Exploreing Vilseck And Amberg

I have to say that moving to Germany, that my 1st goal was to share with the family as many of the amazing things I got to see/do as a child. People often romantisize thier youth and I worried that perhaps, I had as well. I mean, really, how could it have been really as amazing as I remembered? I had awesome parents who, despite raising 5 children, always had a clean home, money to take us everywhere I could imagine and time to volunteer for everything under the sun. I was a little afraid that over the last 20 years I had put on rose colored glasses and had raved one too many times to my husband and children about the amazing experiences I had as a child growing up in the military here in Germany. NOPE! I totally didn't! It was this awesome! Ok, so that's a lot of exclamation points, but I'm excited.

When you 1st get to Germany, you rarely have your vehicle immediatly so it tends to mean exploreing VERY close to home..lol. We had to rely on the bus system for a few weeks, but hey, that will make you really appreciate what you've got!


The 1st place we ventured out to was our local town of Vilseck. It was cold, and windy....and .....tiny! It took us less than 45 minutes to walk from the bus/train station to the far edges of town, explore the TINY castle they had and stand around wondering what else to do before our next bus..lol. It was REALLY cool though! Here are a few of the things we saw in Vilseck.


The fam exploreing




Matt and Mikey warming up in the local greek place. OMG such good food! This is also where Matt and Michael discovered Mezo mix/cola orange (which sounds gross but is oh so good!) That and I love this photo of the two of them.


There are no photos of me in the this post because I made a very unfortunate fashion choice that morning and everyone failed to tell me that I looked like a very fat, pregnant zebra. Ya it wasn't pretty. Don't imagine it!

The 2nd place we got to explore was Amberg, it's the nearest "large" city...lol Large...ahhhh giggles. Ok so it's not Vilseck small but it's still smaller than lets say....Idaho Falls? So not a LARGE city but it has some great shopping and really wonderful old town sites! We were lucky enough to go on a weekend (once we got our car, since Amberg is approx 30 minute drive away from post) when they had a festival going on. What festival you say? No clue, they have festivals here like I've never seen and I can NEVER remember what each is for. They had a huge duck race (rubber ducks float the river like the one in Idaho Falls). We took Cody and Mikey's friend Avery with us so if you wonder who the extra child is, it's not mine..lol

This is on the drive to Amberg. This is what it looks like where we live. Every inch just as gorgeous as the next. They grow these amazing flowers here, I can't find the name of them yet but I've been told they use them from everything to making an oil to cook with to medicinal uses. I just think it's beautiful! The entire landscape is covered in it with little picturesque villages and church spires popping up in them.

Entering the Alt Stadt (old city center)

Look at the color of this building! Sigh.

Look at Matty's face.....Ya. Evidently Matty had a mini melt down because neither Matt or myself have yet to discover a money tree and he wasn't allowed to buy a 70 Euro toy! lol



Matt and I

Just some random door knocker but OH I love finding little gems like this.

And one of my new favorite finds! I have hated dehydrated fruit as long as I can remember. One of the vendor was selling these and all of us went nuts over them! SOO tastey!


So these are two of the nearest places to us for exploreing and we really had a blast. I love the looks we get from the locals when we traipse out of the big old man van with 4 kids (5 the day we had Avery with us) and my big old pregnant self and Matt and I tattooed up..lol we get a few..."WHOA" looks but thats ok, they aren't used to large families like ours here and we like breaking the sterotypes that say if you are tattooed you are trashy. It's fun seeing their initial reactions and then how they soften and smile when our kids are well behaved and we are kind and smile at them and attempt to speak the language. Even attempting to speak German really means a lot to them. So take note. At least TRY to toss in a few words here and there, don't ASSUME that because you are American that most here will speak English to you. They usually will/can but it's just so nice to try!

I was already in love with Germany....but now my family is! Oh happy day!
(spell check isn't working so you get to enjoy the amazing errors I make whilst speed typing...yippee!)

Germany, We Have Arrived!

Ok, Ok, so we've been here a while..lol make that 2 months, but things just get hectic and we've been soaking up as much culture as we can since getting here. Our flight experience from La, to Germany was pretty much as expected except...our sweet Cupcake. Evidently Delta Airlines does NOT fly snub nosed dogs and no matter how many times I called the reservations line to make sure we had everything we needed in order for our family and dog to fly, the people gave me the wrong info and told me we were good to go. So at the airport in Alex, we were getting ready to head to our gate when the ticket agent told us she couldn't fly. After begging, crying and having a total meltdown (where poor Michael practically threw himself on her kennel in tears) we were told by the ticket manager they would fix things, well after 2 months things just haven't been fixed, the financial ability and chain jerking and hearts being wrenched over and over in an attempt to fly her has led us to decide as a family to leave her in La with our "Aunt" Allysha. My girlfriend who is AMAZING, took cupcake from the airport and cared for her, and lovingly accepted her into her life. We don't know, once again, what we would ever have done without her and her husband coming to our rescue, it was the only thing that made leaving for our flight even bearable. So drama dealt with, we boarded our flight to Atlanta and the kids were AMAZING! Even Aidan was just a champ, other than a few minutes of fussing when his ears wouldn't pop they all were quiet and we had people remarking on how well behaved they were. Thank heavens! Waiting in the airport. Cody trying to keep Aidan busy. I was terrified of flying with the 4 them over that many hours. The older three literally crashed for the entire flight from Baltimore to Germany! Aidan slept a lot of it and only woke up once for a crying jag, just not knowing where he was and being too tired to wake up entirely. Fortunatly all the Deploying Soldiers on our flight can sleep through anything and didn't even crack an eye lid..lol however some grumpy old dude behind me gave me the stink eye a few times. Oh well, not everyone is understanding and I get it! Once we got in country we had a 2 hour wait to get on our bus, the bus then took over 4 hours to get us to Vilseck and then we FINALLY got to our hotel! Ohh bliss! A cardboard box would have been great at that point! For two weeks we were in the guest housing, which thank heavens was within walking distance to the PX/Comm and all of the places Matt needed to in process. After a week we moved rooms to one with a kitchenette! Oh happy day! I was thrilled to even be able to make noodles..lol. Six people in a one room hotel room for a few weeks makes for a lot of noise and needing to get creative with how to have fun...lol can you tell What Matt's idea of fun is..lol When we got here, Cody's best friend, Avery, From Arizona, was still living here. His family was due to move a mere 5 weeks after we arrived so his family and I took no time getting these boys together! They had a blast catching up a few times before he had to move. We also got to celebrate Easter shortly after getting to our hotel but before we moved to a room with a stove, so no lovely Easter dinner for us, but at least the Easter bunny brought the kids a few things..lol even if the older kids "baskets" were gift bags..lol Hey man, that bunny is resourcefull! After only those two weeks we got housing! Which was sort of a miracle because for a 5 bedroom here the waiting list is usually more longer! Here is the video of the house! I'll post later with before and after photos of the house, I'm still working on Mikey and Cody's rooms, They want to decorate them by themselves...(EKKK, for a control freak like myself that is VERY hard to allow, but I should, shouldn't I?? lol) , so those photos will be coming later. We are so happy to be here, even within the 1st week Matt was talking about how fantastic it is here and how he could see us being happy here for a long time. Ohhhh, be still my little heart! lol I'm just thrilled to share this with my family and see them loving it as much as I do!

Matty's 7th Birthday and a few catch up photos

So one of the last things we did, the day before we left actually was has Matty's 7th Birthday party! It sort of doubled as a going away function since most of the people who came were neighbors and good family friends. We had a fun time at Polk, more than I thought we would, it was a growing experience and we were lucky to have had such great friends and neighbors come say good bye! Matty is a pretty easy boy to please, all he wanted was pizza, bowling, cake and MONEY! lol Since we were a day out from flying we couldn't go having 20 gifts to pack so he was given small travel items, gift cards and cash. He was thrilled! What a good sport. On another note. OMG how is he 7 already??? What the hey! Aidan beating up Daddy while bowling Nana and Grandaddy and the Aunties and Uncles are amazing and always send boxes for pretty much anything and they made sure the send Matty a gift card and the kids all some AWESOME travel stuff to keep them entertained, and Easter stuff!! THANK YOU!!!! We spent our last few days in La in the hotel trying to keep sane in a small space by going to the park over and over and over....lol it actually helped some! CHEESE~!!!! Also a photo I had forgotten to add was of Cody and his buddy Kam taking 1st and 2nd AGAIN in the Social studies fair! WOOT! What smarties!

PCS to Germany...How we did it

Sigh Germany! To say we were thrilled when we got this assignment is an understatement. I was born here, raised here and have spent the last 20 years trying to get back here! My sweetheart reenlisted for this duty station since we didn't want to leave it to chance that we might or might not get it at some point esp with so many posts in Germany being closed. We knew we were going to Germany almost a year before going, the 1st thing I did was look online to find as many resources as possible. Facebook can be a life saver! I looked for groups that had to do with the post we got and used those women as my guide to how to do this, even then we had a few learning experiences outside of all the wonderful advice we were given, here are a few of the things we learned. 1) When PCSing over seas you will be assigned a sponsor, someone from your spouses incoming unit/troop who is to be your connection with the unit/troop and answer your questions and act as a guide through this exciting time. They get training (a short class) when they in-process here thus they SHOULD know what to do. Usually you will be assigned a sponsor who is in general close in rank and dependants. Such as; Matt is a Spc, married with 5 dependants, he should have gotten someone between Spc and Sgt who had dependants, either a spouse or children. The incoming unit assigns these so they SHOULD have an idea of who to match up. This may or may not work out. We were given a Sgt who was single when he moved here and thus had NO CLUE to 90% of the questions we asked and whose answer for everything was "just google it". You CAN request a new sponsor! LOL Wish we had known that. They should be emailing you on a regular basis between once a week to once every two weeks telling you what steps to take next. Ours was in and out of the Field and would email back every other MONTH...lol good thing this guy had a good personality when we got here or he would have gotten an ear full! Your sponsor can even book you hotel reservations on or off post up to 180 days out (I believe that's the amount of time), he or she can and is supposed to be making phone calls for you over seas since you most likely will not A) have the numbers and B) have the ability to due to the time change and long distance. If your sponsor isn't doing the things you need ask for a new one. They really are an important part in your journey! 2) Your sponsor has to attend a levy brief before much of anything can be done. Call your Local ACS or FRC office (call post information if you don't have those numbers or your FRG they will have them). The Levy brief can be done 4 months in advance! Do not wait! You can't start passports, or anything much until you do this. 3) You will have to get command sponsorship if you want to travel with your sponsor. To get this you will first have to do an EFMP screening. Even if none of your dependants are on EFMP you will have to be screened for it. This can be done up to 6 months in advance. I would suggest 5 months. Your EFMP screening can't be any older than 6 months when you move. Go to your local EFMP office and get the correct paper work and ask the steps needed to set the actual screening appt. DO NOT wait for them to call you. If you haven't heard from them or set an appt for more than 2 weeks, call. It can never hurt! Once you've been cleared the EFMP paperwork will go to the correct office and will be sent off for command sponsorship. Ours only took two days to hear back from his unit and be cleared. This is NOT a normal amount of time. If your sponsor hasn't gotten his/her REAL orders in his AKO within two weeks call Port of Calls to see if you can find out the hold up. They become easily over whelmed esp if you are moving during peak season (May-Sept). To make the move easier and faster we opted to move during the spring instead of deferring to summer after the kids finished school. We got housing MUCH faster than waiting during the summer. 4) Once you have orders the sponsor can start passports. Do this ASAP. In the off moving season it takes 4-8 weeks. During peak season it can take 8- WHO KNOWS WHEN weeks. Even waiting and doing them in February we waited 5 weeks. In our case we had a few hold ups that took a bit more time before we could get in and apply for them. A) you must have an original birth cert. for each family member matching the name in Deers that will be on the orders. We had to order new birth certificates for 3 of our4 kids due to a name change. B) 3 of our 4 kids come from a previous relationship meaning we had to get a form signed from my ex spouse to allow me to file for their passports. You have to either have both legal parents there at the time of signing or have this form which must be notarized AND we had to have a copy of his military id and drivers licence front and back photocopied to go along with it when we applied. Fortunately at Christmas as we switched off the kids for the holidays he was kind enough to stop at a notary and get it done right then and there. So, if you and your spouse are not the legal gaurdian of all the dependants you will need to either have court documents showing sole custody or the other parent there to sign the passport application IN PERSON or have this form and have it notarized and copies of the photo id. Yowza that was some work. lol but so worth it! 5) Traveling with a pet. Port of Calls will make your flight arrangements. You have to have actual paper orders for this as well as the passports. When making these flights you will need to let them know you are traveling with a pet, what kind, their size and the size/weight of the kennel for each animal. Make sure when they make your flights that they book a pet friendly airline and that your pet will be traveling WITH you on the day of travel. It's far cheaper this way. We ran into some issues and are incurring a lot of extra charges to get our dog here. We have a boxer and evidently Delta will fly pets........just not snub nosed dogs, which after 4 phone calls to non English speaking customer service agents, all of whom assured me my dog could fly, we arrived at our local airport to find out she indeed could NOT. We had to leave her behind with a friend and are now having to pay approx $623.00 to fly her cargo through Delta (that is with the military discount). Before any of that you have to take your pet to the vet and get them cleared to fly. You have to have a 10 day certificate. It can not be ANY older than 10 days from the day you will ARRIVE in country. Your pet MUST be micro chipped, and more than likely with a 15 digit chip. Check a few months in advance that your pet has the 15 digit, if not get a new one,your pet will have to have a NEW rabies vaccine after the new chip and 30 days after it before they can fly. The health cert MUST be in both English and German. There are international flight requirements for kennel sizes, check those BEFORE purchasing one, even if you have one it may or may not meet the requirements, CHECK!! 6) House hold goods take 10 million years to get here....ok,more like 2 months. Your UB (unaccompanied baggage) will be your life saver! Here are the things we put in ours, and sadly the things we WISH we had put in ours. Pots and pans, bedding for each family member (pillow cases, sheets, blankets and so on) a T.V. and DVD player, Curtains (do you really want to live in a fish bowl for two months?), and toys! The toddler was in heaven when a chunk of his toys came our of one of the boxes,and your sponsors pro gear, you never know how soon he/she may need this, ie my hubby was in the Field after two weeks of in processing and he needed a lot of it and DVDs. A booster seat for all kids who will need one. In Germany children must ride in a booster until 12, and up to 7 must be in a 5 point harness car seat. Here is what we forgot to think about....dishes (DUR), silverware, a crock pot(dude I use this at least once a week, how I forgot this one I'll never know), a strainer and mixing bowls/cookie sheet and a small microwave. A coffee maker, a few fridge magnets, you might actually need them. School supplies. It's cheaper and easier to find mid school year stateside, also if PCSing mid year or late year, when pull your kids from school the teacher SHOULD give then back any supplies they brought in at the beginning of the year that wasn't used. A back pack for school. Alarm clocks. Lastly, Make sure you make them reweigh your house hold goods before you take accept them! We were told we were over by 641 lbs and would be charged close to $2,000.00, however when they reweighed us and took off the 10% packing materials we were under! All that worry and stress for nothing! PHEW!

My Boy Is Just That Awesome

I have to say, I have some great kids. I am really one very fortunate Mother. I have 4 son's and we are pretty sure another little testosterone ball on the way. These boys aren't perfect by any means, really who on earth is? Not me, that's for certain! How did I luck out like this though?

Our oldest Michael just turned 12 and he came up with the best ever "theme" for his party.

Seeing as Michael's birthday is in January that is when everyone makes those pesky new years resolutions. Blah. Lose that last 5lbs (er 40), Save money and so on.
My girl friend Amber decided for her resolution to "make a difference" weather it was in the world or in her local community. I was really surprised by this, she became a topic of discussion in our home as to how SHE was making a difference and how we could implement that in our home. She was doing things like a drive for Water.org and donating to her local animal shelter and so on. When Michael's birthday theme came up he said "I want to do that, I could do that too!" he decided that he would ask his guests, that instead of bringing him a traditional gifts, to bring him some sort of a donation for the shelter as well.


Ya, that's right, he decided to give up gifts completely for dogs! Gahhhhh, it makes me tear up even now. Not only were his guests surprised at this, Amber was surprised as well. Some how things snowballed a little and when we went to donate at the local shelter there was a news crew and two newspapers, and three officers from animal control! WHOA! I knew in advance that the local writer for the Fort Polk Guardian would be there since she had called me in advance, having read about Michael's birthday party on my Facebook page. Michael handled it all so very well.




Here is where Michael and Cody both held up a giant 40lbs logging chain that was wrapped around a rather small dog that animal control picked up. He was so sweet, but still so painfully thin. It was all Michael and Cody could talk about for days. How sad they were that other people could mistreat an animal like that.


Here is the video of Michael on the news!


Here I have copied and pasted the article from the Guardian!
There was a small typo saying that it was Matthew Howard but it was actually Michael.

Fort Polk boy makes dogs' day, gives back to man's best friend
February 7, 2012

By Sarah Peachey, Fort Polk Guardian staff writer


Related Links
Fort Polk Guardian web site
FORT^POLK, La. -- He received eight bags of dog food, eight bags of treats and more than 15 toys for his birthday. It may sound like the perfect gift for a dog, but it was for a 12-year-old Fort Polk boy.

Matthew Howard, son of Matt and Rachael Morris and a student at Pickering Elementary School, chose to forgo traditional gifts in favor of donations to the City of DeRidder Animal Control during his birthday party Jan. 21. His mother's friend, Amber LeRoy, was his inspiration.

"My mom told me about her friend Amber's New Year's resolution of helping the world. I decided if she can do it, I could too, so I chose to give back to dogs. I saved all my birthday money to buy extra food and toys," Howard said.

LeRoy chose to make a difference in her resolution and started bringing some items to the animal control facility. "If this idea could spread, it would be awesome," she said.

When Howard arrived at the animal control facility, he grabbed the two largest bags and carried them to the kennels. Almost immediately he wanted to go inside and see the dogs. He picked up a bag of treats and walked into the building that housed the dogs with a smile on his face, stopping to give a treat to each animal he passed. While some of the dogs were timid, others accepted the treats, toys and pats with tails wagging.

"It's sad to see what has happened to some of the dogs, but it feels good to help. Some of the dogs really love what I got them. One of the dogs took the toy as soon as I handed to him," Howard said.

Howard said he's had a love for animals since he was little. "Dogs are just amazing animals. If I could take a dog from here, I would take all of them," he said.

Anne Champney, an animal control officer in charge of the kennel, said she was moved by Howard's decision to collect donations. "It's an amazing thing and he got a huge response. We cannot solicit donations, so he did this all on his own. His mom called and asked about assisting. We told her to think of a bored dog and what they would want to do," Champney said.

Howard said he enjoyed petting the dogs, giving them treats and handing them toys and he spent a lot of time doing all three.

"He's been an animal lover since he was small and watched Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel over any other show," said Rachael Morris, Howard's mother. "He heard about Amber (LeRoy)'s resolution and got excited to do something. He asked, 'Can I get donations for my birthday?'"

Howard didn't have to forgo all birthday gifts, Morris said. A Family friend brought Howard a football.
"I was so proud of him. I kept asking, 'Are you sure you don't want any gifts? You're sure you only want donations?' It was something he felt he had to do. Now my other son wants to do something similar for his birthday," Morris said.

Howard's brother, Cody, 10, has a birthday in June and also plans to seek donations, but for a different cause. "He inspired me to do the same thing. I'm going to work with water.org so kids can get purified water," Cody said. "My brother did a cool thing and I'm proud of him. He wasn't greedy and decided to give back. I've never seen kids do that. People say kids can't do anything, but we can."

I would have just linked it but I wanted to make sure that it was included when we print out next blog book!

This in turn inspired Amber to start a new Facebook page called "Birthdays for a cause" it is AWESOME! It's a place where people can go to get ideas for possible birthday parties asking for some sort of donation, and a place to share those parties once they have happened! Thanks Amber for starting all of this! Thanks Sarah for the article and thanks to all our friends and family who took the time to donate! Thanks Anne at Animal Control for being so open to letting us come and love on the dogs when we donated! It made the kids afternoon. Frankly, were we not moving to Germany this spring we would have let Michael adopt one of those sweet pups. We just can't afford to fly a 2nd dog right now. Boo! At least if he couldn't take them home he was making thier lives just a little better!

In the end Michael got over $200.00 in gift cards or cash, with which he then went to Petsmart and Walmart and spent it on dog food and toys. He got quiet a bit of stuff! I just have to say again and again how very proud of him we are! What amazing boys we have!!!

SeaWorld....Where We Realized I Was Pregnant...AGAIN

After we sent the kids off to Jon's for Christmas Matt and I needed to plan something for a little early for his birthday. Going to Sea World is free for military families once a year so we decided to go on a date there, just the two of us! I've been a few times, and always had a blast, but we've always had a plethora of children in tow, blazing heat, and a basket full of stress! Going as just the two of us would be a totally new experience. Oddly enough we knew Jon was planning to drive down from Ga, with the kids and take them to Sea World, we did NOT know he was planning on that specific day. The only reason we knew a head of time was the night before hand, while Matt was printing off our military tickets of sorts he read that children over the age of 10 have to have their own military ID present with them when they show up.....I had the ID's. Jon did not. How was Jon going to get them in??? So we called to ask what his plan was, only to hear he planned to go the next morning. Akward much?
Matt and I offered to meet him at the front gate early and let him use the ID's to get the kids in. We decided once in the gates to go our seperate ways. I would have loved to spend the day with the boys but I didn't want to take from what little time Jon gets with them one on one. Not to mention I was unaware that Jon's new girlfriend was going along and was....hideing or MIA everytime we saw the boys yet she was in the park and didn't run into us. Oh well. I was a little irked by the new GF info and mostly I would guess from the surgeing hormones I was unaware of. LOL. AHHH, good old hormones and what they will do to you.
I hadn't yet missed my period and was showing signs of pregnancy. Tired, grumpy, bursting into tears, and an OBSESSION for Chinese food that I couldn't understand.

All of those fun little signs were swept under the rug which was our vacation, thinking "Meh, I'm just tired from the travel, I'm grumpy becuse I'm about to PMS and I want Chinese food becuase...I really..like Chinese??" I really had a hard time rationalizing that one away..lol
Right about HERE is when I REALLY thought...hmmmmmmmmmmm a test would be a good idea...and here is why.


We went into the shamu show, before the show a little girl went past me with cotton candy and caribbean flavored kettle corn. I litterly considered mugging her for her goodies. Matt had no cash and didn't want to run to the ATM for cash right then, I almost cried. REALLY??? Is that rational??? Uh not really...lol
During the show I did actually get all emtional and tear up....right here.

Kissing Orca's! SO CUTE. I am NOT a "SO CUTE" type of person. I normally would have said. "aww" and left it there. Instead I got all weepy. Ya, I'm rolling my eyes at myself too. lol.
Then a wee baby behind us cried and the hormones in me went nuts! YEP...we need to stop at Walgreens on the way home..lol
I went in....bought a test.....went to the potty.....and ...TADA.....LOL #5 on the way!

Here we are on Matt's actual birthday shareing the news with family...lol Happy birthday my love. My gift....a 5th baby!