Easter Vacation

Emmy had a nice week-and-a-half long break around Easter (remember, Poland is a VERY Catholic country!), so we took off for Germany! I really wanted to dress my kids up in their new Easter clothes and go to church in English. Some of our friends stationed in Germany said they would be home over Easter weekend and invited us to come see them.  We went to Wofford with Michaele, and then she married Josh, who is in the Air Force.  They were stationed in Kansas for half of our time at Ft. Leavenworth, so we got to know Josh (both are them also are from Greenville) and Emmy and Anabel got to be friends. I don't think I posted a lot during the Kansas year, but they are our friends who offered to keep Emmy when Charles and I flew to Colorado to house hunt.

Matthew had some rockin' hair on day one of our trip. Had to capture
some photographic evidence during a pit stop at, yes, McDonald's. 

Anyways, Emmy was off the Thursday and Friday before Easter, so Charles worked Thursday while the sitter came and I packed, had one more girls lunch with my lunch bunch (one of the five of us is very pregnant  and we thought baby might come while I was gone, but as of today, he is 5 days past his due date and his mama is really ready for him to arrive!), and took the dog to the groomer so she was freshly coiffed for the pet sitter. (Funny side note, everyone calls the groomer the hair dresser for dogs in English, I guess groomer does not translate well to Polish. It makes me giggle every time someone says it, but I guess that's really what it is!)

New friends! 

Old friends! 

Friday morning, we got up early and were on the road before 7:30 This is pretty impressive for us, we are not morning people. Our goal was 6:30, but hey, we were only a little less than an hour off our mark! The kids did well in the car and we made good time. We pulled into our first stop for the night, Ramstein Air Force Base, right at 5 pm. We have old friends from the Army that are stationed in that area, so we stopped there to spend the night and have dinner with them. We have not seen them in I think eight years? When Charles joined the 63rd, his first unit out of Officer Basic Course, he took Jared's place in the Company when Jared moved up to the Battalion staff. They deployed together that first time, then after we were married and I moved there, Lila and I became friends through the FRG. During their second deployment, Lila's fill in labor coach, Angela, (the woman who was our sponsor's wife for our move to Poland!) called Charles' work phone in Kuwait to tell him to get Jared, baby Lina was on the way, so Charles sat with Jared while they listed to her being born. I still remember him telling me this story.

We quickly checked into our room (the family lodging at Ramstein is amazing, we had a 3 bedroom apartment for the night) and then followed Jared to their house in a small village a 20 min or so drive away. It was lots of fun catching up, I really wish we'd had more time. Their girls are now 13 and 11 and Emmy had a good time playing with them. We stayed way too late, Matthew was spinning in circles on the kitchen floor (not upset, just tired and silly) by the time we left, but it was a fun evening.

Also, as a bit of explanation why our Army friends live near an Air Base, this area actually has something like 5 or 6 installations clustered fairly close together, some Army, some Air Force. Ramstein is the largest, Landstuhl is probably the one most of you have heard of since it has the big hospital where Soldiers (and Airmen and Marines) are usually air lifted if they have been seriously injured during a deployment. Jared actually works at a small Army post a little farther drive from where they live, but they chose to live where they do for the school.  Even as an Army spouse, and knowing lots of people stationed in Germany at different times, I did not fully realize how many installations there sometimes are in one area. I also don't fully understand why, but I'm sure there were reason when all of these installations were established after WWII.  When we go down to Grafenwoehr, there is another installation about 25 minutes away, and the two are connected by a tank trail. Our friends that are there now are actually stationed at Vilseck, but their boys attend the DoD school on Graf.  Usually one of the installations has more services, or you don't have the same services on each post or base. It all makes us actually quite grateful we are not stationed at a US installation. Yes, it is hard not to have access to medical services, a post office, PX, Commissary, etc, and I wish there was one a bit closer (like 2 hours away instead of 5+) BUT because we are in a bigger city, we actually have a lot more things at our finger tips. Most of the U.S. installations are in more remote areas, with smaller German towns nearby. In order to get to some of the things we have easy access to, they have to drive. It's a trade off for sure.

We slept in the next morning and went over to the Base Exchange for breakfast. That place is like a mall, I have never seen a PX/BX like it. There was a German bakery inside where we were able to have a yummy German breakfast (breads, butter, jams, honey, cold cuts, cheese, and in this case a boiled egg). We ran back to check out, then went to the post office to mail a few things, to the commissary, and back to the BX for shopping and lunch. We spent way too much money (things are often more expensive on the overseas posts/bases than in the US because they have to ship everything in) but it was nice to get a few things we wanted/needed without having to order them. After lunch in the food court, we headed out again.

After a short hour and a half drive, we arrived in Gindorf and Michaele and Josh's. They actually bought a house, a 200 year old house, in the tiny town near the base where they are stationed. It was so cute and full of character. They have a big horse barn next to it that they plan to renovate and add a small apartment to. There is a neat pond in the backyard and a nice yard for the kids to play.  We had a good time meeting their youngest two daughters and introducing them to Matthew. She was newly pregnant with Eliana when we left KS (and I was newly pregnant with Sara Hawley), and she is 2 1/2, and then Emalyn is a couple of months younger than Matthew. So we had five kids 6 and under together! Michaele cooked us some delicious enchiladas for supper and Charles made margaritas. The kids had a great time playing.

Finding where the EB hid baskets, and inspecting what he brought.

The next morning after the kids woke up to hunt Easter baskets. After breakfast, we headed to church on base, and after church we enjoyed a big Easter brunch spread at the Officers' Club. The Easter Bunny even stopped by during the event for a photo up. Fun!

Pre-church photo in their new Easter duds.

Matthew liked his new hat. 

Sweet friends after church.

A bowtie and suspenders, it's too much! I love dressing this boy up.

Family photo before lunch. 

Anabel, Emmy, and Eliana with the Easter Bunny. (Matthew was sleeping on Charles' shoulder, this is naptime for him!)

After naps, some other friends of theirs came over for an egg hunt and supper. They have four children, so it was a big fun crowd! The kids played, the adults enjoyed chatting, and Michaele cooked a yummy supper and her friend Lisa brought delicious desserts. It was a different Easter, being away from home, but it was definitely enjoyable.

The back of their gorgeous house and old horse barn.

Happy girl. 

Happy boy had so much fun! 

Matthew LOVED picking up eggs.

Check out this photo, I even got all the children looking at the camera! (Except for Eliana who was taking an EPIC nap, I thought my children were good sleepers, theirs are even more amazing).

The next morning we said our good-byes (it was not Easter break for Anabel, so she had to be off to the bus at 7:30) and headed on to the next part of our journey...Bruges!