a quick recap

Ladies and gentlemen, brace yourselves.  I am now officially a BLOGGER!! Definitely never thought this day would come lol.  You may think that the hardest part in my life right now is adjusting to married life, or getting used to the language barrier, but you're wrong.  The hardest part right now is not being able to share every single thing with all of you!  So I thought starting a blog was the best solution.  I've never done this before so it might take a little while to get the hang of it - but I promise to try to keep it updated as frequently as possible.  So...ENJOY! :)

While trying to decide where to actually "start" the blog, I figured waaayyyy too much has happened in our lives since we met, so I'll give a brief summary of everything that happened.  Long story short: we met when I was a second year at UVA and Chase was a junior at West Point. Chase came to Charlottesville, VA to visit our mutual friend, Aaron Clark (thanks for secretly setting us up, Aaron - I knew I liked you for some reason :-P ) for a New Years Eve party we were throwing at my apartment.  Well, Chase and I fell in love instantly, started dating immediately, and exactly two years later when the clock struck midnight Chase proposed at my house in Yorktown, VA.  As you can tell, I said yes.  Then we had a crazy engagement.  We didn't have a date for the wedding until two months before the big day (we can't thank the Army enough for keeping us on our toes...not).  Fast forward to the big day...WE GOT MARRIED!!!  A big thank you to every single one of our family members and friends for making that day one we will truly never forget.  I may be a little biased, but I think our wedding was definitely the best wedding we'll ever go to.  It was perfect in every way.  We seriously had the best people there to share it with. 

Then, as most of you know, Chase had to leave the morning after our wedding to move to Germany.  I'm not gonna lie (as my Dad would say right now, "well you shouldn't lie, does that mean you lie every other time you talk?" lol), that was pretty hard.  We were still on the high of getting married and having all of our family and friends together for the first time and not even 12 hours later, we had to say goodbye.  Chase had to report to his new unit in Bamberg, Germany and I had to go back to UVA to finish my Master's program.  The three weeks after our wedding were spent "getting ready for the transition."  Chase was busy getting everything ready in Germany - he had lots to do to inprocess and get everything set for me to travel over, and oh by the way he had a brand new job to get used to!  I spent the time after our wedding starting, finishing, and presenting my Master's thesis, writing wedding thank-you's, packing up and shipping all of my stuff (& wedding gifts!), and spending the best time with my family.  With all of the wedding planning, I got to travel home more than I had in all four years of my undergrad time at UVA.  I got so used to actually being with my family that it made it extra hard to say goodbye.  

Then came December 15th.  Chase and I had been married for just about three weeks with only speaking to each other a few times (the time difference combined with the fact that Chase didn't have phone or internet yet made it hard to communicate).  It was finally time for me to move!!! Here's where the real adventure begins...I was about to start my life as a married woman, away from my family, with my husband! I arrived in rainy Germany at 5AM on December 16th and was welcomed by Chase and his sponsor, Ryan.  Ryan and his wife, Summer, have been so awesome and helpful since Chase got here.  To prevent any kind of serious jetlag, I just didn't sleep at all lol.  I stayed up the whole time (I was way too excited to sleep at all on the plane).  We went out to dinner that night with a group of Chase's new friends as a "welcome Emily to Germany" type thing and they were all SO nice.  I knew that first night that the next few years were going to be a blast!! 

So, after moving from one temporary place to another, we finally found a house that we absolutely LOVE! (I will post pictures once we get everything all set up.)  It's just outside Bamberg in a little village called Gundelsheim.  We're right on the outside of the village so there is only one other house next to us and we have a huge open field surrounding us with the beautiful view of the mountains/rolling hills.  It's gorgeous. So here we are...married and living together in Germany...and loving every minute of it!!  We've experienced our first Christmas as a married couple together.  Remember that guy Aaron I talked about at the beginning of the post?  Well, it turns out he has some amazing parents too!  Casey and Jaimie live in Heidelberg, Germany and had us over to spend Christmas weekend with them and their daughter, Crystal.  Even though we were far away from our families in Virginia, we still felt like we were spending the holiday with family.  Thank you guys for making our first Christmas together so special!!  We also went to our first military ball as husband and wife; St. Barbara's Ball.  Funny story actually...the day after the movers came and picked up all my stuff from Virginia, Chase decided to casually tell me, "hey, there's a ball coming up so make sure you bring a gown."  Well good thing the movers just took ALL of my stuff and I wouldn't see it again for TWO MONTHS!! Luckily, I found a gown at home from sophomore year in high school and it actually fit me!! LOL.  Whew. Chase was off the hook once again. ;)  The ball was SO much fun! You can see pictures of the whole night on my Facebook album.  We have already had some amazing experiences out here and I know there will be many more to come!! So that's it for now everyone..I love and miss you all!! Stay tuned for more on "Keeping up with the Prasnickis" (props to Hillary for that one ;) haha)