Weekend Wrap-Up (4-Day Holiday Park & Rothenburg) - (Germany) Day 228 - 231

Me with my wife and daughters on the Free Fall Tower at Holiday Park

Friday: This morning we surprised the kids and took them to "Holiday Park". It's a smaller theme park than Europa Park (which we visited earlier), but it's also a lot closer (only about a half hour from Heidelberg). It's also cheaper, and for what it is, we had a lot of fun. We arrived shortly after it opened at 1000 and stayed until almost closing time at 1800. Spending the day at the park was probably the perfect amount of time to go on each of the adult rides at least once, and then let the kiddos ride their favorite rides over and over again. By far the best ride is the Expedition GeForce roller coaster. It had a long line, but we had a blast riding it! There are some smaller roller coasters, a free fall tower, a log ride and a river raft ride…so there was plenty to do and keep us busy all day long. It was a good day for all.

The family riding the Teufelsfässer (Devil's Barrels)

Saturday: We traveled to Rothenburg once again. This is probably one of our favorite cities in Germany so far and we wanted the kids to see it before they leave. Rothenburg is about a 2.5 hour drive from Heidelberg and is a great medieval town. The old city has a wall surrounding the city, which is where we started out. We walked a good portion of the wall letting the kids explore the wall and the city below. We then walked around downtown checking out the many shops full of all kinds of souvenirs. The kids loved checking out everything from medieval weapons to Christmas ornaments. Each shop is a little deceiving, they don't look that big until you enter and they seem to keep going and going…especially the Christmas shop.

Hanging with the kids in Rothenburg

We were taking a bit of a gamble bringing the kids here hoping they would like "sightseeing", but it turned out to be great. We ate lunch at an awesome Italian restaurant, the only disappointing thing about the place was that we had to eat inside because there were no tables available outside. Rothenburg is a great place to sit outside and eat, you can "people watch" for hours. We then made our way to an ice cream shop before eventually heading home.

Eating "Eis" (Ice Cream) in Rothenburg

Sunday: We used today as a day of rest and packing. We took it easy and did a lot of laundry before packing all the kids suitcases. We did take the kids down to Heidelberg one last time and bought them each a souvenir to take home and remember Germany. We also had one last ice cream and walked around downtown enjoying the street performers and just taking in our last full day with the kiddos.

A street performer in Heidelberg that amazed the kiddos

Monday: Today I had to take the kids back to the airport. It was a pretty emotional day for everyone. We stopped by my wife's work and had lunch with her before leaving. We arrived at the Frankfurt airport 2.5 hours early…and I'm glad we did because the line at Condor Air was amazingly long. We waited and waited…folks that were in line for a flight to Vancouver were then allowed to go to the front (upsetting my impatient kids). We waited some more and then folks in line for a flight to Baltimore were allowed to go to the front (which upset the kids even more). We finally arrived up front after about an hour and a half waiting in line. We checked the bags and received the boarding passes. I was also able to get a pass to take them all the way to the gate which was nice. We waited in line for security and then made our way to the gate. They were already boarding by the time we got there, but it didn't really matter because they wanted all my kids to board last since they were unaccompanied. This gave us time to hug and say our good-byes. I then had to wait until the plane pulled out before I could leave…that really sucked watching them leave. It will most likely be next summer before I see them again. I wish the command sponsorship paperwork would have gone through, then at least I would have had one of my kids…but that is the government for you…slow as hell.

Hike To Seoul Tower...Again - (Korea) Day 141

Before our hike up to Seoul Tower. From left to right...
our KATUSA, Special K, & SPC Mick

We had to report in front of the office this morning at 0530 for PT which was a hike up to Seoul tower and back. We wore our body armor (without the plates) and assault packs full of crap. I had two 2 Liter bottles of water in mine along with some other miscellaneous items to fill it up. It was a pretty good work out.

When we got back I headed to my room and got ready for work. I was able to video chat with my wife for a bit and then arrived at work by 0900. The help desk was finally able to reset the local admin passwords for all our machines, so now I can finally get some work done. I started in the admin office by installing Adobe Acrobat Pro on all the new machines. The versions they gave me were all upgrades, so when it came time to start them up they wanted an older serial number to verify that an older version is owned. None of the numbers they had typed out on a little piece of paper would work. Grrrr. Luckily they did have one full version (non-upgrade) that I was able to install on all their machines. What a pain in the neck.

SPC Roy called and wanted to go to lunch. We met up and went to the food court. He's loving his new job. They focus a lot more on PT because they have a regular schedule which he needs. He said PT was really tough this morning as they carried a litter (a stretcher) with a person on it. They had to run all over and carry it all sorts of ways.

When I got back we setup for a meeting in the top secret conference room. I then checked my email and updated the events calendar. So many things are duplicated and done so stupid here it can drive me nuts. There are a number of events calendars that are created for various purposes among a number of labor intensive time consuming projects that have to be done quite a bit. I then put in a couple of help desk tickets to get some problems fixed. Since I'm the alternate IMO I am one of the few people that can now put in these tickets.

We then cleaned up the top secret conference room and then cleaned up the office. Unfortunately we couldn't leave because there was a ROK meeting going on in our conference room and we had to stay until they were done so we could shut everything down and lock up. It was almost 1800 by the time they left.

After I got to my room and changed, I decided to treat myself to a Baskin n' Robbins 31 below (Oreo flavored). I also brought my laptop and downloaded some entertainment.

Feeling Hot Hot Hot (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 8

These entries have been sent via email from Brandon. (Yay!)

This morning I had hall guard from 4:00 AM to 6:00 AM, so I was unable to go to morning PT. I had it with PVT Privately (an old 3rd platoon terminator who is a pretty cool guy). I was happy to get out of PT, but I was all mentally prepared for it. The duty schedule was changed since I last looked at it, so I thought I had it in a couple of days...not this morning. The good thing about this time slot was that we were able to head to breakfast before the rush of people getting done with PT. We had no line and it was easy to find a seat.

Speaking of chow let me tell you that the eating at the DFAC here at Ft. Gordon is much better than the one at Ft. Benning. The quality of food is better and they have a bit more of a variety. They have a salad, soup, and a sandwich bar. My favorite is that they also have a soft serve ice cream machine. They switch out the flavors daily. I want to just open my mouth and let the ice cream flow in, but I limit myself to one cone a day at lunch time.

After lunch we came back and found out that our barracks were closed because there were inspections going on. This sucked because it's freaking hot here in Georgia! It's even more hot when you have on ACUs and have to stay outside where there is no A/C. We had to wait until formation for classes again before we could get out of the sun. By the time we got in class I think everyone could have used a towel just to dry the sweat off that was pouring out of everyone.

Overheard Quote: "I'm sweating like a slave with a secret" (PVT Privately - a black man - stated this as we were marching back to our classroom...I had to agree)

Fitness Week 3 (Pre-Basic Training) 70 Days until Basic

Week 3: Weight = 187.8

Sun: Pushups & sit-ups 3 sets of 25 with 100 second rest between sets

Mon: Weight lifting (arms) with a two-mile run on treadmill: 16:09

Tue: A day of rest *

Wed: Weight lifting (back) with a two-mile run on treadmill: 16:45

Thurs: Pushups & sit-ups 3 sets of 25 with 100 second rest between sets

Fri: Two mile run on treadmill: 16:51

Sat: A day of rest

*Note – Tuesday’s day of rest was unplanned. After announcing I was leaving my boss said we needed to have a drink after work. My wife and I shared a bottle of wine with dinner and then I topped that off with some Häagen-Dazs Rocky Road ice cream...which is the best by the way, don't let anyone tell you otherwise! Can’t have too many days like this or I will not make any progress!