Glückliches Halloween!

Today was a great day! In fact this was a great week!! I volunteered at the school Mon-Thurs and it was awesome. Friday I didn't go in so I could prepare for Matt to come home. I had the house spotless and even made him Mexican Casserole and chocolate chip cookies. Unfortunately though he and the guys got on the wrong train so they were kicked off in a small town- had to take the train back- and then get on the right train! But he got in at 7pm so not too late. We had a great night!

Today I woke up and went to the Children's Christmas Play Practice (here forth called CCPP) and there were alot of kids out. It turns out 2 of my boys from school are in the CCPP though! I think they like seeing Mrs. Barr in flipflops, jeans, and a hoodie lol and I met their moms (but already knew one from PWOC!) After practice the Barretos and us went to Bamberg. I found a pair of black boots for 24euros! And a white hat I've been wanting but unwilling to spend $20 on! I got it for 4euros.
Then we walked to the farmers market and bought what we think are Idaho potatoes for only 1.50euros! Oh and we also got roasted chestnuts just to try them- that was so fun. Now when we sing "roasted chestnuts on an open fire, jack frost nipping at your nose" we really know what it feels like! It got COLD while in Bamberg!! Lucky for me I had put on real shoes and Matt's jacket. The chestnuts weren't bad. The first one was weird but then we developed the taste for them. We'll try making our own one day and adding some salt to them! Oh and fyi they look like little brains hahaha.
After the farmer's market we stopped in C&A for the Barretos but Matt also found a nice sweater for only 9euros so he got a treat too.
Next it was off to Real aka Walmart! We had a mission to only spend 50euros on Christmas items. Mission accomplished! We got 59euros worth of stuff but got 10euros back with our VAT form. We are definitely going back next paycheck though..had our eyes on the penguin cookie jar, gold/silver decorated wreath, and the Santa on a crescent moon light up thing! OMG Mary I found the PERFECT gifts for the boys while in Bamberg- I'll tell ya next time we're on the phone (just in case they read this).

Well I'm watching Meet Me in St. Louis and waiting on Matt to get home from school. We're going to have a drink and watch "Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" Matt brought up an excellent point...why haven't they done a real life movie of Charlie Brown? They've turned so many cartoons into real movies like The Grinch, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Scoobie Doo...just something to ponder lol

Oh and for those of you wondering, no Germans don't really celebrate Halloween. A few more "Americanized" people do but we've only seen 2 houses decorated. Crazy! Although we did see 3 trick or treaters when we pulled up (one wearing a Spiderella costume that I once wore...crazy). They are more into All Saints Day. While in Bamber we saw two kids dressed up as Jesus.- or one Jesus and another a saint? And tomorrow at the catholic service I heard the kids are dressing up as their favorite saints. Apparently today is the day Martin Luther nailed the 99thesis to the church doors so that's what the Germans celebrate. So it didn't really feel like Halloween for us- though they had a kids carnival on post. Boo for not having kids! Poor Elvis..we already had him wearing BOTH of his costumes today! A bumblebee and a hotdog. If anyone sees cheap dog costumes in small or extra small get one for Elvis!!

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Time flew by!

Wow the last two days have FLOWN by!! More proof that I'll be better when I have a full time job! Yesterday I volunteered in the class that I will be student teaching in next semester and it was great. I really like the teacher and according to her I have a very calm demeanor and the kids responded great to me. She even told the principal that :-) I left the class at 12:30 and worked on my background check again, but she still found more things wrong with it lol. After that I went and got my fingerprints done. Then I went home to walk Elvis and take a breather lol. BUT in the middle of my breather I remembered I had forgotten to go by Matt's school and tell them he'd be absent and get his syllabus and lab sheet for him. Thankfully I got there before they closed. After that I went to Jen's where I had a wonderful dinner with her and we just hung out with the baby- who wasn't in the best form for once- and talked and watched Grey's.

Today I went to the school again until 12:30 then I met up with 5 other wives for lunch. It was SO GOOD to hang out with other wives and just chat. About everything. It was such strange grouping lol. We had 2 enlisted wives (myself and another), 4 officer wives, 1 was a doctor and the other a nurse, 1 a former teacher, only 1 had kids (shocking!), the other works at the daycare, everyone has their degree, the age range was 22-34, and 4 of us were in the same unit- 3 in the same company! I loved it!! It will definitely have to be a reoccurring event lol. The food was excellent and not expensive and the service FAST! Especially for a restaurant in Germany lol. After the lunch I went back to the school for a faculty meeting. It was funny because they were going over how make their objectives with higher thinking verbs like in Bloom's and we did that SO MUCH at UTT- especially in Dr. Packer's curriculum class! My mentor teacher was shocked to hear that and actually asked to see my school stuff because they've never done this at their school! However I was not impressed with this meeting because some women were very rude and talked the whole time. Ugh! It's amazing that teacher's complain about students who do this in their class but they don't practice what they preach! After the meeting I had another short breather at home and then went to church to volunteer for the children's Christmas play. It was the first practice and it was a little chaotic but I think it will be very cute.

I've been so busy I haven't had time to miss Matt- except at night. He's doing good. He likes the class and he's got a couple of friends there for different reasons so he's hanging with the guys.
Tomorrow is PWOC and then I'm going to school for the afternoon and then Jen and I will be hanging out again!
Hope the rest of you are having as good as week as I am!

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This will be a long week!

Saturday Matt and I went to Bamberg. He had been to the PX there and I toured it with my SNAPS group but he hadn't seen the sights. We parked at the train station and walked the same route that my SNAPs class did. Thankfully I have a good visual memory and there are city maps every where! I showed him the market square where a farmer's market was going on. Ohhh we wish we had Euros!! Everything looked SO fresh and yummy! There was even a cart selling roasted chestnuts :-) We even looked in a few stores including a music store and an awesome shoe store! I'm going back there and getting myself some scrunchy black boots for only 19euros!Whoop! Matt was really impressed with St. Jakob's. He asked "Why do catholics have such big churches??" LoL he'll really like the church in Frankfurt when we go! Now THAT's a cathedral! He wasn't as impressed with the crypt like I was but he did think the Pope's body/sarcophagus from the 1500s was pretty cool!

After the tour around Bamberg which only took us 2 hours we started to head home. On the way out though we saw the Real store which used to be Walmart. Apparently all the Walmarts in Germany were bought out by Metro (Real). I guess Germans didn't like the American ways of working (no dating superior employees) and the customers didn't like other people bagging their things! Weird! Anyways Real was just like Walmart (minus baggers lol) except it didn't have an outdoor section for Matt...however it did have a HUGE bike and rollerblade section lol. But just like a true Walmart you could buy produce/meat AND tires in ONE store!! :-) Yes we were so excited. We went down every aisle hehehe

Today we went to church and while pulling up at exactly 9am we were wondering if church had been cancelled because no cars were there. When we got out of the car another man from church rolled down his car window and asked "Did you forget to set your clocks back too?" DANG!!! Today was Germany's daylight savings time. Whoops! So we killed an hour grabbing breakfast. After church Matt got packed up and I took him to the train station. He's going to Vilseck for the week for a HazMat class. No bueno :-( He's only been gone 3 hours and I've already cleaned the house spotless. Just waiting on the clothes to dry and then all the laundry will be done as well! I already miss him...

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Busy Day!

Wow so today FLEW by but that's because I was SO busy! This morning I went to PWOC and it was so much fun chatting with all the girls. I'm going to miss them next semester! Maybe I can convince them to attend the Monday night PWOC as well...

As soon as that wrapped up I went straight to the school and did my background check. At first the secretaries were saying I had to wait until one but I made it clear I wasn't leaving so they finally sent me to the library where the aide helped me with the computer. Man she wasn't kidding when she said I'd be gray headed before I was through! Even having that packet filled out it still took an hour and a half! And in the end I didn't even have to do it right then! Ugh she said I had 14 days but she just needed it before I actually started. Oh and the whole needing 10 years of addresses- even after telling her that I was 12 ten years ago- psssh I only needed 10 years OR until I was 16yrs old!! Dang that's annoying. But she highlighted the things I missed like dates, etc and I'll go back the day before I start to fix it. I also have to have my fingerprints scanned and printed.

When I left the school I went straight across the street to the commissary and bought the ingredients to make my friend Melissa dinner. She just had a baby a week ago so we've all taken turns cooking her dinner. Then I went home and cooked her dinner as well as started cooking my pumpkin spice muffins. I got the dinner done and one batch of muffins then I had to take the food over to her house and rush to Ledward for our FRG meeting. After a very brief FRG meeting, Jen and I ran to the commissary again while waiting on Matt to get off.

After all this I finally got to come home. And make us dinner and the remaining 3 dozen muffins. And clean the kitchen. Whooo I'm enjoying sitting here :-) Friday I am babysitting a 4 yr old girl for the afternoon and on Monday I'm going to volunteer in the classroom I am going to be student teaching in! I figure I'll volunteer there every day until I begin subbing and when I'm not subbing. The more the kids get to know me now I figure the more comfortable they'll be with me student teaching.

Speaking of student teaching I've confirmed with my supervisor, gotten registered for my content test the first week of December, and had UTT send me the supervisor handbook/rubrics. WhooooO!

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Happily Tired

Baby just left. We had a busy day full of blocks and reading and playing outside. And lots of poopy diapers lol. I'm happily exhausted and I still have to clean up all the "toys" (hahaha at my house his toys are my cooking utensils and trash like boxes and empty juice jugs. oh and my exercise ball- he doesn't seem to mind). Barreto is out of the hospital and goes back tomorrow morning to get a biopsy and the results of his stomach and allergy tests. They are also going to test their home to see if there's any toxins there.

I want to go somewhere this weekend!! Playing outside with the baby for an hour in actual SUNSHINE made me want to be out of this house even more! The last week its been cold and overcast. I don't mind the cold but would like the sun to make an appearance every now and then! Today it was so foggy I couldn't see out my windows at home- scary since our backyard drops off into a straight down hill lol. We're going to drive over to Bamberg and Rothenburg since Matt's never seen either (except the PX in Bamberg) and sight see. Maybe we'll pack a lunch since the euro rate is so bad...

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Words of Affirmation

You know its so amazing to be told that you helped someone- even when you thought you didn't! In the book I'm reading- "First Days of School"- he said years from now the students you thought you didn't reach will come back and tell you that you impacted their lives. It's so true and I'm not even a teacher yet!

In the last couple of days I've gotten 2 random posts on Facebook thanking me for helping them. One was a woman who I took Intermediate Math with freshman year that I "tutored" with the help of another girl. She said if it wasn't me and the other girl that she wouldn't have passed math that year. And then a guy I had as a freshman the first time I was a Freshman Mentor just thanked me for helping him his freshman year getting acquainted with the school and everything. It just feels so good!

For too long I was friends with such negative people and constantly being surrounded by people like that makes YOU be like that too. In fact one girl in particular once told me I was mean! I've NEVER been called mean! Matt also told me not too long after I started living with this girl that I was becoming more mean like her. Now THAT hurt. But when she told me that I called my BFF Adri who reassured me that I was one of the "nicer" girls in our group in high school lol. I think being told that by this person and then remembering Matt's words led to my slowly backing away from her- and not quick enough! Ever since we quit speaking (her choice, I wanted to remain acquainted but after a few things she said and did that could never happen) I have noticed such a change in my life. I met other people that I used to not speak too because they weren't "cool" enough for this girl and ended up making such GREAT friends!! I regret not spending all of my college life with these new friends but it was a learning experience. The other day Adri reminded me that I've always been such a positive person and to remain that way through this time in Germany. It's true- before and after this girl I was and am a positive person. It's amazing how carried away you can get without even knowing it!

I guess the lesson of this blog is always choose your friends wisely and remember to surround yourself with the type of people you aspire to be. And to always be helpful and nice- you never know who's life you're touching!

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I Want a BABY!

Ok so Jen called me at about 4 and told me Barreto was having another allergic reaction and that if it got worse she wondered if I'd take the baby. Not 10 minutes later she called and asked for the ambulance phone number and to ask me to come for the baby. I guess the rash spread quickly and he was having other symptoms I won't disclose so it was bad. Anyways I got to hang out at her house with the baby for about 30 minutes then I took him to pick up Matt for dinner. In the car he was so cute, he was bobbing his head to Trace Atkins =-) We got Matt and then went to Conn to get Matt burger king but they had closed earlier so we tried Popeyes but they had just closed so we were forced to go back to Ledward. Matt got practice taking the baby in and out of a car seat as well as feeding one in public. Oh and changing a poopy diaper in the seat of a car lol. The baby and I came back and he played for an hour or so with Bedtime Elmo in the background (I've gotta get that kid some Barney!) and then about 8 I put in Lilo and Stitch and he snuggled up with me and watched it for an HOUR before getting fussy! He drank a bottle but was still awake so I took him in the bedroom where it was dark and cold and rocked him. 6 minutes of playing with my hair and he was passed out. Jen picked him up at about 10...I almost cried when he left! Was hoping to have a snuggle buddy for the night. After he left I just watched the rest of the new Gossip Girl episodes- so good! Now I'm gonna go read some more of "First Days of School" by Harry Wong. I can't wait to start teaching!!!

Barreto has to stay the night in the hospital and here in Germany people can't stay the night with you without paying a $50 euro "hotel" fee- crazy right?!?! Hopefully he'll see the doctor and get this figured out! I know Jen is very frustrated because it's hard to understand the German doctors plus not having her family there with her so please keep them all in your prayers.

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