USA!!! We made it!

Just to let everyone know we made it, wasn't pleasant so look for future post on our last day in Germany adventures followed by the adventure getting to NJ! We have a house on base. It's small, but brand new and liveable. Nice to have a place to call home! Don't know when we will get internet or phone but we will call family as soon as we can! Gotta get milk and some other vital necessities!

One last visit to the ER!

The day after at the airport. It's hard to tell, but his lips were huge and he couldn't swallow or shut his mouth very well. We kept him drugged up like the doc suggested!

This was Monday this week so about 5 days after. You can't tell how green his chin was in the picture. It went up his cheeks.

This picture is after the ER visit and a bath at TLF. He was miserable!


Today we planned to have some fun with friends and since it was so nice we went to the big park on Ramstein. Our good friends the Terry's came and she even let her older two skip school....shhh don't say anything! So other than our older kids it was mostly smaller ones that were not yet school age. They were all running around together playing some game and had stopped up on the play equipment. Cody was standing by the opening to where a ladder comes up and out of no where another kid pushes him off! The boy had been playing with them and don't know why, but just decided to push Cody. By the time I heard the scream and ran to him he was face down on the ground. Tyler said he had hit the post on the way down and blood was everywhere! His bottom lip was huge so my first thought was he bit his lip hard and that is where the blood was coming from. Other moms rushed over with baby wipes and tissues and helped clean him up. He was crying so hard that it was difficult to see what was really injured. Finally he calmed down and I saw his top teeth were pushed in and it was purple and blue along the gum line! Then another mom noticed a hold under his bottom lip so we thought he bit through his lip.

Zach ran and I mean ran from TLF, Melinda took the older ones and off we went to the ER. Once there the triage nurse said he didn't bit through the lip, but there were cuts inside and out so we weren't sure how that happened! Then she noticed he wasn't shutting his mouth and his jaw was all cocked funny! She called back and said he needs to be seen now, he might have a jaw fracture! I about cried. Not only would that mess up flying to New Jersey, but having his jaw wired shut! My poor baby!

They did a CT scan and luckily Melinda's husband is a dentist and was up on Landstuhl so came over for moral support. He explained the possibilities of Cody losing the front teeth and what options might be if the jaw was broken. He then helped Zach give Cody a blessing. By then Cody had been given some pain meds and was able to sleep a little. Finally the CT results were back and we were so relieved that his jaw was not broken! The area looked like it due to the swelling.

Never a dull moment in our house, even when we are moving! It's been a week now since the drama and Cody is looking much better. His chin is still a greenish color from the bruising, but he is able to eat on his back teeth and his lips are no longer swollen.

Goodbye Germany!

Just wanted to put one last blog on before I lose my guarenteed internet connection! There are places I can go to get internet once we are in TLF, but just in case we aren't able to this is it for us in Germany! Just over three years ago the story went something like this.

While spending a weekend in Utah with my parents we found a dinosaur museum so decided to stop. We had just seen the Flaming Gorge and weren't too far over the Utah border. The dinosaur musem was fun and towards the end my mom's cell phone rings. She had several missed calls! Family in Cheyenne were trying to get ahold of us becuase Elmendorf was looking for Zach! He called them from her phone and was informed our flight to Germany had been accidentally cancelled and there wasn't a way to get us back on it. We had one week left with family before heading overseas, but they assured us a new set of commercial ticksets were being taken care of and an itenerary would be emailed. The next morning Zach checked his email at the hotel computer and sure enough we had an iteneray! Disaster averted.......or so we thought.

Labor day 2006: My parents decided to park and go with us into the airport to help juggle the kids and luggage. I am so glad they did! We arrived four hours prior to our departure instead of only three hours like recomended. We waited to check in and was happy the line wasn't too long. Zach was then informed we were not booked on the flight our itenerary showed. We were still booked on the flight that was originally planned to Baltimore where we were to catch the military flight to Germany. We showed them our itenerary, but they said that it was never paid for so therefor never fully booked and now the flight may not have enough seats left!

We took our luggage,kids and parents off to the side while Zach went and dealt with the airline, air force and some customer service place. My parents fed the kids and entertained them on the escalators. I am not sure how many times Cody went up and down that thing! A little over two hours later they finally had a new flight plan arranged, but we had 30 minutes to catch our plane! we had to quickly say goodbye to my parents and run and I mean run to our flight. Anyone that has been to Denver knows you have to take a train to the terminals and such so it's not a quick ordeal and we still had security to get through as well! So if you have ever seen Home Alone and remember the part where the family is running through the airport, that was us. We each had a backpack, I was carrying Cody, Zach had his carseat and we ran! We made it to our plane, but they didn't have seats together and no time to ask people to move so we were scattered all over the plane. Cody was beside me, but Zach had to sit in the back with Tyler a few rows up. Ryan was o the side a few rows in back of me. It was insane!

Becuase of the mess we had no one to meet us at the airport, my luggage was lost and we were all exhausted! The Frankfurt Airport was under construction so finding the USO or anyone to speak english to ask took forever. We finally got a shuttle to Ramstein, thought we were going to die as the guy drove like a maniac in a big van full of people, but we had finally made it. So our journey began......

Now three years and three houses later we are happy we had the opportunity to come here. We did as much traveling as time, money and kids would allow. We would't turn down a chance to come back. Of course it would be much easier the second time! I believe that the Air Force may be the one giving you the orders, but Heavenly Father is really the one assigning them. Everywhere we have moved it has been for a reason. Sometimes that reason doesn't present itself until you are gone like our time in Florida, but others it's pretty evident from the begining. Our time here has given Cody the best teacher possible and I will really miss her! She has a been more than a teacher, she is a friend. I have once again learned I can do so much more than I thought. As a family we became closer. When you are so far away from family and things that are familiar and have so many trials where you just want to throw in the towel and say "I quit!" you learn to rely on each other more. Tyler has become even more mature and responsible than before and becuase of him I survived two more deployments. He is a great kid and I know he will do great things in the future. Ryan has had many struggles here, but I know he has grown a lot as well and he is taking this big adjustment as good as he can. We have had fun sightseeing and we have even enjoyed Zach's endless history lessons along the way! the kids weren't always as grateful as we went, but I know they will look back and remember these three years as some happy times!

So goodbye Germany! I can't say I'll miss everything about you, but you will be missed!

Top Ten

I asked everyone the top ten things they were going to miss about living here and this is what I got. Now keep in mind Cody had to take some coaxing since he didn't really get it and Ryan just wanted to copy Tyler's becuase that was easier and he always takes the easy route!

Cody’s Top Ten
1. school
2. Park
3. Kids Zone
4. Movie Theater
5. Normandy
6. Verdun
7. Pearce
8. Makayla
9. Joshua
10. Terry’s

Tyler’s Top Ten
1. Castles
2. France trips
3. Friends
4. School
5. Teachers
6. Having awesome theater at new BX
7. Edel Salami
8. Duinrell in Holland
9. Yabadoo
10. Townhouse


Ryan’s Top Ten
1. Castles
2. Eiffel Tower
3. Townhouse
4. Friends
5. Parks around us
6. Golf Course
7. Johnny Rockets
8. New BX
9. Library on Landstuhl
10. Hiking Trails

Zach’s Top Ten
1. Verdun
2. Normandy
3. Paris
4. American Cemeteries
5. Beersteins
6. Cuckoo Clocks
7. Autobahns
8. Castles
9. Churches
10. All the history


Marie’s Top Ten
1. Drving on the winding roads and enjoying the scenery when I’m not in a hurry.
2. Spur of the moment trips to France or Belgium
3. Shopping in the walkplatz
4. Christmas markets
5. Salzburg, Austria! My favorite trip!
6. Grapes, never had such yummy grapes until we moved here!
7. Seeing exotic cars, sometimes several in one trip!
8. Having the opportunity to visit and remember the Americans who gave their lives in WWI and WWI by visiting the American Cemeteries.
9. Rolladens!
10. The great friends I have made! I will miss you, but I am just an email or even phone call away!

I am not sure if I will get another post on while we are here in Germany so wanted to get this put on now. We are down to the one week mark! I think we are all excited and nervous, but it will be another great adventure for us!

What do you do with an empty house?

Play video games of course! We kept out the Nintendo DS's, the Gameboy and Cody's leapster so the boys are often found laying on one of the beds playing them. Cody wasn't awake during this so he's not in it, but I thought it was funny. At least they get along when they are playing video games!

Cody's EEG

At dinner last night Zach asked Cody "Cody can you please be normal this EEG so we can avoid changing your meds?"

Cody "Dad I won't be normal, I will be ooey gooey!"

Cody is of course referring to the goo they use to put all the wires on his head. Here are the pictures I took today since people had asked me how it works and all. I honestly had not thought to take any before.

This EEG was a little more tramatic for Cody. The technician has to do a test before putting the hat on him and laying him in the bed. Well the wire tests were not going so well and she had to remove several at least three times. Cody did NOT like this at all! He was tired, grouchy and just wanted to go home. She finally got everything to respond so he could lay down. When they do the strobe lights he always makes funny faces. I am not sure why. I read that some kids smile during it. And of course during the one part that always comes out bad he didn't do so good again. I am not 100% positive he had a seizure this time like I was last test, but I have a bad feeling he did. He went limp for a short time, but came out of it much quicker then the one the beginning of August. Hopefully the doctor will call in a few days with the results and then Friday I can pick up the printout to hand carry to the next doctor.

Last of the hike.

Without Picassa it is hard to put lots of pictures on so sorry for the overload. It's the best I can do with the laptop right now. You can see that the view from the top is really good. You can see the castle on the hill across and also Ramstein AB. On our way home we stopped at the shoppette for chocolate to make smores to try and use up our propane so we can turn the tank in. They didn't have plain Hershy bars so we decided to try cookies and cream and a crunch bar. It was different and the kids had fun roasting, or should I say lighting marshmellos on fire!

Last hike to the tower!

This was our last weekend to have fun in Germany. Next weekend will be all about cleaning so we can turn over our house the 21st of Sept. And I am ready to give this house back! So Saturday we took the kids to the new theater on base to see Ice Age 3 and it was pretty funny. The kids were so excited to see the new theater in the new BX! It is nice that we do get to see it all before we go. Anyway we came home and were bored so decided to go on one last hike to the tower. Total it was maybe 2 or 2 1/2 miles and the trail is not too bad. There is a little bit of climbing and some steep areas, but not a bad hike. The top of the tower has an nice view and lucky for us it was a clear day!

More farm pictures

Cody loved the cows the most. When one mooed he was so excited and said "Mom the cows are talking to me!" We didn't see pigs this time, but there were two very mean and loud geese. Cody held a chicken, but I didn't get a picture. There were so many kids croweded around it was just a bunch of heads. And of course all of the kids got to sit in two tractors, one with a load of potatos. It was a nice day, but sad that he will miss out on coming back in October to pick a pumpkin out of the pumpkin patch and go on a hay ride. Maybe New Jersey will have fun things too.

Potato Digging and the farm

Cody got to go on one field trip with his class this year and as always the first one is at the farm to dig for potatoes, pick corn and check out the animals and tractors. He told me he was not diggng in the dirt to get potates, but Ms. Letnes made it happen! For those that don't know, it's not that he doens't like to be dirty becuase if you have ever seen him you wil wonder if I have ever bathed the child, it's all sensory stuff. They started at the corn and worked their way to the potatoes next. There were a few moms there that kept cleaning their kids hands and had bottles of hand sanitizer. It's a farm people and it's just dirt, your kid will survive! Once we had picked enough potatoes and corn we headed back to the stinky part of the farm to check out the animals.

5th grade spelling words

Tyler has his first spelling test today. The words are taken from the book they are reading in class and he had to look up the definitions for each one. He asked me for help, but honestly I had to look some up too! So here's the word list:

beseeching
chagrined
passel
indignant
plethora
ruethfully
goaded
heathen
sinew
hewing
genial

Wow! What happened to reviewing from last year! He was excited so I guess that is what matters!

See anyting can be fun!

I have had many comments on how I didn't leave out a slew of toys to entertain the boys. I just have no desire to spend my last few days here boxing things up to mail back or stuffing suitcases beyond their limits to fit it all! So I let them each keep out what would fit in their backpack for the plane. Cody did get his bowling set more for my sanity and becuase we new it would be super easy to wrap the plastic bin in paper and mail as is. This picture is proof that it doesn't take a lot to entertain kids! We have a box....a plain empty moving box that they play all sorts of stuff in and Cody discovered a new way to play hide and seek yesterday.

First Day of School!

Now that we have almost completed the first week of school I guess I should post about the first day. For starters the boys are only going here for 3 weeks, but it was still better than them being at home bored out of thier minds! Plus Cody really REALLY needed to go back. If we were staying here longer I would have to get Ryan switched to a different class. He keeps getting laid back teachers that don't push him to do what he can do. Tyler however has a great teacher and I loved her the minute Tyler said she limits homework becuase she doesn't feel that after being at school all day kids should have to go home and spend every evening doing homework!Too bad we don't get her all year! And of course Cody has Ms. Letnes again, Mrs Farr, but Mrs. Taylor was added as a newparaeducator....the job I wish I had this year! So a successful start to school so far!

The Red Baron

Zach did a lot of research to fnd the final resting place of Manfreid von Richtofen and finally discovered it was an hour away in Weisbaden. After a busy week with movers and such we decided a day off to explore was just what we needed. So we piled te kids in the Saturn and headed out. The cemetery where he is buried is huge! It's not a military cemetery, just a local one, but needless to say without exact knowledge of where the gravesite is you could spend a while walking around. And that's what we did. Finally we found it!