Catching up

Our lives are REALLY hectic right now.  I knew September and October would be really busy months for us, but this might be more than I bargained for.

September I was really busy with the big bazaar that AOCSC (Aviano Officer and Civilian Spouses Club) hosts every year.  We had close to 90 vendors from all over Europe come to the base to sell their goods, and in three days, we brought in close to half a million dollars.  I was part of the business office so we were in charge of keeping track of all of the money coming in from cash and credit cards and then balancing the whole thing and paying the vendors their earnings afterwards.  It was a LOT of planning and organizing and during the 3 days of the event I was at the bazaar for over 14 hours a day.  Mark took leave to be home with the kids while I was busy with all the bazaar stuff.

Three days after the bazaar was over, we headed down to Rome and the Amalfi Coast to spend time with Mark’s family.  (I’ll blog about that more when I get around to it.)  We got back Monday night.  This past week has been nuts.  Abbie started ballet on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s and on Tuesday I went back and forth between base and home three times (20 minute drive each way).  I had a baby shower, a squadron coffee, a bazaar meeting, lunch with friends and had to run a million errands plus catch up with the house and laundry, along with Abbie going to the asilo every day and ballet two days a week.

This coming week I have a bunch of errands to run on Monday, plus a meeting with friends to plan another friends baby shower.  (On the topic of babies, there are a BUNCH of my friends that are pregnant right now.  Just from our squadron right now, there are 3 friends pregnant, and they’re all having girls.  My last few friends/relatives to have babies have had girls.  There are 3 more friends from the squadron who have moved on to other bases, all due with baby girls.  I don’t know one single person that is currently pregnant with a boy, but I don’t about 8 –10 people that are having little girls.  Crazy!)  On Tuesday, I have an appointment with a personal trainer, a nail appointment, run back home to pick Abbie up from school to take her back to base for ballet and then try to clean the house.  Wednesday, I’m getting my hair done for the first time since May and Wednesday night my parents are getting here and staying for 3 weeks.  Thursday is Abbie’s asilo and ballet, plus the AOCSC monthly social, and Friday we head to Salzburg for a long weekend.  Get back Sunday night and then Wednesday we head to Ireland for a week.  And then October is over.

I truly love being busy.  I feel like I’m more productive when I have a strict schedule to stick to, but this is exhausting.  I wish we lived about 10 minutes closer to base.  I told my parents I’ll probably sleep for the first 2 days they are here, just to catch up.  I know the three weeks they’re here are going to fly by, which makes me kind of sad since this will have only been the third time I’ve seen them this year.  But the good news is that while they are here, we should be getting our next assignment so we will know where we’re headed next and hopefully when we’ll be moving.  I’m so anxious to find out.

Luckily this weekend is fairly relaxed.  We have a big party to go to tonight and I might take homecoming pictures for a friend tomorrow if the weather is decent, but other than that, we’re going to try to relax and take it easy.  I think they need to make mei tai type things for adults.  It would be so nice to be able to pass out while you’re out and about and have someone carry you around, wouldn’t it?