Back East

I had a course in NJ for a couple weeks for work. It was a good time and waaaay better than being at work. Even better than that though - one of my best friends from Germany now lives in DC. We met up in NY one weekend, then I went to DC for a few days after my course was over.

New York was AWESOME.
We went and saw all the Christmas things.


Went up to the Top of the Rock

And we wandered all over central park

It was a blast. I love NY. I actually want to live there now....

DC was also great. We did a lot of touristy things and walked all over DC

Saying Hello to Abe

Hanging out in the Pres.'s back yard

The Vietnam Memorial

The whole trip was so great. I can't wait to go back.

Back in America

I've been back in the States for about 3 months now so I guess it's time I update:

The European adventure is over (for now anyways) and I'm back in Ut working at Hill AFB. I miss all the travels and my friends, but it's also awesome to be so close to family again.
Here's just a few of the things that have been happening since I've been back. I wanted to give each of these things their own post, but they're starting to stack up and it's probably better just to consolidate at this point...

I bought a house...well, a townhouse.

My nephew Justin came home from his mission in Russia

I had to fly out to CA to pick up my car when they shipped it over. My sister and bro in-law just happened to be out there at the same time, so I went to Disneyland with them for a day

I also stopped in Vegas on the way back and spent a couple days with my long time BFF

My nephew Jared passed away about a week before his 26th Birthday, after a 9 month battle with Leukemia. I'm really grateful I was able to be close to home and spend time with him these last few months.

One of the best parts about being home is getting to spend so much time with this little guy. This is my oldest nephew's son. Yes, that makes me a great-aunt. I'm pretty sure he's the cutest baby on the planet.

This weekend we carved pumpkins. Mine's the Boo on the left.

I think that pretty much catches me up for now

Party in Ibiza

4th of July weekend we flew out to Ibiza (island off of Spain). This was most of our group's last major trip together.

It's quite famous for being a party island actually. It's even in a bunch of songs, like J-Lo's latest song, On the Floor..."London to Ibiza".

Anyways, back on track. So we went to Ibiza, and did a lot of this

And some of this

And then this

And a little of this

And then back to more of this

That pretty much sums up the whole weekend. Beaches and clubs. It was awesome. That club picture is actually from the Snoop concert we went to. I wish I could accurately portray how incredibly crammed the crowd was in there. It was awful. I actually only stayed in that room for about 20 min (which is about how long it took me to force my way in about 10 yards, and force my way back out again)...didn't even wait for Snoop to come out - which, turns out, I'm really glad for because he ended up being like 2 hours late. It was just sooooo crowded - not even worth it.
But aside from that little fun-filled night, the trip was a blast. Sad it was my last trip with the gang though.

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music

A few weeks ago my buddy Aaron and I took a train to Salzburg for a few days. In case you didn't know, Salzburg is where The Sound of Music was filmed, and that's its big tourist draw. They have an entire tour that takes you to a bunch of the places used in the movie:

The "house" used as the back of the Von Trapp mansion, and the lake they fall in. This is actually like a science research center

The gazebo - moved from it's original location because all the scientists got tired of having tourists around their building all the time

Fountains/Gardens used in the "do rae mi" scene

The Sound of Music stuff was cool to see, but the city alone is pretty awesome

And the tour took us up into the countryside of Austria, which is amazing

These pics were taken on my iphone with the autostitch app - I highly recommend it

Budapest

Now that we've hit the majority of Western Europe, we decided to take a trip East. This time it was to Budapest, Hungary.

We started off the trip with a bike tour of the city

(this is my good friend Christa, she's awesome)

It's a pretty awesome way to see all of the city, even if we did get rained on and had to ride up a rather large hill (man I'm out of shape). But at least at the top of the hill we got this view

That big fancy building is the Parliament building. We tried to take a tour of it but it was closed for some event

There was also some Castley type places we explored

And a few churches (it is Europe after all)

And some other fancy looking buildings that I don't recall the purpose of...

It was a pretty fun, relaxing, touristy weekend - just wandering around seeing things. And the 6 of us rented an apartment for the weekend, which is always a good time.

Promotion Day

Last month I got promoted to 1st Lieutenant! Woo!
If you don't know anything about our promotion system, the promotion from 2nd LT to 1st LT is basically an automatic promotion after 2 years, as long as you are still breathing and haven't burnt down any buildings or anything. Even so, it is awesome to get for a few reasons- For one, people no longer assume you are brand new. But even more awesome is an added $900/month. Sweet!

For my promotion ceremony I just had some friends and people I work/have worked with come. My boss did the official ceremony/oath part. (He's an awesome boss, btw. I'm pretty lucky.)

Then I had two of my best friends pin on my new bars

Thanks for comin guys!

Normandy

For Memorial Day we decided to drive over to France and see Normandy. A pretty awesome way to spend Memorial Day if you ask me.
On the way we stopped and spent a night in Versailles and saw the palace and all that. Pretty neat.


The next day we headed to Normandy. We took a guided tour and hit a few historical spots.
The first was the Point Du Hoc. This was a spot between Utah and Omaha beaches where the Army rangers scaled the cliffs to overtake a German outpost on D-Day.


The next stop was Omaha Beach. If you don't know the significance of this place you should do some reading...or watch Saving Private Ryan.

Our last stop was the American Cemetery