Updates

I know it has been a very long time, but there has not been much to post on. Frank has been gone for the past month and will be home in 2 days!! We are very excited. We'll have him home for 3 weeks before leaving again. We're not sure how long this time. My neighbors have been wonderful! They have a three year old and the girls play together really well. Despite being lonely, I have enjoyed being home and have decided to stay at home while we are here. I think I am even starting to like cleaning and laundry. There are so many programs available to Kaitlynn that I would not be able to take her to if I were working. She is about to start tumbling and is on the waiting list for a mother's day out program that is 3 days a week for 3 hours. The teachers in her room are all state certified in the U.S. too. We are hoping to hit some Christmas markets when he gets back, so we will hopefully update soon with pictures.

Halloween and Fall

This was Kaitlynn's first active Halloween. We did not think it was going to go well since she started screaming as soon as we put her costume on. After a quick nap on the way to base, she woke up refreshed, especially after she realized candy was involved. She is already a choc-a-holic. I tried to give her candy that was not chocolate while we were in the car and she would not eat it. Luckily we did not have a bag, so she does not have much candy left over. Chocolate is very messy!!


After 25 years, I now know what Fall is supposed to look like. Although I do not see it lasting long, it is pretty while it lasts. These pictures were taken from our balcony. It is even prettier on our drive in and out of our village. Too bad Frank is leaving next week and won't get to enjoy it. He'll be back the first week of December, so hopefully there will not be too much snow. Somebody told me today that the snow usually does not stick long, but is hard to predict. He is probably the 10th person to tell me something different about the winters here, and I hope he is right. I don't mind the snow, but having a 1 year old to get ready and tote around in it is not fun at all.

Wow, its been a while!

(F) Ok folks, we are sorry it has been sooooo long since our last post. I blame Natalie, and she blames me. So we are even. Grandma Fappiano came for a great visit, and although it has only been a few days since she left we miss her a lot. It was great having someone we know around. She was also an enormous help!!!!!
Ok enough of that, now on to the stuff everyone really cares about...Kaitlynn. She has hit two major milestones in her development, and although neither has been cataloged in any parenting book we have found, we believe them to be signs of her genius I.Q. First, Kaitlynn has begun her multi-lingual development. I tend to alternate saying "no" and "nein" when she does something she is not supposed to. The other day Natalie told her "no" and lil K turned, and wagging her finger under my wife’s nose said "NEIN!". Her German vocabulary is now up to nein, and tshuss (goodbye). She uses both at appropriate times and seems to know what they mean.
Development two: Kaitlynn won her first battle in a video game. A few days ago I was playing Soul Caliber II, and Kaitlynn decided it was her turn. She took up her controller and started pressing the large green button. She looked up and noticed it was doing something (beating the snot out of her opponent). She button smashed that other person into a bloody pulp! Grandma wasn't too thrilled that it was such a violent videogame, but the next time Lil K meets a female ninja with two swords she will know exactly what to do! (Hey the world can be a harsh place).

We had another fun day last Thursday. A friend from McConnell who is now stationed in the Netherlands came with his family to visit. We drove to Heidelberg and toured the castle there. It was really neat, despite the fact that most of the place was off limits. Apparently the French blew the crap out of it in the late 1600’s and the place has not been the same since. (Who would have thought?? The French?!)

Well I am off to marinade chicken. Please bare with us, or internet is really bad. It keeps booting us offline…and I am not sure what the problem is. Take care everybody!

Kaitlynn

Kaitlynn has changed so much since we have been here. She is more like a little person than a little baby. Her babbling is starting to make sense. Mama and Dada are turning into Mommy and Daddy. She also says uh oh and calls the cats baby. She still babbles, but she uses her hands and changes the tones like she is trying to tell you something. Squealing is one of her favorites also. Today she was looking at a magazine and talking to herself. We have met so many people since we have been here, so she has learned to shake hands. When people put their hands out to shake, Kaitlynn is the first to reach out for it. When she is tired she whispers to herself. It is cute, but I feel like we are in the "I see dead people" scene from Sixth Sense. There are lots of hiking trails in our village, so we bought a backpack carrier for her. She likes it much better than her stroller so far. She is still very friendly and all the Germans speak German to her. I would not be surprised if she starts learning some soon. I have been trying to teach her the few words and phrases that I know. When she is 3 we can put her in a German immersion pre school, so we are probably going to do that.

A walk through Eulenbis

(F) Today I shook hands with a former Nazi soldier. His name was Herman. At least I think that is what he said. Nat and I were testing out our new baby back pack and we ran into the guy who was coming home from the local Burgerhouse (town hall) where he played bingo. He started talking to Lil K and that is when Nat and I started talking to the guy. It was hard to understand him but he told us he was a POW for three years and a soldier for 17. Anyways I was pretty floored. He seemed nice enough :-).

We really got to see a lot of the town we live in here, and we finally found the Owl House, or the Eulenkof as it is called here. It is an old Tower that was built in the 1800's. I think the migratory owls nest there...that is about all I could figure out. The town has two restaurants and a bevy of shops that were closed (it was pretty late) and so Nat and I will have to go back to figure out what they sell.

Well that is all for now...we will write more later. Take care.

Misc.

The house is official. We finally finished all the stuff we needed to do for the lease. We get the keys at 10:00 on the 10th. I am ready to have all our stuff back. We should know on Monday when Frank is leaving too. There is a small chance he may not have to go until after we move.

We have been finding ways to keep ourselves busy. We have been hiking/walking on the trails around our house. We have gone 2 different ways and there are tons more in and near our village that we have not tried out yet. Kaitlynn gets restless in her stroller and some of the trails are kind of rough, so we bought a backpack carrier for her. It should be here soon, so hopefully that will help. We have also been renting movies since we only get one English channel. So far the movies we rented were not too good, but we decided to rent Lost to see what all the hype has been about. It has been very good so far. We are already on Season 2.

I hope to add some pictures soon. It is foggy around here in the morning, so I can't get very good ones.

Also, for some reason I cannot get my emporia email from here, so if you need anything try nataliefappiano@yahoo.com.

I hope everyone is doing well.

Eulenbis

(F)Ok it is pronounced OIL-en bis. The whole town is based on owls which is really cool, well to me (Frank) it is. It is a quaint little burg with three major hiking trails. Nat got hiking boots today. There were none in my size!!! If you want to see where we are staying go to http://www.temp-apt.com/. They have been so nice to us. The owner Frau Andrea, is our first German friend. Still we cannot thank Anika and Jason for being their for us! They put us up and would still have us if we needed them!
It feels tremendous to finally have a place to call our own though (or maybe that feeling is the Bavarian Dopplebach I am drinking...) The food and drink here is GREAT (Nat is a schnitzl fiend)!! If it weren't for the sweet air of freedom back in the states we would stay....Hey you gotta pay your buck o five!
I am leaving early October and wont be back until mid Dec....at least I'll be back for Christmas.
If anyone needs a Folex...tell me now.
Well I am off to relax! Take care y'all!!!

Updates

We are finally starting to make some progress. We found a house. It is actually a 4 bedroom duplex. The main floor has a rather large entry way, a decent kitchen (for Germany) and a HUGE living and dining room. There is also a little area for the computer. The living room walks out to a terrace with the most amazing view. The basement has a large bedroom with a door leading out to the back yard. There is also the laundry room and lots of storage space. The yard has a garden, a small lawn, fruit trees, and some space under the awning for a grill. The top floor has 3 bedrooms, another little area for a computer and a nice sized bathroom. The town it is in is Eulenbis. It has a cafe, a restaurant, a German nursery, a free learning zoo, and access to 3 nature trails. The only problem with the house is that it will not be ready until Oct. 10th, so we will be moving to a temporary livving area. My car has made it in, and our small shipment of household goods has arrived. Frank and I are taking our driving test and registering my car tomorrow. I also have an appointment with ACS to look over my resume. There is a job opening up in the Kaiserslautern Military Community that sounds like the equivalent to the Air Force Family Support Center. The job description sounds amazing and the lady I talked to told me about it and told me to hurry up and come in for the class. When I told her I had already applied, she made a one-on-one appointment with me. I think that is all I have to update for now. The temporary living place should have internet, so I will be able to post pictures.

We're Here

We are here! We have not been able to do much exploring, but what we have seen is beautiful. In the past 3 days we have looked at 6 houses. We have seen more bad houses than goog ones, but the good ones are great. We will know which one we are getting tomorrow and then I will add pictures. We have cell phones and a German bank account, but that is about it. Frank goes to work Monday morning and is going to work on getting a car and his German driver's license. He will hopefully find out about his deployment tomorrow. I am not counting on it yet though. We have some great friends that we knew from McConnell who are letting us stay with them since our temporary living allowance will run out on Tuesday. Kaitlynn has been a trooper through all of this. She is sleeping much better than I expected and actually slept 10 hours through the night on German time. By the way we are 7 hours ahead of Central Standard time just in case anybody was wondering. Hopefully I will be updating tomorrow with good news!! We miss everyone already.

Waiting

(N) Waiting sucks. We have been at BWI since 1:30 and do not leave until 11:50 tonight. There is a USO lounge that has an area that Kaitlynn could play in, but they will not let us take the cats in. They at least took all our luggage until we check in, which is actually in 1 more hour. After we check in they will take the cats, and hopefully we will be able to use the lounge. Kaitlynn was great on the first flight, so hopefully the trend continues. Right now she is...




(F) We managed to sneak the cats into a restaurant here. Well, we weren't sure if pets were aloud so we just didn't advertise, used a few Navy Seals deception tactics, paid off the waitress and actually enjoyed a nice leisurely lunch. The meal was decent and cheap, so two BWI burgers and 15 refills later, we left full, rested and ready to take on BWI. Then I noticed how much carting around 2, 15 lbs cats stunk and we decided to chill, but not before Nat got 2 mags and a chocolate mocha, godiva, mega Frappe! The kitty transfer to the hard cages was easy...too easy! I actually think the kennels are a little to large for the little buggers as they are curled up in the far back. Two tips if you are moving over seas. 1. Sell the animals (even to a Korean restaurant) and 2. Pack lightly. We managed to fail at both! Oh well...at least there will be an end to the traveling, soon...well not really, but sorta soon right??? Hopefully we will have internet in our room so we can update and add more pictures. Take care.

Last Week

We move one week from today. We have been living out of suitcases for 3 weeks now. I am ready to unpack and figure out where all of my stuff is. Kaitlynn's schedule is off too. She has been going to bed later and later, but still waking up at the same time. I guess this is good since Germany is 7 hours ahead. Maybe it will help get her back on a decent nighttime routine.
We are both getting excited. Rather than always getting bad news or setbacks in our travel, we have finally been coming to some good news. We bought a digital video camera, so hopefully we will be able to add video of our journey in addition to the pictures. So long for now.

Moving

We have decided to start a blog to keep everyone up to date on our adventures in Germany. Between the two of us, we should hopefully keep this pretty up to date. Only 16 more days here, but the adventure has already started. Our house has been packed for a week now, so I spend my days with Kaitlynn in an empty house. We have an air mattress, her pack-n-play, a lap top and our luggage. It has not been as boring as I thought it would be, so that is good. Anyway, this is just a start, there will be lots more to come later.