Lions, Tigers and ...Tubbles?! oh my.

Fun Animal Fact: Contrary to popular belief, Hyenas are closer to being apart of the Cat family then the Dog family.

Last night Tubbles and I decided to watch some National Geographic. We don't have Cable obviously since we are in Germany and German cable is all in German. So we rented a 10 disk set from the Post Library called National Geographic Complete Nature collection. I love Nature and when I saw the National Geographic COMPLETE Nature collection,. I had to rent it. Anyways, I got it and Tubbles just loved watching the big lions and lioness on the flat screen.

Tonight, I think we are going to watch the disk about Wolves. I think that might get her attention too. Her eyes were just glued to the TV.. Then again, it is a proven fact that animals really enjoy watching other animals, so I can see why she was so entertained..

Shopping at Ramstein AFB

 Sunday we drove about two and a half hours to Ramstein Air Force base. Home of the largest PX/BX (Post Exchange) in the world!! To Military families, it is sort of an attraction spot and we are only stationed a few hours away. I was in desperate need of some new clothes so we went shopping for that and while we were there we got a Telescope and Waffle maker and a few other fun things! Our PX is pretty small and don't carry those sort of things and it's not like we can just go off  post to Wal-mart. Really glad we made the trip over there!

Welcome to Ramstein

The main gate

PX/BX

My little piece of America

some of the MANY concessions

food court

After all of our shopping was done, we went to Chili's for dinner! It has kind of became our ritual every time we go to Ramstein.

I went to the book store at Ramstein and bought Steve Chicken Soup for the Veteran's soul! Chicken Soup for the Soul is a great inspirational book series. I had him open it at Dinner! He loved it and even had me read him a few of the stories in it while driving back home.

Hiking in Kreuzberg

Village of Kreuzberg

We decided to go on a well needed Hiking trip to get away from all the electronics and get back in touch with our love for Nature. We filled our back packs with bottled water and snacks and headed to Kreuzberg Germany. It was really nice. We tried to find a certain trail that everyone keeps talking about that takes you to a Monastery but we didn't have any luck.

 When ever I tell people that we are stationed in Germany,  they always think about the Autobahn (no speed limit highway) so I took a few clips while we were driving on the autobahn and put them together into a video to show what it is really like to drive on the famous Autobahn. Click http://youtu.be/HmcZRtsBQYI

After our Hiking trip we went to a pet store in downtown Schweinfurt called Zoo & CO.  We are trying to find a feline jungle gym for Tubbles but everything is so expensive.. Guess we will have to keep searching around.

For Dinner we ordered Chinese food from Mayflower and Stephen tried some Tofu for the first time.. and LOVED IT!!! I never thought I would see the day. I think I am starting to rub off on him. He took such a liking to it that he wants to only buy that from now on instead of red meats since he is the only one in the house that eats red meat.. I have never ate red meat.. I mean I have before but got very sick because my body doesn't know how to digest it. Growing up my Dad would try to make me eat it but I never took a liking to it and I get my protein other ways. Something about knowing an animal had to be killed and me eating its 'insides' just doesn't sit right with me.. plus I can NOT stand the taste of it. I do sometimes eat Chicken but I'm not a big fan of that either for the same reasons listed above.

I have mentioned Military Spouse Magazine before in this blog, Its my favorite magazine (MilSpouse.com) I have been getting it every month since I became an Army wife. Well, they have a Marine wife doing a weekly video blog of her life as her husband is deployed.. I have been watching it and last week, she taught everyone how to make Paracord 550 Bracelets (Survival Bracelets). Its really popular for the boys to wear them while in the field or deployed because they can just undo them and have Paracord ready to use for anything they may need it for. Paracord 550 is Military Issue cord that can be used for just about anything. Recently, Military wives have taken a liking to wearing them as well to show off Military pride and I finally know how to make them.. here is the first one I have ever made.. Steve absolutely loves it and was wearing it around all night. All the guys wear them and since you can get Paracord 550 in pretty much any color, you can make American flag colors or deployment colors, Army colors, AirForce ect.. It really is a great Military pride 'show-off' along with a survival item for the guys that you can just keep on you at all times.

Tubbles breaking it in for her Daddy

A week alone

Fun Animal Fact: 99% of all Calico cats are female, the 1% males that slip through are born sterile. 

Yesterday I dropped Steve off at Headquarters at 0300 in the morning! He has a week long field training which is where the unit pretty much acts like they are deployed and makes sure everyone knows what they are doing. First time we have been apart for more then 2 nights since he came home from deployment. I think I am having a little detachment anxiety.

Guess Tubbles and I will have the bed all to our selves. She and I both love to sprawl. Here are a few cute photos of our baby these last few weeks. She has been put on a special diet. If you don't notice in the photos, she has gained a few pounds.

She loves her plastic bags

We also got a few new toys in these past few weeks. Stephen got a bicycle to start riding to work every morning. It was his decision. He loves exercising. Now that I have the car all day, I am not really sure what to do with myself. I always want to get out of the house during the day but never have the car, and now that I do, I don't ever go anywhere. It's confusing, I know.
  We also got an at-home Elliptical. I try work out on it almost every morning and going to start trying to do it at night too but I am not quite there yet.

It has a build-in fan, IPod hook up with build-in speakers, tension, heart monitor, drink holder, workouts and more. I love it!

I might as well use this time alone to really focus on getting done with my Veterinary Assistant program and working on my fitness! I already miss him and I noticed Tubbles roaming the house this morning, she only does that when she is looking for one of us.

Independence Day

Happy Independence Day

What a fun day.  We had our friend Daniel Garza staying here for 4 nights but left this morning. He is PCSing to Fort Bragg in North Carolina and had to clear out of the barracks so we had him stay with us. He sure is excited to leave Germany, I can't wait until we are finally back in the States.

  We all went to Volksfest (a German festival) together on Independence day. I never really did like carnival rides that much but decided to give it a try.

  They had tons of rides, games, food stands, live music, and beer tents.

Steve trying to win me a flower.. Of course he didn't miss a shot, this is what he does for a living!

Wanna tango?

Our Snekys (German Icee-like drink)

Daniel Garza

Beer tent

The boys! Josh Tweet waving at me

Tubby wants a drink

I also put together a collage of videos from Volksfest! There is some pretty funny footage of Steve and Daniel being swung around on a few rides. The first ride shown on the video is one that I rode on too and scared the heck out of me. I thought I would fall off so I bear hugged the bars and got massive bruises from holding on so tight! It doesn't seem so bad from the video but they are letting small kids on this ride. There is no seat belt and if you let go of the bars, your going to be thrown around.. here, watch the video to see what I mean...  Click here

Beautiful fireworks

The opening and ending of every German festival,. they do a fire work show.. So, the Army post got together with the festival coordinators and had the firework show be our Independence day firework show also. They do it every year now for Independence day. There was a lot of fun activites going on at Kessler Field (football field on post) for Independence day but we decided to go to Volksfest instead and plus we had a perfect seat to watch the fireworks right from our balcony.