top for lunch, since there was no way in hell I was going to be hiking along side of him. He took off around 9 and I met him around 12:15pm for lunch. My hike was a bit shorter.The gondola dropped me off right at that silver building behind me and I literally had to walk about 20ft to the restaurant. I am embaressed to report how winded I was when I got there. Deaner was laughing his butt off at me but the air is SO thin up there that there wasn't much I could do about it. I was breathing harder just sitting up there and eating lunch! The views were spectacular and totally worth all the heavy breathing!Deaner was very happy after two of these!Check out that BELLY! Holy Moly, how do I have 7 weeks of growing left to do? I'm going to explode by the end!And lastly, someone offered to take a picture of both of us and we agreed since this rarely happens. Again, I'm huge.The rest of the weekend was a lot of fun as well. We visited a local brewery we had been to before and even watched the German soccer game in a very random setting of all Germans, which was very weird. Deaner got the times of the soccer games mixed up so while we are on our way to the brewery he realized that it had just started. He immediately pulled over at the first guesthouse he saw and asked if they had the game on. When we went in to watch, about 15 Germans just stared at us. It was like we were walking into someone's living room to watch the game with them and I was NOT pleased about it. Thankfully we left as soon as it was over.

We got home last evening and it was still super hot in our town. This prompted a mini nervous breakdown that I think freaked Deaner out a little bit but it was just so hot and I was over it. Thankfully with a fan pointed directly on me, I was able to sleep as well as you can when you get up 8 times a night. Today I have hit the commissary, had lunch with Deaner, done laundry and started filling up my swimming pool. I will have to post about that tomorrow because it is taking a REALLY long time to fill up! Hope everyone had a great long weekend!! Here's to a short week!

Doctor's Appointment

This morning when I woke up I was super excited to head to the doctor's office. Thankfully Deaner was able to wrap up his meeting early and he made it too. Everything with Evans looks great and he now weighs about 4.5 pounds. I'm still supposed to take it easy and the doctor thinks that I will probably not make it to term. She said that if she had to guess I will make it until about 37 weeks which is completely fine with me. That means that Evans could be here in FIVE WEEKS! That is hard to believe. Deaner has two more business trips that he needs to take coming up and she told him that he needed to do it in the next two weeks and after that he needs to be home. That is a bit nerve wracking!! I have now gained 16.3 pounds and I can certainly tell!

After my appointment Deaner and I had a nice lunch downtown. It is always nice being able to have lunch afterwards and talk about the baby! Afterwards Deaner headed back to the office and I went and picked up Steph and Jon to give them a lift to Ikea. Their car is totalled and Steph wanted to buy a desk for their house. I dropped them off at Ikea and went across the parking lot to Toys R Us to look for a baby pool. I figured it might be fun to have one on our back patio to cool off in during this hot days! This is what I came up with!It is a 12ft round pool that holds 1500 gallons of water and even has a pump!! Jackpot!! I even bought 2 rafts to float around on! I really wish I could have set it up today but unfortunately it was a little late by the time I got home, we are going out of town tomorrow so it seemed sort of stupid AND we didn't have a hose. Deaner bought one at the base before he came home tonight so I will have one bright and early on Tuesday morning to go to work filling my pool up! I can't wait! Let's hope the weather stays nice! Now maybe I can make my tan last a little bit longer! Without suffering from heat stroke! I'll make sure to post pictures.

Tomorrow we are heading to the mountains. I am happy that we chose this weekend since it is supposed to be 95 degrees in our town. Yikes! I'm pretty sure we would melt in temps like that! I hope that everyone has a great 4th of July weekend! This is one of our favorite holidays and I am sad not to be at home going to my parent's lake house but since we will be at an American facility this weekend, there will be a fireworks show at least! Happy 4th!!!!!!!

How to beat the heat

I know that yesterday I was complaining about the heat but I came up with a temporary solution yesterday afternoon. I was in desperate need of something cold to drink and I really wanted a smoothie. We had frozen strawberries and frozen peaches in the freezer from back when I went through a smoothie stage about six months ago but nothing else. Then I found a bottle of V8 Splash Strawberry Kiwi juice from back when all I wanted to do was drink 8 gallons of juice a day early in my pregnancy. I figured I would just try and make a smoothie with these three ingredients and see what happened. I didn't use ice because the fruit was frozen and holy moly was it good.It tasted just as good, if not better, than any smoothie I have ever had at Smoothie King or Planet Smoothie back at home. I have had three since my discovery yesterday and now I am out of all my ingredients!! I know that there is probably not much nutritional value to my new discovery but I don't care because they taste so good! Now I know what I will be stocking up on at the commissary next week!

I head to the doctor in the morning and I am really looking forward to it. Should be fun to see baby Evans again. He has been moving up a storm and is pretty happy to keep me hobbling to the bathroom 7-8 times a night. Hard to believe he could be here in 8 weeks! Or earlier! But hopefully not later!!!

Holy Heatwave

Remember all winter when I whined and moaned and groaned about how cold and wet and dreary it was here in Germany? Someone please smack me now! It is HOT in Germany right now. The car temperature gauge said 107 when I got in it after lunch (yes, I know that this was in no way accurate but still.....). My best guess is that it is around 88-90 degrees here and it has been like this for a week or so now. Now before all you Atlantan family members start reminding me that there is currently a heat index of over 100 in Atlanta right now let me take a minute to remind y'all of a few things.

1. Our house is not air conditioned. Yes, we have lovely marble floors that like to remain cool all winter but that is just not working in our house right now.

2. Our house is 4 full floors. I could say 5 floors if I wanted to count the split levels but for the sake of arguement, I'll say 4. Our bedroom is on the 3rd floor. Heat rises.

3. I am currently 1 day shy of being 8 months pregnant. I haven't complained much about being pregnant because everything for the most part has been great so far. But now I am officially HUGE and therefore, I am hot. Enough said.

So, while I am enjoying seeing the sun and all, I just wanted to point out that even though it is not as hot here as it is at home, it is still uncomfortably warm. My solutions for the day have been simple. I stayed in our bedroom (which has the most glorious portable AC unit known to man) until it was time for me to meet Deaner for lunch. From lunch I went to the airfield to mail a package (post office = not air conditioned, thus almost passed out). Then to the PX to get Deaner some new sunglasses. While I love him dearly, I can't stand that the glasses he is currently wearing are being held together with actual silver duct tape.I'm not exactly sure how they broke but there is a reason that I am allowed to wear expensive Ray-Bans while he wears $17.99 Foster Grants from the PX! :) From there I went to the air conditioned commissary where I managed to spend $50 on mainly liquids. We now have enough water, gatorade, snapple and diet cherry coke to last us thru this heat wave. And maybe a couple boxes of Mac & Cheese that I have been loving so much. Finally, after working up a sweat carrying all those drinks up to our drink fridge, I am back in our bedroom with the AC blasting right on me. About two hours til Deaner returns home from the gym and then I will be forced to sit downstairs for a bit and eat dinner. I'm hoping that this heat lets up soon!! Happy Tuesday!

It's Been Awhile

I didn't really have any intention of not blogging the latter part of last week but it just happened that way! We had a lot going on it felt like and I just didn't get around to it. So now I have lots to update y'all on. Thursday I drove over to a much larger base than where we live and met a fellow blogger, Casey, from Ever Changing Life of a Military Wife for lunch. We had never met before even though we have become friends via gchat (I know it sounds weird) and we decided it was time to meet before she moves to Turkey next week. Lunch was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed meeting her and her friend Sarah. They were neither lame nor weird! :)

Unfortunately when I got in the car to head back home I had a message letting me know that Deaner's sweet grandfather, Pa-pa, had passed away. He had been sick and we knew it was coming but it never matters once it happens because it is still sad. Pa-pa was a great man and he will be greatly missed by his wife, three daughters, six grandchildren, two great grandchilden and the two great grandchildren that are still on the way.Deaner and I were really sad that we weren't able to be home with the family this weekend for his funeral but it just wasn't feasible. Everyone say a little prayer for Deaner's family this week if you have a chance.

Friday was a pretty fun day as well. I met Deaner for lunch and picked up some packages that were delivered to me. The diaper pail that gave me so much anxiety arrived and now I don't have to think about it anymore! Deaner was at the BMW dealership later that afternoon and came home with this AWESOME toy for Evans.He said he couldn't resist and I think that it is just about as cute as it gets. Plus it is perfectly appropriate for us living here in Germany! There is no denying that our child will be stylish!

Friday night we had dinner with a friend of ours whose family is at home right now in the States without him. It was an early night because we had to get up early on Saturday morning for our wine buying trip to France! Steph and Jon came over around 9am and we ventured out for our adventure. We made it to Cora, which is basically like a Wal-Mart, right over the French border in a couple of hours. Once there we started loading up on French wines. It was a lot of fun and we all left with some great loot. Since it was our first trip we will see how we like our selections and alter it for next time we head there. We came home with 58 bottles of wine to add to our collection! I had every intention of snapping a shot of our "wine cellar" but I'm just too tired now to go back downstairs. Sorry! Sunday was relaxing and we didn't do much. It is starting to get hot in Germany which means that I am starting to move slower and slower with this belly. God help me over the next two months!

Today has been a productive Monday. I got up and went over to Steph's house and got my roots touched up. Thank goodness. Then we went and ate at our favorite place, Vapiano. YUM! Now I am home and on the couch! Of course I am doing laundry too but I am dreading have to get up to fold it when the dryer beeps! I hope that everyone had a great weekend and here's to a quick week!! I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday and then we are heading to the mountains for the long weekend!!!

31 Week Baby Bump

31 weeks today and here is what I look like! Since I actually got up early this morning, showered, dressed and was out the door by 9:30am I figured it was a good time to take another picture. Especially because I was wearing black and don't look AS huge! I have to admit though, when I took this I hadn't eaten anything yet. I took another picture after lunch that I will post in a second. I met Deaner over at the hospital we are planning to deliver at, at 10am this morning. The patient liasion from the base met us there to give us a tour. It was extremely helpful and I am super glad that we did it. The biggest difference from the States seems to be the size. I am used to Atlanta, where Northside Hospital delivers 14,000 babies a year, more than any hospital in the country. Whenever I have visited people there it is a maze to find them and the size is totally overwhelming. This hospital's maternity ward was contained to one hall!! I couldn't believe it. But it was really nice and I think I will be happy there. The big bonus? AC in the delivery room. This is a must in my book! I'll probably die when they move me to my real room and maybe I will have to beg to stay in the delivery room! :)

I was also able to pre-register at the hospital today. Thank goodness they let me do it while I was there because the next appointment available was July 26th! I would have been a nervous wreck waiting until then. Plus, I wouldn't have had the translator with me and it would have been much harder. I felt a million times better when we left the hospital and I think that Deaner did too. Now we know what to do and where to go when the time comes. After our tour we had a quick lunch by Deaner's office so he could get back to work. He has to leave work at 3:30pm so he can get home in time for the US vs. Algeria game today! When I got home I realized how much bigger my belly was so I snapped another shot!Wouldn't y'all say that the belly grew over the course of a few hours! Oh well, I guess it is getting to be about that time! As of last week I had gained 14 pounds and I am starting to wonder just how much more I am going to pack on before Evans arrives.

Yesterday I realized that I did not have a laundry basket for Evans room yet. I quickly got online and was excited to find this liner on Pottery Barn Kids, on sale, for $5.99!I had Evans' name monogrammed on it in royal blue and bought a plain white hamper at the PX to go with it. The monogram actually cost more than the liner did but I think it is cute and worth it. Can't wait for it to arrive! My mom also sent me this picture of the cutest outfit ever that my sweet Aunt Kay sent for Evans. I think it will be perfect for the 4th of July next summer! What do y'all think?ADORABLE! My mom will bring it when she comes in August. Thanks Aunt Kay and Uncle Frank!

Anyways, I am off for a quick rest before the soccer frenzy starts again. The US plays at 4pm and Germany at 8:30pm. Our neighborhood is probably going to get ROWDY! Let's just hope that Germany wins this time! And this is the last chance for the US. Happy Humpday!!

A Lot of Nothing

Not having a project or a chore to do during the day really makes the day go by slowly! Whew! I really have to make more of an effort on days like this just to get out of the house. However, I was semi productive today with a few things. I spoke with my doctor and she agreed to TRY to deliver Evans if she could. I have to understand that there is a chance she won't be able to make it because of her own children at home and I think I can live with that. I'll just hope for the best. Secondly, I found out that I could schedule a tour of the hospital thru the base with a patient liasion even though we don't have the same insurance as military families. Deaner and I are going to see the hospital tomorrow morning at 10:00am and I am hoping that the patient liasion can help me set up an appointment to pre-register with the hospital. Who knew that there was so much stuff that went into having a baby? I seriously was under the impression that you went into labor and just showed up at the hospital. Not so much. Thirdly, I called the pediatrician that I want to use and asked what all I needed to do prior to Evans arriving. Thankfully I don't have to do anything!! I just have to call when he is born and set up an appointment! That is a relief!

Besides that, I haven't done much today. Just waiting for Deaner to come home from work. I'm sure there are some soccer games on TV tonight! Gag! Deaner and I have planned a wine buying trip to France for this Saturday. Steph and Jon are going to join us and I am really looking forward to it. Don't ask me why, since I can't even drink it but I guess I am looking forward to stock piling it for when I can drink again! Plus, we can eat at Chili's on the way back to Wiesbaden!! Buying wine in France and eat at Chili's don't really go hand and hand but see if I care!!

Anyways, I'm off. Hope everyone has a good Tuesday!