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!

March came in like a lion...

He's so dapper.

Not really! I just thought "March update" sounded boring! Haha.

I'm not sure it came in like a lamb, either, but looking back at these photos we were obviously outside a bit more this month than had

Love these tulips 

from my favorite flower shop. 

become usual. The month was still overwhelmingly cool and cloudy, but at least we did not have the freezing cold temperatures of January and February. And there were a few nicer days sprinkled in.

Tulips were out in all the stores and flower shops, pansies began appearing at garden centers, it's beginning to feel like Spring finally! Snowdrops appeared in our yard, as did crocuses. The crocus festival took place in the Jasne Błonia the third weekend in March, though we did not attend (Emmy was sick on Saturday and then it rained on Sunday so we stayed home). Anyways, by the time we returned from our Easter break travels (more about that to come in future posts), it felt like Spring had actually arrived!

Saturday morning fun. Giddy-up! 

Charles was out of town again for the middle two weeks of the month.  We plugged along here at home. Tuesday the 8th was International Women's Day.  Here in Poland, women receive flowers from, well, lots of people! Emmy's classmates brought flowers for the girls, and for the children to bring home to their mothers. I saw people

Daddy makes a fun horse.

handing them out to ladies at the mall. My landlords brought a bouquet of tulips to me. What a lovely tradition! Some of my friends and I were discussing how this is something we should get behind in the U.S. and really play up this day, celebrating all women, rather than Mother's Day. Not that you shouldn't celebrate Mother's Day with your mom, but it seems to have become such hugely commercialized day with so much attention given to it, and yet it is a day that can be hard for a lot of people  who have lost their moms or children or who long to be a mother but cannot. (Speaking from experience).

 On Wednesday the 9th, I was able to attend a cooking class at culinary school. One of our friends set it up, and it was a lot of fun! The chef appeared on the Polish version of Top Chef or Master Chef, I'm not sure which, but after that he said there was a lot of interest so he opened this school. The cusine for the evening was "modern Polish fusion" and the food was delicious! I'm pretty sure we each ate 200 grams of butter a piece though, there was so much that went into the dishes!  The first course was a beet salad with goat cheese, the second course was a Jerusalem artichoke soup with  parsley pesto and bacon, the main course was cod with a pea puree, and the final course was a flour-less chocolate cake. Wow. I'm hungry thinking about it again! 

Walking to dinner in Old Town on the weekend when Daddy was home in between his trips. Such handsome dudes.

Look, Mama!

Strolling through the garden.

The next week the weather was a bit warmer a few days so Matthew and I enjoyed more time in the garden. He loves to pick up these tiny pine cones in the yard, and he found he has pockets. Time to check pockets when I wash clothes now!  

Snowdrops and Rags

St. Patrick's Day was a BEAUTIFUL day, and the kids enjoyed playing on the playground after school with some of their friends. 

Emmy, Freja, and Claire

Mark, Freja and Emmy

Sweet friends

Some days just call for fancy.

Trying on his new hat, again in the garden...

...picking up pine cones. This was over the weekend, you can see Daddy's hand so he was back home! 

Sunday morning breakfast. Eating European style, breads, cheese, meats, fruit, some pastry, yum! 

We missed the crocus festival since Emmy was sick, but I drove by one afternoon the following week to take a peak and snapped a couple of photos. Beautiful!

Crocuses in the Jasne Błonia. 

The end of March involves our Easter Break travels, so that's up next! 

Weekly updates

One of my friends here has a "blog" she posts on Facebook. She created a private group to update her friends and family about what they have been up to during their time in Poland. Each week She posts a little blurb, sometimes with a photo or two, just giving a brief run down of their goings on. It has made me realize that I'm missing out on sharing with you all more regularly the daily life here, and the cool things we get to do because we live in such a unique environment.

So, here's a promise to do that more often and not stay so bogged down in updating all that I've missed sharing the last few months. Better to move forward, huh? 

So, here was last week's fun! 

On Saturday the 23rd, our national general (we have just one here, it is actually not common for a non-framework nation to have a general in a NATO unit, but we added one this summer) and his wife hosted a New Year's reception at their home for all the US personnel. The New Year's Reception is an Army tradition, where commanders will hold a reception in their home around the first of the year. All the receptions we have attended in the past we dress blues attire, adults only events. This means Charles puts on his "fancy" uniform and I put on a nice church dress and we go at our assigned time (yes, there are usually assigned times to arrive and depart, the smaller groups give the commander better interaction with you and keeps the house from being too full at any one time). Charles calls events like this mandatory fun, but they can be fun, and it's a nice tradition, and I really like traditions. Anyways, even though he is not in a command position BG T. and his wife wanted to host a reception, which was lovely of them. Since there are only 19 personnel here, we had no assigned times and no dress blues, although coat and tie is still more formal than we usually get around here! We confirmed a baby-sitter, put on our Sunday best, and headed over for a nice couple of hours, and a lot of champagne. The servers kept coming around and refilling glasses! Fortunately, a friend drove. 

Saturday was also my mom's birthday, so we had a long Skype session with my parents when we got home. Emmy and Matthew had made mom a sign. Happy birthday, SuSu! 

Saturday night was movie night with "tapas" for supper. 
Emmy thinks eating in the living room is the best thing ever. Matthew was excited to eat olives.

Sunday, we met our Danish-American friends for ice skating. There is a little area about 15 minutes from us where there is a little ski slope, a skating rink (there are actually two other skating rinks between our house and this one!), and a sledding hill.  Emmy has been taking skating lessons at school, so we'd bought her a pair of skates (adjustable so they will last a couple of years, fabulous!). She falls down a lot, but she has fun. Our friends had other friends from Denmark in town, so all three families met and the girls (their daughter Freja is Emmy's age, and the other family has a daughter their age as well) and the dads skated. It was fun, and not too cold. We'd had a good bit of snow for this area and super cold weather the weeks leading up to it, so there was plenty of real snow to help out the artificial snow. Charles wants to go back and try out the ski slope, which is basically a bunny slope, so a great place for a newer skiier like Charles and Emmy to practice. Anyways, after skating the kids played on the hill in the snow for awhile, then we went to lunch at a traditional Polish place nearby. We'd never been, but the food was good and it's quite close to our house, so we'll have to go again.

Random photo: Matthew has discovered he loves the playground at Emmy's school. 

Monday, I started Polish lessons. Right now the instructor comes to our house and my friend Sarah and I are having lessons together.  Cross your fingers for me! I've got a long way to go, and I don't expect I'll be super conversational, but at least be able to pronounce things better and communicate a bit better when we're out and about.

Tuesday the Family Care Center hosted a "Disco" party for the kiddos, sort of a pre-Carnival (Mardi Gras) party. Emmy's age group party was right after school for about an hour and a half. Of course Matthew went to, and he had a great time dancing and watching the big kids. Plus there were balloons everywhere, the boy LOVES balloons. It is definitely a word in his vocabulary, though it sounds like "booon!"  

The friends I've mentioned over and over in this post have three daughters, and baby H is just four months old. She is frequently at our house in the mornings when her mom comes over for Polish lessons or just to hang out, and Matthew loves her. He likes to give her hugs and the other day, while she was laying on the floor, he kept bringing her toys. Yes, sometimes he dropped them on her, but his intentions were good! 

Friday night, Charles and I went to Poker Night at the home of our British friends.  I'd never played poker, but I did ok. I at least earned back what I'd put in the pot, so enough to pay for the cab ride home! Besides my photo of my cheat sheet, which I was worried they would take away from me eventually, I did not take any photos, but suffice to say we had a lovely time. I had a lot of wine and Charles had a lot of whatever he was drinking. Yay for great cab service! 

Saturday the Allied Ladies Club hosted Fastelavn, a Carnival Party, in the Danish tradition (the three framework  nations for MNC-NE are Denmark, Germany, and Poland, so the largest populations of families come from these three countries) for the kids. On Friday, I helped Danish Sarah (she is actually American but married to a Dane, hence I call them our Danish-American friends) make the traditional pastries for the party, Fastelavnsbolle, which basically means Lenten or Shrovetide buns. We made the dough, and then rolled them into balls which we stuffed with either marzipan or jam, and baked them. Then that night she piped pastry cream into them and topped them with chocolate or another frosting, depending on the filling. 

For the party, the kids dressed in costumes (Carnival is very big in lots of other countries, where in the US is it mainly Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and people dress in costumes for Carnival), Emmy wanted to be a ballerina and wear her fancy tights Santa brought her (that are not ballet tights, but whatever) and I just put Matthew in his bee costume from Halloween.  Well, Matthew won top prize in his age group for the boys and his pal Claire won as the girl in their age group! So fun!

This is the best picture I could get of the garden gnome and bumble bee winners.

Matthew taking his turn at hitting the "barrel"

There was a clown making balloon animals, giant bubbles (the kind where the kids stand in the middle and they make a bubble around them), dancing, lots of sweets and snacks in addition to the Fastelavnsbolle, and the big activity: slå katten af tønden, which directly translated means 'hit the cat out of the barrel. So apparently they used to put a cat into a wooden barrel and beat it with wooden sticks to get rid of the evil spirits. Yikes! Now they put candy in the barrels and beat them with small wooden bats. It's basically like a less safe pinata.  The littlest kids had a cardboard box to hit. They had three barrels, plus the cardboard box for the tiny ones. The child who made the candy fall out first was crowned queen and the child who knocked down the last piece of the barrel was crowned king. It was quite chilly, so we did not stay outside to see who won these honors. Emmy was too shy to participate, but we did get Matthew up for a turn, but he was not too interested in hitting the box, either. But it was interesting to watch for a bit! Plus, candy! 

Older age groups hitting their barrels. 

Claire takes a whack at it.

Emmy had a sleepover at Freja's house after the Fastelavn party, so we had quieter night at home, in preparation for Charles' birthday celebrations!  More to come on that next week. 

We rented a car! - Our Weekend trip to Bavaria

Hello everyone!

So, this weekend brought lots of excitement, fun, stress, and exhaustion. We rented a car! The Solid Gold Station Wagon. SGSW for short. Sadly, we forgot to take a picture of it before we turned it back in. Alas.

Quick picture of the front of our house.

First of all, remember Europe is much older than the U.S. So sometimes city streets are very narrow. And parking lots are very small. And parking garages are very tight. And in general driving in a new place is a bit stressful at first. So, when Charles picked up the car on Friday morning, he went out and drove around a bit by himself. Just getting it out of the parking garage was an interesting feat, and he quickly enacted the rule "no one talks while Daddy is parking the car in the parking garage."

After he had a quick drive in silence, we all trucked downstairs and loaded up car seats and headed out for an adventure. First we drove by our house! It is about a 10 min drive from where we are staying. Then, we drove by Charles' office so I could see where that is. It is about 3 km from our house, so a little less than 2 miles away. Then we drove by the school Emmy will attend.  Then we went to find the Tesco. It is a British grocery store chain and we are familiar with it, but were happy to learn from our sponsors that there are a couple in town. Angela suggested I do some of my first big shopping trips as I stock my pantry again at Tesco because things will also be in English, not just Polish. I'm not sure I can tell you how overwhelming it is to walk down a grocery store aisle and not be able to read any labels!  So we perused the Tesco and also found a couple of things we needed to stock up on for Rags, so that was a worthwhile trip.

Front of our house, the garage is to the left and the room over it
our landlord uses for storage. 

Just across the street from Tesco is a shopping area with a Media Market (Best Buy type place), Toys R Us, home store, and several other stores. It also has a Burger King and a couple other food places (ice cream, etc.)  There was a delicious smelling food truck outside, but we ended up eating at Burger King. Travesty you say? Yes, it was but when you  have a hangry child, sometimes the thought of having to stand there and translate what they sell at the food truck using google translate on your phone and then hope there is something that sounds appealing and try and order is way more stress than you can manage, and this was where we were at that  moment. I actually find ordering at someplace like that or in the mall to be way more awful because you are standing there and wrangling children and trying to figure things out, even at a place like Burger King where you kinda know some of what is written, is it stressful. Sit down restaurants usually have menus in English, so while I would like to see the Polish so I can compare, at least figuring out what they have is not as stressful.

Side view of  the Old Town Hall, now the city museum,
with a brewery underneath.  

Anyways, after our outing (we did not really shop much, mostly we browsed, just trying to get the lay of the land), we went back to the hotel. We walked to dinner in Old Town and ate in the brewery that is under the Old Town Hall, which is now the City Museum. The food was good and it was a nice evening to sit outside.

Dinner at the Brewery 

Saturday morning we got up and after breakfast headed to Coburg, Germany. It is about a 5 hour drive, but it ended up taking us much longer to get there. We had to make several stops with the kids and in general getting anywhere with kids, much less in a foreign country, takes a lot longer. I thought we'd be there by 3 at the latest. We didn't get
there until almost 5 pm.

Coburg is a beautiful, historic city. It is the birthplace of Prince Albert (as in Victoria and Albert) so during the war, it was spared from the worst of the bombing and is therefore mostly original, I believe. At least this is what I was told, I have not done any research. :) We'd made a reservation at hotel near the square, and our GPS basically got us there, but small, old streets and modern times, we missed the turn we needed to make and ended up driving across the mostly pedestrian square. Awful. I mean, cars drive there some, but it is rare, so we felt like fools. Oh well, we circled the block and found the hotel, I checked in and got the key and got some sense of parking from the guy at the desk. He'd said to park in the garage under the hotel and bring our key up. Basically, there was room for maybe 6 cars and I guess you leave your key so they can move your car if someone in front of you needs to get out. But the garage was full, so we squeezed (and by we, I mean my husband with is awesome driving and parallel parking skills) into a spot and took our big bag, the pack and play, and a couple things upstairs to our room, then headed back to meet our friends for supper.

Saturday night, after we'd finally arrived. 

Jason and Jocelyn are our Army best friends, our Army family, as she calls us. We were stationed with them at Ft. Gordon and Jocelyn and I became close via email and phone calls during the deployment (she lived in TX at the time and they were engaged) and she came and stayed with me when the guys were redeploying, and we spent a few days together waiting on them to arrive. The guys had meanwhile gotten to know each other while deployed and hit it off. They are very special friends, we flew to NH that fall for their wedding and were the Protestants singing for the Catholic wedding. They left GA when I was pregnant with Emmy, but we were able to have a couple of visits before we left GA, and then were delighted to have them come to KS when we were there at ILE. We were there for the winter class, they came for the summer class, so they arrived in July when Jocelyn was super pregnant with their son, Logan. They lived with us for 10 days while their household goods (HHG) made their way to KS. We had 5 lovely months with them again before we departed for CO. They moved to Germany, to be stationed at Grafenwöhr when they left Kansas 2 years ago, and now they are moving back to the states.

So, we are super sad that we will not overlap with each other in Europe for longer because we would have some amazing trips together (Jocelyn is a fabulous trip planner. She's just a fabulous planner in general) but at least we needed to see each other!! Charles actually stayed with them for 4 or 5 days back in March when he went to Grafenwöhr for an exercise with the 4ID and their planes were later leaving to come back than planned. So he had some time with them, but I had not!

We'd agreed to go to Coburg, where she has family friends that lived across from her family in NH for a few years growing up. And the daughter of that family is a little younger than we are and lives in the house her mother grew up in there in Coburg and had invited us all over for a cookout. Jocelyn's parents and sister, whom we also know, are here for a visit and their whole family is traveling for a couple of weeks before they head back to the states.

So, now that you have that history, you know we were headed over to their friend Lisa's house, just outside the the area where we were staying, about a 7 min drive. Our GPS found it, and Jocelyn sent me written directions. We did not see the first street she mentioned and we could not leave exactly the way we'd entered the city because of the one way streets (which is where she started us from) so we just followed the GPS. We clearly got to the right area, but we could not find the house. And in the midst of all this, my phone stopped working. (Turns out because we'd done a temporary set up on the phone at first until Charles could go back with his employment letter, NATO ID, etc. and set it up on a long term contract and get our cable/internet/home phone added, we were not able to use our phones more than 10 days so they stopped working on the network). 40 minutes later, we finally found them. It was 6 pm.

This photo does not adequately show how narrow this was.
Yikes!

And I should also point out that before we even got lost, it was stressful just getting out of the city area because as we circled behind the hotel, the street was so narrow I had to get out and guide him. We pulled in the mirrors on both sides and had about oh, 4 inches of clearance maybe on either side? So Charles was already a bit on edge (he did great, it was super impressive) and in need of a beer, and then we got lost...Lord have mercy.

Sunday morning in the hotel. 

Finally, we found them and there was much rejoicing and hugging and good food (and yes beer and wine). It was lovely to meet their family friends and their children. Emmy had fun playing with Logan, who is now almost 3, and Lisa's son Fritz, who is 3, and her daughter Mia. We stayed way too late because we hated to go, and so then getting everyone in bed was a challenge because everyone was over tired and cranky.



Because we had a late start to our visit, we decided to meet up the next morning. We had a lovely German breakfast in our quirky little hotel, and then took our bags to our car (we found a parking garage a couple of blocks away and that was a MUCH better option for parking the Solid Gold Station Wagon) and met them in front of our hotel.

Yummy brats!

 We walked across the beautiful square and just managed to catch the 10 am little shuttle (it looks like a train, super cute) up to what they called the castle, the Fortress of Coburg. We had a nice time walking around outside. There is a museum inside, but we did not really have time to do that on Sunday, and the rest of them had already done it, so we just walked outside and the kids had fun running around. Then we went back down on the little train to the square for what Jason and Jocelyn promised us is the best bratwurst in Germany. Coburg apparently is known for their bratwurst because they smoke it over pine cones. There was also a booth selling sauerbraten (German pot roast), knödel (potato dumplings), and rouladen (beef stuffed with bacon, cabbage, pickles rolled up and braised). So Jocelyn and I got plates of food from there and Charles, Emmy and I shared my rouladen and knödel and Emmy shared her brat with me. Yum!

Apparently, Germans love their dogs. Rags was welcome in the hotels without extra fees or anyone batting an eye. Plus, we were able to take her all around Coburg with us. She loved it! 

The Codys and the Dixons together again!

After some ice cream with the gang, it was time to hit the road. We said our good-byes and headed back to the SGSW to head to Pressath, about an hour and a half away and a small town close to Grafenwöhr, which is where the closest Army post to us is located. (Most of you probably know that there are several U.S. installations in Germany.) Jason and Jocelyn have been stationed at Graf in their time here, so they had just left when they headed to Coburg. Before they left, they met up with some other friends we were stationed with at Ft. Gordon, Leslie and Daniel and their boys Andrew and Jack, and left several things for us, including a microwave, home phones (remember none of our electronics work over here without appropriate converters and adapters). Plus, we wanted to go to Graf and visit and I wanted to check out a few things.

So, we headed to stay in a hotel in Pressath (which is the town actually where J&J lived), and after we checked into another quirky hotel (I've never checked in where I did not see anyone face to face, just talked to them through an intercom and was given a key code so I could get the key from a key box!)  met up with the Watters family at their home in Weiden, about 20 minutes away. They just arrived in May and just received their household goods (HHG), so we are grateful they let us come by! And, I got to do laundry again, which was great. It was so wonderful to see them again. We last saw each other I think at Jack's first birthday party, which was 5 years ago. Leslie and I were pregnant at the same time and Jack and Emmy are just a few weeks apart. The kids had a great time playing, Emmy is already asking when we are going to see them again.

Andrew, Jack and Emmy

We spent the evening with them, walked to dinner nearby, and the kids played while I folded clothes. They have a great house in Weiden and we can't wait to go back and stay and see more of the town near them.

Monday morning we checked out and headed to Grafenwöhr to the post.  This is where we will go for our well checks and vaccinations for the kids to keep them in the Army system, Charles will have some appointments and things he will have to do there periodically, and this is where we can shop at the commissary and PX and get a taste of the U.S. when we need it. Although I will say it is certainly  more lovely than many Army Posts!

Breakfast Monday morning

We walked around the PX and Commissary for a bit. I wanted to see if they carry certain items like my make-up I use, diapers, razor blades etc. Not that we can't or won't find things like that here in Poland, but since I don't speak Polish, reading labels, etc. in stores is really difficult. Some things it will be easier to get, or at least know I can if I need/want to. We needed a few things and we stocked up on some basics at the commissary.  There was not much rhyme or reason to my shopping, but I figured I would be grateful to have some basics when we move in and not have to figure out what everything is right away in the Polish grocery store. And we bought lots of tortilla chips and some tortillas. It was weird to go from Colorado where the tortilla section was the whole end of one aisle to the commissary here which in general does not offer as many options of brands, but when it comes to tortillas, it was one brand (and none of them were corn tortillas). Time to get back to making my own tortillas, so if anyone wants to send me a tortilla press, that'd be great. We love Mexican food and the only way we are getting it over here is to make it ourselves!

Since our phones were not working and I could not get WiFi working, I was afraid we would not be able to find Leslie and the boys for lunch as we'd discussed since we had not made a definite plan. Miraculously, they walked into the Food Court just as we did, so we got to sit down and have one more meal with them which was delightful.  She showed us where we needed to go to register our ID cards while we were there (so we are in their system and should have an easier time getting on post in the future), and Charles checked on sizes of new uniforms at Clothing and Sales, and then we hit the road. Thus ended our quick recon of Graf, as Charles called it. We were both very glad he had been there back in March so he was somewhat familiar with the area, that made navigating it a lot easier.

The drive back to Szczecin was pretty uneventful, and much smoother than the Saturday drive to Coburg. We just had timed it better, I supposed, because both kids slept for the first 2 hours. We did run into some pretty heavy rain, which slowed us a bit (especially when we watched a car spin out in front of us on the Autobahn, miraculously not hitting any other cars). We stopped for supper and with a delay due to an issue with our debit card we still were back on the road within an hour and were able to make it the rest of the way without stopping, except for getting gas right before we returned to the hotel. There was a lovely rainbow on the way home, too.

Charles decided he really likes driving on the Autobahn with no speed limit. My lead foot is pretty excited to try it next time. And while the SGSW served us well, my car has much better get up and go, which will make it better.

We got back into town just before 9, it was another late night. The kids needed baths (neither hotel had a bathtub, though Emmy sometimes does and did take a shower) and we had to unload it all. We were glad to be back in our hometel, as Charles has dubbed it. The lady at the front desk said they were glad we were back. I can tell we've been here awhile!

Thus ended our first weekend adventure. We both agreed that we are glad we were sort of pushed out of our "comfort zone" so quickly, now we are ready when we need to go to Graf again, and Charles at least has driven around and feels a bit more comfortable driving here. And we know where not to drive when my car arrives (small parking garages and super narrow streets)!

Here are a few more photos...

Hay Market Square in Old Town in Szczecin, right by the City Museum where we ate Friday night. 

Being silly and wearing Matthew's bib. 

Coburg

Riding the little train up to the Fortress

Emmy and Logan 

Sweet sleeping baby. Look at those eyelashes! 

Martin Luther spent time here in Coburg writing and translating the Bible. 

Best buds together again. And Rags.

Best friends together again! It was also Jocelyn's birthday and I'm SO happy we got to be together! 

Ice cream after lunch. 

Logan loved walking Rags. 

Silly shot after Sunday night supper. 

Pressath hotel had this fun little space for Emmy. We were in the "family room," which is not so family friendly when it is on the 4th floor! But it was a good space for us. 

Matthew's pack n play went right here, so it was like we each had our own "room!"

Our room was just to the right of the sitting area, separated by a wall. 

Rainbow on the drive home.