Beginning of September Update

Sorry we haven't updated much lately, life has kept us very busy! I don't have any new pictures or videos to share right now, but I will get some to post soon. Now that I'm pregnant, we're eligible for a 3-bedroom on base...so we spent this past labor day weekend moving ourselves into our new place. We couldn't be happier with the apartment! There is a ton more room in the living room, lots more cupboard space in the kitchen, two bathrooms, a separate laundry room, and obviously an extra bedroom for the baby. The balcony off of the living room is a little smaller than the old place, but it's still perfect for us, and we also have a small balcony off of our bedroom (that also links up to the baby's room). We have a couple more things to get, and then I'll make a video to show you all what it looks like here. We have also gotten extremely lucky when it comes to appliances! We have a brand new washer, new microwave, brand new fridge and dishwasher, the showers look almost new with no mildew whatsoever (much different from the old place), and we now have a big extra freezer that we got for free! Some people moved out downstairs and left it, so Michael went and talked to the people down there and they let us have it. A freezer that size goes for around 300euro here, so we are VERY fortunate!

Michael is doing great. He finished one of his online classes, is still taking another, and a new one will start this next month I believe. He has been doing great in school, works hard every night (can't wait until he works days again!), and spends lots of time with us. In the next few months he should hopefully be able to start talking to his detailer to start negotiating his next set of orders. I pray to God he doesn't have to do a year unaccompanied tour, but unfortunately it's a good possibility. Things change every day, and they're always making new rules and switching people around, so who knows what will happen by then.

I am doing pretty good as well. Overall, I'm feeling a lot better than I have been the past couple months, but I have my good days and my bad days. I'm still babysitting a couple days a week, one baby in the mornings and one in the evenings. Besides that I just spend my days with Caleb and do lots of reading and research about natural births. I'm really pushing to have a home birth, but no-one out here has dealt with that before and is having a hard time giving me answers right away, so it's taking time to work things out. There are a few different possibilities at this point, and thankfully I have a couple people who are helping me out now with finding answers, so cross your fingers!

Caleb got accepted to school!!! We are SO excited for him! He is supposed to start September 15th, and it's Monday through Friday from 7:55am-1:30pm. It is going to be a wonderful experience for him, and he is really happy as well because he loves school. If he hadn't gotten accepted we would've continued taking him to the "drop-off" program, but this will be much better for him because he will actually learn things, instead of just going to play for a couple hours. This will also be a great opportunity for him to meet more kids his own age, since all of the kids in his class are 4, turning 5.

We went out to dinner at our first real Italian restaurant this past Saturday night, and it was fantastic! We got there around 7:30pm and opened the restaurant...since most Italian restaurants don't open until 8-9pm. They started us out with a taste of the house wine and little pieces of some sort of sandwich with vegetables on it, and then a basket of some sort of really good crusty herb bread with pieces of meat in it (which was all free). Caleb wanted pizza, so I ordered him pizza for 6euro, thinking it would just be a big slice of pizza, but instead he got an 8 piece pizza all to himself! Michael and I got appetizers of the most fantastic mozzarella cheese I've ever tasted, surrounded by paper thin slices of ham. For dinner, Michael had a lobster and pasta dish, and I had pasta and scampi topped with tomatoes. It was delicious! Throughout dinner they also gave us more free bread, but this time it was a plate with some sort of a breadstick tasting bread that was cut like slices of pizza. Afterwards, we all had a little gelato. Some people say that there are better restaurants and food than this one, but this was our first real Italian restaurant, and we thought it was a great time and great food!