The good, The bad, The house

Home Sweet Home! 

We finally got our house! So I was a little upset that we didn't get a renovated house, but looking on the bright side we did end up with a 3 bedroom 2.5 bath house. Rene had me worried that the house was absolutely terrible. And I won't lie that when I got to the house I wasn't in the least bit impressed. Then FMO got here with our loaner furniture, I wanted to cry when I sat on the bed. We have an extremely firm full size bed.  It seems as though we keep downsizing in the beds we get. Now that we have our house I desperately want my own stuff :(  Hopefully it won't be much longer till we get it!! 

 

So this is the street we live on. I took it while I was walking back home from the Thursday market.

 

The walk way into the master bedroom. There is the bathroom on the left, which I forgot to take a picture of but I assure you it's nothing fancy. I need to figure out a way to make us some shelves or some good storage space under the sink because that's all we were given in there.. Oh and a tiny medicine cabinet behind the mirror.

 

This is the master bedroom. With our lovely loaner furniture but hey I made the bed!!

 

The living room, taken from the stair well.  

 

 At least they have grippies so we don't fall ??? haha the stairs remind me dorms or of a sorority house. To the left is a storage closet that desperately needs a light for it.

 

My AWESOME stairs lol!!  The 2nd full bathroom is straight ahead. The 1st door on the left is the master, dividing the master and the 2nd bedroom on the left is a linen closet. To the right is another closet and then the 3rd bedroom. 

Upstairs bathroom.

 

Room #2 which I think I am going to turn into my office/ craft room. Not sure yet but this is probably where my desk will be going. 

View of the front door. To the left is the half bath, the laundry room and the door to the car port, which is a pain in the ass to open by the way. The locks here spin about 2-3 times... until it's locked/unlocked. It's weird and that door gets stuck all the time. I can't imagine what it'll be like in the summer when the wood swells, if it does that here...

 

Downstairs Bathroom, it's so weird that the bathroom is ALL tile. To the right of the door is a linen closet.

 

Our backyard.

 

Our dinning room. Hopefully we can get us a nice table made out here. I've been telling Rene I want one, lets cross our fingers that he gets that I REALLY want a new table haha.

 

Laundry room and other stuff. Behind the door there is a pretty big closet I'm assuming you could use it to stash all of your dirty clothes while you are doing laundry? Not sure.

 

Looking out the dining room window into the front yard. I've got a palm tree and an orange tree! I'm not sure that that's a palm tree but  I know for sure that's an orange tree :) 

 

Kitchen

 

Old school light fixture. 

 

Another view into the kitchen. 

 

The back of the house.

 

This has got to be my favorite part of the house! All of the rooms and bathrooms have to be locked with a key. I'm sure it wont be very funny when Rene locks me in a room or bathroom but for the time being I think these things are the coolest thing ever haha. You can see through the key hole too! Oh the simple things that entertain me :) 

**Sorry that the pictures are all scattered around, it was a chore in itself to get them off my phone**

Dad is how old?!

First and for most....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!!

This is a picture of my dad 10 years ago on his 40th birthday! 

Story time! So the night that Rene told me that there was a high possibility of him getting orders to Turkey I was at my big sisters house with the family making pizzas! I had been talking to Keri about how Rene and I needed to start looking for a new place to live since our lease was almost up. My dad asked me (in a concerned tone, as Dad's normally do) where we were moving! As if I would be moving across the country! I assured him that at the furthest it would be the east side of town. Oh how little I knew my life was about to change....When I got home that night Rene told me that he may get stationed out in Turkey. I was shocked and all I could think was, my dad is going to kill Rene lol. Thankfully he didn't, but my Dad sure didn't give me up without a fight! :) 

Another small story: So I was recently (about 3 months ago ish) I was informed that my dad was turning 50 this year! WHAAAAt!? That can't be right! I've been telling people that my mom is like 43ish and my dad is like 46ish for, apparently the past 4-5years! None the less my parents look great!! I've recently (like 2days ago!) was informed that I looked like I just turned 18 :) I guess the look of youth runs in the family! 

For my Dad:

I love you Daddy and I you know that no matter how old I get, and how young you stay ;) I will always be your little girl! I love you!!! Happy Birthday!!

 

Okay now that I am done crying like a baby! Some more good news! Rene and I got a house! We get to go pick up the keys some time in the afternoon. Now all we need is our stuff, which we don't know when that will be. So until then we get loaner furniture. Not too excited since almost everyone I've talked to has said it is horrible! Welp, ya win some ya lose some! Hopefully it's nice on the inside and not dreadfully tiny :/ BUT thanks to pinterest, if it is scary small and I need more room for my jeans lol I found some really cool ideas to make more space! (as long as I can find the supplies out here...)

Now I want to talk a little about my Rene. Obviously I love this man, more then words can describe! We have fun together and he always makes me laugh! One thing I am glad that he hasn't stopped, and I hope never stops, in the almost 3 years we've been together is he never leaves in the morning with out kissing me goodbye. I think he knows how much it means to me, but then again he is a man so I wanted to remind him that I love it and I hope he never stops :) We never go to bed without saying I love you and never leave without kissing goodbye. I love you Rene!

Thank Yous, Puppy dogs and Future adventures

Since things have started to slow down a bit I figured I should get the ball rolling on Thank You cards. This has deemed to be a harder task then I thought it would be. Since we are so far away from family and friends I really wanted to make nice cards with a few pictures from the wedding on them. Easier said then done. In the past few days I have flipped through nearly 246 pictures, looked into 3 different card/photo websites, and attempted to "construct" about 5 different cards, along with trying to upload photos for these cards. Oi! With the slow internet connection here it is taking FOREVER!!! Not to mention there are so many great photos taken and it has been a bit stressful trying to figure out which ones make the final cut! With all that being said I keep going back to this photo and the faces that Brian and Keri are making HAHA, they were just supposed to look at us not make silly faces! But I LOVE that Beth was able to capture this hysterical photo which lead to a few great photos of real laughter. I can't say it enough how happy I am with the photos Beth took!! She did an amazing job!! (Liz Anne Photograph, check her out on FaceBook! One of my photos even made it to her profile picture!!!) 

Lately I've been missing my puppy dogs more then you can imagine! I'm not used to not having dogs and I want my goofy little boston's here with me :( On the brighter side of things, Bean seems to be enjoying her new home with Jason, Christy and her new pal Sadie! I love that they are both black and white. I trust that Sadie is adjusting well to Bean being there. Mitts will soon be taking a road trip with The Fleming Bears to Denver (area), CO this coming weekend to my cousin Linda's house. There Linda's dog Hope has a boston terrier that comes over to play with her and they are all excited for Mitts's arrival! With Mitts being in CO at least it will give me a good excuse to make Rene go to Denver :) Till then Mitts has only a few more days to terrorize her Dad and Brother.  I know my pups are in great hands but I still miss them a whole bunch!!

 Happier note! The weather here has been amazing lately! After having a week full of wind and rain it's nice to have some sunshine. But I think all of this flip flop of the weather has made me feel a little under the weather. Hopefully I am feeling better by the weekend because Rene and I will be taking a trip up to Cappadocia! I am super excited, and I promise to take lots of pictures!!

Things are starting to feel a little more normal now (well as normal as normal can get considering our situation). We still haven't been given a house yet, which I am starting to think more and more that it's a good thing or at least until all of our stuff gets here. Which I am hoping is soon... I miss my stuff! My shoes, jeans and blankets mostly. And I never thought I would say this but I miss our bed! as much as I want a new one I cannot wait to get our giant bed back! I also miss having a real kitchen! Most of you know that when I am bored I like to bake... this itty bitty kitchen is making that next to impossible to bake.. oh well I guess I'll just stock up on recipes to try when I do get a real kitchen!

Rainy day

It is supposed to rain all week which makes it even harder to get around here without having a car. I don't mind walking but when it's rainy, cold and the only shoes I have are my chucks it gets cold QUICK! I can't wait to get our car and I am becoming even more impatient about us getting our house and getting all of our things. The TLF (Temporary Lodging Facility) we are in isn't bad, but it's still not "home".  It reminds me of a tiny 1 bedroom apartment in the UNM/ Nob hill area minus the atmosphere of being around a bunch of hippies and/or college students. We have a itty bitty kitchen and if any of you know me you know that me and electric stove tops and all metal/stainless steal pans and I just don't get along and of course that is what we were given in the kitchen :) haha. Needless to say I am more then ready for us to get all of our stuff! All of the housing is full as of now and we are hoping to get a house sometime in April (blah!) On the upside, hopefully we will have all of our stuff by then, that way we wont have to worry about renting any furniture... fingers crossed, hope for the best!

Rene and I did get to venture of base a few times. The 1st time we went off to go find some dinner, we took a taxi and asked the guy what places were good to eat. The cab driver ended up driving us toward Adana and to this kebab restaurant behind some dark building. I won't lie I was getting a little worried as to where he was taking us, especially since neither of us know a word of Turkish. The cab driver ended up staying with us while we ate and the food was really good! They brought us so much food it was insane! It was basically a large pizza platter that had a layer of cut up pita bread on the bottom and then topped with chicken, beef, lamb and green peppers. Once we were done we went back to "The alley" and found a bar to hang out at for a while. Like everyone has said the Turkish people are very nice and hospitable! We had a good time out :)

Last night we went off base again, just in the alley, with a few of Rene's co workers. To start off they brought out a few plates of salad to share. Then bread and different seasoned onions and more tomatoes. At the place we went they had this "hot garlic sauce" for your bread. Rene and I agreed that it tasted like red chile that was watered down with garlic added to it. Although it was nice to add something spicy to my meal!(Can you tell that I miss the chile out in NM haha). I had been hearing a lot about this dish called tava,  people said it is like a stew and is served really hot. Since it has been a little chilly here and I have been craving stew lately I figured I would try it. First off it was AMAZING! I wouldn't exactly say it's a stew though. It reminded me more of a deep dish fajita plate. It was served in a very hot small cast iron oval dish, with chicken, tomatoes, other veggies and cheese on top. All in all dinner was great! After dinner we all got çay, which I mistakenly thought was chai, since it seems to be pronounced the same way. Anyways it is basically just hot black tea, very good black tea but none the less tea. I've been reading about what they do that makes it different and a lot of it has to do with the way it is prepared. I haven't exactly gotten the concept of it but the gist is it is brewed in a double pot called a Çaydanlık that looks like this

As we get off base more I'll start taking pictures and uploading them so you all can see the area!!

 First things first I need to figure out how to get my blogger website out of Turkish! I think I just posted a blog that I hadn't finished when the movers were packing up the house. Which I will say that was the weirdest experience ever! Rene could tell I was in panic mode with them just grabbing our things and packing EVERYTHING! (And I mean everything! I'm pretty sure they moved at least a box or 2 of just trash!)

Well the travels here sucked! Driving to Dallas wasn't fun and I think the only thing I enjoyed about Dallas was that Rachel drove up to visit us! Other then that I was not impress with Texas to say the least..The gas stations we stopped at were more then repulsive, the hotel we had reserved for 2 nights gave our room away the 1st night (The picture above is of our room at the NYLO hotel in Texas). Then when we went back there for the second night and woke up to get the shuttle to the airport they told us that the shuttle had been booked and they would call a cab. Not long after that the shuttle driver came up to us and asked if we needed a ride to the airport, he was more then willing to take us but the lady at the front desk told him that the shuttle was booked for some group. Well the cab driver finally got to the hotel and got us to the airport, this cab driver totally scammed us and told us that the ride was $30! The hotel was no more then 2-3 miles away and that is just ridiculous! but we payed it... All in all not happy with Dallas at all this trip!!! Oh also American Airlines bag check prices are outrageous!! $185 to check our bags!! INSANE!!!

From Dallas we flew into Baltimore which wasn't too bad. The hotel we stayed at there was nice as were the people that worked there (This picture is of our hotel room in Baltimore at the Aloft hotel). The shuttle guy that worked there was very nice too!

Well the next morning when we got back to BWI (Baltimore/ Washington International airport) I was shocked to see the insanely long line to check in and get our boarding passes.... I've never seen so many military people in my life nor have I seen that long of a line at an airport, I felt like I was at disneyland! I had to laugh though because  when we went through airport security the lady asked for our boarding pass and photo ID. Well I handed her my ticket and my NM drivers license... she looked at me like I was crazy and asked if I had a passport lol.

I won't lie when I say I wanted to cry when they started boarding the plane... the final goodbyes to my family were hard... I wasn't sure when I would get internet access to talk to them! My hopes of not being cramped on a plane for 8 hrs were quickly crushed when I boarded our giant plane! There were 3 sections, 3 seats near each window and 4 seats down the middle. I was lucky enough to get a window seat but poor Rene was stuck in the middle! The flight from BWI to Ramstein was about 8hrs long we watch 3 movies and had 2 meals and snacks for the movies. When we got into Ramstein they put us all in a "briefing room" and told us we had roughly 15 minutes if we wanted to wander but we had to go the security and customs ( which to me meant it was pointless to leave!) so we stayed in the room w/ no wifi and only a few vending machines. We then got back on the plane and flew for another 4 hours to Incirlik. Thank goodness this was our last stop! I felt bad for the people that were getting back on the plane for another 6hrs to Afghanistan. ( or at least I think that's where they were headed..)

Jet lag is no joke! I have felt like crap the past few days with the worst head ache ever and felt super light headed. Today I am feeling a lot better but not 100% Hopefully both Rene and I can get this time thing down and we can actually go and do stuff instead of waking up at 4pm our time :/

Today was the 1st round of packing, Rene could see the panic in my face! I have less then a week left in New Mexico!