feeling a little "adult-ish"

Well my birthday was a huge success!! The day before my birthday our new furniture was delivered! We purchased a brand new kitchen/dining set on the economy (two German stores called Opti and Pilipp).  I mean...if buying our first kitchen table and chairs AND two other matching pieces doesn't make us real adults I don't know what does. haha.  Here is the furniture when it was first delivered (another funny encounter with the language barrier lol):

Right after being delivered

Up close pic of the table

AWESOME table runner (housewarming gift) from my mom!! 

The whole set is definitely different than what we thought we were going to get! We were searching for weeks and had a pretty solid idea of what we wanted then got to the store, saw this, loved it, and bought it!! Chase liked it cuz it was SOO heavy - pretty hardcore if I do say so myself.  We went to pay for all of it and the store worker informed us that they don't take American credit cards so we'd have to pay in Euros...well let's just say it took a couple days to take out all the money from the ATM (cuz of daily withdrawal limits) and this was how we paid for our furniture:

HAHA All the awkward stares were totally worth it! We're so happy with our first grown-up purchase! We've already started filling the cabinets and drawers and putting decorations on the two big pieces - I'll put up more pictures when we're all set up. 

Then, the morning of my birthday I went on post to run a few errands and decided to stop by the high school to check on my application (I applied to be a substitute teacher since there were absolutely NO teaching positions open). GOOD NEWS....I GOT THE JOB!!! YAYY!! It's really difficult for spouses to get jobs in Bamberg because the post is so small and they have to give a certain number of jobs to the local Germans.  So I feel extremely blessed to have gotten a job.  And the coordinator at the school told me now that I have my foot in the door with subbing and with my experience/background, more opportunities might come up for me while I'm here! I feel good that I'm putting my degrees to good use! It looks like it will take a few weeks to finish the background check and paperwork, but when that's all done I'll be able to work whenever I want! She said I would get calls pretty much every day to work if I can/want to!  Sounds like it will be the perfect job situation for me.  That was only the first birthday surprise though...the second one was even better!

Chase left over two weeks ago for field training and started Pathfinder school today! We were told that he would get to come home this past Saturday, January 28th, for the day before reporting to Pathfinder school.  I was pretty excited that he would be coming home the day after my bday at least! Well I got a call that afternoon from Chase and he told me he was on post in Bamberg and he needed me to come pick him up...SURPRISE!!! He got to come home a day early! Well turns out that he knew days in advance (and so did some of my wife friends) but wanted to keep it a secret! We had a "girls night" planned for my birthday dinner and when I found out the guys got to come home that day it turned into a "coed night" celebration.  We went to dinner at this great Italian place (of course!) called Aposto.  We had an awesome dinner and fun drinks!

SO happy!!

My "Birthday Hurricane" ... YUM

Ryan and Summer bought me a sparkling birthday soufflé 

Best birthday surprise ever!

I opened presents with my family via Skype and they got me TONS of board games and card games to start our collection! I can't wait to have our friends over for dinner and game night.  They also sent an awesome sweater! I got a cool blazer from my mother-in-law! And Sutton got me a beautiful necklace (I wore to dinner that night) and an awesome "Thank you...for being such a sweet sister" card HAHA ;) Nana also contributed to the game collection with Skip-Bo...but I'll have to be honest my favorite gift she sent was three bags of "flakes." For those of you who know me, you know how obsessed I am with homemade chicken broth...and even more obsessed with flakes! For those of you that didn't know that, now you do.  And fyi...flakes are just little tiny square-shaped noodles, but for some reason I have always LOVED them.  The timing was perfect since I just made a HUGE thing of homemade chicken broth and froze most of it. :) I also received a lot of cards from family that I put up on our window ledges so I can be reminded of how many amazingly thoughtful people I have in my life.

It felt kind of cool to be back in the country I was actually born in 23 years ago!  I actually celebrated in the same time zone I was born for once...pretty neat I thought!  I'd have to say my 23rd birthday was a successful day! Thanks to everyone that made it so special. 

On another note, I dropped Chase off at Pathfinder school yesterday and the classes started today.  It's a very strenuous three week course so please keep him in your prayers as he goes through it! I know he will do such a great job...but it will require a lot of time, energy, and studying all while being away from home.  We're crossing our fingers that we get to see each other at least one of the weekends, but you know how it goes. 

I'll leave you all with another "view pic" of the sunset from our living room windows...

Life is good!!

a taste of germany

So this post will probably be a little long also...but then I promise you'll be all caught up!! I just wanted to give you all a little idea of what we've been doing since we got here. :)

Chase arrived in Germany about three weeks before me and stayed in a hotel downtown Bamberg called Hotel National (right across from the Chinese restaurant; if you know Chase, then you know that this spot was ideal!).  However, in order for me to be allowed to travel over he had to get another temporary place? Not sure why the Army thinks I can't live in a hotel too but he was moving to a vacation home so I was not complaining! Chase worked so hard to get everything done before I arrived! A few weeks later, I showed up. :)  He had a little welcome kit waiting for me that included my favorite lotion, a whole lot of pink stuff, and a cold beer. What a guy. ;)

Right after I got there (literally like 2 minutes after I walked in the door) we were told a larger place opened up and we could move there immediately.  So of course we took the offer! This place was AWESOME (all of our temp. places were at Gästehaus Steidle - I highly recommend staying there if you have the chance - the owner was SO nice).  Chase bought some Christmas decorations before I came and had a Christmas tree too! Here are a few pictures of our first temporary place all set up for Christmas.



The living/dining area




Kitchen table with Christmas decorations Chase bought!




Our cute room! :)




The loft.  (Sometimes we went up there to hang out just because we could haha.)




The stocking Chase bought us.




Our kitchen.




Hehe. Love this. This is the entry to the place; it was a tight fit for Chase!




Our very first Christmas tree together!!

We had such a great time in this place! It was literally a five second walk to downtown Bamberg...and the Christmas market was all set up the whole time we were there so it was so much fun to walk down at night and get some gluhwein and flammkuchen or brats! There was a cute little bakery that I liked to walk to when Chase was at work to get a coffee in the mornings:

Next, I'll put up some pictures from the Christmas season in Germany.  Some are from the Bamberg Christmas Market and some are from the Nuremberg Christmas Market!

Bamberg Christmas Market

Ornaments!!

Trying our first flammkuchen

Trying our first gluhwein

Bratwurst from the stands downtown are the best!

Altes Rathaus

My fave..Little Venice

Nuremberg Christmas Market

Nuremberg Christmas Market

Nuremberg Christmas Market

With Christmas getting closer and closer we had to decide what we were going to do! We decided last minute to hop on a train and head to Heidelberg to spend the holiday weekend with Casey, Jaimie, and Crystal and boy are we glad we made that decision.  There was SO much food, SUCH great friends, and LOTS of laughs.  It was definitely a great way to spend our first married Christmas!! :)

Chase, me, Jaimie

Our first Christmas as "The Prasnickis"

Chase, Me, Crystal, Jaimie toasting with homemade egg liqueur

Two of the best people you'll ever meet: Casey and Jaimie

Our Christmas feast Part One

Christmas feast Part Two

We were sad to leave!!

So we celebrated with a Kellerbier when we got back to Bamberg!

Next up was New Years Eve!!! This holiday in particular brings back TONS of memories for us.  1) We met on New Years Eve, and 2) Chase proposed on New Years Eve. So we just knew this was going to be a fun time! A lot of friends were traveling to Berlin to celebrate but we decided to stay in Bamberg.  We had dinner at an Italian place with some friends, hung out for a little while, then went over to another friends' house to bring in the new year!

Happy New Year Dinner. :)

Kate and I after dinner in front of their awesome tree!

The fam. toasting to midnight Germany time!

HAPPY NEW YEARRRRR!!!

Toasting to midnight Virginia time! :) More time zones = more celebrating!!

Four days later, we moved into our new house!!! I'll post pictures of the house once we get some more things set up but I do have some up on Facebook of when it was completely empty.  For now, I'll just give you a teaser of the view from our living room window...what I get to look at everyday... :)

Aaahhhhh...so gorgeous!

Lastly, St. Barbara's Ball!!! What a great time.  We got all dressed up and took a cab downtown (because I didn't have my drivers license yet and Chase's roll in the night was to drink a glass of "the grog").  Let me tell you, the taxis here are SO much nicer than in the U.S.  As opposed to the creepy old dude, they have nice, young and normal-looking drivers.  And they drive BMWs with built-in GPS systems and heated seats. Yea, that's what I'm talkin about.

Just arriving at the ball.

Kate and I before dinner.

Ryan (Chase's sponsor) and Chase!

Summer (Ryan's wife) and I before dinner!

My handsome LT.

So the story of the grog is that each year, the newest gunner (that would be Chase) has to drink a glass.  It's basically a huge punch bowl that gets filled one bottle of alcohol at a time.  It starts with two mugs full of last year's grog (ew!).  Then, different people get "called out" from around the room and stand up with a bottle of something different - say a quick toast - and poor the whole bottle into the grog bowl.  After about 20 or so people went, poured a whole bottle of something in the bowl, the Sergeant Major puts his sock in there, they stir it up, and Chase has to chug a whole glass of it and put the empty glass over his head! HAHA! I mean what in the world?! Yes, it happened...here's proof:

Starting with last year's grog

Mmmhmmm NOT gonna be good, baby!

Just ooone thing missing...yep, a SOCK?! what?!

CHUG CHUG CHUG

He did it!!

I am just SO proud of him haha.

Just in case you're thinking, "Man I wonder what drinking a whole glass of every type of alcohol you can think of in about 2 seconds does to you?" I'll show you...

HAHA I just love him so much.

Much better. :)

Our fellow newlywed friends, Jason and Kate. :)

Overall, St. Barb's Ball was an absolute blast! We even got these awesome souvenir beer mugs to take with us!

Well I hope you enjoyed getting "caught up" with the main things we've done since we've been in Germany.  We certainly have enjoyed every minute since we've been here and have already met some really great friends to share everything with! As if you need an incentive to check back for the next post, I'll give you two words: new furniture.  Yep, we got new kitchen furniture today and pictures will be up soon haha.  Well this 22 year old is out for now...when I wake up, I'll be 23...which means two things...1) I'll be SO much more mature, and 2) I'll be the same age as Chase for the next 13 days. :)