Rirruto?

(Updated: I failed to go back and correct the portion below (paragraph 6) about my cousin Karlee Andrews once the investigation was complete. Her dad, my uncle, posted a blog with an update on what happened, so please read it for more info on Karlee and her life. They discovered she had a heart condition, which was the apparent cause. Sorry for any confusion, but I wanted to make sure I set the record straight. -Chris, 12/30/07)

So I don’t think I’ve blogged since before I left Georgia, so you get another dose of sarcasm and witty banter from your favorite guy ever! A lot has happened since Mindy last updated, but it seems like we’ve been going non-stop since we got here (today is the first real day we’ve had nothing to accomplish). Mindy will post next week, complete with pictures, when we get our own internet and phone hook up…I’m totally glomming someone else’s crappy wireless signal right now.

After I got my license, last Saturday we headed down to Kaiserslautern, about 30-40 mins away, to look for a car. K-town is a lot bigger than Baumholder, and was quite an experience for me to try to drive. The rental we had was a stick, and it’s been a few years for me, not to mention trying to drive on European roads. We got our first taste of the autobahn, and I was kind of a wuss…but when you see our rental car you’ll understand why. We got there late (more on that in a sec), and only really saw one dealer. K-town is where the famous Ramstein air base is (and Landstuhl hospital is also nearby), and there are plenty of dealers who cater to military folks…and for some reason they’re all Irish. We went back on Monday and saw a few more, but found a good deal on a 98 Ford Contour. We finalized the purchase on Thursday, so we have a car! It’s not what I pictured us getting, but it’s in good shape and a little roomier for when we add baby number two. Pictures will be posted next week.

Monday was also the day we moved into our housing on post. It’s actually pretty roomy…but in a cavernous kinda way. The floors are all tile, there are metal doors separating every room, there are built in closets in all the bedrooms, and the outside is like a communist blockhouse…but it’s home for the next few years. We still need curtains and rugs to get ready for our furniture, which should arrive in September. Yikes, that’s a long ways off. We do have some government furniture in here, so we’re doing ok. Once again, pictures will follow next week.

We’re all adjusting well, I think. It’s been a tough few weeks with the transition and all the running around, but the worst seems to be over. We also got good news about impending deployments- ours appears to be postponed until early next year, so I will get to be here for the birth and about a month of the new kid’s life. So I got that going for me… which is nice (Caddyshack…anyone?). I will be out in the field for awhile this fall and may miss Thanksgiving, but I will be back for Christmas and New Year’s. I start work on Monday, since my unit has now arrived back in from the field (long story…but they were training for the original deployment date, and came back early when it got pushed back).

In the meantime, between accomplishing the tasks of buying a car and getting housing, we’ve been exploring our surroundings a bit and doing a lot of shopping- we’ve had to restock our food and a bunch of other stuff to get settled in. We have our cable and a new TV that will end up in our bedroom once our stuff gets here. Luke has been taking it pretty well, and he finally adjusted to the time change here last week…boy, that was a rough week waiting for that to happen. Mindy is still sick, but fighting the good fight to get her Zofran. No new news on that yet, but I’m sure it will be a major theme when she writes next.

On a more somber note, many of you heard my 14 year-old cousin Karlee Andrews passed away last weekend. She was the daughter of my uncle Brian, my mom’s younger brother. There were six of us grandkids from Dave and Nina Andrews, and Karlee was the youngest. I was not extremely close to her, being about 15 years older and one of the two boys out of the six of us, but her loss was still just as painful and sad as if we had been. Our family has always been very close knit, and it’s been hard to be so far away during a time like this. I talked to my mom yesterday before the funeral, and she said that there were many family and friends who came in to support Brian, Karlee’s mom Patty, and her sister Chelsey during these last few days. For those of you that heard about this and prayed for Brian, Patty, and Chelsey, thank you so much, and please continue to lift them up when you get the chance. If you’re interested, you can check out some photos and video of her and view/sign the guestbook at http://www.singletonfuneralhome.com/ .

So to wrap up, we’re still here and doing well. We like it here, even if it has taken some getting used to, but I think we realize how much we will miss life in the USA! Mindy is especially sad to not have a 24 hour store like Wal-Mart to run to when we need something…although I’m not too broken up about it, since I was always the one she bugged to run out and get whatever we needed. The Germans we’ve met seem very nice, although I would imagine, in the case of Baumholder, their survival as a town depends largely on the US presence. I’m excited to get out and do some travelling and exploring…we’re literally within hours of places like Trier, Luxembourg, Belgium and eastern France. Plus, as a history guy, we’re right in the path of tons of historical events. Heck, I wrote my senior thesis paper on one unit in the Battle of the Bulge that got overrun probably forty minutes from where we live.

Anyway, stay tuned for some pictures of our journey so far. As we get out more, hopefully they will get more exotic and adventurous…for now you can expect pictures of us on planes, in cars, in hotel rooms, and in our empty apartment. But you guys love pictures of Luke, so there’s lots of those as well. Have great weekend!