Tis the Season

I put up my Christmas Tree tonight!

(Look how awesomely textured my wall looks with the lights. Normally it's just white and boring)

Now, many of you know that I am normally absolutely against acknowledging Christmas until after Thanksgiving. But this year I feel justified for 2 reasons:
1 - I will be gone all of Thanksgiving weekend and won't get the chance to put it up then.
2 - I had Thanksgiving yesterday.

Two actually. We had a friend Thanksgiving dinner last night, which was awesome. I didn't get any pics of that one though.
Then later that night my family was having Thanksgiving dinner (we move holidays to our convenience depending on when people can be home) so they skyped me in for dinner. They even set me (the laptop) on the table so it was almost like being there. Except I didn't get to actually eat the food, but it was 2am for me, so that was ok.


After putting up my tree I spent the evening watching my favorite Christmas classics. I don't care how old you are, Christmas specials never get old. I will watch Charlie Brown Christmas every year for as long as I live.


On a side note - I realized that even though I'm not 25 quite yet, this is my 25th Christmas. Happy 25 Christmas trees to me!

See it

'Nuff said.

Just life

Fall in Germany is pretty awesome. If you've ever been to Europe you know how green it is - well the fall colors are just as vivid. I was going to get out and take pics last weekend, but we had a huge wind storm on Thur and it pretty much blew all the leaves off the trees.

Last week I was in a Logistics course, and we took a field trip to one of our storage sites in Luxembourg. Not super exciting, but on the way back we stopped at the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial. Way awesome. I really wish I had had my camera. Sadly I did not. I got these pictures from someone else who took them with their phone. Thanks boss.

While I was gone on my cruise, it was decided by my bosses that I would be moving jobs. I'm pretty excited about this. I've been in the same unit since I got here. I'm basically just going to be running a couple of programs, and doing whatever projects the Col needs done. He is awesome, and told me that I'm pretty much my own boss now. This is kind of a new, made-up position, so I don't actually have a job title yet. They told me just to make one up. This is my new office. The 5th one I've had since I've been here. I'll be sharing it with someone eventually (there's another desk on the other side of the room) but they haven't figured out who yet.

So that's just daily life in a nutshell as it stands right now.

Beaches, Boats, and Harry Potter

I got to spend the last 10 days of Oct on a family vacation. It was awesome. We spent 2 days at Universal Studios, FL. The best part of this was Harry Potter World. When you first enter it it's like walking into Hogsmeade...and it really is, they have the shops and everything you can go in. It's super sweet. We even got butterbeer at the Hogshead. (If you're not a HP geek and don't understand these terms, don't worry 'bout it). Then there is the castle, which isn't full size but is still huge. It has a ride in it, but to get to the ride you walk through a lot of the castle and it's awesome. It feels completely legit. We completely geeked out and bought wands and robes and everything. We're cool like that.

The last night at Universal I was forced to attend Halloween Horror Nights. It was Jared's B-Day, and that's what he wanted to do, so I went along. It was awful. Ok, it really wasn't THAT bad - and if you enjoy scary things, you'd probably love it, but I don't plan on going back anytime soon.

After our days at Universal we set sail on the Carnival Dream. It was a 7 day cruise down through the Bahamas and the Caribbean.



Yes, that is a giant waterslide. It was pretty fun, but we only went on it a couple times because it was always crowded with little kids. We did spend a lot of time lounging on those deck chairs though.


One of the nights was a Halloween party/costume contest. Good thing we'd bought costumes at Universal!

Our first stop was Nassau, Bahamas. It would be an awesome place to stay and vacation. We mostly just wandered around the Atlantis resort.


Our second stop was in the Caribbean at St. Thomas. We went snorkeling with sea turtles here. I didn't get any pictures of it though, since my camera is fairly nice, and I didn't want to risk dropping it in the sea. It was my first snorkeling adventure. And I liked it except for all sea water. Gross.

Our third and final stop was St. Martin. We just spent the day on the beach/in the ocean. The weather and water were perfect.


This was successful only after many many failed attempts. But they got it eventually!

Every night on the cruise we had a fancy 3 course meal. Delicious.



In between all of those adventures there was a lot of eating, and a lot of lounging, and some bingo tournaments (we collectively won multiple times, I got $115) , karaoke, and comedians. All in all it was a super good time.