The Traveling Pine

(Cheeky the tagged speaking) After an epic battle with our furnace and the HVAC repair industry on Friday, Ross dragged me to Madison for the MidwestLAN19 party. The drive was easy, though we arrived a bit too late to attend a haunted house bus tour - boo! The whole event is held in the Madison Marriott West, where we also had a room. Decent rooms, but no fridge or microwave, which resulted in warm beer and cold soup. The beer was expectedly terrible, though the soup – a Mulligatawny by Leah the Alchemist herself – was still amazing, even cold. (Ross has enough servings of soup frozen to enjoy one per week during Leah’s absence… she’s the best J ) Grub in Madison, WI! What exactly is MWL19? Close your eyes and imagine a full sized banquet hall, with rows of tables wired up to make a massive computer network. OK, maybe not with your eyes closed, since you won’t be able to read this blog. Now, add in 500+ computer gamers from several states descending upon the unsus...

So being on a deployment usually means you have some extra free time on your hands. I (Leah), am definitely in that situation. I still have to do some laundry, a little grocery shopping, and even dishes, but nothing to the extent of at home. Since I do have that extra time I figured I should give myself some good goals to work towards. So I've picked two big ones, both of which I really started on today. 1) I enrolled in a course! I'll be working towards becoming a Certified Defense Financial Manager. Sounds pretty fancy, right? What is it? Well, according to the American Society of Military Comptrollers - the ones who administer the program: "The Certified Defense Financial Manager (CDFM), a  test-based  certification, is a very relevant and prestigious credential, even for those DoD financial managers (FMers) who have obtained the  course-based  DoD FM Certification required by the Department."  Still sounds pretty fancy, doesn't it? Or did you fall asle...

*Disclaimer - this is going to be a bit long. We did a lot in one day!* I Am Amsterdam - (We're by the M") Yesterday Leah and I went to Amsterdam! We went with RTT which is like a tour agency here on base in Germany. It was quite the long day. We made it over to the meeting point at 1am...oof. It was early! All of us, including 6 others from the same office Leah works it, loaded into a coach bus and were on our way. Our "guide" Mike said a few things before all the lights were turned off so we could all try to sleep. I say "guide" because Mike was more just there to tell us where to be at what time and deliver a few mildly funny jokes along the way rather than actually guide us anywhere. (We found out that he's actually in the Army and just does this as a side gig. I guess I wouldn't mind being paid to travel around like that!) Leah brought the pineapple blanket with and shortly after Mike's few notes, we all tried to get some sleep. In ...

NEWS FLASH: It has been established that produce which have recently gone moldy, have been RETURNING TO RIPE and committing acts of terrorific cuteness. Widespread investigations of reports at grocery stores and farmers markets have concluded that decomposing produce seem to be COMING BACK TO RIPE, and seeking human victims!

It's been 10 days since arrival in Germany. I'm not sure if it's gone by quick. Kind of. I think so! Leah has been learning more everyday about her job. A little different than back home, but many of the concepts apply, so it's not all totally new. Thank goodness! I get to hang out in the office and watch everyone come and go. Our desk is right by the door, so we see everyone. Makes it easy to get to know who's who. The guys down towards the other end of the office hosted a pancake breakfast for everyone today. They knew that Leah is a vegetarian and trying to be vegan as much as possible, so they bought the pancake mix without buttermilk and made sure they were cooked on a separate griddle from the bacon and sausage. It was very thoughtful! And the pancakes were tasty too! So, even though we're here in Germany, our job is to support the folks down in Africa. There are a lot of people here and down there doing a lot of good things for the people of Africa, the...

We finally made it! The flight out of Baltimore was delayed over 10 hours. Boo! When we got to the airport, there was a huge line, but no flight leaving Sunday night as planned. We all still had to get our bags tagged so we stuck around to get that done. While we were waiting, the USO was nice enough to bring up a bunch of pizzas for all of us waiting! We gobbled up a few slices of cheese 'za. When we got the bags tagged they said to come back at 3am to drop them. Oof! That meant about a 1am wakeup call. So we headed back to the hotel, saw the last few moments of the Packer game (YAY!), and got some dinner in the lobby restaurant. We got in a 4 hour nap before that dreaded alarm went back off again. Yawn. Ross' flight was also leaving that morning, so he packed up his small bag and away we went. See ya later Baltimore. We got back to the airport around 3 like planned and stood in the same long line, this time to drop our bags. The USO was NOT there with coffee and donuts. Bum...

So somehow Leah deleted the second post on the blog. Nice going. However, she found it on her phone and is going to try to recreate it! We think the first paragraph is missing, but you'll get the idea. Anyways....here's the second post from our blog, take two: The Family! (The beginning is the part she lost forever...) We all met in the airport around 10am with family and a few coworkers. It was nice that everyone came to see us off. Leah almost lost it as soon as we pulled up to the airport. She did pretty well from that point on. It was great Ross was joining us in Baltimore for the night. Charlotte was more preoccupied with trying to squeeze $8 out of mom for a book than realizing mom was leaving for 6 months, but maybe that's a good thing. Charlotte and Mia were also having a nice time together as always. After about 30 minutes of chit chat it was time for us to head through security. We didn't have TSA precheck for some reason, so it took us 3 minutes to go ...

Yep, we're jumping on the travel blog bandwagon. A few of our friends have them and it seems like such a great way to keep memories of travels and for others to follow along as well. So, here we are, a blog written by a cute little traveling pineapple.  Over the past few days Leah has been getting quite a bit of gear ready for her deployment. So much stuff! How much can one possibly need for a 6 month trip? Well, there's uniforms, civilian clothes, running clothes, stuff for warm and cold weather, and a few things to keep busy like roller skates! She did pack the pineapple blanket, so she should be set. Before Packing Started Sounds like the next few days will be fairly low key. Ross and Leah are enjoying some days off of work and enjoying each other's company. They did their second Float. So relaxing! Leah has been doing a lot of cooking. Especially soups! She's made 4 different giant pots of soup for Ross while she's gone (Mulligatawny, Potato-Leek, Ve...