Wednesday, February 24, 2010

I.O.U.

Sorry it's been a lil' bits since I've posted anything of real substance. I've been been pre-occupied with life, lol.

Eric's officially gone due to a TDY he's been assigned, so I won't see him till March 5th or so. Till then, he's stuck in a lil room that's amazingly smaller than the one I had in Poland (then again, it IS Europe) all while studying for his Tech Test that's coming up..good times!

The weather here is SO bi-polar!  One week it's hitting 20*, then the next it's hitting 53*. Snow..then rain..more rain... lil bits of snow, then rain. Toss in some high winds and you can have yourself a grand ol' time! No wonder people get sick here all the time.. and when I say people, I mean Americans. Not Belgians. Obviously the Belgians are used to this crap, but come on... I've never seen so many peeps get sick this many times in a short time frame. It's pretty crazy!

My leg is all better (thank God) so I was able to go back to the gym on Monday..hammered out 6 miles which was nice to get out of my system. Did a lil bit yesterday..only 3 miles. My stomach has really been bothering me as of late and everything is making me nauseated in the morning. No, I'm not pregnant. Don't even put that bad ju-ju on me. I think my stomach is starting to get an intolerance to Oatmeal cause that's when it seems to really flare up. I dunno if it's the texture or what.. but it's becoming rather uncomfortable ..ya know..that whole feeling you get when you're about to get sick. Sorry if that's TMI..but I'm pondering the different things to type about, hahaa...

March seems to be a busy month all around... big things going on for the base, Eric's testing for Tech, my Dad SHOULD be coming..Pampered Chef is kicking off their new catalog, I need to re-register John (apparently?) even though he's still attending the same school next year... then he has a Spring Concert. * SIGH * Too much shit to do! AGHHH!!!

Sorry this blog sucks..but then again, I've been all over the place and havent had time to do anything cool.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Two years, six months and twenty four days

I saw this on Amy's blog and I thought it'd be fun to copy cat..mainly because I have nothing original to talk about other than my leg needing to be removed from my body... SO..here goes :)

1) When was your wedding day?

Well...there's actually two dates... July 27th, 2007 and August 5th, 2007.  I have a reasonable explanation for the two; my Mom was supposed to attend the August ceremony, but her chemo was making her far too weak to travel (that ceremony was located in Las Vegas), so, we have a private ceremony held in Monterey, California which was only 15 minutes from where she was staying.

2) What day of the week was it?

July 27th was on a Friday, then August 5th was on a Sunday

3) Did you get married in a church?

Nope! Neither Eric or I are religious and we didn't want to be in a church for our ceremony. So, the ceremony in Monterey was done outside in a garden gazebo while the Vegas ceremony was within Mandalay Bay.





4) How many in your wedding party?

My best friend, Dara, was my Maid of Honor and my lil' cousin, Alexandra, was my Brides Maid. Then for Eric, my other cousin, Kendall (Alexandra's brother), was his Groomsman and Eric's best friend, Frank, was his Best Man. People were telling me that I should have more brides maids and that Eric should have more Groomsmen..but in all honesty, those were the only people that we wanted IN the wedding, aside from the actual guests we had. Besides, it made it more special to have it narrowed down to family and the people we love just like family :)

Dara, Alexandra, myself & Eric, Kendall and Frank

5) How many guests were invited to your wedding?

We kept it down to 30 people because I didn't wanna invite everyone under the sun. I know that sounds horrible, but weddings aren't exactly cheap. Not to mention, it think it's kinda funny to invite people for the sake of having a loaded wedding ceremony. The people we cared about were invited and we even arrainged to have our ceremony broadcasted over the internet. I must say, that was a pretty cool option to have since there were 100 people we wanted to invite, but between traveling, military schedules and such, they couldnt make it.. so they got to watch the whole thing from their computer / laptop :) Strangely enough, we had over 500 views, lmao.

6) How long were you together before the engagement?

We met back in September 2006 and he proposed May 2007. Our wedding was planned for March 18th, 2008, but when my Mom was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer, the doctor HIGHLY suggested that if we were wanting my Mom to attend.. that we should push the wedding up. Significantly.

Sept 2006

November 11th, 2006 ...we took John to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for his bday :)

As part of Eric's wedding present, I bought him tickets to see the Mets vs the Dodgers :)

7) How long did you wait to tie the knot after your proposal?

Due to my Moms failing health, we had a fairly short engagement. Since we were being told that the wedding needed to be moved up, it was moved from March 2008 to December 2007, then October..then again to August. We settled on August, but we still ended up getting married in July because between July 27th and August 5th, my mom became so incredibly weak that she couldn't even stand on her own anymore.. so having it in Monterey was critical or else she wouldn't have been able to see me get married at all if I stuck with just a Las Vegas venue.

8) How did he propose??

For Valentines Day, Eric bought me my lil weenie dog..Izzy. She's the best present I've EVER received cause she's my lil shadow and I love her to pieces, even though she's rather spastic. Well, when he decided to propose to me, he tied a massive pink bow around her (he was in another room when he did it) and tied a lil pouch with the ring in it onto the bow. When he let her go, she hauled ass around the living room first....all I saw was a brown blur with a dash of pink. She finally settled down and hopped up on me and I saw the lil baggy on the bow. Once she stopped squirming, I finally got it off of her and opened up the bag..I saw the ring and Eric was peering around the corner to watch everything, lol. I was SO excited!



9) Did you register for gifts? If yes, where?

Yup, we did. We registered at the ususal suspects: Macys & Target although we weren't expecting any gifts considering our wedding was considered a "destination". We were thrilled that our friends were able to SHOW UP ( people flew from Montana, New York, even Japan!) so that meant WAY more to us than gifts.

10) Who did you hire as your photographer & videographer?

We actually got really lucky with Mandalay Bay because they had a professional photographer on hand for the ceremony. She did a GREAT job with our pics, very personable and professional and was worth the money :) The "videographer" was pre-installed camera's that were positioned throughout the ceremony room, so we didn't have to worry about jiggly camera work, hahaa. Before we headed home from the whole Vegas experience, we got our pictures back as well as our ceremony on DVD.




11) Did you have a DJ or a band?

Nope! Seeing how we were in Las Vegas, we pretty much used that to our advantage and people disbursed on their own to party up once we were done hanging out at the "reception", which was Claime Jumpers, lol

12) What was your first dance to?

We didn't have one...well.. we went out and partied later that night and we hit the dance floor when "I Like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie" came on..it was amazing, hahaahahaaaa

13) Did your father walk you down the aisle?

Yes! I was really freaking out about it because there was a MASSIVE chance he wasn't going to be able to attend the wedding since he wanted to stay in California to take care of my Mom. My Grandma wasn't able to attend the wedding either due to the temp in Vegas hitting around 115* (can't blame her for that), but her and my Mom INSISTED that he go considering it was EXTREMELY important to me. Basically, I found out the day before the wedding that he was going to be able to make it...no stress or anything, lol




14) What color were the bridesmaids' dresses and groomsmen's vests?

I kept it really simple considering I liked the classic "Black & White" look for the wedding. The gals wore black halter dresses and the guys had simple tux's with black vests. Since Dara was the Maid of Honor, I had her flower bouquet a lil larger than Alexandra's with more Star Gazers.The only guys with colored vests were Eric and my Dad. Eric's was a smooth satin while my Dads was a textured in a criss-cross pattern, both had a silvery / charchol look :)

15) Did you have a bridal shower?

We got to Vegas two days prior to the wedding, so I had a blast with my girl-friends that were there :) Had a spa day, pampering, had lots of drinks.. all around, I loved it! Dara was..by far..the BEST Maid of Honor anyone could've ever asked for! I hope one day I can totally return the favor :D

Dara & I in the spa lobby
16) What type of limo did you get?

No limo, lol. We happened to stay at Mandalay Bay so when it was time to boogie for the ceremony.. I took an elevator and huffed it through the Casino. Got TONS of compliments! HA!

17) What were your flowers?

White Stargazers! I absolutely LOVED my bouquet! LOVED LOVED LOVED it! In the pic the other flowers look purple-ish, but they were actually a really pretty pink.


18) What flavor was your cake?

We didn't have a cake because most of the styles I liked were ridiculously expensive. I have an issue with paying  $2k for something that's going to get eaten.. to be blunt, my body is only "renting" it for several hours. Sure, wedding cakes are pretty and all, but not pretty enough to hurt my wallet. We actually went to Claime Jumpers (all of us bombarded them at once, hahaha!!) and Eric ordered an "I-DECLAIRE" or something like that. I got..MAYBE.. a lil sliver of it while he enhaled the rest. He was in some serious pain afterwards, lol


19) What type of wedding gown?

 I originally went to Campus Bridal in my hometown, but the service we got absolutely SUCKED. The gal was very rude and totally not helpful when it came to ordering status's and such. Not to mention, when my Mom asked for a chair for her to sit in (all were currently taken), and she needed to sit since she had chemo the day before and was still kinda weak, the gal that was "helping" us got pissy and acted put out. After that, I was mentally "done" with the place since her attitude was just horrible..sorry..you're not getting any commission off of me. Luckily, I found my dream dress there, which was by Alfred Angelo. Only thing is, they didn't have it in my size or the color I wanted. She told me it would be a 4 month wait for the dress to come in..which wasn't going to work since my wedding was in 2ish months. SO, I went rip roaring through the phone book and found several different Bridal stores that carried that specific dress maker. I went through 7 different places till I found one in Capitola called "Bridal Veil". I'll tell you what.. that place is AMAZING. All family owned and operated, the owner (the mother of 4 daughters) was absolutely unbelievable. Thinking back on it now makes me teary eyed cause of how understanding she was with the situation at hand (my mom, cancer, panic) and the need of getting the dress rushed. Nothing phased this woman and she handled EVERYTHING that you could think of with sheer grace. My dress showed up 2 weeks before the wedding and I drove up (from Vandenberg) to Capitola (almost 4 hours drive) twice within a week to get all the alterations done and taken care of. She hooked me up with the dress, the alterations, the veil and even my tiara and ballerina shoes.  Absolutely amazing service and I'll always be grateful for everything she did.

My dress when it was bustled


20) What was the weather like that day?

In Monterey, it was around 70*..totally perfect. In Vegas, it was 115*..made me wanna die, lol

21) Did you have an open bar?

For Monterey, it was just immediate family, so we drank on our own, hahaa. As for Vegas...Vegas IS an open bar, so it was up to the guests if they were wanting to go get blasted.

22) Where did you go on your Honeymoon?

Even though we got married in Las Vegas and had some extra fun there, we were saving up to take a trip to Europe for our 5 year anniversry. Go figure, now we live in Europe, hahahaaa

Canal in Amsterdam

Brussels for Christmas Eve

Brugge for Christmas Markets
23) What was your favorite thing about your wedding day?

Even though the whole planning process for the wedding was very stressful, it all melted away when I saw Eric when I was walking down the aisle. Everything felt perfect.  Everything was perfect. I wouldn't change a single thing :)

24) Did anything go wrong?

Actually, no! The only bad thing that happened was I got a migraine cause of the smog, lol

25) How long have you been married?

Two years, six months and twenty four days :) Go Team Hall!

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Wham..Bam....DAMN!

During the week, I always get up at 5 am, get some breakfast and such till I'm fully "awake". Then Eric rolls out of bed, hits the shower, gets some breakfast as well and we chit chat. I guess you can say we're each others "clocks" since we're so used to each others routines, that we know when it's time for us to head out to the door without even looking at the clock.

Well, part of my usual routine is to head out to my Xterra and start it so the engine warn up for a wee bit before I head out. Apparently I must've made Karma disgruntled, or the big guy upstairs thought it'd be entertaining to screw with me. Our porch is all brick work and definetely doesn't get any traction when it's wet or icy....then again, what DOES get traction in those conditions? Anyway, as I was stepping on the downward slope of the porch, my foot hit a patch of ice and BAM.. I was down. Not only that, but I slammed my shoulder just right. To add insult to injury, I landed in a nice sized puddle of ice water..by the way, it was 5:30a. Nice shock to the system between freezing water in addition to extreme pain!

My knee hurts SO bad, even with a brace on...I hobble like a gimp and it completely sucks. As the day has gone on, more and more things are starting to hurt :( If the pain doesn't let up by Saturday, I'm gonna go to the doc.. I expect my knee to hurt considering that took the most of the abuse (it's already covered in dark bruises and missing a nice layer of skin), but my hip is in alot of pain ..it hurts if I sit too long and it hurts when I try to get up...and my shoulder (the one I also landed on) is gettin VERY sore.

I'm SO displeased about all of this considering ..well.. I can't work out. .. I know I won't till I can fully support weight on that particular lef. The extra shitty thing... I fell on the same knee I screwed up a few months back so I'm worried I caused additional damage to the old injury.

UGHHHH :(

Sunday, February 14, 2010

< 3

I forgot to mention...when I came home from Amsterdam, I found this:



This was DEFINTELY a pleasant surprise! Earlier in the week, Eric had asked me what I wanted for Valentines Day, but I told him I want him to figure it out on his own..it'd be more special without me prompting him for it, lol. In addition to the flowers, he has me set up to go to a local spa for the day for some much needed pampering :D I'm excited!  Thanks hubba!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

A-Dam

Not too long after we moved here, Eric's shop organized a Flight "Morale" trip in which I was able to tag along (family was allowed to join) and check out the Bosteel Brewery ... I must admit, it was a pretty cool place. Since then, his Flight hasnt done any other trips, nor do I really see them having another one any time soon.

Well, the Flight I work for decided they wanted to have a "Morale" trip... instead of going to the Bosteel Brewery, they opted for the Heineken Experience over in Amsterdam. Seeing that I've lived here for almost a year now and have yet to experience Amsterdam, I was pretty freaking stoked to go. Since we're such a tiny base, the Flight I'm apart of only has...hmmm...20 people? If that? Only 13 of us opted to go on the trip, then once we reached our destination, 5 of 'em decided to stay the night, lol.

Here's some pictures from the trip... I gotta say, I absolutely LOVED the Heineken Experience. The staff was SO friendly and educational, plus, they spoke amazing English. In fact, the majority of the places around Amsterdam was rockin' the English language. I know I shouldnt be surprised considering Amsterdam is a huge tourist attraction, but still... where I am in Belgium, it's a miracle if someone speaks DECENT English, lol.

Some of my co-workers: Shaun (drinking the beer), Andy, Vanessa and Daniel. They were "pre-gaming" aka drinking before we got to the actual Brewery.


* Play heavenly music *

Keep in mind, we left our base around 7:15a because we were told that the brewery opened up around 10ish. We actually managed to get there around 9:30, only to find that the place doesn't open till 11, lol. It was VERY cold in Amsterdam.. it had to have been around 17* with FREEZING winds. Whenever the wind hit ya, it pretty much cut right through ya...super sucky! Anyway, since they weren't open yet, our group managed to find our way into a nearby restraunt that served crepes. Since I didn't think crepes and beer would mix, I just ended up ordering a Hot Chocolate that was UH-Mazing!


After we defrosted in there for a lil bit and some of us had some massive crepes, we made our way back over to the Brewery (it was just across the street) to find that they still werent open... we had another 20 minutes to kill. Geez! I managed to get a couple of pictures of the famous canal:




To kill a lil more time, we went to a pub that was literally on the corner across from Heineken...and what do they serve? Heineken of course! Actually, they serve "Heineken, Extra Cold" which is like 15 degrees colder than a regular beer.. talk about a brain freeze.


Once we finally got into the brewery, we got our spiffy Heineken bracelets for 15€ (they come with 2 buttons on them that you can redeem later in the tour for 2 beers) and off we went!

This was on the wall right when you started the tour

Staaaaaaaatesiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!

Really cool mosaic

* Play Heavenly music again*

On the left - Science & Beer: Adriaan was the first brewer to open a labratory dedicated to increasing the quality of his beer. Flasks like this were typical of laboratories in 1866.
On the right - Early Heineken Beer Bottle: The "bottom fermentation" process adopted by Adriaan resulted not only in a better-tasting beer, it also meant that bottled beer would keep longer for shipping purposes.
 
Ceramic Beer Tankard - Classic Tankard typical of the late 19th Century

Silver Goblet - Given to Henry Pierre Heineken by the SCHBM (employee sports association) honoring his support and contributions. The engraving is from 1920!

Heineken Beer Bottle - New bottle design introduced in 1939 for the domestic market.

The Heineken Logo - Freddy Heineken was passionate about improving Heinekens advertising and image efforts. Thransforming the Heineken logo was one of his first and most enduring achievements.

Simply the Best - In 1995, Freddy Heineken won the prestigious Advertiser of the Year Award.

 On the left - Silver Medal of Honor & Certificate: On June 15th, 1989, the Mayor and City Council of Amsterdam awarded Aldred H. Heineken the Silver Medal of Honor and certificate for his important contributions to the city.
On the right - Legion of Honor, Henry Pierre Heineken: On May 17th, 1938, Dr. Henry Pierre Heineken was awarded the Legion of Honor, the highest decoration in France, established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.
 
On the left - Silver Flag: In 1888, the brewery personnel presented this Silver Flag gift to Gerard Adriaan Heineken on the 25th Anniversary of the original "Haystack" brewery.
On the right - Engraved Trowel: On May 17th, 1867, Gerard Adriaan Heineken's mother used this commemorative trowel to lay the first stone of the original Heineken brewery here on the Stadhouderskade.
 
Gold Metal of Honor: In 1875, Heineken beer was awarded a gold metal in Paris. This award is featured on the label of every Heineken bottle.

 50th Anniversary Award - On February 11th, 1923, the Heineken brew master, personnel and managers commemorated the 50th anniversary of the company (1873-1923) by presenting this award to the Directors of the Heineken Breweries.

Once we were done with the history part of the tour, we got to check out the factory area that displays several large copper containers. When you looked inside of 'em, they had TV screens that talked about the brewing process and some additional history bits.



The inside of the copper containers.

Once you're done checking out the copper containers and such, you head out and end up on an enclosed walkway that takes you past the Heineken stables. I was SO excited to check 'em out, but rather bummed that we couldnt really check 'em out all that well. I love love love horses (I baby our neighbors horses right next to our house), but atleast I got to see a couple of 'em. Each stable had that specific horses name on it. You can kinda see one of 'em in the picture (sorry for the glare)..the pexiglass walkway wasn't exactly "perfect" for pictures, lol. It was cute watching one of the horse keepers cause he kept petting the one horse in the pic..very loving and you can tell he loves his job.

Some of the original harness and bridles from way back in the day.


Yes, there's a Heineken ride. It was pretty interesting since it lets you see the brewing process "personally"..kinda reminds me of those rides you could do at the local airshows. You get in a room then there's a platform that shifts all around, the environment reacts to what's going on the screen.. all in all, pretty cool.


Once you exit the ride, there's a tasting room where the bar tender pours ya a 12oz glass of beer and discusses the things to look for when it comes to a good beer. Amongst our group, there was a couple of Frenchies that were pretty much not listening to anything that was being said. When the bar tender was passing out the drinks, she specifically said NOT to drink yet cause she had to explain some stuff. Well, one Frenchie decided when his beer was given to him, he slammed it down as if it were a college contest. The look on the bar tenders face was sheer annoyance cause he obviously wasnt listening. So, once she was finished passing everything out, she begin to give her lecture on the beer, the taste and smells...all the while, Mr Frenchie was trying to interrupt her and signaling that he didn't have any beer to follow her lecture with, lol. Oh well! Botoms up!

After the tasting room, you walk into a place that looks like a raver / club scene, lol. When you look up, the ceiling is all Heineken bottles! Pretty cool stuff, especially when they start the light show and you see all the different levels of bottles in the ceiling!
There's actually apart of the tour where you get to customize your own bottle of beer. You get to watch it on the assembly line, get filled, labled and everything. Once you input all your info and what you want the label to say, you can pick up your specific bottle after you're all finished with the tour.


In another room, you have the chance to make your own lil' Dutch music video, lol. Vanessa and Daniel attempted to do one, but they quickly realized that it wasnt in English and gave up. Hey, alteast they got to say "I'm on a boat!"

Lounge room where you can check out various Heineken commercials throughout the years:

Spiffy art gallery:

Of course there's a Fooseball table... if you've been stationed at KB, you'd understand why I say that.
The official bar!
This place was pretty awesome.. once you got your beer you'd go into another room where these standing tables were. When you put your cold beer down on the top surface, a digital drink coaster would pop up right under it. Not only that, but there was a digital map on the table with a red star on it...if you put your drink on the star, it'd initiate the map to zoom in on that specific city. Once you picked a city to view, all the TVs in the room (they were all on the wall surrounding the bar) would engage and give you a 360 view of..ohhh... Hong Kong, Rio De Janero, Amsterdam... it was REALLY cool!

Once we were all finished with the Heineken Experience and spending some hard earned Euro in the souvenier shop, we made our way over to the Hard Rock Cafe.


 Tell ya what, I gorged my heart out on an amazing "open face steak sandwich". Ohhh maaannn... I know I'll be paying for it in the gym, but I DON'T CARE! I deserve it! Picked up some more souveniers in their shop since I love the whole Rock N Roll look. After we finished up there, I hit up a local lil shop to pick up a hoody for John since I didn't think it'd really be appropriate to get him a beer shirt, hahaa.

When I was leaving the souvenier shop, I noticed these guys playing an actual game of chess! Pretty cool, hunh?

After all was said and done, I got to check out some pretty cool things, spent alot of money..but was well worth it. Didn't have a hangover which was even better, lol. Here's some of the things I managed to spend my hard earned money on:

My  lil band for the bar... as you can see, the two buttons are missing therefore I left with 2 awesome beers in my belly.

Shirt for me

Shirt for Eric

Hoody for me...and lemme tell ya something.. European sizing sucks. Wanna feel super self conscious about yourself? Buy something in euro-sizing. This freaking hoody is a 3XL...nothing finer than feeling like a total fatass after you've been drinking beer.

My official Heineken beer! I had one made for Eric as well so he wouldnt feel left out.

..beanie for Eric

I also bought some post cards that I'll later use for scrapbooking stuff..but I can't find them..hum...

And for spending over 50 (way more, actually), I got this spiffy book about Heineken. In all honesty, I dont know what I'll do with it.. maybe I'll dismantle it or something and use some of the pages for scrapbooking since it has some cool lookin' vintage advertisements.

Here's my goodies from the Hard Rock:

Kick ass bottle opener

Badass hoody for me... and ..oh.. by the way.. it's a size Large. Made me feel MUCH better about myself instead of having to get a 3XL. Thank you Hard Rock!

Duffle bag... is it bad that I actually "needed" to buy it so I can carry all my crap back to the bus? I had several little bags from Heineken in addition to the Hard Rock and I knew they werent gonna "hold" for the several block hike. So, I purchased this bad boy..it held alot! I was pleasantly surprised!

I also got a shot glass which is a traditional thing for me to do.. I collect shot glasses where ever I go :)

SO, there ya go.. there's my trip to Amsterdam. I'll be sure to go back there again with Eric to check out some more stuff.. I'd love to go to the Van Gough museum and also check out the Sex History Museum (hahaa, yesssss!)..obviously it'll most liktely be a trip without John since I don't wanna subject him to some of those things :) All in all, I highly reccommend a trip to Amsterdam if you happen to be on this side of the globe!