The Brown Family in Germany.

R&R with Chris

2009-04-30T16:35:00.003+02:00

To have Chris home was the greatest thing ever! It had been 9 months since we last saw him and it was time to see him again. This had been the longest we'd ever been seperated. His family hadn't seen him in over a year and they were all very excited to see him again.

We all went to the airport on saturday the 7th to see chris when he got in. His flight didn't arrive until about 5:45pm so we had all day to get ready. And all day to be anxious! I know I was! Sean and Kayla were SO excited to see daddy! Sean has such an expressionable face!

The time had come and we say Chris walking down the hallway. Sean took of running after him and kayla followed! You could just see how hard sean was squeezing! Poor kayla lost a shoe on her way to daddy and started crying. But daddy picked her up and she was instantly better!

I was next of course and it was so good to kiss those lips again! It's so great to be able to hug him again. Bitter sweet though... knowing that we'll have to say goodbye in 18 days. We soaked up all we could while we were together though!

Chris made his rounds hugging his family and friends! We all talked for a little bit then decided to get going. The plan was for Sean and Kayla to stay the night at my parents house and chris and I would get a hotel for the first night back. And that is exactly what we did!

Chris said bye to the kids for the night and we went our seperate ways! The first thing we wanted to do was find a hotel. After we did that, we went out to eat. Chris wanted a good steak so we decided on The Texas Roadhouse. It was SSOOO good!

Anyways... the next day we went to the mall and went shopping. It was so nice to get out just the two of us! After shopping we went to get the kids! They, or course, were excited to see daddy again! Sean liked to beat him up and Kayla joined in too.

We did so much while chris was here. He made sure to see everyone he could. Our big family time was a trip up north. I had made reservations to an awesome hotel called The Great Wolf Lodge. It's a hotel made to look like a log cabin with stuffed animals inside. It had a HUGE indoor water park. When we got there we put all of our stuff in our room and got our swimsuits on. The kids wanted to go swimming as fast as they could. It was a really nice place. They had a great area for the little ones that wasn't too deep. Kayla got on the slide right away and kept on going! Sean took a little more coaxing, but he liked it too!

We sent Sean down the bigger kid slide and by time he got to the bottom, he was crying. He wasn't able to keep himself sitting up, so he got scared. Poor guy... Kayla wanted to go down it SO bad, but she was too small to go by herself and they wouldn't let us put her on our lap, so she couldn't go. She wasn't too happy with that.

Chris talked Sean into going on a tube slide with him. I wasn't too sure if Sean would do it or not. They ended up going on it 3 times before they came back to the table! Sean LOVED it! It was a two seater tube, so Chris would get in the back and put his legs over the front hole. Sean would sit on his legs and hold on to the handles on the side. Then Chris would hold on to sean's life jacket and away they went! Sean wanted me to go with him, so we did. I was a little nervous though, because I didn't want him to fall off. I didn't like it because I felt like sean was going to fall..... if I would have remembered to hold onto the life jacket the whole way down instead of just at the end, I probably would have liked it a little more!... Oops. :) Sean had a good time either way!!!

The hotel also had this interactive game called "Magic Quest". You purchase a wand and the game and you go around the whole hotel looking for the clues you have in your book. It's a lot of fun. You have to swoosh your wand at the object and it makes magic! For example, it can make a picture glow and talk to you, or a treasure chest open up. Eventually if you do all of the quests, you have to help the fairies, the princess and fight the dragon. We didn't get to the last two quests. I think the kids were getting a little tired of always doing something.

We headed back to Hastings, but made a pit stop at this place we like to buy jerky. It's a town called Dublin. They make some awesome jerky! We stopped there for lunch and to get jerkey and then headed on our way.

I guess I've kinda given you a play by play of our R&R, so I will stop. The rest of our time was great. We went Geo caching with my mom and dad and hung out with chris' parents as much as we could. I think we all enjoyed having chris home. I know he was happy to be home.

Then sadly, the time came for chris to have to leave again. His flight left at 6:30 in the morning. Because it was so early, we decided to leave the kids at home and just have that time be the two of us. My mom stayed the night at my brother's house so that way she could be there if the kids woke up. I saw him off and that was that.

Saying goodbye after R&R is harder than saying bye when they first deploy. The positive side of things is that as of today we don't have much longer and he'll be home for good. From this deployment at least!

Well, I hope you all enjoyed the blog. I have another story to tell, so stay tuned!! Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,
Rachel and family!

Our Space A adventure!!

2009-04-15T05:12:00.003+02:00

Hello everyone! I know there are a certain number of you that are saying to theirselves "It's about time you posted a new blog!" :D I know I know.... No excuses!! Well here it is for you all!

Right now were are in michigan!!! It is ssssooo nice to be home. I can't belive it's been over a year since we've seen everyone. That's just crazy. We decided to try out Space A to get here. For those of you who don't know what that is, it means Space Available. Military members and their families can use it. You have to go to an airforce base (sometime other branches) and get on the list. I tried to plan ahead and put us on the list a month before we were leaving. I figured that way we would be at least towards the top of the list when we finally did fly out! Well it paid off, because when we got to Ramstein Air Force base we were the first civilians on the list. EVERY TIME!!! I say every time because it took us two days to get out of there. That's not bad, and also is normal.
Since we didn't have our soilder with us, and that he's deployed for 15 months, we were category III. That means if there is anyone in cat I or II they get the seats before us. The sometimes frustrating part was when they posted the list right before they called roll call, we would be at the top, but what you don't see are the soldiers that came in and signed up last minute that have priority over you. Now, I didn't get mad about that though. The reason is because most of the soldiers are coming home from either a deployment, or on R&R, or have just been away for a few months. I know if I was their family waiting back home for them, I would want my soldier to have priority over a family that was just going home for leisure.
Ok, I'll back up a little bit. My good friend Aimee was generous enough to drive me the 3 hours to ramstein. We left after church on sunday, March 1st. That meant that we were going to be getting in late that night. Lucky for my Aimee is part of a hospitality house ministry and she knew some friends that had one in Ramstein. They were super kind and allowed us to stay the night at their house. We rolled in about 10pm. We of course stayed up a little trying to unwind and then decided to hit the hay since we had to wake up early. The thing with space A is that there may be 6 flights going to the east coast and an hour later there are only 2. That's kind of what happened. When we got to the base the next morning (the 2nd) there were only two flights going out. I missed the first one by a long shot, so we had to wait around for a couple of hours. The airport had this great family room provided by the USO. Those people are AWESOME! We were able to 'rent' a movie (my ID card as hostage) for the kids and relax in the family room. When the second flight came up, we went downstairs to check the roll call and I missed it just on paper. They didn't have that many seats. So by about 10:30am our day was over. That was the last flight going stateside that day! So we decided to head to the first American restraunt I had had in over a year, Chili's!!
We ate lunch and then went home for a nap. Aimee and the kids were already in the room trying to sleep when I got done with the shower. Sean wasn't cooperating very well so Aimee decided to take him Antique shopping with him! It was so nice of her to do that and let me sleep. She's awesome! Kayla and I slept for a while actually. When I woke up our hosts were super nice and got us something to eat. I called Aimee and told her we were awake and she started home. Apparently while she was driving around, sean fell asleep, so she just kept driving around so he could get a good nap in. Isn't that so nice?!
We didn't want to intrude on the families birthday party for their daughter so Aimee took us to this restraunt she knew of in the area. Aimee and her husband Brian were prior military and stationed in the area. We went to a castle there and then to this awesome restraunt. I can't even remember the name of it, but MAN their steak was good! And I was lucky to have the hookup with Aimee there! They remembered her and gave us a ton of extra food at no cost! Super cool!!
Well, then next morning we woke up bright and early, got the kids in the freezing car half asleep, and started it all over again. The first flight was suppose to go out at like 0630, but when we got there it was delayed an hour. Then another hour. That was pretty much the start of my day!!
I was trying to get to the east coast. ANYWHERE on the east coast. My parents were going to pick me up, so they decided to leave sunday and drive to pennsylvania. That was about 5 hours from Mcguire and Baltimore both. It was another 11 hours to Charleston. We didn't really want to go to charleston for obvious reasons. It was SO far away. But we were all on agreement that I would just get to the states and we would deal with whatever needed to be done. With that said, there were two flights with their roll calls 15 minutes apart. Both flights had about 25 confirmed seats on them. The first flight was a C17 (military cargo plane) to Charleston. The second was a civilian (the only civilian flight out of there) to Baltimore. Being on the top of the list with 25 available seats I was almost positive I would get the charleston flight. The thing was, I didn't want my parents to have to drive another 11 hours. They had already been on the road waiting at a hotel for 2 days. BUT, if I gave up my charleston seat, I wasn't promised a balitmore seat. And that ended up being the last flight to the states that day. SO, I took the charleston flight. I just needed to get stateside. Aimee called Brain, who called my parents (at 0100) woke them up and told them where we were going. They got dressed and started on their 11 more hours of driving. Bless their hearts. As for Aimee, she had to drive back home and wanted to get there ASAP since brian was sick. I understood and since I had my tickets, I felt comfortable with her leaving.
So there I was, with my two kids, a small carryon suit case, two backpacks, a diaper bag, a car seat and a double stroller. Did I mention that security was on the second floor and the elevator was broken? Thankfully Aimee helped me get upstairs before she left and I figured I'd just stay there until we boarded. Not too long after that they called our flight to start checking in. It was a little tricky getting all of us and our stuff through security, but we managed and made it to our terminal. The kids were getting a little restless, but for what they had been through those last couple of days, they did AWESOME!!
We didn't have to wait long and they started getting us to our bus that was going to take us to our plane. I don't know if you caught this, but we managed to get on a C17. You know, one of those huge military cargo planes? I was actually looking forward to it, because I had heard that if there wasn't much cargo then the kids could just run around once we got to alltitude. I was pretty excited about that idea!
We got all the way to our plane and sean said "I can't belive we're going to fly on that. That's so awesome!". It was too cute. Then our driver informed us that we weren't suppose to take off for another 2 hours.......... so we all had to go back to waiting in the mail area. That meant another trip through security. Once we got back to that area, I realized that I was now on the first floor and I needed to be on the second. Lucky for me, God is always looking out for me. Most of the people on the flight with us were soldiers. Coming home from being gone for about 4 months. Now that might not seem long to those of us who have done or are doing 15 month deployments, but any time away from loved ones is hard enough. I was very greatful to have them on the flight with us. They took good care of us. Once I got the kids out of the stroller, two guys just grabbed my whole stroller, bags and all, and carried it up the stairs! After the two hours, they called us again and off we were, going through security. I was trying to get all of my stuff and a soldier just grabbed my suitcase from me and said "I'll get this". That was so helpful!
We got through security and to our terminal and we weren't even there literally 5 minutes and they told us we were delayed another 2 hours. Once we got upstairs again we found out it was another hour on top of that. So the kids and I decide to use th family room again and I asked one soldier if they called us and I didn't hear if he would make sure they didn't leave with out me. He of course said yes. Before going to the family room, I called my parents to let them know what was going on and I also emailed chris to keep him in the loop. And of course I couldn't leave our my friends in germany, since I knew they were all wondering what was going on with me as well. Once all the phone calls were over, we went to chill in the family room.
After the 3 hours they called us again and off we were. By this time the one soldier and I had a system going for how we got me and the kids and all of our stuff where we needed to go. I didn't even have to ask anymore, he just grabbed the suitcase and off we were! Sometimes I would just catch back up to him at the terminal!! :) We actually got on the bus this time. We were all waiting anxiously to see if we would get OFF the bus.... and we did! WOOHOOO!!! We're actually going!
Once we got on the plane they handed out ear plugs (it's pretty loud) and I got the kids situated in their seats. Kayla was in the car seat on one side of me and sean was on the other side of me. I don't think we had even took off yet and kayla was knocked out! Poor kids were pooped! I don't remember the sequence of events on the plane too much. There came a time where I was so tired that I don't really remember. I do remember that the kids and I played with their coloring books for a little while, then we had all fallen asleep for a while. Then kayla woke up and sean slept in the car seat and I played with her. Also, a soldier had given us their sleeping back in case we wanted to lay down. OOHH!! I almost forgot to tell you something I thought was hilarious!! Ok, so there were maybe 10 of us on the flight that were civilian. Everyone else was Airforce or Army. You could totally tell these guys had done this before. As SOON as we hit altitude and they said we could take off our seat belts, our flew the sleeping bags and little mattresses and man, did they find every nook and cranny to fit into. Now remind you, this plane was FULL of cargo, but these guys founds ways to sleep anyway! It was just so funny to me to see how fast they layed down! :) After a while of trying to stay awake, I finally gave in and layed down. Sean was getting kind of cranky, but I think it was because he was so tired and couldn't find a comfy spot. I had already layed down with sissy in the sleeping bag and were trying to sleep. After alittle bit of trying to get sean to calm down, I figured out that he was probably cold. I switched spots with him and let him sleep with kayla in the bag. Of course as soon as he finally fell asleep. We started landing in Gander Canada. We had to refuel. So I had to wake the kids up and get them in their seats.
We stayed in gander for about an hour and then we just had another 4 hours to Charleston. Man was it awesome when we finally landed. It was such a relief to know that we were stateside and that my parents were waiting for us!!! the kids were super excited too! Once again, the guys helped me get all my stuff off the plane and onto ground. I couldn't thank them enough. I wish I could have done more. But I have decided that since God always sends someone my way when I'm traveling alone, I'm going to be prepared this time. I plan I having a huge ziploc baggie full of cookies for anyone who helps me. Homemade of course. I think that'll be kinda nice!!
My parents drove us back to the hotel where they suprised me with my grandma!!! Bless her heart, she had taken this long trip with them. I wonder if she would have came if they knew they would be traveling all the way to south carolina!! LOL :) Either way, I was very glad to see her! We all stayed up way later than we should have, but finally went to bed around 1am. The next morning we woke up with a half an hour before breakfast closed and we didn't want to miss that, since it was a hot breakfast!! :)
We all ate and then started on our way home. Well, we took a little pit stop at the ocean to go 'treasure hunting'. Since we only live by lakes, we couldn't pass up a look at the beautiful ocean!!! It took us two days to get home, but we finally made it. I was and am so thankful that my parents were so willing to just come and get me from anywhere. I wish it wouldn't have had to be so far away, but that's what God wanted and who's argueing with the Big Man? Not me! :)

Man!!! That was a long one!! Sorry about that! I will write more about Chris coming home at another time! Two reasons really.... 1) to keep you in suspence! And 2) It's midnight and my fingers are cramping!! :)

I hope you all enjoyed our little trip here! I will talk to you all soon!

Love Rachel, Chris, Sean and Kayla!

These pictures are of the kids digging for treasure and Kayla chasing the seagulls! Papa would drop a penny in the sand near where Sean was digging so he would find it. He thought that was the coolest thing ever!!

Catching up!

2009-02-21T09:47:00.003+01:00

WOW! WOW! WOW!!

It really has been a while since I last wrote huh?! What can I say, I'm sorry! I hope you all haven't given up on my blog. I will try harder to keep you all informed of what's going on with us!

Let's see... since I last wrote the kids have had their birthdays! Sean is now 4 years old and Kayla is now 2 years old! I decided to do their parties together. That way I didn't ask all of our friends to come over two saturdays in a row. We had a really great turn out and the kids had a blast! I decorated the house with two themes. My dining room was Iron Man for Sean and my living room was Cinderella for Kayla! Sean's Iron Man cake was made by the commissary and I made Kayla's cinderella cake! I wasn't sure if it was going to turn out well or taste very good, so a friend of mine made a sheet cake and brought that over too! We had plenty of cake so that was good!

The kids and I have taken a couple of trips also. One trip we took was with the hospitality house here in Graf. We went to Rothenburg and had an english speaking tour guide. It was very fun. I love to learn the history of a town and Rothenburg has GREAT history. When my parents come to visit this septemeber, I want to take them there for the "Night Watchman" tour!
Sean and Kayla did really well during the tour. They were able to walk with the group, so they liked that! One place that I thought was really interesting was a church that we went into. There is a wooden hand carved statue of "The Last Supper." They say that inside the bubble that's in the cross are three drops of Christ's blood. Now I will leave that up to your own interpretation, but I thought that was just a cool 'fact'.

Other than trips, some more news is that I started selling Partylite! It's a bunch of candles, home decor, and even some spa stuff! I love selling it and my business is doing really well! I am book solid up until the day befor I leave! It makes my schedule a little hectic, but it'll give me some spending money for my trip back home.

Speacking of... I'm going to be going back to the states for two months! I am so excited!! We will be leaving around the 2nd of march. I say 'around' because the kids and I will be taking a Space-A flight so we're not sure when we'll be flying out or even where we'll be landing! My parents are going to be on stand by to come get me. I have about 4 friends here in germany with all of my contacts back home and their numbers. That way when I do finally fly out, there is a way to get ahold of SOMEONE and tell them my flight schedule!! :) It'll be fine, but maybe a little hectic. God has always been there to help us with our travels before and He'll be with us this time too!

Chris will be taking R&R while I'm home as well! We thought that since we probably wont be able to go home when he gets back from Iraq, that we would meet stateside so he can see his family and friends again! I cannot WAIT to see him again. It'll be about 9 months since we last saw him. The kids are SO excited! We've made plans to go to this hotel called "The Great Wolf Lodge." You should look it up online. It is so cool. They have a HUGE indoor waterpark that we can swim in from 9am to 9pm if we want! It'll be nice to have family time just the four of us for a couple of days! The grandparents might come up and see us for a day... we haven't really talked to them about it yet!!

Well, I think that is about it for us. You're all caught up. I hope you all enjoy the blog and the pictures! Have a great day!!

The Browns!

Just another day at the Brown house!

2008-11-21T15:06:00.003+01:00

Hi everyone! The kids and I have been having a lot of fun lately. We've been wrestling on the couch and doing arts and crafts. It's been really fun!!

I was at the px one day (big suprise) and looking through the kids clothes (another big suprise!) and came across the super girl pajama set! It was a 2T, so a little big, but I just had to have it. It went along perfectly with sean's super man pajamas. Of course as soon as we got home and I showed sean, we just HAD to put it on kayla and Sean just HAD to run and get his set!! They're just so darn cute!! Both are a little big... at least they'll have room to grow!! I think they'll still fit them when Daddy gets home! :)

Another one of the pictures is of Seany and Kayla playing. They were wrestling one night and were having such a good time together. I love to watch them play. I just had to whip out the camera and takes some pictures! You can definately tell they love each other. Most of the time at least! You'll have to excuse Kayla's crazy hair!! It was the end of the day!! ;)

The last picture is of the kids licking the beaters!! One of my favorite things to do as a kid! Who am I kidding, I still love to do it! I just don't get as many opportunities because the kids or chris get them! But I just do what my mom use to and I get the bowl!! :) I had gotten a sweet tooth and decided to make a simple chocolate cake! The kids of course wanted to help and I love to let them. I think they only like to help enough to get the beaters though! But who can blame them! It's
so much fun to be able to spend even those little moments with the kids. I hope they remember those times when they get older, like I do!

Thanks again for reading our blog! I hope you all enjoy it!

Rachel and kids!

Hello!

2008-11-10T12:49:00.002+01:00

Well, we haven't been up to too much, but still trying to keep busy. Halloween has came and gone and the kids had a ton of fun. We went to a haunted house that was just for kids! Sean loved it but wanted to go to the scary trail!! He's just like me! We went trick-or-treating to the new housing area (netzaberg) and the kids loved it. I liked it too since sean is old enough for me to stay on the sidewalk while he got up to the house and says "trick-or-treat!" Kayla got a lot of attention in her costume. Everyone loved 'finding' nemo!! That was sean's costume from a couple of years ago when we were still in clarksville!

Chris and I have been able to keep in touch on a regular basis still. We're very blessed to be able to chat as much as we do. The kids were able to see daddy on the webcam last night. They always love seeing him. It makes me really happy to see them get so excited to see daddy!

Chris is doing well. He's ready to come home on leave already. Sadly, we still have a little while to go. Other than that, he's doing ok. Not much going on at work. He works nights so he doesn't have much to do. He's been doing his classes and is almost done with his first one. He's waiting on someone to be his proctor so he can take his tests.

I will try to keep you all updated more often! Have a great day!

My soccer dude and little artist

2008-09-25T16:36:00.002+02:00

Hello everyone,
In my last blog I talked alot about sean playing soccer. He's still playing, although some days he participates more than others. I know that's just because he's only 3 1/2 and his attention span isn't very long. He likes it though. He really likes his coach Mrs. Renee. We've gotten our uniforms now and we've had about 3 games. I think we have about 3 left! The very first game sean played quite a bit. It was a lot of fun but rainy! It keeps us busy and keeps sean's mind off of daddy being gone.

Kayla is doing really good too. I don't think she know to miss daddy, but she definately likes to see him on the webcam! She gets so excited and points to his picture! I know it makes chris' heart melt and sink at the same time! As the title of the blog says, she's my little artist. She LOVES to draw. You can watch her concentrate on what she's doing. Sometimes it's long quick strokes and other times it's short curvey ones. I love to watch her learn!
Other than that, we're keeping pretty busy still. Our schedule is the same, but I'm going to incorporate some Partlite into it. I'm going to be a consultant starting towards the end of october! I'm really excited about it. It's something I can do whenever I want and can make a little more money. If anyone is interested in hosting a party you do not have to be in germany to do it. You can host a cataloge party if you'd like. Just let me know and I can give you a call sometimes. Don't forget to give me your email your phone number! :)
Have a great day! Love Rachel, Sean and Kayla!

Keeping Busy.

2008-09-07T13:01:00.004+02:00

Well, It's been about 73 days since chris left. But who's counting right!? The kids and I are trying to stay busy and we're doing a really good job of it. Maybe a little too busy sometimes!
Sean started school on the 3rd. He really loves going. It's part-day preschool so that means he goes M-W-F from 8:30-11:30am. It's not too long, but it's good for us so far. I think I would miss him too much if I had to leave him all day. It's been good for Kayla and I because I can run erronds while Sean's in school and also, Kayla and I get some quality time! My goal is to start working out during those three hours also. I had to quit my other excersize classes so I could go back to PWOC (protestant women of the chapel) and I'm really missing the workout. I want to try to get Kayla into hourly at the same time that sean's in school so I can go to the gym. If that doesn't work out ever time, then I'll just take her with me ane we'll go for a walk or something else.
Besides school, Sean is also in soccer for the first time. He really liked it the first practice, but afte that he wasn't really into it. I kept bringing him and with encouragment from the coach and other moms we're still going. Sometimes he doesn't always do what the others are doing, but Coach Renee said not to worry. She's super good with Sean. I think we're very blessed that she's our coach, because I would have given up by now if she wasn't there. She really takes time to try to get sean involved and excited about playing. Next monday we get our uniforms! They're going to be blue and our team name is "The Giants." All the kids got to put what they wanted the name to be in a hat and Kayla picked one out. Sean of course wanted to be called "The Iron Man" and apparently so did another kid, so I thought we had a good chance, but two other boys wanted The Giants! It's all good. After the end of every practice they all put their hands in and say "GO GIANTS." It's so cute! Next wednesday (the 10th) is our first game! I'm really excited for it. But also quite nervous because I have no clue how this age works and if sean will even be interested! I've been showing him pictures of me playing soccer back in highschool, so he can get excited! I hope it works. I really want to show chris! My friend Casey said that she'll come too and video tape it for me since she has a digital video camera, it's a lot easier to put on the computer!
So, besides school, and soccer, I also have PWOC every thursday moring and then whenever I have anything to do with the FRG I do that also. So my weeks look like this. Monday is school in the morning then soccer practice at 5pm. Tuesday is usually free, wednesday is school in the morning and soccer games at 5pm, thursday is PWOC in the morning, friday is usually free too. Saturday is free also and then sunday is S.S. in the morning with church afterwards, come home eat lunch put the kids down, get up and back to the church by 3:30 for AWANA. It's a crazy week, but I really wouldn't have it any other way. I'm usually home in the afternoons and evenings. That's when I relax, get FRG work done, play with the kids and have dinner. It's also when chris calls! :)
Something really exciting that is happening tonight is our compnay VTC (virtual teleconference) It's when any families that want to participate meet at the battalion and we all take turns having a video teleconference with our soldier! We get to see them and talk to them. Some people don't have webcam and if you're like us, we have the cam but you can't talk at the same time because it's too slow. I'm really excited to go so that way the kids can see chris too. Usually they're sleeping when we get online. We have 9 families that are participating so that means we each get about 23 minutes with our soldier. We're in a room by ourselves, so it's private. Chris and I are the last ones to go, but that's ok since I have AWANA before hand. I want to be able to get the kids food so they'r happy when we talk to daddy! :)
I think I talked about Sean and I now, so here's a little about Kayla. She's is getting to be so funny! I really think this is the best age. She knows what it means to be funny now and she loves to make us laugh! A couple of weeks ago she had Sean's vampire teeth want wanted me to put them in for her. It was so funny because they're entirely too big for her face! She's also a good listener I don't think Sean listened as well at her age. It's amazing to me, but I'm definately not complaining! :) I can't wait to see her grow even more, it's just sad that chris has to hear everything by phone or pictures. I know that's the military, but it's never easy. And second deployments are NOT easier than the first. Exspecially when you have another child going through it too....
Other than that, we're enjoying our time together. It's been a little rainy the last couple of days so we've been staying inside and having friends over. I love to be around people. And the kids love having all their friends over to play with too.
Well, that's about it for me. I want to say thanks to everyone who reads our blog. I hope that it keeps you guys informed and connected to our lives at least a little. We miss you ALL terribly and can't wait to come visit next spring! Love to all,
The Browns

What's up with us.

2008-07-19T09:34:00.005+02:00

Not too much has been going on with us lately. We just try to stay busy and go outside as much as we can. Sean is always trying to go next door to his best friend's house. His name is Ray. They are two peas in a pod! Kayla LOVES Yvonne (ray's mom). Every time she sees her, she goes running! It's so cute. Yvonne's Keila (sounds the same way as mine) does the same thing with me. It's adorable!
Sean is going to do soccer for the first time this fall. It starts in august. They should be having a parents meeting soon. I have to call to see if they've scheduled it yet or not. I'm really excited. I have to load up on camera tapes, so I can tape sean for chris and send it to him! I can't wait! Sean loves soccer. He even has his own cleats and shin guards! They're so little!
Kayla is a little ham! She's at the perfect age right now. Her personality is so cute and she's usually happy! She's a stinker though. She gets into EVERYTHING! And I'm not exaggerating when I say everything. Ask my mom or mom in-law. She loves her daddy doll. Both of the kids sleep with it every night. Today Kalya was talking to him (the doll) and saying "daddy." I love it!
As for Chris, he's doing ok. I'm going to try to get him to post some blogs too, but right now he has to use the MWR computers and they're REALLY slow. I'm lucky to get an e-mail! He should have internet in his room by the end of this month or early next. And it should be free so that's really cool. Other than that, he's been busy working, trying to fix the fuel farm.
I did have an "exciting" night last night. Our whole village lost power for about an hour or so. Luckily I had just put the kids to bed so they didn't even notice. I was saying our prayers with sean when it went out. All he said was "uh oh." I told him it wasn't a big deal and to go to sleep. Neither of the kids had their music, but that didn't seem to faze him. Sean did hear everyone outside and opened his blinds, but I went back up there and got him back to sleep! He was out after that. The power came back on around 10 I would say. Everyone's EXCEPT mine! I have no clue why, but my house didn't want to come back on. My neighbor came over and flipped all the switches and still nothing. All of my 110 outlets would work, but not anything that was 220. My friend Yvonne and I called the fire department so they could call the housemister. He didn't come so we called again and they said that he didn't answer the phone. He lives just down the road, so we walked down there at like 10:15pm and rang his bell. We felt really bad cause we didn't want to wake him up, but I needed power. He had just got home, and said that he would come check it out.
He tried everything he could think of, but it wouldn't come on still. He was talking to Yvonne in german and all Casey (another friend) and I could understand was 'Kaput' which means broken. He said that one of the main switches wasn't working so we had to call the electric company. He tried calling them but no one would pick up. He said he would call again in an hour but if no one answered then we would have to wait until the morning. He said my fridge would keep for 36 hours, so that was a relief. All my neighbors were super nice. They stayed up with me and all offered to let me put my food in their fridges and freezers if need be. It's so nice to know you have friends you can count on. They truly are your family over here.
So about 30 minutes later Yvonne called and said that the electric guy would be here in 15 minutes. YEAH!! He came and was able to fix the problem and I had power again! Yvonne, Casey and I stayed outside talking for probably another hour or so and then went to bed. It was nice to know I had power before going to sleep. So yah, that was my first bad thing that happned since chris left! I'm sure there will be more! Like I said, I'm so grateful for having great friends who were will to take in my food and also us if need be! Thank you all for being so great!
Well that's about it. It's been 23 days since chris left, but who's counting! :) Have a great day!

Schloss Thurn

2008-07-19T09:34:00.002+02:00

I've been trying to post this blog for a while, but the site hasn't been working, so here it finally is!

Before chris left we wanted to go on one more family trip. My neighbor Yvonne suggested Schloss Thurn. It has a show about knights and one about cowboys. It's an amusement park. They have a lot of rides and it's perfect for sean's age. They had one roller coaster and sean loved it. I wasn't sure what he would do, but he had a ball.
We asked in Yvonne wanted to come too and bring her kids. Sean's best bud is Ray, Yvonne's son. And she also has a daughter keila. Pronounced just like our kayla, just spelled the German way! It was nice to have Yvonne come along since they have been there a lot and they could show us the way. Plus she's our translater! :)
We all had a blast. Chris and I even went on a couple rides ourselves! :) The boys loved the knight show. Afterwards they were sword fighting. It was so cute. I'm really glad we decided to go there before chris left. I would definately go again.

The day has come.

2008-06-26T01:26:00.005+02:00

I'm finally getting around to writing about chris leaving. Not only because reality if finally hitting me that he's actually gone, but also because I've been really busy (and maybe a little lazy).
Well chris left on last wednesday. Their first formation was going to be at 1am. I had to be there at 12:15am since I'm FRG leader and we were planning sack lunches for all of the soldiers. Chris and I usually stay up until about 11pm most nights, so we figured there was no reason to go to sleep. We put the kids to bed at their normal 8:00 bedtime. Chris helped me put all of the sandwiches into baggies and then into the fridge. I know I should have delegated that task out to someone who wasn't haveing a soldier deploy, but I can't help but want to do things myself. It's ok though, because it gave chris and I time to sit at the table, just him and I, and talk about things. About the deployment of course.
We had all the stuff in the truck by 12 midnight and just grabbed the kids straight out of bed and into the truck. Chris seemed to think they would be tired and sleep at the field house. I knew better than that! :) The field house is basically just a gym. It was nice to have things their because the kids were able to run around the whole time. I wont go into all the boring details, but after about 3 or 4 formations it was time for the dreaded goodbyes. After not very much family time because of all the formations, we had about 30 minutes to say bye. Chris helped me get all our stuff to the truck. Then he said bye to sean. I was so glad that sean actually took time to hug and kiss daddy before he left. Chris told him to be good for mommy and that he was the man of the house now. Then he said bye to kayla. She wasn't as cooperative, but it was still ok. We got our picture taken and then put the kids in the truck. Chris had to be in formation in a little while, so we hugged and kissed and said our goodbyes. I was fine up until that last kiss, cause I knew that was it. That would be the last time I got to do that for a really long time.
Chris went around to kayla side and gave her another kiss and shut the doors. We said bye one last time and to see tears in his eyes, is when it broke. Knowing that he was hurting just the same was comforting, but heartbreaking too. When chris left sean asked me where daddy was. I told him, through tears, that he left and reminded him that we had to say bye for a while. Sean goes "but I thought daddy was coming with us." Man did I start bawling. He's so innocent and didn't even understand what was going on.
I left after that and headed home. After making two wrong turns I finally made it out the gate. Just then I realized that if I didn't go back and see the buses leave and see him every last possible second that I would regret it. I went back and parked the truck. The buses drove right passed the truck when they pulled out. God knowing, Chris was on the side of the bus that the truck was on and I got to see him one last time. We waved by and I took a couple picture and then I went home.
The kids fell asleep in the car and I was home by 5:15am. I put them in their beds and went to bed myself. We all woke up about 11:30. I'm glad that they slept in. We hung out with friends the rest of the day and we ate dinner with a couple of them. I'm so glad that I have friends whos husbands are gone too that way we all can do things like dinner. It's nice to keep my mind off of it.
We're doing really good now. The kids are doing great and haven't said much about missing daddy. Tonight at dinner time kayla was looking at a picture of chris and kept saying 'daddy'. I asked her if she wanted him and she said yah. Then said said he wanted him too. I asked if he missed daddy and he said yes. So I know they're missing him, but so far it's not effecting them too much. We try to stay busy so it's not on our minds too much.
Well, it's now our 3rd deployment. I know we'll get through if perfectly fine. We pray every night for the Lord to help us through it and to keep daddy safe. I know you all are praying for us. I appreciate it so much. I'll write more later!
Love Rachel and kids.

FINALLY!!!!

2008-06-01T14:10:00.002+02:00

Sean is a little older now than in this picture.

I love her sun hat!!
Sean is FINALLY potty trained. Ok, well almost. He wears diapers during nap time and bedtime, but that's it. We're slowly working on getting him into underwear during those times too. Nap time is pretty much there, but it's the long bedtime we're still taking our time on. He actually woke up one night at about 1am and went to the bathroom. And he even had a diaper on. I'm so proud of him and SO thankful that he's finally getting it. We figured out a good potty chart with a good insentive and he's doing it. He'll even go potty without us asking him to. Out of no where I hear "Mommy I pooped. Now I can get a sticker and a piece of candy." It's so nice. Kayla is even interested in the potty. One down, one to go.
It's FINALLY summer. The weather here has been beautiful. I'm so glad that it's getting nicer. The kids love the pools outside. We left the pools up for the last couple of days so the water is actually pretty warm. As long as they take naps, they'll get to play in them today. I want to get in too. I'm just glad we have an umbrella for our porch or I don't think I could stand it outside. It gets pretty hot here!
That's all for today, so far at least. I'm going to enjoy a movie with my hubby while the kids are upstairs. Have a great day!!

My interesting Mother's Day.

2008-05-13T15:28:00.003+02:00

Well, I spent half of my mother's day in the hospital. At about 2:30 in the morning on Saturday, I woke up with really bad pain in my right side. I tried to make the pain go away for about an hour, but nothing worked. I even called my dad to get any suggestions from him. He of course told me I needed to go to the hospital. I knew that too, I just didn't want to be admitted because I had two really important things going on on Saturday. But the pain just got worse, so Angie drove me to the hospital. She's so great!
Long story short, I had MORE kidney stones. I had one small stone and one large stone in my ureter. They had to put another stent in. This time they took the large stone out when the put the stent in. That's good, because now I don't have to have them shocked. That's no fun at all. Well, the next day they said that I would be released in the morning and all they had to do was an ultrasound to see if the stones were gone. It took them until 11:30 to even do the two minutes ultrasound. I was finally released at noon. I get my stent removed in two weeks. That much better than 3 months like last time.
Chris and Angie (and the kids) picked me up about 1:15. When I got closer to the truck I could see a bouquet of flowers in the driver's seat! :) They had gotten me flowers and a beautiful card for mother's day. That was definitely a good end to my bad day.
After we left the hospital they wanted to go get ice cream one more time before we headed to Frankfurt. German ice cream (eis as they call it here) is soooooo good!
Well, after ice cream we went home and I took a shower and got our things around for our night in the hotel. Once our bags were packed we headed off to Frankfurt. Angie was flying out to go home the next morning.
That was pretty much my Mother's Day. It turned out to be a very good mother's day. My flowers are still alive and kicking and they're SO fragrant. Anyways....
I'm so blessed to be a mom. My kids may drive me crazy at time, but in the end I love them more than anything. Being a mom is probably one of my greatest privileges! I thank you Chris for giving me that blessing.
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL MOMS!!!

Trying again.

2008-04-07T10:00:00.000+02:00

Well, chris left saturday for selection again. He should be starting on tuesday. I'm really excited for him, but extremely nervous. Last time he made it all the way through, but didn't get selected. I know he'll make it through, I just hope the cadres see in him what I do. Please pray for Chris. He needs all the sleep he can get and all the strength as well. Also please keep me and the kids in your thoughts since we're going to be missing Chris. Thanks everyone!
The Brown family.

An update

2008-03-30T11:36:00.004+02:00

Well a lot has happened since my last blog. We've been here now for about 7 months now and are pretty much settled in. The one thing I hate about moving is trying to find new places for all of your stuff. I haven't been able to do that completely. The main floor is complete, so that's good.

Angie is now over here with us and it's been great having her here. We're all having a lot of fun and we've been able to travel and little bit. We've gone to Amberg, Nurnberg, Bamberg, and Munich. Chris, the kids and I were all able to take a free trip to Edelweiss in Garmisch for a marriage retreat. That is right in the alps. It was so beautiful.

When we went to Nurnberg it was just Angie, Jenea, the kids and I. We took a day trip while chris was in the field. We went to see the Kaiserberg Castle. We weren't sure if the weather was going to be nice, but it turned out to be. It was a little cold, so we bundled up the kids and headed out.

Jenea was also here when we went to Munich. We took the train there. The kids loved that. We got our own little room so they could get down and play all they wanted. We decided to go on a sunday. We didn't think about it until we got to Munich, but all of the stores are closed here on sundays. So needless to say we didn't get to shop much, but we took a ton of pictures and had a lot of fun. We are definately going to go back because there is so much more to see.

We have some friends from Campbell that live in Bamberg. We haven't gone there to explore the city yet, but we've been there to visit them a couple of times.

It's been really great so far. We're really excited to travel a little more before chris has to leave. It's going to really stink when he leaves, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right?! Angie and I are going to be planning a trip or two home while he's gone. We're not really sure when, but we will look everyone up when we get there! I hope everyone is doing well!

-The Browns.

My first blog

2007-10-29T10:30:00.000+01:00

Hello,
Well, this is my first blog. I've never done anything like this, but I know a lot of you (my friends and family) want to know what's going on over here in Germany with us, so I wanted to start a website that you all can go to.
So I guess this first blog will be about our trip over here. On August 6Th my mom, Ken, Carol, Angie and the four of us headed out for St. Louis Missouri. We had to fly out from there since that is where we dropped our truck off at. It was either that or drive all the way back to Nashville. When we got into St. Louis it was really hard to find our hotel. Chris and his family got really bad directions from someone at a gas station and went WAY out of the way. We ended up finding the hotel first so we called them and told them how to get there. We ordered some pizza and just hung out for the rest of the night. It was kind of a somber night since we all knew what was going to happen the next day.
That next morning, we all got ready and packed up our bags again and headed to the airport. Our plane didn't leave until around 11:30am so we had a little time. It was nice not having to rush. Our families were able to get a pass to walk through security with us and wait at the terminal. Kayla slept most of the time and Sean had fun playing with Aunt Angie.
The time came and we all had to say our goodbyes. We were able to board sooner than our tickets said since we had so many things. We had two kids, two car seats and four bags all to carry onto the plane. Oh and a stroller! Of course we were crying. It was so bittersweet. We were going on this great adventure to another country, but just knowing that we wouldn't see our families was heart breaking.
Well, we got onto the plane and got the kids all situated. We were just flying to Dallas from St. Louis so we were on a smaller plane. Chris and Sean were in one row of two seats and Kayla and I were in another row. The flight went really well. When we got to Dallas, I called my mom to see how they were doing and they weren't even out of St. Louis yet. It had been about 2 hours and traffic was really bad.
After getting to Dallas, we found our terminal and got something to eat. RIGHT before we were about to board for our flight to Germany, Sean had an explosion in his diaper. I mean EXPLOSION! Chris had to change all of his clothes. So instead of getting on the plane when there wasn't too many people on, we had to get on and try to dodge everyone with all of our things.
The flight from Dallas to Frankfurt Germany was about 9 hours. Kayla did pretty well and I thought Sean did well too, but Chris would say different. After a while, Sean was getting really restless and trying to get away. Next time I think, we'll make sure we take him and let him walk around every once in a while! I felt like the plane ride was so long. I didn't get much sleep. the kids slept OK, but Sean stayed awake a lot and watched Spider man 3! I think he watched that movie about 3 times!! :) Of course, as soon as we got to Frankfurt, the kids were actually sleeping hard.
Chris took some of our things and got off the plane first while I waited with the kids. We were the absolute last ones off and Sean did not want to move. He wanted me to carry him, but I was already carrying Kayla in her car seat. Chris hadn't gotten back yet, and I was trying to get going. Sean would just cry and fall on the floor, he didn't want to move at all. One of the flight attendants finally asked if I needed help and tried to carry Sean out. We put him in the stroller and got all of our things and started toward customs. We had no clue where to go and couldn't read any of the signs. Normally we would just follow the crowd, but it had taken us so long to get off the plane, no one from on flight was even in sight. So we made our way down the best we could. We couldn't find an elevator to take us downstairs to customs so we had to take a stroller, Sean, Kayla in a car seat and all of our bags down an escalator. The workers at the airport were just watching us and talking to each other. No one even tried to help us. It was so stressful and Sean was crying the whole time.
We finally made it through the passport place and got all of our luggage. Let me just tell you. We had 10 bags total. We had 6 check in bags, which were big and 4 carry on bags. We had Sean in an umbrella stroller and Kayla in her car seat, then we also had to carry Sean's car seat. We got one of those platform things to put our luggage on and Chris pushed that while I took the kids and car seats. We went through these doors, that did not look like the right way, and finally there was the Army place that we had to go to. Finally, people who wanted to help us. We had JUST missed the bus, so we had to wait about 30 minutes for the next one. That was no big deal.
Once the bus came one of the soldiers helped us carry all of our things to the bus which was a little ways away. We got on the bus and had to drive about 45 minutes for 64Th replacement. That is were everyone goes after flying in and then they get bused from there to their base. We were at 64Th replacement for a few hours and then we had to get on another bus to Vilseck, which is where we were going to be staying. It's about 20 minutes away from Grafenwohr. I was really depressing to find out that we had another 4 HOUR bus ride to Vilseck. We grabbed the very back of the bus, so Sean could lay down and sleep. The kids eventually fell asleep, so Chris and I took advantage of it and tried to see too. The bus driver was crazy though and I practically fell off my seat a million times.
Once we finally got to Vilseck, Chris had to get briefed and our sponsor took us and all of our luggage to the hotel. We got a hotel room with no stove, so that meant that we were going to be living out of the microwave and fast food. Our sponsor was great. He helped us with anything we needed. Since we got into Germany in the morning here, we made ourselves stay awake to hopefully get ourselves accustomed to the time difference.
It's been about 2 1/2 months now and we are in our own house, well a duplex, but it's huge. We were very blessed and got a house 6 days after we got here. That's very unusual considering most people have to wait 3-6 months before housing comes up. We still aren't completely unpacked, but I'm finally getting around to putting pictures on the walls. It's looking little more homey in here now.
Well, i think that's a long enough first blog, huh!! I'll write more later!!

2007-10-29T10:29:00.000+01:00