Sunday, November 16, 2014

I fell off the blog wagon

Past couple weeks have been annoying and weird, so I was just kinda winging the meals and winging life in general.  


Breakfast:
Cereal with fruit
Greek yogurt sweetened with honey and toast


Lunch:
Quesedillas and black beans
Annie's Mac&Cheese
Leftovers
Salad
Pasta salad

Dinner:

Snacks:
Coconut Oil and Honey granola
Apples with greek yogurt PB dip
Assorted fruits/veg mixes

Baking:
Peanut butter balls


Monday, November 3, 2014

Halloweenies

Breakfast:
Yogurt and fruit
Cereal

Lunch:
Quesedillas and black beans
Annie's spaghettios, fruit, veg
Annie's mac&cheese, fruit, veg
Leftovers
Avocado, fruit, hummus, and nut crackers

Dinner:
Baked Salmon and veggies
Curry lentils
Leftovers


I was Marceline (from Adventure Time) for Halloween.  Met up with friends early on base (because it gets CRAZY).  Got dressed up and took Delilah around a couple streets. I'm lucky right now because she's still little and we didn't have to be out in the crazy crowds as much.  Next year will be a far different story, I'm sure.  
Delilah decided to be Rapunzel for Halloween, and was mega adorable (even with her short little pig tails).  Luckily, we have like 6 different princess dresses, so this was a last minute change from Anna from Frozen.  Silly little girl.  She had a great time running around with all her friends door to door, and I had a great time walking around with them all. 
Ben bought an old California Raisin costume off of ebay and was a big hit with a lot of the older people walking around with their kids.  He's so funny.
This is my friend Amanda, and I love her.

It was a great party, and then the next morning, we all rolled out of bed and had coffee and BLTs.  Ben's friend Mike came down for the weekend from the nearby base and he got along great with everyone.  

That night, we had döners and watched Troll 2 with some friends.  

All in all, it was a really fantastic weekend.  

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Menu:

Dinner:
Turkey Meatballs (all the stores have been out of turkey!)
Pizza Sunday :)
(I don't really like using the "cream of" soups, so I will probably improvise that)

Breakfast:
Cereal and fruit
Greek yogurt and fruit


Lunch:
Annie's mac&cheese
Leftovers
Avocado, blueberries, pecan crackers, and hummus
Noodles, fruit, goldfish

Snacks:
Granola
"Pesto" dip
Fruit/Veggies


So there's my menu for the week.  It's been a long fun weekend with friends, so I'm off to bed.  

xoxo

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Menu and fun

Breakfast:
Greek yogurt with honey and fruit
Cereal with apple slices

Lunch:
Boiled eggs, blueberries, and pecan crackers
Ques. with black beans and spinach
Bagel with PB&honey, goldfish, and veggies
Leftovers
Annie's spaghettios, veggies, &hummus

Dinner:
Turkey&quinoa enchiladas with black beans
Leftovers
Crockpot chicken over nachos
Turkey meatballs and pasta (same as last week, we just didn't get to make it)

Snacks:
Apple slices with PB
Smoothies
Veggies and hummus



That's all for now, I gotta go get ready for family pictures!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back from pictures and we had a GREAT time.  The photographers were incredibly nice and I'm hoping that we got some really good shots. I'm ready to get some of these white walls decorated.

Had a very fun and exhausting weekend.  Friend fun on Friday night, slept in Saturday and watched movies all day, and then today we had pictures and ran around in the woods.


All is well.


Sunday, October 12, 2014

I've been in 3 countries in 3 days!

Before I get to that, I'm gonna list out my menu for the week:

Dinners:

Lunches:
Bagel with PB&honey, banana, carrots
Boiled eggs, waffle, and grapes
Leftovers
Spinach quesedilla with black beans
Annie's mac&cheese, apple slices, broccoli

Breakfast: 
(all served with apple or carrot juice)
Cereal&fruit
Yogurt&smoothie pop
Waffle with PB&honey
Oatmeal
Eggs with English muffin

Snacks:
Hummus&crackers
Smoothie
Fruit kebobs
Broccoli and greek dip


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now onto the travels:

Tuesday, Ben took some leave and we got to go on a little vacation.  He was gone most of the summer, so being able to take a trip together was really awesome.

We headed out on Tuesday after Delilah's gymnastics class and drove straight to Trier.  It's the oldest city in Germany and is just BEAUTIFUL.  We parked in the city center and just started walking around.

St. Peter's Cathedral!

In front of the Cathedral

In the Porta de Nigra


Ben and Delilah in front of Porta de Nigra

After we were done wandering around, we went to our beautiful hotel overlooking the river and had dinner.  

Next day, we headed out for Waterloo, Belgium to see Butte de Lion.


These steps were AWFUL to climb. It was so steep!



It was super windy

Stayed at the Air Base in Belgium which was pretty OK.  Had dinner at a Thai place there before heading to bed completely exhausted.  Next day, we headed to Bruges!  We had heard that Bruges is much better than Brussels (and didn't have the dirty cat pee smell to it either), so we decided to go there.




Famous Bruges belfry. Built in the 1400s and we got to climb the narrow spiral staircase all the way to the top!

Hanging out by the canals.

On the way back to the hotel after Bruges, Ben took us along the coast of the North Sea. This is on a beach in Oostende, Belgium.  It was beautiful.


The most well traveled kid. She had a great time and was amazing on our little adventure.


I cannot wait to go on the next trip. It was so much fun.  So thankful to be living out here!





Sunday, October 5, 2014

Dallas, TX can kiss my butt.

First of all, I just want to say that moving to Germany has been a wonderful experience...


HOWEVER

I have been separated from Rilo and Margot since April now, and that does not make me happy.  We had to leave them in the care of my mom, and thank goodness she could do it, but I miss them.  We ended up spending almost 40 days in a no pets allowed temporary living facility before we were able to get into our house...so there wouldn't have been a place for them right away.  Then we tried to get them out, and it was too hot.  Then we were planning on Ben bringing them back when he was on TDY in OK City...but his flight flew through Heathrow, and no live animals can be flown in there. 

SO.

Now we are just waiting for temps to go down in Dallas so that we can get our babies over here.  They will fly out through American Airlines from KC to Dallas and then straight to Frankfurt.  There have been a couple days where the temp is listed as below 85, but it's still too close and I don't want to chance them not getting to fly out.  This is just so frustrating.  Everything is very difficult.

*********************************************


This is a view right outside my village.





My little model.  

Family day!


Apple-Happle picking!

She had a complete blast picking apples to take home.

 




Walking through the orchards.

Tart apple dipped in chocolate (that she got to dip herself!)


Ended the day with a pony ride.


Super fun day, getting ready to take a short little family trip to a nearby city.  We haven't gotten to travel much out here since he was gone so much this summer and was in training.  It's not very expensive to travel, especially when there's a military instillation near where we want to go!  Cheap hotel and then going and walking around in Belgium!  Inexpensive family trip in Europe.  It's pretty awesome.  Looking forward to it.  



Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Long long long hiatus...but I'm back!

I'm not really sure why I took such a long break.  I know I didn't really think about it much when Ben was gone those 6 weeks in the summer...and then we've just been getting back in the swing of things.  I'm ready to start posting meals/talking/sharing pictures from our adventures.  

I'll start this off with something funny.  

35 Negative Military Spouse Stereotypes:


35) We are fat.
I'd say 90% are.

34) We are lazy.
Again, 90%.

33) We pop out a ton of kids.
Eh, I wouldn't necessarily say that. I will say that military families tend to have kids super early on..and sometimes it's a way to solidify the relationship. Saw that a lot in Clovis.

32) We don't have our own identity.
Most do not. They define themselves only by what their husbands do and by their children.  It's hard to get to know anyone, because everything about them is very shallow.  No depth.

31) We don't care about our appearance.
The KMCC at any point can look like a Walmart.  The people waiting for the bus with their kids before and after school...they are still in pajamas and messy hair.  What do they do all day? Why do they not care about showering?

30) We care too much about our appearance.
Day after payday is the day to avoid the KMCC.  The Coach/Michael Kors/LV/Chanel/etc...purse section is filled with women grabbing a new designer purse. Same goes with shoes and makeup as well.  Yikes.

29) Officer spouses are snobs.
I can't really comment on this one as I've only really spent time with one officer spouse and she was very sweet.

28) Enlisted spouses are uneducated.
Unfortunately, the majority of what I see are women who got married really young, popped out some kids, and aren't trying to further their educations after high school.  

27) We wear our service members rank.
Totally accurate. Spouses will assume that because their husband is high ranking, then they deserve the same reverence from everyone.

26) We are whiners.
There are people complaining about there not being anything to do here in GERMANY.  I have asked some of them after hearing this, and they admit to NEVER leaving the base.  They shop, eat out, live, etc...on base. They never get out and see the magic right outside the gate checkpoints. Pathetic.  If you can't be happy here, then you probably won't be happy anywhere.

25) We have a sense of entitlement.
I get so tired of seeing women on the spouse pages on facebook complaining and expecting businesses and the whole country of Germany to bend over backwards to suit their needs.  It's just infuriating.  

24) We are incompetent during deployment.
I can't say much to this as I had help during the 1 year long tour when Ben was in Korea and I haven't seen too many people alone during deployments.

23) We are free-loaders.
I would say a lot of the ones who got married young and quick are more likely to be this way...but the mindset still follows them as they grow older. 

22) We don't want to work.
The most work I see spouses do out here are home based businesses like Scentsy, those stupid "It Works!" wraps (that don't work, obviously), and DoTerra stuff.  Rarely do you find spouses that work outside the home.  I don't know if it's a "don't want to" work (although there are a lot with that attitude) as it is a I have to leave my job every 2-3 years so it's hard to get something permanent. 

21) Our marriages are doomed.
The marriages that came from the spouse wanting to just be married to a military man or the shot gun wedding style marriages probably won't last.  

20) We are unfaithful.
I saw WAY too much of that in Clovis.  At least 5 people that my husband worked with who were also in relationships or married were also posting their profiles on plentyoffish.com to find women to hook up with.

19) We thrive on drama.
This is true for 99% of military spouses.  If I wanted to spend the day doing so, I could post the fights and craziness that I see on the spouse facebook pages.  It's funny and also really sad.

18) We knew what we were getting into and should stop complaining.
I don't think that's too fair.  I mean, that can be in any situation in life.  Just because you know what you're getting into doesn't mean that it's easy or that you're not allowed to complain.  People complain about their jobs every single day, but they decided to work there, so should they stop complaining?  Sometimes you don't have a choice and it just sucks.

17) We are coattail riders.
This kind of goes around with not having your own identity and wearing your husband's rank.

16) Our behavior or appearance negatively affects our spouse's career.
Oh, 100% it does.  I knew someone in Clovis who got stripes taken away (meaning less pay, lower ranking now) because his wife was making fake myspace profiles to harass another spouse.  He got into big trouble, and his wife continued to do so.

15) Nothing we do can affect our spouse's career.
See #16.

14) We are all right-wing conservatives
Here's another stereotype, I think it's more Army/Marine that feel this way.  I haven't seen much of that in the Air Force.  More hate and contempt for the president and what not from people in the Army/Marines that I know.

13) We are swingers.
ha, I hadn't heard this one before. 

12) We are all submissive.
I'd say (at least in the Air Force) that most of the time, the spouses (mainly women) bowl over the men at home.  The guys are in charge at work, but I've seen some of the spouses be pretty emasculating when it's just them.

11) We all sell Scentsy, Thirty One or Mary Kay.
Yep. You can get 30 people trying to sell you scentsy from one facebook post.

10) We think we can demand anything from our spouse's command.
Yep.

9) We are all threatened by female military service members.
I have heard some spouses taking some pretty nasty gossip about female service members that their husbands work with.  Jealousy fuels that.

8) We are all women.
98%

7) We buy Coach purses instead of diapers for our children.
I wouldn't say INSTEAD of diapers, but I will say that those Coach purses are darn important to a lot of spouses.  Status symbols. 

6) We are welfare Queens/Kings.
I don't know anyone on welfare, but I do know people on WIC.  I think that should say more towards the pay that we get instead of a negative reflection on spouses.

5) We eat Bon-Bons.
No. 

4) We wear tons of military gear because we think we are also in the military.
If I could go the rest of my life without seeing another boudoir style photoshoot wearing something military related, I would be happy. 

3) We are gossips.
98% of spouses get energy from gossiping about fellow women. It's toxic.

2) We con Tricare into giving us breast implants.
Yep, I've heard people talking about how to do it too.  

1) We married them for the money.
I wouldn't say for the money (because we really don't make that much), but I will say for security and not having to work is a big deal to a lot of spouses...esp the young ones.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

One week from today!

Another week goes by in Germany.  Tried out a couple new shops.  So far, I've liked Kauflands because it's got a lot of variety and decent prices.  It's only about a 15 minute drive from my house too!  KIK was recommended to me for clothing, but it's a bust. Not my style, and kid clothes in Germany is hard to come by.  Very character/cartoon oriented...not how I like to dress Delilah.  I have also shopped at Aldi (which we have in the States).  It's nicer here and the produce selection is great.  

Watched our friends' kids last night.  Took them on a walk to a zipline nearby, came back and had dinner, then they just bugged Ben with video game stuff all night.  Ben didn't mind.  He's an expert at that stuff.  

I just kinda relaxed after Delilah went to bed, so it was an easy night.  Kids got picked up this morning, and I hoped to get out of the house to a few festivals happening within an hour of us, but it just wasn't in the cards today.  In any case, my house is now cleaned up and the weekly meal plan is finished.  

Speaking of....

Lunch:
Hot dog and carrots
Leftovers (x2)
Boiled eggs and string cheese
Quinoa salad (this didn't happen last week) and smoothie
Spinach/avocado/strawberry salad

Dinner:
Hawaiian crockpot chicken (same as last week, it didn't get made!)
Teriyaki chicken (same as last week, it didn't get made!)

Snacks:
Celery
Popcorn (we may do something fancy and add caramel or something)
Mixed veggies (depends on what is at the stores)
Smoothie

Oh, did I happen to mention I'm doing something really really fun in exactly one week?  

YEP.

I GET TO SEE JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE!

Got some incredible floor tickets and we are staying in a great hotel like 2 miles from where the concert is.  It's going to be absolutely fantastic.  This is my anniversary gift!


Monday, May 26, 2014

Another week, more fun, and more food!

Saturday officially marked our ONE MONTH anniversary of being in our house.  It really doesn't feel like it has been that long, and we are finally at the point where we can have people over.  (Minus the boxes by the second balcony that I can't lift and get in the attic...)  
We had our friends and their kids over on Saturday and it was a fabulous time.  We played some video games, drank mojitos (ok, the boys drank whiskey and rum), and played catchphrase.  Amanda's sons are so sweet.  They play with Delilah and they actually all laid down in the living room and watched Lady and the Tramp.  It was incredibly sweet.  


I've been having allergy issues.  My throat is super scratchy and sometimes my left eye will just burrrrrrn and itch.  It's so frustrating.  I'd take medicine, but anything stronger than ibuprofen just kinda messes with my body.  Even after surgeries, I've not taken the medicine I've been prescribed because I don't like that swimmy vision and haze and confusion.  I'll deal.  

We went to a carnival tonight in Kaiserslautern.  It was OK, but they claimed to have 140 vendors...it was really like 5 different vendors and then there were 28 booths of each, all food.  We were expecting something like crafts/housewares/etc...but that just wasn't it.  It was fun though, and Delilah got to ride some kiddie rides, so all in all, it wasn't a bust.  If Ben hadn't been on call this weekend, we would have gone to the Black Forest.  There was one mission that kept getting cancelled and he had to go in for a couple hours Saturday, Sunday, AND today.  So it wasn't easy to do anything this weekend.
Just a random building in Kaiserslautern

This was painted on the side of a kid's bathroom at the carnival....

HUGE ferris wheel!


This week is the end of swim class for Delilah, and that kinda stinks because it gave us an excuse to get out and go do something productive.  I think we will keep going swimming though.  It isn't very much and she loves it so much. I love it that she isn't afraid of the water.  Perhaps on the days we don't go swimming, I'll take her over to the next village and run with her in the jogging stroller through the main strip.  I've got to keep myself on track.  It's been hard lately with not feeling well and the rain.

Ok, here's the upcoming week's meal plan: 
(PS. My landlord ordered the part to fix my oven, so I'll be able to branch out more when that's fixed!)

Lunch:
Wraps with mustard and turkey with mixed veggies
Quinoa salad (corn, tomato, avocado, and salt) with a smoothie
Grilled cheese and frozen peas (I don't know why, she loves them more when they are frozen...)
PB and honey (a must have each week) and string cheese
Boiled eggs with veggies and triscuts
Leftovers with blueberries

Snacks:
Hummus and veggies
edamame
String cheese&pretzels
Dried fruit
Apple Slices

Dinner:

So there you have it, folks.  I'm gonna stick with it again this week.  Makes life just a bit easier.  

I'm off to watch some True Blood. 

xoxo

Monday, May 19, 2014

Ok, I just had to come and give an update:
Made the Mexican quinoa.  It was amazing.  One pot, everything just gets dumped in.  So easy and my first vegetarian made meal.  I was extremely happy.

This is one of the easiest things I've ever made and it's so addicting.  My husband came home and had to make himself put the lid back on after a bit.  He told me he could have eaten the whole thing.  A super easy and cheap snack.  It made a lot too!

We've tried store bought hummus, and Delilah won't touch it.  I thought that maybe if she helped me make it, she would try it.  We made the avocado hummus and she actually got upset when we were done snacking.  Another great success!

Links to all the recipes are in the previous post!

In other news: the women are still complaining about the Frozen dolls and it's cracking me up.


Now excuse me, but I have to go watch some Game of Thrones.



Sunday, May 18, 2014

Back at it.

Hello, friends!

We are finally out of living in a hotel.  We moved into our house on the 24th of April, and didn't get internet until the 12th of May.  Using a data plan on my phone was not ideal, but it did give me more motivation to get a ton of stuff done at the house.  I've stuck with meal planning, just obviously couldn't post it.  

As always, when I'm away for awhile, a picture update is sometimes easier than trying to remember everything that went on in the 3+ weeks I was absent from the internet.  Here we go:
A really cool kid making a wish on a walk on base.

She's learning about even amounts and learning how to use a mouse at the library.

Super cool kid taking a walk with me.

My friend Amanda has a SUPER sweet kid, Aiden, and Delilah just loves him.

My house looked like this for awhile...and it was awful. 

On a hike on one of the many trails around our village.  The other night, we did almost 4 miles and it was awesome.

A really cool a gross German slug I found on a hike.

We've got this statue in our backyard and Delilah loves it.  Don't worry, the grass in our yard is cut now.

Delilah started swim class and absolutely LOVES it.  She's getting so comfortable in the water and her teacher has nothing but high praise for her.  I'm so happy!

They're making juice (and a mess)

Out and about with my girl, and a sudden big rainstorm trapped us in the car.  We decided on a little photoshoot.  

This is a view from my balcony 7:30am vs 11:00am.  

Our neighbors have sheep that now LOVE us because we bring them carrots.  They are super cute and really stinky.

Authentic German food for Ben's birthday dinner!  They served him this for his birthday and just gave him a bottle of wine (which I drank while we all played Cards Against Humanity). 
Amanda's kids.  Delilah loves them, and they love Delilah.

Went out hiking on May 4th, and stumbled upon a Wanderung.  It's basically a giant walk through a bunch of different villages and everyone is out and about.  There was a tent outside our village that was selling Bitberger (Half cola, half beer).  It's delicious.

A view of my little village from one of the trails.

This bakery is SO GOOD.  

Saw this on the way to Globus the other day...hilarious.

After a trip to Ikea, Ben set out to put together a piece of furniture. It wasn't as bad as he expected, and definitely didn't include nearly as much swearing as when he had to put Delilah's crib together.

Delilah's bed, just waiting on the blanket from Aunt Ruthie.  She's making a pink, gray, and white chevron quilt...because she's AWESOME.  I did all the paintings on her wall.

Another view of her room.

Of course she had to get this cute owl lamp. (Ikea)

Finished toy storage that Ben put together.  So much nicer with toy storage instead of random boxes like it was before. 

Cute little doll bed.
The rug we got for her room. It's perfect.  All the paintings, rug, accessories, etc...go together so well. I'm really pleased with how her room turned out.  Now I just need to get the rest of the house done.

Our Mother's Day pictures.  Love my girl!


Working on new stuff for my etsy site (http://www.etsy.com/shop/intheskydesigns)

This is the sectional we found on MEGA sale.

Our cool retro looking dining room table

Delilah was totally over furniture shopping.

Just walking around our village.

I made Thai soup.  Trust me...don't ever leave out the red curry paste.  I made it in the hotel and had put green peppers in it (which are really bitter out here for some reason) and no red curry paste (because it was out at the store) and it wasn't that great. Remade it the other day and it was AMAZING.

We got her this little easel at Ikea and I moved it into the kitchen.  She likes to be creative while I'm cooking.  The other side is a whiteboard.

We went on base yesterday to the opening of the Disney aisle.  I wanted to go because there were supposed to be prizes and crafts and meet and greets.  First of all, about an hour before it opened, someone had the bright idea to move the line dividers, so people that showed up at 11:45 we starting to shove towards the front instead of acting like adults and waiting in line.  Second of all, they had blown up about 30 balloons and passed them out...and then they were out...so there were a bunch of kids that just couldn't have a balloon.  The meet and greet characters were a JOKE.  They were store employees wearing really cheap halloween costumes.  The announcers made a big deal of looking for Mickey and Minnie, and then out walked 2 people with mouse ears.  The kids were not impressed.  I was looking around, and I could see these women starting to get super aggressive as they were almost drooling waiting to run in and grab some Frozen toys.  I told Ben, "If you want to go in the aisle and try and get a doll, that's fine.  Delilah doesn't need one though, and she's not going to care either way."  He told me we were up at the front, he'd go grab one.  I told him, "You need to be careful, these women are going to get aggressive and shove and they won't care about pushing children or you out of the way to try and get a doll."  He didn't believe me.  So the curtains opened, and as you can see in the picture below, one curtain was almost pulled down as the crazy women shoved children, lost their own, pushed people, and just surged into the aisle.  Ben watched people just start grabbing dolls off the shelf.  Luckily, he's a calm person, and would never think about pushing a woman or child to get a plastic toy, and someone we had talked to just handed him one.  The people running the event had told people not to do exactly what they did, and there were several kids that got hurt and lost, one lady even had her stroller with her child in it pushed over.  It was freaking ridiculous.  A huge disgusting show of greed and lack of care.  I'll just tell you that if someone had pushed Delilah over or ANYTHING to get a freaking doll, I'd probably unleash my temper that I have worked so hard in the last 6 years to control.  

And what is REALLY funny and stupid, there are women on spouse page today complaining that they showed up 15 minutes after the event started and now their kids are disappointed because the toys were gone.  Give me a break.  First, you kid doesn't need a doll that badly, secondly, don't show up late and expect to get an insanely popular toy.  


So here's the meal plan for the week.  Breakfast/Lunches are usually the same, but I'm trying to mix it up.

Breakfast:
Vanilla/almond yogurt
Cereal (she loves cracklin oat bran!)
Boiled eggs
Toast and fruit

Lunch:
Pasta 
Leftovers
Homemade pizza "lunchable"
Tuna salad with carrots and pita bread
Strawberry and avocado salad

Dinner:
Chicken Parmesan
Pigs in a blanket and mashed cauliflower
Breakfast

Snacks: