Almost there!!!

Hey all! Life is pretty good over across seas! I've been thinking about things lately though. Big decisions I guess you could say. The "big" lady here, was talking to a few of us again today about coming over here and being directors and such. I'm really getting interested in it again. I'm not entirely sure what is going through my head, but it all sounds really good. The opportunity would be great and it would get me into what I want to do with DODS. I would love to teach with DODS (Department of Defense Schools) but getting in is really hard to almost impossible. So I could come over and be a director in something like SAC. The contract would be for 3 years and the pay is great. Being hired from the states they would give me a "living stipend" which means if I make 50k a year for my salary I would get 50k a year for things like an apartment, phone, internet, cable, and moving all of my things over here. Sounds like a great gig right?? I know it does, and I'm coming up with less and less reasons why it wouldn't be a good thing. I'm having problems coming up with cons. I just wanted to let everyone know what was kind of going through my head right now. Finding jobs in the US is not proving to be easy and with the person who hires people to come over trying to talk us all into becoming directors and such over here for her makes the whole idea a ton more appealing.

Now away from the job topic. I only have a few days left like I said before and that puts me at 1 weekend left for my time here in Germany. What am I doing with it? Absolutely nothing and it'll be amazing. I'll end up packing stuff for sure... like taking the stuff of my walls and figuring out how to get everything home. Hopefully it'll all fit in my bags. It's weird the things you can fit into 2 suitcases, a carry on, and a "personal item". I'm really excited to be home and yes in fact I am counting it down. Not the hours yet cause that's too many, but I only have 9 and 1/2 days of work left. Adding in those 2 days for the weekend I'm golden. 11 and 1/2 days will go really fast, but not fast enough. I wish tomorrow was the the 15th and I'd be getting on a plane tomorrow. Unfortunately it's not, but I think I'll live. Right? haha. Well maybe anyway.

I don't have much else to say... so I think I'll just end this where it is. I think you'll probably get 2 more posts out of me. next week I'll give you room transformation pictures :) It'll be a good time I think.

Peace!

Busy, busy, busy!

So as the title looks I was pretty busy this weekend. I had a ton to do and too little time to do it all! Friday was a "work" day for my CARAT team (the evaluations I was doing on some of the Child Development Centers) which really turned out that one girl finished her work, I did a ton of work and the other 2 didn't really do anything. It's all good though I got the stuff I needed to get done, done. Friday we also went and got new Instelation Passes, which has turned out to be a problem for me. My card doesn't like to scan so I always have to have a second form of ID on me- my driver's license does NOT count- so basically that means I'm carrying around my passport with me everywhere instead of being able to lock it up safely in my room. The rest of Friday was just spent hanging out, doing laundry, and taking naps.

Saturday I left with Alyssa at 1:30 in the morning to head back to the Netherlands (Holland) to see the Tulips. Did you know that it is actually called the Netherlands and Holland is really only 2 states within the country? Northern Holland and Southern Holland- just a little fun fact for you. So we were off at 1:30 in the morning tired as all get out, but we brought pillows and blankets for the 6 hour bus ride and were able to sleep most of the way

to our first stop. BREAKFAST! Now this breakfast was included in our tour price, so we assumed that it was going to be the bread, lunch meat, and cheese that we were used to having on these trips. You know what happens when you assume though! We actually ended up getting a buffet line for breakfast. I had an amazing omlet, bacon, a muffin and orange juice. I wanted milk, but no one knows how to do it the American way. It may have just been that it was thicker milk, or at least that's what it tasted like. The place where we ate breakfast was pretty cool. It looked Japanese or Chinese, something like that and inside was really nice.

After breakfast we got back on the bus to head towards our next desination, a cheese and shoe farm. Again we assumed here. We thought that were were going to go to the same cheese and shoe farm from the week before, heck I would have been ok with that! We all thought the Dutch boy who gave us a shoe demonstration was a little more than ok looking! We didn't go there though... we actually went somewhere else that also does cheese and shoes on the same farm. Crazy thing I learned, there are a lot of farms around Amsterdam that do that.

After enjoying some more cheese, buying more souvieners and watching that machine work with those shoes, we were once again off. This time to a "small" fishing village called Volendam. When we first arrived Alyssa and I were excited to do a lot of shopping, because that's what our tour guide said this stop was for. We were walking around, doing a little shopping with some georgous rays hitting our faces when we stumbled upon the harbor. OH MY GOODNESS it was amazing! There were sailboats everywhere and I don't really know how to describe it. I took a bunch of pictures, but they are nothing like the real thing. I mean it really honestly looked like we were in a movie, but we weren't.

The beautifulness that is Holland didn't stop with the shore. Bring on the tulips! We went to some gardens called the Keukenhof Gardens. It was a beautiful day with beautiful flowers all over. I don't think I would have traded it for anything else.

Sunday continued some tripping from me. I went on a trip called the Rhine River Cruise. I would talk a lot about it, because we did a lot of things, but I didn't really enjoy myself like I should have on this one. I think I was probably too traveled out from the day before. We got back in the barracks around 1:30am where I decided to take a shower before I got into bed. It ended up being about 2 am when I finally passed out and then I had to get up at 6:15am to head out for the Rhine River. Like I said I didn't really like it, so I'm not going to be negative and talk about it.

Now brings us to today, Monday. I am LOVING it. I am back with my kids actually working again. This week is weird too though because all of the kids have spring break. This week is a SAS week, so no preschoolers. I'm ok with that though. I've missed my SAS kids and another positive... it's now 2:37 and I didn't even realize that they day had gone by so fast! Tonight is racquetball and then tomorrow is bowling with the SAS kids.

On a different note, I said something about the day going by fast. Did you realize that it's already April? Close the the middle of April? That means I only have 5 weeks left!! Have I really been here that long? Amazing? Yes. Real? Yes. Believable? Not really. It's been a stressful, glorious, obnoksious, crazy 12 weeks and I'll be sad to see it end...

*******Sorry I wrote this last week and it was never posted********

Has It Really Been 2 Weeks?!

So I guess it has! These last few have been really busy and crazy. At work we've begun some evaluations of the centers called Child Abuse Risk Assessment Tool or CARAT. Last week we did my preschool center and this week I'm leading a team of 4 at another preschool center 45 minutes away from our barracks. Because we're not at my site we don't get Internet. We are currently on Kleber and the library doesn't have WiFi like the one in Landstuhl does so we've been sharing our Internet to go stick thinger. I guess it's not so bad; I really just check my email and facebook and then have to pass it to the next person, but that would be the reason I haven't written in 2 weeks.

Let me fill you in on what we've done! Not last weekend, but the weekend before last we went on a trip called the Swiss Border Tour. What this entailed was going to an island of flowers called Minau, then heading to a boring little place Stine on Rhine and then we hit up a waterfall before heading home. Minau was by far the best part of the trip even though most of the flowers weren't out yet. On the island was an awesome playground. We decided that it was made for adults (really it wasn't it was all child sized, just really cool!) and we played on it. The tour group we were with was pretty elderly and our tour guide wasn't the nicest lady in the whole world. Once we got on the playground she called to us and asked us if we wanted to continue with the tour or if we wanted to stay and play on the children's toys. Being the smart a***s we are we called back that it was a whole lot more fun playing on the kids equipment than listening to a tour. She was not too happy after that and things just went down hill from there with the tour guide, but it was still a great place. We were able to go see a "tropical" house (aka a green house) and a butterfly house. I actually got one of the prettiest plates ever with a butterfly on it!

The thing I was looking forward to most was the waterfall we were supposed to be going to see. When I thought waterfall, I thought huge pretty thing that fell off a cliff or something. I was a little disappointed, but oh well the were still really cool.

Now on to this weekend. Whoa buddy was it fun! We went to Amsterdam on a night trip. What that meant was we left at 9am, went to a cheese/shoe maker at 3pm, got to Amsterdam around 5 and didn't have to get back on the bus till 3am. Awesome? YES!! We walked around the Red Light District for a while (haha) and then went to the bars. It was really interesting actually. We were trying to find a club, which in Europe is called a disco, and we told our taxi driver that. I guess he thought we were rich ladies or something because he took us to this club called Jimmy Woo. Jimmy Woo is an invite only or if you're lucky you can be a "begger" and get in. By begging it will cost approx. 100 Euro a person so $140 to get in and then 35 Euro a drink. Yeah we don't have rich blood or at least not that rich. We also went to the Sex Museum and to the Anne Frank house. The Anne Frank house was something else. For those of you who know me well know that I LOVE the WWII era and that was this. After reading her diary and going there it makes every thing more real.

Sorry for not being on recently as I said it's been hectic. I miss my kids though if that means much. I finally get to go back to my SASers next week! Last thing before I need to pass the Internet on- I will be back on the 15th of May and then on the 16th I'm going to host my own party. Haha really that means I'll have souvenirs and make a german meal for everyone!

Only 5 weeks until I'm home!!!!