blog guilt

this picture is for you g-ma marion (remember the shirt?)
i finally figured it out! she will eat an egg only if it is hard boiled....this lunch went along w/ some avocado w/ lemon and salt...yummy!
fresh picked strawberries from our mini garden outside :) she picked, washed and ate! (notice the outlet by the sink! we have only two in the kitchen)

anyway: i stole the title from a post of my very favorite author's blog: john eldredge. i was catching up on it today and i guess i'm not the only one suffering from it. anyway....where do i start! it has been so very long so i thought i'd just do it. even if i forgot to say something at least i started w/ something. and so i don't end up writing a book (for my own sake and yours) i will share with you "list" style:

• after lots of driving, plane rides, and cold weather everywhere we went (except CA), we arrived a little overdressed to ramstein afb on a beautiful thursday afternoon. our luggage was taking a little while to come out (6 checked, and too many carry-ons). we were allowed to leave the terminal and catch some fresh air, abby was delighted to run around and play for a while. she had slept for 5 1/2 hours straight over the atlantic (very scary ride...thank goodness i was groggy). our sponsor met us there took us to our room and then to get a few groceries for the next day.
• thankfully we all very quickly adjusted to the time change (2 days) and the next month or so is a complete blurr of paperwork, errands, phone calls, appointments, no internet, checklists to be completed, and most importantly getting our german license so we could mobilize and finding a house to live in.
  
• abby got ringworm :( she got medicine for it. the skin looks healed now and hair is growing back :) she still has another 4 1/2 weeks of meds though :(
• i finally got seen by a doctor and got an ultrasound...it's a girl! half of me is relieved bcs that means we don't have to buy clothes, just diapers :) (jessica, i did find someone at church that can use the boy clothes you made me bring, jk) however, little miss abby does need summer stuff. she has grown and gained weight! mama is delighted :)
• so we are now at our house and adjusting to how weird things are here: the lack of wall outlets, gross toilets, no closets, even tinier kitchen ~ upstairs might i add!, oil heating, having to sort through every piece of garbage, crazy drivers (you think LA is bad.....think again!), etc. on the bright side of things though we have: NO CARPET...yey! (today ryan spilled some olive juice....no big deal, just wipe it up!), these awesome shades installed on the outside ~love them!, i have oregano, mint, lavender, rose bush, rosemary, and a strawberry patch outside. i bought some parsley, cilantro and basil and i love using the fresh stuff. today i made pesto w/ the fresh basil.....amazing!
• the german......the other day a lady said "goodbye" to me and i smiled and w/o knowing what i was doing i answered in spanish! so i'm not doing so well. thankfully german does have some latin roots so i recognize quite a few words, but people start speaking and i'm completely lost. ryan on the other hand, there are days i wanna sock him! he never told me he could speak and understand so well! you should see him go into stores and get around, converse like it's english...grrrrrr! oh! and people (at least in this area, don't speak english as well as i had heard they do, some don't speak it at all!)
  
• WE HAVE A CHURCH! (calvary chapel in ladstuhl) all three of us love it there. abby has a blast, our pastor is an amazing teacher AND there are hispanics that go there! the sermons are translated into german and spanish every sunday. i even have hispanic friends. the women even have a group that i am totally going to attend!
• one of our cars finally made it not to long ago. the other one left japan not too long ago and should be here in about 3 weeks. can't wait! we are finding that getting around is kind of like getting around in ecuador (roads are not clearly marked or not marked at all). if you haven't lived here your whole life then get a GPS! so we did.
  
• how could i forget...ryan made master sergeant!!!! it was such a blessed surprise :)
  
• we love our landlord, super nice and has a little girl (karla)who is two and is best buddies w/ abby. oh! and we live off base in the village of ramstein super close to the base. ryan can make it home for lunch every day!
• my goal is to do a video tour of our house so you all can see it. we are not totally done w/ it yet, so i should be able to do that next week sometime. and i'll get the ultrasound pictures scanned to.