Our Year - 2013

2013

January

In January, Jake and I were living in a TLF (temporary living facility) on Andrews AFB waiting for February to get there so we could move. Jake worked his normal shift so he would go to work for about 12 hours a day. I stayed at the TLF and did a lot of pinterest, cooking, blogging, reading, working out, movie watching, tv watching, and pretty much anything to keep me sane inside of a tiny apartment where none of my usual things were. At the end of January I went to Utah to pick up Eve since she was with my mom for the time being because TLF didn't have pet friendly rooms and she would have had to be boarded. 

February

In February we did a lot of Valentine things together. We played the 14 days of Valentines day and Jake got me some amazing things, and I gave him some great gifts too. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. I don't think we will do it again. We went on our Valentines date two days before we left for Germany, and on February 11th at 5:00 PM we got on the plane and left for our new home. We arrived in Germany on the 12th at 7:00 AM, and that is when all the fun started. Again, we were put into another TLF, but this time Jake wasn't working much and we had a great friend drive us around to help up find a home. We also realized very quickly that we were in a great ward for church and even a guy who was moving out let us look at his place to rent and we fell in love immediately. 

March

We had to move into a different TLF off base while our home got touched up for us to move into. We decided to take the one that the guy from our ward was living in. The landlords are amazing. The TLF we moved into had no internet, and it was a cabin. I may have gotten cabin fever while there since Jake had a car, but also had work, so that stuck me all day in a cabin with no internet and German TV…uh. We finally moved into our home on March 8th and all our stuff arrived about a week - 2 weeks later. The rest of March was spent with me getting the house put together. We met our closest friends this month as well. They have all become our family and if it wasn't for them I don't know if I would love it here as much. 

April

We had a visitor this month! Jason Clark came and visited us and then took a tour of Europe. Jake, unfortunately, couldn't take leave at this point because he still had to do what is called QC - a bunch of tests to take for his job. So, Jason and I went around to the surrounding areas and toured a little bit. I was able to see the castle Burg-Eltz and Cochem. Jake was able to come with us to the Roman city of Trier - Oldest Roman city in Germany. It was a lot of fun, I just wished Jake could have come with us to more places. We also made a trip to Belgium and got lost - for over 10 hours!!!! Stupid GPS. Same thing happened in Luxembourg a couple days later with Jason and I at 2 in the morning. That was quite the experience since I ran out of gas, couldn't use my phone, no GPS, and no one spoke English to help us since the gas stations wouldn't take my debit card - worst experience, but it was still an experience and a good story to tell one day. My car also came this month so I was finally able to drive places and be independent. I also got a job the last 2 weeks of April as a lunch lady at the middle school. It was fun, and I really enjoyed the ladies I worked with, but I also started breaking out and couldn't even wear my wedding ring. 

May

Jake worked and I worked so not much really happened this month. We were busy getting the house together, and getting ready for June since we had a lot planned. We did a project and redid bookshelves that I have had since I was 10 and painted them red to go in the kitchen since we have no counter space in there. 

June

So much happened in June! First we went to Garmisch - Bavaria with our friends for a week. It was so much fun, but at the same time a very tragic. We went to Neuschwanstein castle - The castle that sleeping beauty's castle is designed after, we went to Austria, Italy, and then we just walked around the area taking pictures and really enjoying ourselves. Tragic part was - We went to Italy after being in Austria all day, while driving to Italy, Jake could hear some rattling happening inside of the car. We had a friend with us that is a mechanic so he looked at it and said that he thought it was the timing belt or something around it, but since he didn't have tools he couldn't actually see inside or around the engine. We thought if we could just get it back to Garmisch we could get it onto the army base there and he could use the tools from the shop to look and see what the sound was. So we all had ice cream and then left. Once on the highway, you couldn't hear the noise so we thought we were good to go. About 15 minutes away from the house we were staying in, all of a sudden a huge clanking happened inside the engine and I had no way of getting the car to go. I pulled off to the side, and turned the car off then tried to turn it back on and nothing. The next day, Jake and our friend went and looked at it all day and conclusion was that it was dead and gone. It would need a new engine - so we went and talked to Honda - it would cost us about $4,000 to replace the engine since it needed to come from America, and the car wasn't even worth that much. Plus the transmission had almost 200,000 miles on it. After a long HARD talk, and prayers, we decided it was best to junker the car and look for a new one. I was devastated. That car had been my baby since I was 15 years old. I cried - A lot! About a week later, and after talking with our bank, and my dad about it all - we bought a brand new Mini Cooper. My dream car. Can't say I complained after that, but honestly, I would never tell anyone to buy a new car. Under our circumstance - we had to. The following week, we left for Paris for our 3 year anniversary and took Jake's old Mercedes - good thing too since they don't care if they hit you there or not. WE HAD A BLAST IN PARIS!!!!!! I can say it's probably one of my favorite places. I loved it, and we plan to go back as much as possible. Everyone needs to see Paris and experience Paris and fall in love with Paris. I turned 23 in June and it was my golden birthday. I can say that being 23 has been a life changing experience ha ha. So much has happened, and is still happening. 

July

So much happened in July! First was 4th of July - Eve won a prize against one other dog for being a good listener and always sitting when she was told, and for having cool hair. ha ha. We watched the fireworks with all of our friends on base and really had a fun time. 4 days later, my mom came and visited. Because I didn't have a car to go pick her up, I had to borrow our friends car. Well, theirs was a little on the old side and broke down on my mom and I on our way to Brugge, so thankfully my cousin who lives in Belgium came and rescued us. We rented a car and came back to Germany. Mom was here for 3 weeks and during the 3 weeks we went to Metz - France, Manderschied Castle, Paris - France (Loved going twice, I know that city so well now!), Verona - Italy (LOVE LOVE LOVE VERONA!!!!!!!), Venice - Italy (Love Venice, but I loved Verona more), Garmisch - Bavaria (No car trouble this time), Cochem Castle (mom's favorite), Trier - Germany, and Amsterdam - Holland (The Netherlands). I had so much fun with my mom and traveling everywhere. Jake was able to get all the time off so he was able to come with us as well to most of the places and it was so much fun. I love Italy, and I love traveling Europe. Mom left the end of July. I got my Mini Cooper from the dealership finally and it was better than I could imagine it. I love love love my Mini - Her name is Cinderella because she is blue and white. :)  

August

School started again so that means I was back to being a lunch lady. I had an interview for another job, and felt that I would get the job. One day I woke up not feeling like myself - took a pregnancy test and learned that I was 4 weeks pregnant - That was August 13th. I quit my job as the lunch lady because A: Food smells started making me really sick, and B: I knew I was going to get the other job and so I didn't think 3 hours a day for the pay I was getting was worth it. My first ultrasound happened the end of August at 7 weeks and Baby Worthington was just a little tiny tadpole. We were able to hear the heartbeat though and it was amazing. 

September

I was so sick in September and had NO ENERGY for anything. I would lay on the couch and moan the entire time because I couldn't even get up without being so dizzy and running to the bathroom to gag or actually throw up. Jake took on all the duties of wife and husband and was amazing at it. We ate a lot of not the greatest for you food, but it made baby happy and that is all that mattered. The last week of September I started my new job at the child care development center and started working with kids. I was able to keep the nausea down during my time working, but had to take zofran to keep it that way. By the time I would get home from work I would be in tears because I was so tired. Kyle came home from a deployment and I was able to go and see him at Ramstein and give him big hugs and kisses. We also found out in September that we would be going home for Thanksgiving, thanks to my mom and dad, but that it was a surprise so we had to keep it a secret! That was harder to do than keeping the pregnancy a secret! We got another ultrasound this month for the 10 week appointment - Starting to look more like a dinosaur than a baby at this point :) 

October

I started working Monday through Friday, and my energy started to come back so it was easier to come home and do a load of laundry or load the dishwasher. Not much energy, but more than in September. I was still sick and had a lot of morning sickness. Took about 2 hours for me every morning to get out of bed and get ready. We announced that we were going to have a baby the first weekend in October! I have to say, I was very surprised by the love and support we got. We had another ultrasound this month and we thought we were going to get to find out the sex of the baby, but my usual dr was in delivery so I had another lady and she wasn't the greatest at doing the ultrasound. Halloween was fun, I wanted to go as a skeleton, but I couldn't find the supplies needed, so I dressed up as a dead nurse. Because of work and being busy with that we weren't able to participate in the base activities as much as we wanted. We did, however, make it to a haunted house that was awesome and made me scared. Next year will be awesome because we will have our baby with us! 

November

Jake turned 25! Old man! He is half way to 50, and our car insurance went down ;) We went to Trier for his birthday and did some shopping then went to a colleseum and walked around it for a while, we then ate at a potato restaurant that is SUPER yummy with our close friends Mike and Sarah. I think he had a great birthday and he did get a lot of things that any 25 year old would want… :) We found out that we are having a BABY GIRL!!! Dr came in and asked if we knew and when we told him no, he was shocked the other lady didn't tell us, so he did the ultrasound and confirmed that we are having a little girl. We had finally come to the month where we got to go home. I was so happy and I couldn't stand the wait any longer. We flew into LAX and rented a car then drove to the house my parents had rented out for the week. I had called my mom and she pretended that I wanted to facetime with my family since they were all there, so they were all gathered in the living room waiting for us to facetime with them, when Jake and I (mostly me, ha ha) ran into the house, jumping up and down, yelling "Lets facetime". Everyone was SO SURPRISED and Danielle cried…of course ha ha. We had Thanksgiving dinner, went to Frozen on Downtown Disney, went to the beach, then went to Disneyland all the other days! It was perfect and I LOVED being with my family in the happiest place on earth. We had a blast and had lots of laughs. 

December

We started December in California at Disneyland. From there we drove to Las Vegas where we met our friends that live in Arizona. They drove up just to have lunch with us! We were so excited to see them and I love their little baby girl! We then flew from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City and the following day we surprised Jake's mom and family! It was so amazing to surprise everyone and to see everyone's reaction to us being home. We loved it! I had my baby shower while home and was able to see all my family and friends. Jake was able to go shooting a lot and had a really great time doing what men do best. I shopped….a lot, and we went to a lot of movies - like the Hobbit and Catching Fire. The whole time while home I was struggling with a cough and head sickness, but didn't think it was bad enough to go to the dr. By the time we landed in Germany, I was hacking up a lung. I have been ever since and I've gone to the dr 3 times about it, but none of the antibiotics he has put me on are helping. I've been on "bed rest" since and told to take it easy. If it's not gone by this weekend, he has to do a chest x-ray. In Utah we loved being with our families. I did not want to come home and neither did Jake. It helped with our homesickness, but at the same time…made it worse. We plan to go back next Christmas, but that just seems so far away. Christmas here was great! We went to Trier for a Christmas Market and I got cute little figure things. We went to a party at our friends house on Christmas Eve and had lots of food and played lots of fun games and watched movies, then on Christmas Day Jake and I spent the day in our pajamas looking at what Santa brought, and what was under the tree and watching movies, then going to a great dinner at our other friends house where we were surrounded by a family here in Germany. We had another ultrasound this month and little baby Willow is getting some structure to herself. She is looking more and more like a beautiful angel. I can't wait to see the next US where she might have a little more fat on her. 

It was a great year and I know I have grown as a person so much. Both Jake and I have grown together and I love him so much more today than I did a year ago. I thought I loved him a year ago more than anything, but it just keeps getting stronger. I love my life and I love looking back on the year and seeing how much we did and how much we overcame and how much we have grown. We have had an adventure here in Germany and we still have a ways to go while here. I can't wait to see what this new year brings and what 2014 has in store for me.