Me with moops and poops, aka mom and dad. I miss you guys!

Jenna and Kari enjoying the sun, the beer, and each other. (Aww...) 

Jenna + Jo = crazy mofo's! 

A beautiful way to end my weekend at the lake. 

Sam lends a helping hand during the set up 

Firing up the air balloon--they don't call it "hot" for nothin'! 

Up, up, and away! 

The rolling hills of Duetschland 

German farmland...ain't it purty? 

A German town nestled in the valley. 

Beautiful Hessen 

Flying high. See our shadow? 

Enjoying the view 

The end of the journey: Jenna, Sam, and Dieter 

Sir Sam, Lady Jenna

It’s blog time again—or well past it according to several of our devoted fans—and I guess I have to agree since it’s been over two months since I last wrote! What has been keeping Sam and me so busy you ask? Is it adventure, travel, suspense? I guess if you consider studying our bums off for the MCAT and GRE an “adventure” and making our way down to the testing site in Frankfurt “travel” and you factor in the “suspense” of waiting for our official score reports, then yes! But all that is just a fancy way of saying that we’ve spent the last couple months studying and—except for a few breaks here and there—not much else. But as always I really can’t complain since I am in fact living in Europe with the man o’ my dreams…

July was a pretty exciting month. A few days before the 4th of July I decided to go back to the states and spend the holiday with my family, which was awesome. I was really getting lonesome for them (not that Sam isn’t great company!) since I hadn’t seen them since Christmas and I am sort of a homebody. I flew home for five days and spent most of the time out at the lake visiting with my family and catching some sun. It was short and sweet and I would’ve liked to stay longer but I was able to see almost my entire family (all except older sis Juliet—boo!) as well as several relatives and two of my BFF’s, Jodie and Kari. Then I headed back to Germany and it was party time! First Sam and I celebrated our “pseudoversary” on July 8th (the anniversary of the day we met in 2002) with a nice dinner and a hot air balloon ride over Hessen, the area of Germany we live in. The balloon ride was really neat and fortunately the weather was perfect and the air was clear so it was very enjoyable and we had an amazing view. We had a very informative guide named Dieter and we got to help set up and take down the hot air balloon, as well as go through the traditional balloonist’s “baptism” after the ride. This baptism includes getting a formal balloonist’s name (see blog title) and getting champagne and earth put on your head and lit on fire. It was interesting to say the least, and I don’t think we’ll forget it any time soon—but we did capture it all on video just in case! Next it was time to celebrate Sam’s 28th birthday on July 12th, which we did with presents, German strawberry shortcake, dinner, and of course a big ol’ bowl of the Holmes Family Famous Yeast Popcorn. After all that excitement it was time to start tackling the two big tasks we’d set forth for ourselves: the aforementioned studying (fun!) and also training for the Florence marathon. We were balancing work, studying, and running pretty well (we were running 9 miles at a pop which I was proud of) but as August came around and the tests drew nearer we had to study a little more and run a little less, which was frustrating but also pretty much unavoidable, and when test time finally rolled around it felt like we had been studying forever but were somehow still oddly unprepared. I took the GRE on August 19th and Sam took the MCAT on August 20th. I received immediate feedback in the form of “unofficial” scores which indicated I did pretty well; I will receive my official scores, along with the scores from the writing portion of the test, within two weeks. Poor Sam, on the other hand, got no feedback and will have to wait two months to get his scores. Talk about suspense! He has mixed feelings about how he did but I am confident that he did better than he thinks he did. Anyway, it was a big load off our backs to get those tests done and we spent last week just taking it easy. We both want to start school next fall, however, so our next project (besides kicking the running into high gear) is completing our application packets. We are still hoping to end up in Maryland—Sam in med school at USUHS in Bethesda and me in the doctor of physical therapy program at U of MD in Baltimore—but we will apply to a couple other programs as well. So wish us luck in the application process!

Sam is still busy with work at the clinic and seems to be enjoying the different (and challenging) experience and environment that his new commander provides. The hours are still long and most days Sam comes home with a tired brain, but of course he always manages to see the positives: this experience is exposing him to the admin side of healthcare which is teaching him a lot while affirming his decision to become a provider versus an administrator, and the job itself has periodically provided him with the opportunity to make a pretty profound and positive impact on people’s lives. He has to give a lot of his time and energy but I think he considers it worth it because what it boils down to is the fact that he’s helping people. Although sometimes I get frustrated with how much time he has to spend at work, I know it could be worse and I am thankful that he is working right down the road instead of over in Iraq. And it really is beautiful for me to see him give of himself so freely and tirelessly without complaint; every day he makes me proud and I think I fall in love with him a little more.

I am still working as an education counselor and while I enjoy the work itself I do not particularly enjoy the environment or attitude of those I work for. Some days it is really slow (yes, I am writing this at work!) and while that usually drives me crazy it does give me an opportunity to work on the two independent study classes I am taking as pre-requisites for the PT program. My employers are also pretty good about letting me have time off to volunteer at the PT clinic (which is another pre-req for PT school) but despite these perks I don’t know if I’ll stay at this job much longer. My reserve unit could really use me full-time and—besides the fact that I like the work better there—there would be an even bigger pay difference in it for me now versus when I was contemplating this a couple months ago as I’ll officially be promoted to a 1st lieutenant as of tomorrow. The big downside with that job, however, is that my unit is located in the town of Heidelberg which is an hour and a half away and for a girl who abhors driving that’s not too appealing. If I can get the Army to pay for a train ticket I might consider it. We’ll see…

Towards the end of our study time Sam and I really started to feel the travel bug and we’re anxious to get back on the road. We have a four-day weekend coming up for Labor Day so we’re headed to London and I’m really looking forward to it! Next weekend we’ll go on an all-day cruise on the Rhein River and we also plan to hit the nearby Hessenpark, which is like an outdoor museum of historical German culture, and maybe the spa. We have trips lined up pretty much through the end of the year with the highlights being Oktoberfest in Munich in September, a trip to Latvia to explore Sam’s heritage (he’s a quarter Latvian) in October, heading back to the states in early November for the wedding of Sam’s brother Terry, heading to Florence with a group of friends for the marathon over Thanksgiving weekend, and traveling all over with Sam’s parents when they are here over Christmas and the New Year. We would also like to hit Amsterdam, Scotland, Moscow, Rome, Krakow and a couple other cities this winter before we get into heavy ski season in January-March. Trips ideas for the spring include Spain and Holland as well as the Czech Republic where we plan to take my parents when they come for a visit. We’d also like to run the Paris marathon in April—depending on how this first one goes, of course! Many family members and friends have expressed interest in visiting which we really look forward to, so as you can see we will be pretty darn busy for the rest of our time here. And you know what that means….more updates to the blog!

Speaking of updates, this one turned out to be mighty long considering the fact I had no big trips to write about! It’s our way of staying in touch with the ones we love, though, so I hope you enjoyed it as much as we always enjoy hearing from you. Please take care, stay in touch, and remember that we love and miss you all. Talk to you soon!

Love,
Jenna & Sam

PS—I just want to say a quick congrats to my moops (Susan) on her new job, to Elizabeth (Sam’s mom) on becoming a licensed nurse practitioner, to my little sister Josie on successfully making it through her first week of college, to Sam’s sibs Rob and Diane on their new home, and to my good friend Danielle for making it back from Iraq with her spirit and positive attitude intact. Everyone is accomplishing so much (I hope I didn’t leave anyone out!) and I just hope you know how proud we are of all of you.