Updates!!!

Well there really is not much going on around here. We thought it was going to warm up but unfortunately it is still pretty cool, I don't think it has gotten above 60!!! But even though it is still pretty chilly everything is turning green and looking beautiful!!!

Work is going okay at the daycare; I'm starting to realize again why I didn't like working at Kinder Kottage. I think it might be better if I had a different class but my class has 8 boys and only 2 girls in it so they are constantly going. The boys do a lot of biting and hitting so I'm constantly chasing them around the room. There are two other classes of pre-toddlers (which means one year olds) and they are so much more calm compared to my class. Oh well I have some things in the works, I would tell y'all about them but I don’t' want to say anything until things are for sure.

Mother's Day was great!!! Tyler let me sleep in and when I woke up he had made us some awesome omelets. For my gift Tyler got me Sex and the City season 5 and part one of season 6. After breakfast we just relaxed around the house and watched TV. Saturday I went to a Japanese hair salon off base that I had heard was really good and made an appointment for the next day (Mother's Day). So at 12:00 on Sunday I went and got my hair colored and trimmed, while Tyler stayed home to give Bella lunch and put her down for a nap. Sunday evening we went to the BX to just poke around we didn't really need anything but Tyler and Bella wanted to get out of the house.

Speaking of Bella we found out today that she will be moving to a different classroom at the CDC sometime in June. The classroom that she is in now only has like two 3 year olds and the rest are five year olds that will be starting school in August. In the past two weeks Bella has developed some really bad behavior problems that we think are coming from her being around so many older kids. The room that she will be moving into consists mostly of 3 year olds and the kids behaviors in the new room are so much better than they are in her present room. I had a talk with the CDC director yesterday and told her about my concerns and this morning my supervisor came to my classroom to let me know that she will be moved in June. This makes me and Tyler extremely happy, we were thinking we were going to have to pull her out and put here in home daycare.

Well I think that gets y'all up to date on what is going on in the Grieser house. Not sure what our next adventure is going to be, we were suppose to go camping on Memorial Day weekend but we think that it is still going to be too cold at night for Bella. So whatever our next adventure is I will try not to wait as long to share it with y'all as I did with the Cherry Blossom Festival!!!

Cherry Blossom Festival!!!

Ok so I know this post is like extremely late but I have a good reason. Ok maybe not a good reason but I do have excuses!!! Since I started this new job at the CDC I am extremely exhausted at the end of everyday and all I want to do is sit on the couch and watch TV with Tyler and Isabella, so blogging as kind of been pushed to the back burner!!!

Anyways back to the Cherry Blossom Festival!!! We went on the perfect weekend, the weather was beautiful and the pedals were right in the middle of falling off. If we would have waited another weekend like the base ITT trips were planned we would have missed all of the beautiful pedals falling.

As I said in my previous post we decide to go with a couple that I work with the wife and Tyler works with the husband and also another couple that I work with the wife at the CDC. We woke up at the butt crack of dawn so that we could met them in the BX parking lot at 7:00 a.m., guys on Saturday Tyler is lucky if I'm out of bed at 9:00!!! The town that the festival was in is about 3 hour’s ways so that was the reason they wanted to get such an early start. When we got to the festival it was just beautiful, the pedals were falling all around us!!! Bella loved it; she was running all around trying to catch them!! The only down side to the whole day was that I got a migraine in the middle of the day and by the time we were driving home at 5:00 p.m. I was in excruciating pain. I was sitting in the car with a plastic bag to my face because it hurt so bad that I thought I was going to throw up. But besides that it was an awesome day filled with beautiful sites!!!

This was at the entrance to the park!!!

Bella watching the Koi fish in the little pond at the park!!

Our little group!! Not sure what the guy on the ends name was (how terrible is that), Diane, Elvie, Kiana, Jack, Me, Bella and Tyler.

Tyler, Bella and myself in the cherry blossom tunnel!!

Everyone was sticking their heads in these so Bella wanted to do it to!!

Tyler rowing the boat on our canoe ride!!!

Bella standing in front of the tulips!!

They had all kinds of food booths in the part and this one was selling octopus on a stick and live snails!!!

I just had to take a picture of these kids; it is just like you see on TV!!!

We took a ton more photos and these were just some of my favorites, if you want to see the rest of them you can go to my MySpace page here http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=52480866&albumId=2099945

Work Work Work

For the past week and a half that is all I have been doing!!!! As you all might remember I started a job at the CDC on base, so far it really isn't all that bad. My only complaints would be that every night when I get home I am dog tried!!! I am on my feet almost all day and I am constantly moving around, there is no time to stand still when you have anywhere between 10 and 20 children to look after. Since I am so tired and Tyler is also tired because he has to work all day nothing gets done around the house. Last weekend we had about 5 loads of laundry to do, which is a lot compared to the 2 or 3 I use to do during the week. Yesterday the dishes where piled so high, it took me about 45 minutes to get them all done. Anyone that has ever been to our house or knows me and Tyler knows this is way out of the ordinary for us; our house is usually very clean and tidy. We just really need to find our grove with combining work and keeping up with the house work.

Due to the lack of time I have also decided to put off school for a little while. My first semester back I had to drop one class because I didn't have the time to put into it. I kept one class but I don't think I did very well in it; I haven't had the courage to look up my grade. This semester I started a Computer class but again I don't really have the time to put into it, I know I could make time but that would take away time I could spend with Tyler and Bella. Besides I just don't think I was mentally ready to start back to school.

In other news Bella is loving daycare!!! She is in the 3 to 5 year old room which is mostly 4 and 5 year olds and Tyler and I aren't very happy about that. There are three different rooms that have ages 3 to 5 or as they call them preschoolers and the other two classes have a good ratio of ages. Bella is barely a month into being a three year old and to some point still acts like a 2 year old, so I really don't think she is ready to be with kids so much older than her. I also talked to one of the other teachers at the daycare and she said that they usually don't transition them up to the preschool room until they have been three for a month or so. Tyler and I have talked about it and we decided we would give it a couple of weeks and see if things change because starting Monday there will be a new director over the CDC so who knows what her plans may be.

I got a day off today, well actually it is not a day off I'm on call but if they didn't call by 7 or 8 this morning they are probably not going to call. So I decided to keep Bella home with me because I have been missing her with all this working I have been doing!!! But she is taking a nap right now so I'm going to leave y'all with some pictures and then I'm going to go enjoy the peace and quiet!!!

This picture and the one at the top are of Cherry Blossom Trees behind our apartment. There is a festival in Hirosaki Japan starting this weekend and we plan on going to it with guy Tyler works with and his wife which I work with. We have heard so much about this festival and I can't wait to see all of the beautiful trees. I was so afraid that they weren't going to bloom by this weekend but they are in full bloom. The sad thing is that all the pretty flowers will fall off in like a week or two!!!!

And this is what happens when you let a 3 year old stay up by herself while you try to sleep in!!!! This didn't happen today, it was a couple of weeks ago before I started working but I just kept forgetting to post them.

She said she was giving herself stripes and later when we took a shower and I washed them off she ask me where did her stripes go!!! Kids....there never boring!!!

Hopefully I will have time to get on here Sunday and so y'all pictures of the Cherry Blossom Festival!!!

Annivesary Gifts!!!

I guess I could have posted this one awhile ago but I was so focused on getting the last post up that I didn't really think about showing y'all the gifts Tyler got me. It's probably a good thing I waiting because this week Tyler anniversary gift finally came in the mail. It was so cute I was sitting in the car while he went into check the mail; he was gone for a while so I knew there had to be a package to pick up. When Tyler walked out of the post office he had the biggest grin on his face, he looked like a little kid at Christmas!!! Anyways I'm getting off topic here!!!

Last summer the band of my engagement ring broke, they said it was from where they had to resize it so small. Anyways they fixed it and then about a month later is broke again, so we took it back and they said they would fix it but we should look into getting a new setting because this was going to keep happening. Luckily they were having a mounting sale in a month, personnel I think it was just the sales lady trying to get us to spend more money!!!

This is what my original engagement ring looked like. I know it's hard to see but it's a solitaire marquise with a white gold band.

And this is what my new and improved engagement ring looks like!!! Of course we had to spend more money but I had been wanting a wrap to go around the solitaire so instead we just changed the mounting and added more diamonds!!! Well the reason I am telling you guys all this is because this was supposed to be my 5 year anniversary gift. Due to the price of it Tyler and I decided that since it was so expensive I didn't really need anything on our actual anniversary. But being that I have the most awesome husband in the world he didn't stick with that decision!!!

The morning of our anniversary Tyler got up early to cook me breakfast and when I finally decided to crawl out of bed this was sitting on the dining room table!!! I can't believe he bought it for me, every time I tried to look at these purses in the BX he would say that's crazy to spend that kind of money on a purse. But against his better judgment he bought it for me, of course I got the lecture, " I don't want to see this thing on the floor, on the ground and I especially don't want to hear in a month that it is not big enough" lol!!! But did I mention I have the most awesome husband in the whole world, almost every weekend he gets up with Bella at 7 or 7:30 and lets me sleep. I don't think he knows how much I appreciate that!!! Anyways back to the gifts, so I go into the kitchen to tell him thank you and give him a big kiss and then I go on with my morning routine: take my pills and pour a cup of coffee. While I'm getting my coffee he says "aren't you going to put your stuff in it" and say "Oh yea". So I open it up pull all the paper out of it and sitting at the bottom is a jewelry box, I think to myself what did he do now!!! The picture below is what was in the box!!!

DIAMOND EARRINGS!!!! I can't believe he bought me diamond earrings!!!! They aren't very big but if you know me then you know I'm not all that into earrings, so these are just the right size and perfect to go in my top holes. Actually once I got the earrings in my ears they looked a lot bigger than they did in the box!!!

And now for Tyler anniversary gift let me just tell y'all after everything he got me I kind of feel bad about his gift and the situation. First of all I ordered all his gifts from the same website, the first things to ship were his two guitar stands and some new picks but these didn't get here until the day after our anniversary. The actually guitar didn't ship until like a week and a half later and just came in this past week, a week after our anniversary. So what did I give him on our special day you ask, three pieces of paper with pictures on them: one of the guitar stands, one of the picks and one of the guitar. And to make matters worse when he finally got the guitar and opened the box one of the strings had broken during shipment and put tiny scratches on the body of it. Guys I felt terrible after all the great things he got me and this is how his gift ends up. I told him to send it back but after thinking about it he decided to just keep it because he doesn't want to take the chance of the next one having something worse than a couple of scratches. Here are some pictures of the guitar and the guitar collection Tyler is starting.

The one in the middle is the new one!! It really is a beautiful guitar I just wish he could play it. He called the website and they said they would send his a new set of strings but who know how long it will take them to get here.

I just wish he had more time to play them!!!

Well guys I have been very busy this past week, I started my job at the CDC and every night when I get home I am completely exhausted. My whole body hurts and my feet feel like they are going to fall off, luckily I got a pedicure the day before I started so they don't look as bad as they feel!!!

" The night I met the man of my dreams"

Finally I finished the post, it's not everything I wanted to say but I didn't want y'all to have to read a book about our life!!!

Monday April 7th was mine and Tyler's 5 year anniversary!!! I thought this would be the perfect time to tell y'all the story of the first time I met Tyler.

In November of 2001 I moved to Italy, when I got there Tyler had just left for 7 level school back in the states. So while he was gone I became friends with two of his friends Kristen and Joe (not a couple). The whole time Tyler was gone I heard so much about him, mainly from Joe. So I was so excited to finally meet him. He got back from 7 level school at the beginning of January and on the day he arrived Kristen and Joe had planned for us all to go out to dinner so I could meet him.

Let’s just say the night didn't start out so well. I was living in the Pensione (Italian hotel) at the time and their hot water level wasn't so great. I was in the middle of taking a shower, I was completely soaped up and all of the sudden the hot water goes out. So I have to go to the phone soaking wet, full of soap to call the front desk. They send someone up to my floor, luckily they didn't have to come in my room, but they fixed the hot water and I was able to finish my shower. But this put me way behind schedule so I was late getting to the restaurant. For the readers that are familiar with Italy we were having dinner at the Western House, not my favorite Aviano restaurant but Kristen loved it and she was pregnant so you have to give into the pregnant women. Once I finally get there I walk in and I can't find them so of course I'm frustrated. I finally spot them so I go over and meet the man of my dreams (not knowing it at the time). My first thought of Tyler was he’s cute and I love those ears (sorry baby but you know it's true). Later Tyler would tell me his first impression of me was that I was a snobby blonde b***h, who says first impressions are everything.

Now comes the funny part!!! I sit down at the table and we are looking over the menu when all of the sudden someone lets out a huge fart. It sounded very close but I didn't want to embarrass anyone so I didn't say anything. Then there was another one and this time Tyler says "Sorry airplane food always does that to me"!!! I think to myself well can’t you hold it in or go to the bathroom we are in the middle of a restaurant. So the waitress comes over to take our order and as she kneels down he does it again, by this time I'm thinking this guy is very rude and extremely disgusting. Who would have thought 3 months later I would be head over heels for him. This whole time Kristen and Joe are laughing their butts off and I'm thinking guys this really isn’t that funny it's kind of gross. So after we finished dinner and several more farts later Joe pulls out this remote control and hands it to me. I asked him what is this and he says just push the button and when I do Tyler farts. I must have looked really confused because Tyler pulls out this little black box and hands it to me. I push the button again and the box farts, so all this time I thought Tyler was farting and it was actually a "Fart Machine"!!! Tyler had picked it up in the states and they all thought it would be a cool trick to play on me, of course after that I thought it was hilarious!!!

Once we were done with dinner we headed to a place that would later become mine and Tyler's bar, Johnny's!!! The whole night Tyler and I played with the machine, when one of us would go to the bar for drinks the other would keep the remote and the other would have the machine. As we would get up to the bar the one sitting at the table would push the button!!! I should have known from that moment on my life would be filled with farts...lol!!!So that's the story of the first night Tyler and I ever meet!! I was also going to write about how we almost broke up and how we ended up together and the story of our engagement and wedding. But since I already made this post super long I will save that for another time. I hope y'all enjoy the story, I think it is a great example of how first impressions are not always lasting impressions.

A little update!!!

Well I'm still working on the story of how Tyler and I met; hopefully I will get it up before our next anniversary...lol!!!

Last week was very busy and this coming week will probably be just as busy. Y'all probably remember that I found out Wednesday that I got the job at the CDC; well I had to make an appointment for Thursday to go in and sign all the papers that Services needs to get the ball rolling. I had to wait until Thursday to do it because Wednesday night I had my final in my Psych class and I wanted as much time as possible to study for it. Though I don't think it helped anyways, I don't feel very confident in my grade on the test, but we will see!!! If I don't do very well in this class then I will just know for the future that I have to spend more time on my school work now that I am at a university and not a community college.

Thursday at lunch time Tyler came and picked me and Bella up and we went to Services so I could do the paper work. Then we went by the CDC to see what we needed to do so that Bella could start school, they gave me a whole big packet of papers to fill out!!! Tyler dropped us off at the house so I could fill the papers out and then when he got off of work we took them back by the CDC. They said they couldn't tell us right then when she could start or how much it would be but the front desk lady (the job I want) would call me tomorrow (Friday). Well of course by 10 o'clock I hadn't heard anything so I called them and they gave me the run around. Eventually at about 1:30 the director called me back to tell me that Bella could start on Monday. I was extremely excited about this because we are so ready for her to go back to daycare. While she was in daycare she seemed to be a better behaved child, the only thing I'm not looking forward to is her always being sick or always having a runny nose. With her not being in daycare I have realized that she is hardly ever sick and I don't know when the last time was that she had a runny nose. Anyways after the lady told me when she could start I asked her how much it was going to be she said she didn't know I would have to wait until her front desk lady got back from lunch. Well I waited and waited and then at like 3:00 I called back because it was obvious no one was going to call me back. When she told me the price my jaw dropped to the floor, $129 a week, Holy Cow!!! At the daycare we took Bella to in the states we paid $95 a week, give it that was a less quality daycare but still!!! I guess the CDC goes off of how much the whole house hold makes, I couldn't imagine how much we would have to pay if we were both military!!! Oh well....hopefully they will teach Bella more than the previous daycare did, I guess it is worth paying that much if she gets the education she deserves.

Friday when Tyler got off of work I went to register for my next class, I am going to take a required computer class!!! Friday night we didn't do much, Tyler cooked a great meal out of his new Pampered Chef cookbook "Crispy Parmesan Shrimp with Spaghetti"!!! After dinner we watched American Idol, which sucked for me because on my way home from the education office the stupid AFN guy said who went home. How dumb can you be, he knows that we don't get it until the next night why would you tell everyone who went home 3 hours before the show was suppose to air. I asked Tyler to call AFN and complain about it, he said it was my battle I should fight if I wanted to so of course I didn't...lol!!!

Saturday I woke up with a migraine so we didn't really do much, just hung around the house. It started to go away by about 4:00 in the evening, so I helped Tyler cook another delicious meal. Chicken Quesadillas with Corn Soup and of course I had a couple of margaritas, which was probably not a very good idea because by Bella's bedtime my migraine was back. But I couldn't resist, there is nothing better than a frozen margarita with a delicious Mexican dinner. So I went to bed at about 10 p.m. because my head just kept getting worse.

Luckily I woke up this morning headache free!!! We decided to skip church and drive to the Statue of Liberty Park (as we call it) so that Bella could feed the ducks and the swans. After we were out of bread we headed to the mall to eat lunch, I had delicious "Pepper Lunch"!!! Once we were done eating we just walked around the mall, of course we didn't buy anything because the prices for clothes are outrageous. Bella started to get tired and cranky so we left and came back home. So we are home now and I need to get going so I can help Tyler make another delicious dinner, I'm his little sou chef!!! I think we are making Beef Stew...yummm!!!

Asamushi Aquarium

Things have been so busy!!! I have a couple of blogs I want to write but I don't really have time so I will try to squeeze them in when I get a chance!!! This means they will probably be a little out of date!!! Well Monday was mine and Tyler's 5 year anniversary so he took the day off of work and we took Bella to the aquarium that is about an hour and a half away. We have heard that it is really small but it is fun for the kids. We had a great time, it was a little small but nice. Bella loved looking at all the fish but I think her favorite and I know my favorite were the sea lions. They put on a great show for us and every time we would bend down to get a closer look at them this really fat one would come up and get really close to the window...Bella would laugh so hard at him. The aquarium also had a dolphin show and we made it just in time to see it. Bella wasn't as interest in it as I thought see would be, we had to keep telling her "Bella watch the dolphins, look they are going to jump". I think by the time we got to the dolphin show she was just pretty worn out. After we left the aquarium we just went for a drive in the town. The town that the aquarium is in is called Amori which I think is kind of the capital of our prefecture. It is a coastal town so we found lots of places to go fishing and hanging out at the beach this summer. We ended up eating at MacDonald’s, which is kind of silly being that we are in a foreign land but I don't think we are comfortable enough yet to just try any Japanese restaurant. Because as we have found they can have some really weird stuff on the menu and also we never know how Bella is going to act. After we left MacDs we headed home and stopped by the Universe for some of our favorite Japanese food.

I plan to write about the story of how Tyler and I met but I don't really have time right now. I need to do some more reading in my psych book because I have my final tonight at 5:30. I also have to write a paper for that class that is due by Sunday and I just got an email from my Computer class that I am taking next term. I say next term like I have a break; it actually starts Monday so no break for me. Maybe I can write that tomorrow morning and also post pictures of my anniversary gifts; I would post pictures of Tyler's but his big one hasn't arrived in the mail yet.

Oh big news!!!! As I was writing this I got a call from Services HRO and they said that I have been selected for the job at the CDC. I have to go tomorrow and fill out all the paper work, so that just adds to my list of things I have to do. I am really excited about this because now Bella can start back to daycare. She really needs it, I think a lot of her behavior problems here lately are due to being stuck in this 2 bedroom apartment all day with me. Well I have to get going here are the pictures from the aquarium...I hope to write more tomorrow.




Bella on the way to the Aquarium!!

I don't think I have ever seen a sea turtle this big in my entire life!!!

Tyler and Bella next to the huge sea turtles...she didn't want to sit next to them!!!


Tyler and Bella in the tunnel!!





Me and Bella in the tunnel!!


This is the only good picture I got from the dolphin show....I hate our camera...I want a new one!!!

This is a sign they have up as you walk into the dolphin pool area!!! Sometimes the translations here are so funny!!!

This dolphin was such a ham....he keep coming back so that I could take his picture!!!

These were our favorites!!! This picture is of the really fat one that kept swimming up close to the glass every time we would sit down to look at them.

Bella in front of some fish!!!

On the way to MacDs....she got a big stuffed dolphin that cost like 10 bucks!!!

The coast on the drive around Amori!!!

And this was Bella on the drive home from the aquarium!!! I think she had a good time!!!