Germany

Hey all!

I managed to snag a computer at the ACS office while Chris is in a briefing, so I thought I would take a few minutes to update you on our trip so far.

First off, e-mail (or comments on this blog) are the only way to reach us at this point. We'll try to check e-mail when we can get to a computer, but that may be days. We'll try our best to check it 2-3 times a week if we can. We should get setup with our own internet pretty quickly once we get housing. Because of time restrictions, we probably won't be able to reply in a quick manner, but we'll catch up once we get setup ourselves. I will try to update through the blog so I can reach everyone at the same time because of that.

Tuesday morning, we all got up bright and early. We said a very sad goodbye to Riley at the house and then all jumped into the luggage packed van and headed to the airport. Once we got there, we checked in and said another very sad goodbye to Mom and Dad Scott. We somehow (by the grace of God) managed to drag all of our carry on baggage (we had the max, plus a car seat and stroller) through the airport and on to our first plane. We had to fly to Chicago first. Chris had to fanagle a seat change because they only had 2 of our seats together. He managed that without a hitch. Luke did pretty good. He only had one little crying fit and it was pretty short. Chris and Luke ended up sleeping most of the flight. We had to make our connecting flight with only a few minutes to spare. They were already boarding once we rushed to the gate in Chicago (with all our stuff in tow somehow.) Chris had to make another seat change because once again our seats weren't together. He managed to do it in record time and we boarded the plane and got set up for a long flight. Luke did well on this flight as well. I know the passengers were worried when they saw us plop down next to them, but many of them commented after the flight at how well he did. He only had one little fussing fit and then he chattered on for awhile. He slept 4-5 hours of the flight. Chris slept about 3 of it and I slept about 2 hours.

We landed in Franfurt at about 5:30am (Germany time.) We found the USO in the airport and waited for a shuttle. The shuttle picked us up at about 7:30am and took us to Hanau. We had to do some initial inprocessing there. The sad thing was that the breifing didn't start until 10:30am! Lucky for us, they had a children's play room in the building and we were able to take Luke in there. We eventually all took a nap. We got our briefing (about 2 minutes) and then had to wait until 12:15pm for another bus to come pick us up. Finally we boarded that bus and were on our way to Baumholder. We all slept most of the bus ride. We got to Baumholder at around 4pm. Chris had to do some more inprocessing then they took us to an off-post hotel. Let's just say hotels here are not the same as in the States. 2 twin beds, a moldy refridgerator and a tiny bathroom (with an equally tiny shower). That's about it. =) Needless to say, we're heading to housing right after I publish this. =)

Today we've been in briefings all day. They provide 1 full day of childcare free, so we have a ton of stuff left to do today while Luke is being cared for. So, I should probably sign off for now. I have SOOOO much more to tell you about, so I'll try to blog again soon.

Things are definitely different here, but it's kinda fun and exciting. If I could just get rid of the morning sickness, it would be much better. Anyway, I'll continue my update as soon as I can (if I can figure out the German Blogger titles...).

We miss you all and love you all! Thank you so much for all of your support and prayers.