Ugggghhhhh! I remember Now why I REALLY dislike moving!

Would someone please convince my husband that there are women (and men too, probably) who like to clean houses and need the money. I seriously spent 9 hours scrubbing our house today, trying to get ready to out-process, and didn't even get to the bottom floor. Have you ever done a move-out clean with a 9 month old???? Oh, and an almost 3 year old who suffered serious meltdown when he came into his empty house. Casey was a huge help with the kids, to the extent he could be, but that meant we weren't both working on the house. Okay, Can't type anymore, my fingers are literally worked to the bone, and are too tired to type anymore. More later.

Oh, a quick note, we have some awesome friends! Megan and Mark threw us a farewell party with a bunch of our church friends and it was so great. I'll post pics when I'm not so tired.

Moving Update

We spent the past 3 days having our stuff packed up and crated. We had a whopping 17,yes, 17 crates full of crap (there really isn't any better word to use here!) When we got here, we had 13. What does that tell you????

It feels good to have that hurdle out of the way. Now we just have to clean the house, which is so much easier when it's empty, and meet with the landlords on Tuesday. The weekend will be busy. We are the guests of honor at a squadron farewell BBQ tomorrow at noon, a church open house and game night at 5, and on Monday, another BBQ for the other squadron Casey is attached to. It's crazy times here, I tell ya! We'll be in the TLF (temporary living facility for you non military folk) for 10 days - leaving here the 6th. We'll miss Aviano, for sure, but it's time to move on!

I'm looking forward to single handedly boost the American economy in the next few weeks, buying a van, a house, washer and dryer, bed for Ethan, and lots more I'm sure. It is exciting to look forward to house hunting. We've been renting or on base for the past 10 years, and we're ready to get into something we can call our own!

No pictures here, but I should take a pic. of the aftermath of the moving company. It amazes me that no matter how clean it may appear when they get there, there is always so much dirt and junk hiding everywhere it's downright embarrassing!

More later.......

More awesome pictures.

Our friend had her awesome camera out at the Carnivale Parade in February and sent these first two to me.

This one is Alisea's favorite toy. We spend a fortune on all the latest toys and gadgets, and the thing she loves most is a .99 cent ball. Go

Figure!

Croatia

We just returned from a wonderful trip to Croatia. It is such a beautiful country, and the people were so friendly. We did a ton of driving, and the little munchkins were very good about it. Caitlyn didn't go with us because she couldn't afford to miss school, which was very weird and sad. I was surprised at how much I missed having her along. Anyway, we visited a national park full of waterfalls and lakes, although we only got to see a small part due to the weather. Then we traveled to Dubrovnik for a couple of days, then Split. It was interesting when the landlord of the apartment we rented in Dubrovnik took us to the top of the mountain and showed us where the Bosnians were launching their attack in the war. It was a really neat city!

The craziest thing was this detour we were forced to take. There is really only one road leading to Dubrovnik, and it even has to cross the Bosnian border (for about 10 kilometers) which was weird. Anyway, there was a little section of the main road under construction so we were directed to take this detour. Now, detours are usually a little extra driving, a few miles maybe, and then you get back on your route and you're on you way. Well... This route took us deep into these crazy mountains, where at times two cars barely fit (we shared the road with diesels and all), and at times, we thought we must have really missed something. The thing was, there was no other way. Needless to say, it was 80 kilometers long, and took over an hour. On top of that, it had construction going on it in three different places!! It was the craziest thing. And to top it all off, I had to use the potty so bad, and there was no place to even pull over for a bush. What memories!

In Split, we decided to take a little time out and head to the zoo (10 min walk according to the map). We hauled out the strollers and set off. It turned out to be on the top of a mountain, literally, up a zillion stairs, and more like 45 minutes later, we finally reached this little bitty "zoo" where the animals were in some crazy little enclosures. We could have easily reached in to pet the tiger, for instance, if we'd wanted. Memories of the tiger attack much better epuiped Zoos had us a little pensive. It was fun for Ethan anyway, and great exercise for us since we had to pretty much carry the strollers up the mountain, kids and all, and all over the zoo.

We're back home now, and getting organized for the packers to come next week. It won't be long now and we'll be calling Texas home.

Alisea is crawling!

Yippee! and OH NO! Alisea is officially crawling. The whole family got to witness her first true crawling across the living room floor. I'll post pics later. We're heading to Croatia for a week in the morning.

Nove and Caitlyn has another ear infection

I took my last trip to Nove today. Bought some awesome Tiffany baskets to go with the rest of my stuff. I can't wait to show it all off. The whole Tiffany collection I've accumulated is probably worth $1000 or more, if I had purchased it in a stateside store (which I would NEVER have done), and I spent, probably grand total, $150-200 Euro for it all (over three years, mind you). I got a few other things too. Now I just need to have some people over to use the stuff with me.

Casey took Caitlyn to the doc. today for ear pain, and her infection is back. She fought taking the other med. because it tasted so bad, and now she's learning mom and dad were right, just cause she felt better, it wasn't gone. Needless to say, now we have to worry about her and ear pain on the flight because her eardrum is so irritated. Urrrrrrrghhhh! Like it's not going to be fun enough keeping track of all of them and our incredible amount of stuff. But that's for another post.

Till next time....