I know it has been awhile since I have updated this blog, and for those of you who actually followed it and read it—I give you my sincerest apologies.  If you even bother at all to read this, I am very very grateful!

I did not fall of the planet, but I did fall into a whirlwind of chaos.  I was supposed to share my experience of updating our home before we left for Germany.  I even have two blog drafts that I never got around to completing! Well, after my last post, things became hectic.  I started my first semester at UCCS–and it was TOUGH! Tons of papers had to be written for my classes, I had to run around town returning cable boxes, modems, picking up medical records, getting the dogs ready for international travel, getting the kids and myself check-ups for international travel, and running up to Denver twice to get our passports in order.  We also traded in “Cherry,” my Chevy HHR for a Honda Odyssey. There seemed to be a million and one things in my way.

So what did we accomplish? If you haven’t been reading, the Drab to Fab home improvement list can be found here.

We replaced the kitchen counter tops, sink, and faucet.  We painted the kitchen cabinets and replaced the ceiling light fixture.  We tiled the family room (all 340 sq feet).  We replaced the vinyl flooring in the laundry/3rd bathroom and the kids bathroom.  We re-grouted the master bath and kids bath.  We re-glazed or re-surfaced the shower tubs and caulked all of the bathrooms.  We replaced the garage door openers (well hubby did that all by himself). We repainted the basement, kitchen, living room, dining room, and family room. We also replaced all of the outdoor light fixtures.  I’m sure there is much more that I left of the list.  We did it all in 4 months and went about $400 over our $8,000 budget. Here are some images that I did manage to take with the intention of blogging about all of this.

Tiling the family room

Our “New” Honda Odyssey

Re-finishing the Kids Bath Sink with Rust-Oleum Counter Transformations

New Kitchen Light Fixture

Backyard Landscaping–this is only the first of 2 deliveries.

Entry Light Pendant

 

Dining room Chandelier

New counters, sink faucet and a fresh paint job for the cabinets

 

I got all A’s in 4 tough classes! The studying instead of blogging was worth it!

Traveling overseas for vacation is not this intense, but a military relocation overseas is ridiculously difficult! With all of the work in the house and all of the other “stuff” that needed to be done, there was no time for blogging. I didn’t have time to take very many pictures of the progress.

It took the packers 2 whole days to pack up the house and another whole day to load our stuff into crates.

Moving sucks.

Moving Day

We drove from Colorado Springs to the Dallas airport in the afternoon on January 7th.  What a whirlwind of crazy! We packed that minivan with 7 suitcases, two teenagers, two large dogs, and ourselves.

Just a “few” of our bags

Looking back, I honestly don’t know how we made it to Germany without losing our minds.  After a very long flight to Frankfurt (9.5 hours), we still had a 4-hour drive to our duty station—and sleep.

Though we finally got into our housing on Jan 20, we are still not quite settled in.  Our car arrived safely one month after we did.  Let me tell you—grocery shopping without a car stinks! Sometimes we used the taxi, but it isn’t cheap, so we hauled our loaded bags on foot most of the time.

It was almost 3 full months before our household goods arrived.  Army loaner furniture=YUCK!  I am and always will be grateful for the furniture and borrowed kitchen items, but it certainly wasn’t ideal.  We didn’t even have internet for the first month.  Imagine teenagers with no TV, cell phones, computers, or video games for 1.5 months! Yup it was a picnic.

The house is now mostly unpacked and I have the internet, my car, and a growing wardrobe. I am almost satisfied.  I will have lots to share as we make a home in government housing, travel around Europe, and learn about the German way of life.  For now though, I am mostly happy and can’t wait to blog about our experiences over the past 2 months.

 

Welcome to Germany

Tschüs! 

~Angelique