Hammering out travel plans!

Well, after much back and forth about where we are going, we have finally decided on Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. With the 6 days that we have to backpack, those just made the most sense... and they were all places on my buck list :). We will spend the first 3 days of our trip with family and friends, 6 on the road, and the last 3 with family and friends. We are buying our rail passes tomorrow, and then the planning really begins. About half of the trains have WiFi so I will be able to update the blog with some pictures and updates. I'm going to try to stay away from Facebook, so this and instagram will be about it! I can hardly contain my excitement!!!

Planning for Europe, future plans, and an addition to our family

First blog on the tablet! Since my tablet is a small one, it feels more like texting than typing. I am really going to push myself to blog while we are on vacation so taking this with me might be perfect.

Speaking of vacation.... we finally booked our trip to Europe! We are going in May, and will be spending 6 days with Patrick's family and friends and 6 backpacking around Germany, Austria, and Italy. This has been a big thing on my bucket list, and something we knew we had to do before we decide to settle down and possibly start a family.

After we go to Europe it should be a pretty calm rest of the year until we start looking for a house. Hopefully we will find something we are in love with this winter and get settled in just in time to celebrate the new year. I love our apartment, but I cannot wait to have more space. Even with it being just the two of us I am looking forward to more storage space, and a guest room! Maybe we will have more visitors from across the ocean once we have the room :).

As far as the new addition, I'm sure most everyone has seen pictures on my Facebook of our new kitty. Patrick and I were at Petsmart getting fish stuff one evening and we went over to see the kitty's in the adoption area. We both fell in love with this cat, but I said no. I felt bad the next day (after Patrick's persistent begging and guilt trips lol) and adopted her as a surprise. That was definitely a great decision, she is a wonderful cat. She has a crazy personality, which is a constant source of entertainment.

Well, that is all I have for now, but I will be keeping up with blogging on travel plans and numerous pictures while we are there.

With all of the busyness over the past 6 months it has been hard to find the time to sit down and actually blog. However, after going through my old blogs, I have realized how much writing things down helps me remember the "little" things I would have otherwise forgotten. So many wonderful things have happened since the wedding that its almost been a bit of a blur.
Patrick and I have settled in to our lives, finally. After months of waiting and filling out documents and stressing and one interview somewhat straight out of The Proposal, Patrick is finally a permanent resident. He now has a job at Mercedes-Benz of Fresno, which meant a wonderful new car for us!
My sister and her main man got married on October 19th. Their wedding was in the mountains right below Yosemite, and it was amazingly beautiful.  See for yourself :)

I am so happy to have gained not one brother this year, but two. I also couldn't be happier for my sister, she is an amazing person that deserves the world. 

Speaking of weddings, I realized I never blogged anything about ours. Our wedding was wonderful and full of love, not just from family, but so many friends that made the 3 hour trek to be there. It was a beautiful, emotional ceremony and a great party afterwards. We also had a wonderful honeymoon in Hawaii. There were lots of adventures, and even more importantly, plenty of much needed relaxation!

And maybe one from the honeymoon...

Needless to say, this year has been an overwhelmingly wonderful year filled with an abundance of love, amazing times with friends and family, and a great insight into what the future holds for Patrick and we continue our lives together. 

We are already planning new adventures for next year! To celebrate Patrick's great month at work, Patrick and I are going to take off to Vegas for the weekend at the end of January. It might be pretty darn cold, but we are really excited to get out of Fresno and have some fun on the strip. I can already taste that 3 foot long margarita!

Since I missed Thanksgiving, I figured I would end this catch up session with reminding myself of the things I am thankful for. I am incredibly thankful for my husband. He keeps me on my toes, and life is never boring with him. He is always up for the random adventures, silly ideas, and sometimes just having a veg day. He is such a hard worker, with such drive that it inspires me to work harder at what I do as well. I am thankful for my amazing sister. I honestly have no idea what I would do without her. In Grey's Anatomy terms, she is my person. She gives me the honesty when I need it and wonderful advice because she knows me so well. I am thankful for my incredibly awesome friends. We have made some wonderful memories over the last few years, and I know we will make plenty more. As I have gotten older, I have really realized who those through thick and thin friends are, and I feel blessed every day they are in my life. I am thankful for my parents. I heard someone say that after 25, your relationship with your parents gets better. However, I am going to completely disagree with that one. I feel like I have always had a close relationship with my parents, even through those high school years, but the past few years I have felt closer to them that ever. They have given me so much, but also kept me grounded and taught me what hard work is. They have helped me become a strong woman who knows her self worth. They pushed me to further my education so I can have the wonderful job I am also so thankful for. And lastly (I promise) I am thankful for the little things in life. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

It has been way too long.

Now that things have settled down after the wedding and the moving and the buying anything and everything possible for our new home... I can finally sit back and relax.

Hahahaha! Yea, right. When does that ever happen? Especially when your husband is not an American citizen, needs to get a drivers license, you have to change your name on a billion different things and you work a normal 40 hours a week. This whole visa process seems to be never ending. After the 9 months of work for the fiancé visa, we still have a couple years to go, and a couple thousand dollars, dual citizenship. At least we are on the same continent now! 

Let's rewind a little though... Because the last time I blogged it was July, and I had just jumped out of an airplane. After that was Christmas with its usual excitement and family time... Oh and I took a step up in the technological world and got my first LED/flat scream tv. Patrick and I topped it off with a new blue-ray player and laptop... Go big or go home right??? 

After Christmas was January, February, March, and then April. I am pausing on April because my fiancé (now husband) finally touched down in America for good. I was actually amazed that everything went so smoothly, considering some of the fiancé visa horror stories I read of hours of interrogation at the airport, being denied access, etc. However, by some miracle, everything fell into place.

Then came the wedding. It was a perfect and amazing day... Yea, I know that is a bit cheesy, but it really was. Nothing crazy happened... I didn't trip down the isle or rip my dress, thankfully. Everything just kind of went. Patrick and I were able to enjoy the evening thanks to everyone who helped us our so we weren't throwing flowers in vases at the last minute or fussing with the webcam right before the ceremony. It was just a perfect day. 

Then came Hawaii. That vacation was much needed, and one of the best trips I have ever taken. We did some snorkeling, watersides, hiking, and of course, lots of eating. We finally got to make a stop at Kona Brewing Company. If you are ever in Hawaii, this is definitely worth a stop. Their beer and food are amazing. We staying on the island for a week, and then it was back to reality. 

We flew into San Francisco airport at 4am, picked up our bags, paid the outrageous amount for parking, and began the trek back to Fresno. We picked up the keys to our new apartment 5 hours later and started moving in. Looking back, we probably should have picked up the keys before the wedding and moved a few things over... But hey, you live and learn. 

Two weeks later, here we are and we are down to 2 boxes and Patrick has a social security number. However, I am no closer to changing my name. That is being put on hold while we get all the paperwork together for for his green card and ok to work from immigration. Let metell you, they do not make this whole visa thing easy! It is time consuming, expensive, nerve-racking and over all just a pain in the butt. However, it is completely worth it.

Hopefully by this time next year Patrick will completely legal, everything will be settled, and we will be house shopping... Then again, that sounds too normal and easy for us.

skydiving :)

New things to blog about.

Last picture before I left Germany. 

Considering I am no longer in Germany, I guess it is time to change what I write about.

I don't know that many people know how marrying a foreigner works. I am finding out along the way just how difficult it is. Thankfully, it is worth it. So, from now on, I will be using my blog to document the trials and errors (well, hopefully not errors) of our k-1 visa journey. Actually, that would get pretty boring. Along with the visa stuff will be wedding planning and updates, which, lets face it, is more exciting.

As most of you already know, I got back to the States on April 6th. It was pretty hard to say goodbye to Patrick after being together for 3 months, but we will make it work. We always do. The main reason I had to move back was to get the process for the K-1 visa started. The visa can take 6-8 months to process, depending on a number of things.

The first step in this long and probably stressful process was to get a job. Thankfully, I worked for an amazing staffing company before I left, and they found me a job right away! However, now I found out that my parents can sponsor Patrick, which actually helps the process move along a bit faster.

Between the Skype calls to Patrick and my kitty (I had to leave her there because she was so traumatized from the flight over) and working, I have been stepping it up on the wedding planning and visa researching. In the wedding department, I have been mainly looking for venues. I found an amazing venue in Monterey, but I am still looking for options in the Fresno area. There are pros and cons to getting married in Fresno and getting married near where I grew up. I hope to have a venue locked down by mid-May so I can move on to the fun stuff like dress shopping!

In the visa researching department, I am starting to make sense of all this visa lingo. My mom found me an awesome board on a wedding website that is full of girls who have gone through the K-1 visa journey. It is nice to know I am not alone in my stressfullness. The next step is to fill out the petition for K-1 visa, and send along all the paperwork that goes with it (sounds like it will be about a 20 page packet when I am done with it).

I am excited to document our journey visa and wedding planning. Even now it is fun to look back at when I first started this blog preparing for my move to Germany. I cannot wait until there is no distance between Patrick and I, all of the visa stuff is done, the wedding is planned, and we can finally just be together. Thankfully, it is just over a year away.

Recent developments...

News:

Sadly, my blogging about Germany will be coming to an end in 13 days. I could not get a job to stay over my 90 day visa. Also, I recently found out that it is going to take longer to get the fiance visa for Patrick to come over when we get married. I do have to get a job first, too :). So, Patrick and I are back to long distance and skype until the fiance visa comes through and he can move to California. We will make it work though :) we always do. 

That is about it for tonight.