The weekend comes to an end....

I hope all of you had a great weekend!  Here comes Monday...  boo, right?  Well, to me, it doesn't make a difference anymore which day it is but I know how Mondays can suck, big time.

I've had a pretty great weekend.  Friday night, I went out w/ about eight girls from my Junior League group  for dinner and drinks and then stayed a little longer w/ two of them for another beer and good conversation.    We had a good time.  There are some great girls in my group and I could see myself becoming friends with just about every one of them!  I'm already pretty good friends w/ Vicki.  She and I met back in May at a benefit for Junior League and clicked and we've been hanging out ever since.  She and I have a blast together.  Saturday, about 70 of us Junior League-ers helped clean an area of Fairmount Park in Philly called Rittenhouse Town.  It was a beautiful area and we just helped clean out all the exotic plants and vines that are taking over the indigenous trees and plans of the area.  It's amazing how much work we did!  We had a blast doing it too, though.  We had AMAZING weather yesterday.  Good weather, plus good work, plus good girlfriends= great day!  Last night I was so tired from staying out Friday night and working all day Saturday so I just chilled and was in bed by about 10:00.  AND, I slept until about 9:30 today... which I NEVER do!  If I wake up past 7:30 anymore it's a miracle.  Today, I went to Peace Valley Park and did a 5k on a trail through the park.  That was nice and the weather was great today too.  After the park, I picked up some pumpkins and spent the afternoon carving those on the back porch.  Here's pictures of both of them!

So, my weekend was pretty good.  But, I really wish Christian was home today like he was supposed to be!  So, since he's not home yet, I took myself out on a date to a sushi bar tonight and had sushi and wine at the bar.  Not a bad way to end the weekend, I suppose.  

The crew finally got Christian's plane fixed so he should be home Thursday.  Thank God!  I'm sooooo ready for him to be home!  I was thinking earlier today, he and I haven't really gone on a date since the night before he left for Sicily back in August!!!  Yes, we were in Europe for three weeks in September but we never had a nice dinner out by ourselves... we were always with friends or family over there!  So, I'm craving date night w/ my husband!  

Mom & Adam come Friday!!!!  I'm soooo excited to have them up!  There so much to do up here so I'm trying to narrow down our plans so we don't run ourselves ragged!  I know we'll do a day in Philly checking out all the history and fun places but I also thought about spending a day in NYC.  It's only 1 1/2 hours away so I think I'll make that a tentative plan and see how we all feel about it.  There's a really neat haunted house that the Eastern State Penitentiary is putting on down in Philly.  It's an old historic prison that they make into a haunted house every year.  I'm going to get tickets to that this week!  That should be awesome!  Also, my friend Vicki and her friend Iris told me about the Italian market in South Philly that is awesome.  So, I need to do a little more research about that.  Iris said that's where you can see some of the mobsters telling the shop owners to "put it on my tab".  haha!  I think that would be great!  

Like I said, there's soooo much to do!  I love it up here.  It's crazy b/c I thought I would really hate it.  But it's been great.  I've met some amazing people and the amount of culture you can find here is endless.  I think I'll actually be kind of bummed when we have to move in 2 1/2 years.  

Anyway, I hope everyone has a wonderful week!!!  I love y'all!

xoxo, 

Chrissi

Hello all and Happy Hump Day!

I hope everyone has had a great first half of their week.  Christian's still gone and we don't know when he's going to make it back home.  His plane is broken and he's stuck in Hawaii (rough life, right?).  In all actuality, he's not hangin' loose on the beach or anything, he's up with the plane just about all day every day so I don't really envy him.  I just wish they could get it fixed so he can finish his trip and come home!  I did some calculations the other day and found that he's been gone 47% of the time since we moved up here.  Yes, it sucks but I know it could be way worse so I'm not complaining.

In other exciting news, I locked myself out of my house yesterday morning.  That was rather exciting.  haha  I left at about 8 a.m. to go to the grocery store b/c we were out of milk and I eat oatmeal just about every morning.  So, I get up to the grocery store and realize I don't have my wallet.  So, I drive back home only to find out that my garage door opener is not working.  The battery was dead.  Annnddd, to make matters worse, I don't have a house key.  Our one and only house key was in Christian's truck up at base and his truck key was, of course, inside the house.  So, not only did I not have his truck key to go up to base to get the house key, I also didn't have my wallet that had my military i.d. that I would have needed to get on base.  Also, because I didn't have my wallet, I couldn't simply run up to Lowes or Home Depot to get a new battery.  ugh....  But, luckily my wonderful neighbor, Pete, was home and he miraculously had an extra teeny tiny battery for the garage door opener and I was able to get inside.  haha  Great start to the day, right?

I have a somewhat busy weekend planned, which is nice.  Friday night, my Junior League group is getting together for happy hour and then Saturday we have a "work day" down in Fairmont Park where we'll be cleaning up the park and stuff.  I'll get to see a lot of the great girls I've met so I'm excited for some socialization.  It gets a little boring around here when Christian's gone and my socialization comes from my blog, Facebook and the t.v.  haha

One thing I've heard lately on the radio shows I listen to is a discussion regarding this LA Times article about religious views of 20-somethings.  VeRy interesting and I can empathize with a lot of the views of those 20-somethings mentioned in this article.  It's not too long... here's the link to it if you're intrigued:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-1017-putnam-religion-20101017,0,6283320.story

Hope everyone has a great afternoon!

-Chrissi

Welcome to the world, little ones!

Today, two of my friends (Kristen & Mandy) that I grew up with are both giving birth to their baby boys.  Kristen & Jason are expecting Easton Palmer & Mandy & Joe are expecting Jonathan Cooper.  I can't wait to see their pictures!  I'm keeping an eye on Facebook to see who the first person to post pics will be!  So exciting.  It stinks that I'm so far away but hopefully I'll get to hold the little bundles of joy when I'm home for the holidays.  I also have about four or five other friends who are pregnant!  Maybe we'll be in the same boat soon!  Still hoping & praying for that miracle!  :)

So anyway, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, we had someone come out this morning to look at our washing machine and the verdict is: $400 for a new motor.  Ugh.  So, I went ahead and ordered the part and it should be fixed in a couple days.

Something that I haven't mentioned to y'all is how I ran into a scam on Craig's List!  I've already started looking at homes to rent in New Jersey where we want to move so I can get a good idea of prices.  Well, I looked on Craig's List and found a great house for $1500 a month.  This is much less that we are currently paying for our townhouse.  So, yes, I immediately though "hmm... this is mighty cheap for around here" but I went ahead and pursued the ad.  I got a reply from a man by the name of Donald Mennig who claimed he and his wife work for USAID and will be moving to Africa to work for eight years.  The email was extremely religious and said they were looking for a "God fearing family" to rent their home.  When I got that email, I sent it to Christian and told him "I don't think we're God fearing enough for these people".  He laughed and said we should still check it out.  So, I continued the conversation with "Donald".  I told him that we have experience on both ends of the rental process (as the owner and renter) and we were military and all this other crap to make us sound really good.  Well, I get a reply from him within about 10 minutes saying that he has found his future renter (even though I had already mentioned twice that we weren't looking to move until March).  He also listed his phone number which looked like a international number so that threw a red flag for me.  So, I googled the home's address and ended up finding the REAL listing on Zillow.com for $2500 a month.  So, luckily, I was able to contact the homeowner and realtor and let them know this scam was going on.  This impostor's next step was probably to ask for the deposit ($1000) by mail since they weren't in the country.  Sneeky, sneeky Mr. Scam artist!  I hope he gets caught!!!  The realtor said this wasn't the first time it had happened but he had never seen the emails from any of the scam artists so I sent him the whole conversation I had with this person.  Hopefully something will happen.  The listing is already off of Craig's List.  It amazes me how crappy some people in this world are.

I also mentioned in yesterday's post that I was reading a new book.  Well, I've had the book since about two weeks before I went to Europe and I'm only about half way through.  I haven't been very motivated to read lately.  Anyway, the title is "For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage".  As you guys know, I am very fascinated with marriage and relationships and what makes them work and more interesting, what makes them fail.  So, this book is full of research studies about different aspects of marriage such as communication types, having children, monogamy, etc.  It's neat b/c it's all factual and it's not just some author telling you what they think you should be doing in your relationship.  I've also told y'all before that I'd love to go back to school to get my masters in Family & Marriage Counseling so this book was right up my alley.  For anyone looking for some interesting facts and outcomes, this is a great book!  It's also full of neat little tests to rate your relationship.  Christian and I are doing just fine.  :)  haha  I usually carry a highlighter with me when I'm reading these kinds of books because I always find neat little pieces of info but I have had to pass over so many things without my highlighter b/c either I forget it or I can't find one when I need it.  So, I may end up reading this book again so I can capture some of those things.

Now, I'm going to run some errands!  Hope everyone has a great Monday!

xoxo,

Chrissi

Home at last, with no place to go.... for about a month.

After a long seven hour drive, I'm back home from my weekend in New Hampshire.  I had a great time and it was great to see Megan and her family.  They are really great people!  We ate great New England food (clams & lobsters) and drank plenty of good red wine and bloody mary's!  The weather was a little dull Saturday with some pretty harsh winds and clouds but it certainly didn't take away from the beauty of all of the leaves changing!  This morning, all the clouds had blown by and it was absolutely gorgeous!  Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures!  I know, I know... I'm the picture queen!  But, I kept forgetting about my camera.  Oh well....

I made it back home around 5 o'clock this afternoon and have been relaxing and surfing the internet.  Christian's still gone.  He'll be gone until next Sunday I think... they had an issue w/ the plane today so the trip may get extended a day or so.  Who knows... This is the life of the Navy.  As a wife, you can never have any grand expectations for when he'll actually be home, that's for sure!  So, I'll make the most of my week.  I really need to strip a piece of antique furniture that I have but I've been putting that off for weeks.  Maybe I'll get to that this week.  I'm wanting to redecorate our living room... spice it up a bit so hopefully I can use pieces we already have to give it a new look.  If I'm anything like my mom (which people have told me I am), I can turn any room upside down and inside out without spending a penny!  :)  But, searching through the Pottery Barn website right now probably isn't helping that whole "without spending a penny" thing....

We have someone coming tomorrow to look at our broken washing machine.  Hopefully they can fix it and I don't have to go buy a new one!  I also have to go to the VW dealership tomorrow to have my tires checked out.  Apparently, I have low tire pressure and my tires are filled with nitrogen so I don't know if I can put regular air in them.  So, I'm just going to run up to the dealership and let them handle it.  I also have to go the next three days without spending much money.  Christian made a deal with me; if we can keep the credit card relatively low this month, I get to go on a winter clothes shopping spree.  He finally realized that this Florida girl's wardrobe isn't too prepared for a northeastern winter.  So, the 20th is the last day of the cycle so I'm being very good.  I really don't shop a lot and I don't spend a lot of money but we put EVERYTHING on the credit card and have had some big purchases that last few months with all the travel so it's been a nice break to see the low balance!  Hopefully, we can make this work!

Some of you may have seen on my Facebook profile that I'm listening to Christmas music.... already.  Pandora.com is my best friend for Christmas music and for some reason I'm in a very Christmasy mood!  Maybe it's the cooler weather that we're getting and the firewood we cut last weekend out in Maryland.  It's not quite cool enough for a fire but I am itching to build one ASAP!  I'm also really wanting to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation!!!!  I don't have it on DVD but I will be watching it FOR SURE when I'm home at my mom's!  I love this time of year.  The holidays and all the family time... and, of course, the awesome comfy cozy clothes you get to wear!

Well, I've officially come down with writers block.  I've got nothing else to write about.  haha  Oh, I need to tell y'all about a new book I've been reading.  I'll try and do that tomorrow.  It's very interesting!

Stay tuned!

Love,

Chrissi

Good morning and Happy Friday!!!

I hope all of you have a great weekend planned!  For those of you in P'cola, beautiful weekend coming your way!  Here in Philly is supposed to be pretty nice.  But, wouldn't ya know that where I'm heading, New Hampshire, is rainy and windy.  BLAH!  Oh well, just gotta make the best of it!  I'm sure it will be a beautiful drive up today.  Hopefully the rain will hold off a while.

Christian left this morning for a nine day trip for work.  And, oh so conveniently, our washing machine broke last night while I was doing laundry for both of our trips.  Fabulous, huh?  It's one of those front loading ones and it keeps coming up with an error that means "overload on motor".  So, first, we tried lightening the load... that didn't work.  So, after it had already gone through the process of filling the washer with water, it decides to not work.  So I had to pull all of the soaking wet clothes out of the washer and put them in our bathtub with hot water and laundry detergent and wash EVERYTHING by hand.  It was soooo frustrating but hilarious too.  I was standing in the tub trying to hand wash underwear, shirts, jeans and Christian's flight suit.  Needless to say, it wasn't easy.  Christian started laughing at me and tried to make excused to get out of helping me but that was not happening.  We ended up throwing underwear at each other and I almost fell down into the soapy water in the bath tub.  It was hysterical.  hahaha  So, now we have a repair man coming Monday morning to take a look at it.  Hopefully it's nothing major!

I'm leaving in a little bit for my six hour drive.  I have my ipod loaded, my GPS ready and plans to stop at Starbucks for a pumpkin spice latte!  It's not a bad drive and it actually goes by pretty quickly.

A couple of things in the news that are worthy of a little of my insight:

1.  Holy cow for "The View" yesterday!  If any of you are living under a rock and haven't watched t.v. in the last 24 hours and you haven't seen the clip from the fight with Bill  O'Reilly, Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, it is a must-see.  It's really pretty ridiculous.  Bill O'Reilly pops off and said "Muslims killed us on 9/11".... big statement... and big mistake.  He should have known he was going to catch all kinds of hell from folks for that, especially liberals like Joy & Whoopi.  Oh well, politics aside, I can't stand Bill O'Reilly.  I think he's a pompous ass.  He's such a jerk and soooo condescending.  And, I have to admit, I like watching Joy Behar's show on HLN.  No, I'm not a liberal.  And no, I'm not a conservative.  I don't care for anyone who's so far to the right or left that they can't see what else is going on the world.  There are a lot more important things in the world than political parties.  So, I'll stand behind Barbara Walters (Wawa) on this whole fight.  She handled her colleagues and guest with grace and set everyone straight.  Bravo, BW, bravo.

2.  Bullying.  If any of you picked up one of the most recent issues of People Magazine, you'll found several articles profiling the suicides of children and teenagers as a result of bullying.  This hits home to me because I was bullied for a long time in high school b/c of stupid girl/boy drama and it really takes a toll on a person.  It's amazing how hateful some kids can be.  I read all of the articles in People and it breaks my heart to hear some of the hurtful things that are said or done to children/teens because of a minor difference.  So, even though I'll most likely miss it b/c of my trip, tonight on ABC, there is a two-hour special on 20/20 about bullying.  I encourage any of you to watch it if you can.  We have to do something about all of this crap.  It's ridiculous.  It starts in the home!  If you condone your kids talking about others under your roof and you don't reprimand them, who knows what they're saying when they're not in your presence.  Be careful parents!  One story I heard yesterday brought me to tears.... a woman was on a radio show that I listen to and she discussed how one of her children committed suicide b/c of bullying.  That was last year some time.  Now, her younger daughter is being bullied by a little boy about her brother committing suicide.  Saying things like "haha your brother's dead" and other hateful, hurtful things.  If this kid just gets a slap on the wrist and continues on with life without any major repercussions, what do you think our world will be like in 10-15 years when these kids are adults?    What happened to instilling kindness and respect for others in our children?

3.  Hip Hip Hooray for the Chilean miners!  Such a great story and I'm so happy all them are safe and home with their families.  But, did any of you hear about the one miner who's mistress showed up to greet him but his wife didn't??  This is craziness!  Apparently, while they were trapped, the wife was up at the site of the mine and kept seeing a woman crying and eventually realized she was crying for the same man!  They compared stories and realized what was going on.  So, as I mentioned, the wife decided to stay home on the rescue day while the mistress was there and received a not so warm welcome from the miner who knew he was in deep doo doo.  Let this be a lesson to all men- the women always find out, one way or another.  I heard on the news this morning that there's another miner who allegedly has FOUR mistresses!!  Oh, the price of limelight.

Well, that's about all I have for today!  Have a wonderful weekend!!!

xoxo,

Chrissi

Really neat website!

A friend of mine sent me this website and I just wanted to share it w/ you guys: www.atwestend.com.  She sent it to me b/c I asked where she got something like this:

She actually had little parts that made the pumpkin a witch but I can't find those.  They also have one that makes it a spider (in two different ways)!  Sooo cute.  The website has some other really great stuff.  

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Finally back home... for three days, at least.

I think I'm a glutton for punishment when it comes to traveling.  We got back home LATE last Wednesday night from Germany...Landed in Baltimore and drove two hours home to Philly.  Arrived home around 2:30 a.m. Thursday morning and went to bed.  Christian and I both woke up at about 6 a.m. Thursday b/c of the time difference still messing with us.  So, he went into work for a little bit and I unpacked and packed again since we left at about noon on Thursday to spend the weekend at Christian's dad's house in Maryland.  We finally got back home today and Christian and I are both leaving Friday for different trips.  Christian's going to Guam for eight days and I'm probably going up to New Hampshire for the weekend.  This weekend is the party that we've been going to the past couple years in Meredith, NH.  It's Christian's friend, Scott's wife's (Megan) parent's lake house.  They have a huge clam bake every October and it's so much fun.  So, Scott's on an IA in Africa and Christian will be in Guam so I'm going to spend the weekend w/ Megan and her family.  It should be a good time!  I love New Hampshire and this family... they're great people and they know how to throw a party!  The drive up will take about 6 1/2 hours but I'm sure it will be absolutely gorgeous with the leaves changing!!  I'm hoping to drive up to Freeport, Maine one of the days I'm up there too so I can go to the L.L. Bean Factory Outlet.

Once I get back, there will be less than two weeks until my momma & brother come up to visit!!!  I'm soooo excited to have them come up!  Hopefully the weather will be really nice and we'll find some neat things to get into.  There's a Flyers vs Penguins hockey game here in Philly the night they get into town so I'm going to try and get tickets to that.  Hopefully I can get them!

I'm also sooo excited to be coming home for a whole month over the holidays!  Christian's getting pretty excited to go back to Florida too.  He hasn't been back since we moved!  We can't wait to see all the family and friends!

How's the weather down in Florida?  It's been great up here since we got back.  It's supposed to rain a little tomorrow and be pretty cool this weekend w/ highs in the low 60s here in Philly but even cooler in New Hampshire!

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a great week so far!  I love y'all!

xoxo,

Chrissi

WE MADE IT HOME!!!!

Yayyyy!  I'm so happy to be home!  We got on an earlier flight than we expected and arrived in Baltimore last night at about 11 p.m.  Then, we had to drive home so after getting our bags, getting the rental car, etc, we actually didn't get home until right after 2 a.m.

It was so nice to lay in our big comfy bed!  But, neither of us were tired because of the huge time difference so we both woke up at about 6 a.m. today and started getting everything back in order here at home.

So, now, Christian wants to go to his dad's house this weekend so I think we might leave this afternoon or tomorrow for a weekend in the mountains.... never a dull moment, huh??  haha  It's actually not all that much of a pain for me.  For some reason, this house still doesn't feel like a "home" and I don't really get homesick.  The things I miss when I'm not at home are my cooking and being able to watch t.v. and not worry about having to wear a bra the second I wake up in the morning.  Haha!!!  It's the little things in life....

So, I'm off to the grocery store and I don't know if I've ever been so excited to go grocery shopping!  I miss American food!  :)

I'll be posting more elaborate stuff about our trip in the coming days....

Hope everyone has a great day!!!

xoxo,
Chrissi

WOW!  It's October 1st!!!  How crazy is that?!

Well, we made it to Germany.  However, we only made it after a 10 1/2 hour car ride from Faistenau to Frankfurt.  UGHHHH.  The traffic on the autobahn was horrible yesterday and the weather didn't make it much better.  We had to take our rental car back to Munich airport and then ride the rest of the way with Christian's cousin, Christof.  As you know, many parts of the Autobahn do not have speed limits so we got up to about 140 mph a couple times!  However, that did not speed up our trip!  haha  We had to go to Ramstein Airforce Base to book our flight home.  We put our name down on a flight leaving Thursday morning and flies straight to Baltimore where we'll just have to rent another car to drive home (about 2 hours away).  The flight we're supposed to be on is the "Patriot Flight" which carries all the guys coming home from the middle east so that will be a treat.  I'm looking forward to being home.

We walked downtown this morning which is about 2.5 miles away so we got a pretty decent work out.  Christian and I have both lost about 5 pounds since we got here.  All the walking and not eating like we do in the states will do that to you!  The big meal over here is lunch and then you just have bread and meats for dinner (salami, bacon, ham, etc).  It's hard to get used to.  I like having the big meal for dinner b/c it gives you something to look forward to all day!

We're going to his aunts house tonight for a surprise b-day party for her husband (an American).  So, there will be a lot of English being spoken, which is nice.  :)  I actually started a small conversation with Christian's grandfather this morning in German about my car (since it's German too).  So, I used a little more of my German than what I usually do.  I just never know if I'm saying something correctly.  It all sounds so funny.  I asked what English sounds like to them and he said it sounds like we have a hot potato in our mouths!  haha

I think we're going out tomorrow night with Christian's cousin, Julia.  She's my age and so much fun.... she also speaks english!  She's the one we went to Oktoberfest with last year.

Anyway, all is going good and I'm getting antsy to be back home!  I'm ready for Halloween and for my mom & brother to come visit!!!!  I can't wait to see them!  Also, for those of you from Florida, Christian and I are driving to Pensacola the weekend before Thanksgiving.  Christian will leave to go back to Philly the weekend after Thanksgiving to get ready for his trip to Japan.   He'll be in Japan all of December (including Christmas :(  ) so I'm staying in Florida from Thanksgiving until right after Christmas.  I'm excited to be home that long but I'll definitely miss him!  But, hopefully the holidays will make the time go by quickly.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and sees some good weather and great football!  We both miss football soooo bad!  haha

Love y'all and miss y'all!

Chrissi