Munich, Germany :: Third Reich Tour & the Hofbrauhaus

Earlier this month we took the train down to Munich. Highlights of the trip? 

Third Reich Tour led by an Irish man. Dinner at the famous Hofbrauhaus. 

Stumbling upon Taco Libre- where we ended up eating TWICE in less than 24 hrs. 

 Don't judge. Good Mexican food is hard to come by in Germany. 

Auf Wiedersehen, Geldersheim!

As I mentioned in THIS POST we have left our quaint little German town of Geldersheim and are in the process of moving on post at USAG Grafenwoehr. We have so enjoyed living in a German town and I wanted to take a few pictures around Geldersheim to remember our time here. 

Our apartment in Geldersheim was perfect in so many different ways. We had the nicest landlord who was always very kind to us. He spoke a little bit of English, but when he felt he couldn't communicate something clearly he would use Google translate, print it out, and tape it on our door. The commute to work was short for Ross and we had beautiful views of the fields from our living room windows, which you can see from many of my Instagram posts (1, 2, 3, 4). Germany is absolutely beautiful when the weather is nice! A short walk from our house were bike trails that led to towns over an hour away. Many times after dinner we would walk along the trails. Especially on nights when the sun didn't set until after 9 pm. Tractors were a common sight and occasionally we experienced all that came with living in a farming town aka: the wonderful aroma of manure. 

I am so glad we were able to live in a private German rental our first year in Germany. 

I'm afraid I wouldn't have felt like I was really living in Germany if we hadn't. 

Another Move, Another Adventure!

USAG Schweinfurt is closing down so we're moving once again! Luckily it's just 2 hrs down the road.

We've accepted the offer for our new house, scheduled an inspection, and our movers are coming in 3 weeks!  

For our last 2 years in Germany we will be living on post. Something new for us! I'm really looking forward to it. Everything will be closer and RC will have a quick commute to work. We are on the 1st floor of a 2 story unit and have a great outdoor area. The inside hasn't been renovated and shows its age a bit. It has a really choppy floor plan, but we feel like the advantages definitely outweigh the disadvantages. We are gaining an bedroom & bathroom and I will now have a full sized American oven! The kitchen overall is bigger and like I mentioned earlier we LOVE that we will finally have a yard. We can also kiss transformers goodbye because on post housing has both 110 and 220 outlets! 

I'm sad to say goodbye to Schweinfurt, but I'm looking forward to making Grafenwoehr our home.

Here's to another move and another adventure!

1-91 CAV Redeployment Ball

One of the many benefits of living overseas is that the your squadron redeployment ball can be held in a ridiculously beautiful venue. The German banquet hall, Regentbau, is located in the spa town of Bad Kissingen. The concert hall located inside is considered among the top concert halls in Europe.  AND THAT is where we had the privilege of eating, drinking, and dancing the night away. I'm sure there won't be many balls that come close to topping this one. 

One of the highlights of the night for me was the guest speaker, Major General James C. Boozer. As you look at his rank, award decorations, and position as former Deputy Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe, it's not hard to tell that he is well-respected man. But when we met at the receiving line and I found out he was a native of Charleston, SC I knew he was a GREAT man. :) His speech was one of the most spirited speeches I've ever heard. 

The formal portion of the night was brought to a close when Maj. Gen. Boozer announced that jackets were to come off and he revealed his fire blazing sleeves and "GIDDY UP" embroidering on the back of his dress shirt. It was hilarious and the guys went wild. At this point he challenged someone to bring him the largest beer they could find which he proceeded to chug. Then he stepped off the stage and walked up & down the aisles challenging each troop to yell at the top of their lungs "GIDDY UP". It definitely started the party portion of the night off right. I'm sure I will remember that moment for many years to come. The guys definitely deserved a night like that after 9 long months in Afghanistan.

All of the incredible pictures above are courtesy of Susanna Avery-Lynch. You can visit her Facebook page here for more incredible pictures of military families and her travels abroad. I'm so glad there were such a fabulous photographer because I was so concerned with having a good time that I barely took any pictures. MAJOR FAIL. 

The lone picture I have of the two of us.

Happy Anniversary

Almost 5,000 miles traveled in two years.

1 Trans-Atlantic move. 1 deployment. 1 reintegration.

There is no one else I would rather be on this adventure with than you. 

I am so looking forward to our third year of marriage. 

To have you in my arms. To see what kind of memories we make. To see where we travel. 

I'm looking forward to making up for those 9 months we were apart. 

We have been given a blessed life and I love living it with you. 

I'm so glad we said "I Do".  :)

Welcome Home my Love!

Two weeks ago today my husband came home! It's hard to believe it's only been two weeks though. Now that he's back it feels like he never left. Life has resumed and everything is finally back to normal.  It's FANTASTIC to have him back safely in my arms and it's wonderful to see our post full of sky soldiers once again! BUT back to the homecoming celebration...

Their arrival time kept getting pushed back further and further. So Sunday was an excruciatingly long day. A sweet friend and I tried to take our mind off of the ever present (and seemingly never ending countdown) and watched an entire season of Nashville. Then we tried to eat dinner, but our nerves got the best of us and we didn't end up eating much of anything. After dinner we came back to the house and watched a couple chick flicks. Finally at around 1:45 am we received our phone call that they were on the buses and finally making the drive back to post. We scrambled around, putting on last minute touches of makeup, and flew out the door eager to get to the gym where the homecoming celebration would be held. We still had over an hour and a half to wait, but who's going to stick around waiting at their house at that point! 

Luckily the majority of my dear friend's husbands/fiances were coming back on the same mainbody as Ross'. So finding each other in the gym to wait together made for even more excitement in the air. We had all been there for each other during these past 9 months and to be able to experience the excitement prior to the homecoming together was the perfect ending. I am so thankful for these girls and their friendship! I truly would not have been able to have stayed in Germany by myself for as long as I did. 

This is what 4 am looks like to wives and children who have missed their soldiers for 9 months. 

Deployment Diary: The Final Weeks

2012 Recap in a Christmas Letter

Since this blog serves as a scrapbook of sorts I thought it would be fun to include our Christmas letter from this year. It actually recaps our year quite well.  I hope you can pick up on the sarcastic undertones. RC and I wrote it together, but he should get most of the credit. I love his sense of humor. Both the letter and Christmas card were his ideas and it was fun for us to collaborate on both even though we were miles apart!

Dear family & friends,

I hope that this holiday letter finds you well. Since we no longer reside in the Charleston area we thought it would be appropriate to provide a quick synopsis of the past year. Overall 2012 was quite uneventful for the Leigh family. In April Ross went to school to learn how to jump out of perfectly good airplanes. He jumped not once, but five times. I guess it's a good thing he's not scared of heights. In May, we traveled approximately 4,453 miles or 7,167 kilometers to the Land of Schnitzel and Fascism. It was only a 9 hour flight. Ross did not jump out of this airplane only because he spent most of the flight sprawled out over two seats while Emma sat on the floor of the aircraft. We saw castles, paintings, libraries, mountains and a bunch of old buildings. We learned that Germany has one of the strongest economy in the EU and Germans as a whole are pretty OCD about everything. It’s been interesting exploring this country, but honestly you can genuinely sum up most of Germany in two words ‘SECOND BEST’.  

Emma got a job as a teller at Community Bank after an extremely long job hunt of four days. Her resume and people skills were weak; however, since most of the other Army wives were going back to the states in preparation for their husband's deployment the manager at the bank reluctantly gave Emma the job.  In June, the Army decided that life in Germany wasn't exciting enough and sent Ross to Afghanistan. Ross spent the first half of his deployment on an extremely large COP with a booming population of 25 soldiers. Emma spent the summer months drinking her sadness away. She could not bare the thought that Ross would be home in the spring and she would not have the house to herself anymore.

When Emma was not morning the return of her husband she was out traveling with a few close friends she had known for a very long time. Most of her traveling companions she had known at least 5 days. Ross became a Platoon Leader in September. His Platoon consists of 20 of the finest soldiers in all of Afghanistan. He will remain the platoon leader throughout the remainder of the deployment and for at least six months once he redeploys. (Unless he gets fired of course.) Ross has learned a lot since becoming a Platoon Leader. He learned that you should never place someone's mattress in the snow and to never, under any circumstance, refer to your boss as "your sidekick." 

In late October, Mrs. Dianna decided that Emma's drinking problem had become serious and she needed an intervention. Seven days later, Emma and Dianna were in Poland for Emma's rehab, which consisted of driving from Germany to Poland just to purchase pottery. During Ross’ deployment Emma also perfected two German phrases every American Army wife needs to know; "How much?" and "Do you speak English?” .

Despite her severe emotional bonding to H&M, pommes, and radlers (a delicious concoction of beer and lemonade), Emma decided to move back to Charleston, South Carolina for the rest of the deployment. She is now taking reservations for hour increments of quality time with Germany’s favorite red head.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

                        Love,

Ross and Emma 

Merry Christmas from the Leighs

It's Beginning..

to look a lot like CHRISTMAS :)

+ Nuremberg Christmas Market

Is it weird that...

the most normal part of my Thanksgiving was watching Clemson lose to SC?

This was an unusual Thanksgiving. I'm not complaining in the least bit. I was surrounded by good people here in Germany and I'm blessed to have great relationships with family & friends in the States. So really there was love all around. It was just different this year. Not having RC around was the worst part and knowing he's stuck in "the sandbox" and can't really embrace/experience the holidays hurts my heart. Fortunately they had a fairly traditional Thanksgiving meal and were able to have some free time to have a ping-pong tournament.

So with a quick recap let's compare the difference between Thanksgiving in the States vs Germany...

Typical Thanksgiving:
THANKSGIVING DAY:
start the day with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
spend time with family
meet up with extended family
football in the background all day long
enjoy a deep fried turkey and all the southern fixin's ;)
nap after eating a ridiculous amount of pumpkin & pecan pie

BLACK FRIDAY:
breakfast at Cracker Barrel
hunt for the PERFECT Christmas tree
decorate said Christmas tree

play Christmas music since its AFTER Thanksgiving and the appropriate time to do so

PALMETTO BOWL:
surround yourself with family & friends .... even if they're Carolina fans
experience every range of emotion
(and for the last 4 years at least) pout because your team lost
practice extreme self-control and do not engage in the idiotic comments on Facebook

Black Friday-- Christmas tree shopping circa 2011

Thanksgiving in Germany sans husband:
THANKSGIVING DAY:
drive to a friend's house 40 min away
watch old hockey games??? yah, I know
eat squash soup, turkey, and mashed potatoes with leeks (a first!)
try gluhwein (forget spiked eggnog! I'll take gluhwein as my holiday drink)
wait the appropriate time to get behind the wheel
drive to another friend's house 30 min away
notice that there are babies and little ones EVERYWHERE
have your first taste of pumpkin pie
finally some football in the background

talk to your husband for maybe 10 min on the phone
know how blessed you are to have him in your life
quick Skype session with family

BLACK FRIDAY:
sleep in
realize that the PX has nothing remotely worth getting up for
come to terms with the fact that you will not have a Christmas tree this year
nor will you decorate for Christmas (highlight: because YOU'RE GOING HOME)
jealousy sets in... your family is eating hashbrowns & pancakes at Cracker Barrel
you had granola cereal for breakfast
watch Fringe for the majority of your day :)

PALMETTO BOWL:
stay up until kick off at 1 am
Skype with brother & SIL during the entire game (BEST part)
feel less crazy when yelling at the tv because you're watching "with" someone
experience every range of emotion
pout because your team lost AGAIN
practice extreme self-control and do not engage in the idiotic comments on Facebook
go to bed because it's 5 o'clock in the morning

Mom's Visit: Bamberg, Germany

Day three of Mom's visit was spent in Bamberg. Another town within an hour radius of "home". This was my first time to Bamberg and I so enjoyed it! The weather had dropped a bit and I must admit I preferred keeping my hands in my pockets rather than taking pictures. So unfortunately there are only a couple Instragram shots of the town. 

These day trips with my mom have made me realize how much more I prefer exploring the city on a weekday. Less weekend hustle and bustle.  We walked aimlessly for the most part, but used the awesome 'blue dot' on the Google maps iPhone app to hit a few key sights. All in all a great trip exploring another picturesque German town. 

Mom's Visit: A Day Trip to Rothenburg

I seriously can not get enough of this city. I think this is the 3rd time I've visited and it still has not gotten old! While Mom was still adjusting to the new time zone we decided to stay close and just make day trips the first few days of her visit. The first of which was Rothenburg. We leisurely strolled the town, did a little shopping, and had a delicious lunch.

Moving Mondays @ My Traveling Troop

Today I'm being featured over at My Traveling Troop for 'Moving Mondays'.

Kristina has a fabulous blog where she shares about her life as a Navy wife. 

Her family recently made the trek from Monterey, California to SINGAPORE.

Kristina is creating an incredible collection of tips and stories of military families living all over the world.
Getting the news that you're PCSing to another duty station can bring on all sorts of emotions.
 Excitement, but also fear of the unknown. There are so many questions running through your mind!
That's why having a database where you can go to read other spouses experiences is so beneficial.

So if you get a chance today stop by My Traveling Troop and read my Q&A session with Kristina.
We cover everything from the pros & cons of living in Germany to travel tips and my newest obsession: Crossfit.

If you're a military spouse be sure to bookmark her blog or add her to your Google reader because let's be honest...
none of us know when or where we'll be living next!

Pumpkin Festival at Ludwigsburg Castle

Only in Germany are pumpkin festivals located in the backyard of a freakin' castle. 

So we started at the upper grounds of the Ludwigsburg Castle and made our way down to where the winners of Germany's biggest pumpkin competition were being shown off. And boy were they huge! Then we ended up wandering for oh, I don't know, about half an hour trying to find where all the delicious pumpkin flavored food & beverages were located. We ended up completely encircling the entire castle grounds and realized after that if we had taken a right instead of a left at the front of the castle we would have been there in about 2 minutes flat. Fail.

Once we made it to the "backyard" of the castle we were welcome by the aroma of cinnamon-sugar roasted pumpkin seeds. We made sure to pick up some pumpkin wine and ate a delicious variety of pumpkin dishes. I chose a large portion of pumpkin ravioli placed in pumpkin soup. There were pumpkins literally everywhere & even statues made out of pumpkins.

Our quick little day trip was abosolutely perfect! Everything I love about fall rolled into one day. Perfect fall weather. Beautiful blue skies. A crispness in the air. The leaves changing. Pumpkins everywhere. And boots and scarves as the dress code. 

Deployment Diary: Week 14

It's been a MONTH since I last updated this blog. So what's happened since then? 

Well, we are 1/3 of the way through this deployment! Fall has officially arrived in Germany. The temperature has dropped, the leaves are changing, the pumpkin festival in Ludwigsburg has opened, and Oktoberfest is in full force. Fall is probably my favorite time of the year and I must say I love it all-- The crispness in the air, pumpkin flavored everything, and appropriate weather for boots & scarves!

Honestly, the month of September flew by. Nothing terribly exciting happened. I didn't travel anywhere. I don't have any pictures to share and no real exciting news. Instead I thought I'd share what I've been trying to accomplish during this deployment... being healthy in all aspects of my life. 

BEING HEALTHY: 

Emotionally, Spiritually, and Physically

Emotionally: There are a number of things that have helped me keep sane during this deployment. I talk to my family. A LOT. They have been my greatest support system and talking to my parents on Skype for sometimes hours a day makes this deployment life feel a little more normal. I have a schedule. Consistency helps me feel a little more in control and makes the days go by faster. Trying to stay involved. I tend to be a little more reserved and a homebody, but I try to connect with the other wives here. They understand this crazy, awful process and are an amazing soundboard & make me feel a little less crazy.

Mostly I try to remember that such an extreme separation like this is emotional. Sadness, bitterness, anger, jealousy, loneliness, fear, calmness, excitement, or happiness. Whatever it is. It's all normal. And God-willing it won't last forever. I try to remember that and let myself have bad days. I don't have to be happy all the time. It's okay to be mad. It's okay to feel lonely. Ultimately I don't ever want to feel guilty about anything that I'm feeling and I think embracing that is a healthy outlook. 

Spiritually: I'm not going to lie. This element of living a healthy lifestyle has been on the back burner for quite a while. I think it's easier to see the visual side effects of poor physical and poor emotional health, but poor spiritual health can be much more detrimental. Since we've been in Germany (and some time before if I'm being completely honest) I've been pretty fat and lazy regarding my spiritual health. It's been a me, me, me kind of relationship. Always taking and never giving. So I've really been trying to turn that around. I've been consistent in our tithing. Earlier this month I started journaling again and began watching/listening to messages from the church we attended in GA: Crosspointe Church. I'm still looking for a consistent daily devotional and I'm definitely a work in progress.

I've been trying to let go and let God. A healthy spiritual life dips into a healthy emotional life and I know this. I just need to work on it. Knowing that God has a bigger plan has helped me have a better outlook on this deployment. If we are in the center of His will then this is the path He has chosen for us and we will be blessed. Although it may be hard and often overwhelming He is my greatest source of strength.  

Physically: This journey has been an exciting one for me.  I've been participating in a CrossFit style class at our gym on post since the middle of July and I am hooked. I think this video gives you the best description of what CrossFit is. Every day I go in it is a challenge. Every day it's something new. And if it's not a "new" workout I've done before it's still a challenge because I am competing against my previous time. Every day I'm surprised by what my body is able to do. I never thought I would be so into weightlifting, but after doing this style workouts I don't know if I'll ever go back. I grew up playing sports and once I got into college I missed it. I knew I still needed to be active, but running on a treadmill and using some machines DID NOT motivate me to go to the gym. CrossFit is motivating. I wish I had found CrossFit a long time ago. 

CrossFit has also changed the way I think about my body A LOT. Woman are way too obsessed with how much they weigh. Have you ever seen a picture comparing 5 lbs of fat and 5 lbs of muscle? Want another example of how body weight is not a true example of being in-shape and healthy? I'm embracing the phrase "strong is the new skinny". Now I only weigh myself once a month. I've learned that how I look (is there more muscle tone? are my legs/arms more defined?) is more important that what numbers come up on a scale. My ultimate goal does not have a number involved -- it has a physical appearance.  Again I'm a work in progress but I'm loving this journey. 

Girls Weekend in Luxembourg

Luxembourg is a tiny little country sandwiched between Belgium, France, and Germany. Their people are called Luxembourgers and they even made up their own language "Luxembourgish", a mix of French and German. Due to its geography and large number of immigrants, Luxembourg is a very culturally diverse nation. I heard it's common for its citizens to know up to 4 languages. Crazy! Lucky for us, English was sort of a common ground for language and widely understood/spoken.

The food was very similar to German so I kind of steered away from the traditional dishes. The city was much more modern than I was expecting. I think this was due to the large banking sector and heavy EU influence. I went into this trip having very little knowledge of the county and didn't research at all- which was new and kind of fun for me. The girls and I did the touristy things like a sightseeing bus, but also made sure to shop and wine & dine. Overall, I enjoyed our girls weekend, but Luxembourg probably won't place very high on my list. 

The most interesting part of the trip was definitely the casemates. For only 3 Euro were able to walk through about 1 km of the underground tunnels. The casemates were built as underground defenses connecting numerous fortresses. Construction started in the 17th century by the French, but was completed by the Austrians. Since then the casemates have been occupied by numerous nations (Belgium, France, Italy, Austria, Prussia...) and were makeshift bomb shelters during WWII. The casemates spanned 23 km, but only about 14 km remain today. It was definitely a neat experience getting to walk through these tunnels!

FUN FACTS FROM THE TOUR:

1. German translation for the picture below: "don't forget the sand". Since the casemates were bomb shelters during WWII and became home to the thousands of individuals, makeshift toilets had to be made and they used sand to mask the odor. How neat that the writing is still on the wall. 

2. Not all of the casemates are connected. At the end of the Bock casemates we exited into a park and across the river was an iron door for another casemate. I was hoping we'd get to go into the next one, but this casemate was not open to the public because it was used as a vault for one of the banks. How cool is that!? 

Deployment Diary: Week 7

This week was definitely out of the norm. I spent the entire week in Wiesbaden/Mainz for work training. No Crossfit, absolutely no gym time, but lots of shopping & wining and dining!  I was lucky to have some amazing girls in our class and we spent pretty much ever waking minute together. We were a nice mesh of Army and Air Force  and we even had some lovely girls from the UK. I learned that my English accent was actually pretty good and thanks to them I'm going to start trying to integrate the words "wag" and "posh" into my vocabulary. :)

Deployment Diary: Week 5

This week started out a little rough. RC and I have had pretty constant communication since he left, but that stopped all of a sudden. Completely out of the blue. For 2 days I didn't hear from him and I was a little freaked out. I knew something was wrong. I soon found out that all soldiers in his region were put on a media blackout because two men, a specialist and a private, were killed. A number of other individuals were injured. With the way technology and Facebook is they are mandating blackouts so that families can be properly notified before someone senselessly posts something on Facebook.  

My heart aches for their families and instantly I was reminded how real this war is. 

The rest of my week was spent at work and continuing the CrossFit/functional fitness classes in the evening. I've developed some nice calluses, determined my baseline for weightlifting, and hopefully gained/toned some muscles! I also conquered round two against these gawd-awful walls and hung some curtains in our living room. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, a retelling of Cinderalla from one of the "ugly stepsisters", is my current read.

Also, here's a picture of one of the Daddy or Hero Dolls. You can place a picture under the plastic piece in front of his face. I'm not gonna lie, it's kind of creepy looking and the dudes got crazy hair. But these are a great tool to help kids deal with separation from their solider.. or errrr wives when there are extra Daddy Dolls left over. :)