Day 14- A picture of you and your family

Day 12-Day 13

Yes I am slacking a bit, but oh well!

Day 12- How you found out about Blogger and why you made one

My dear friend Tiffany hooked me up with a blog shortly after I got here. I wanted to get one because not only could my mom pull it up at work and show off some pictures, but its a great way for us to look back on our memories as well.


Day 13- A letter to someone who has hurt you recently

Talk about awkward...I would confront the individual personally before writing a note on blogger. And I hope most of my friends would do the same : )

Day 10 and 11

Day 10- Songs you listen to when you are Happy, Sad, Bored, Hyped, Mad

I dont really feel like I have specific songs that I listen to when I am in a certain mood....bottom line is that I love music. I cant wait to get my Sirius satellite radio back once we get to the states, I would know songs by heart before they EVER came out on the radio. I do listen to more upbeat music when I work out...but who doesn't?!


Day 11- Post another picture of you and your friends.

This is my Italian Family. 1st is my first picture ever with my best friend Tiffany N. ( almost two years ago..hard to believe!!) and 2nd is with my good friends Jenna and Tiffany P at Jennas birthday party last weekend. I have been blessed to make such close friends while over here in Italy.

Day 09- Something you’re proud of in the past few days

I am proud of myself for successfully finishing my Statistics class! I am proud of Josh for helping me out around the house on his day of yesterday! Nothing better than coming home to an awesome dinner that you don't have to help prepare!!

Day 08- Short term goals for this month and why

My short term goal for the month of November is to strive to be more thankful for all the things God has put in my life. There are so many things to be thankful for, and after all that is what this month is all about right?! I also am striving to do well in my two classes that I just started today. I have never taken two online courses at once, so Im hoping to do well in both of them!

Day 07- A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you

My sisters are two people that have had a huge impact on my life. I try to be a good role model for both of them, and I try to let them know what I would have done different in my youth ( not that I feel much older than a youth). I love them both and I will continue to strive to set a good example for them.

Day 06- Favorite super hero and why

Many of you have not met my superhero. But it is a person that I have always admired and looked up to. Kristin Cunningham was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005, and she stayed positive through out her fight with this horrible disease that took her life three years later. My memories of Kristin before she was diagnosed was anytime I was around her I was constantly laughing. She had that amazing talent to turn any situation into a funny one. Her sense of humor stayed with her until the end. We remember her every St. Patricks Day by wearing a yellow shirt (her favorite color) with a four leaf clover. She has and will forever continue to be close to my heart. Shamrock on Kristin!

Day 05- A picture of somewhere you’ve been to

Off the Coast of Ireland!

Josh and I have had so many opportunities to travel, its hard to pick just one picture. But so far my favorite place has been Ireland so I went with a picture from there. It was even more fun to have my sister and our friend Andy with us! Not many people get the opportunity to travel Europe like we have, and we are so thankful!!

Day 04- A habit that you wish you didn’t have

A habit that I wish that I could get rid of instantly is being a worry-wart. I have a very strong, protective, and sometimes annoying tendency. I am terrified of tornadoes and when I was little, I was always worried about when the next storm would be. I worry about others feelings too much. If Josh is out to late, or if he doesn't answer his phone I'm immediately thinking of the possible things that could go wrong. I know its annoying everyone, but its just because I love you!!

Day 03- A picture of you and your friends

I have not been blessed with a huge quantity of friends over the years, my circle has always been pretty small. But once your in....your in for life!



My husband and my dog..need I say more.. The two things I can trust in this world day in day out! I love waking up to these two in bed. And when Josh is not home, Buddy fills his spot perfectly!



My favorite wedding photo! Of course we choose the closest friends and family to be with us on our big day!

I was told that the people you meet through the military life become just like family, I had no idea how true that would be. I met Tiffany through myspace (back when that was cool)and I instantly felt like I had known her for years. We hit it off from the start and have forever been like sisters. She is leaving me behind here in Italy in February, and that is going to be a sad, sad day. I try not to even think about it at this point. She has been my saving grace in so many ways...Love you dear!!

Day 02- The meaning behind your Blog name

The reason behind my blog name is very simple. The Heisner report, is to keep people back home in the know. Im not really that great at updating it mostly because everyone has facebook so they have seen my pictures and posts already. But I guess this will be a nice way of looking back to remember all of our adventures here in Europe!

Day One: 15 things about me and a recent picture

1. My name is Holly because my birthday is two days after Christmas.
2. I take pictures for a living, bones mostly. (but I like to take pictures of other things too)
3. I have a phobia of tornados
4.My hometown is so small we don't even have a traffic light.
5.I was a cheerleader for 6 years, and I miss it terribly.
6. I have two younger sisters Hillary and Haley, who I miss pestering
7. I trust my dog more than I trust most humans.
8. I am a coupon clipping freak(thanks to Tiffany)
9. I'm really not that great of cook, only because my Grandma spoiled us by always cooking.
10. I used to want to be a Marine Biologist and train dolphins at Sea World
11. I LOVE planning trips, I can search for airline tickets for hours
12. I have never shot a gun.
13. I once said that I could never date a military man......and now I'm married to one living in a foreign country (oh the things we do for love)
14. Jesus Christ is my best friend!
15. I have been to 9 countries, and am hoping to add several more to the list before we move.

Because everyone I know is doing this.....30 days of Holly(which is probably more than you all would like!)

Here is the low-down:
30 days of me
Day 01- A recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself
Day 02- The meaning behind your Blog name
Day 03- A picture of you and your friends
Day 04- A habit that you wish you didn’t have
Day 05- A picture of somewhere you’ve been to
Day 06- Favorite super hero and why
Day 07- A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you
Day 08- Short term goals for this month and why
Day 09- Something you’re proud of in the past few days
Day 10- Songs you listen to when you are Happy, Sad, Bored, Hyped, Mad
Day 11- Another picture of you and your friends
Day 12- How you found out about Blogger and why you made one
Day 13- A letter to someone who has hurt you recently
Day 14- A picture of you and your family
Day 15- Put your iPod on shuffle: First 10 songs that play
Day 16- Another picture of yourself
Day 17- Someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why
Day 18- Plans/dreams/goals you have
Day 19- Nicknames you have; why do you have them
Day 20- Someone you see yourself marrying/being with in the future or about your spouse.
Day 21- A picture of something that makes you happy
Day 22- What makes you different from everyone else
Day 23- Something you crave for a lot
Day 24- A letter to your parents
Day 25- What I would find in your bag
Day 26- What you think about your friends
Day 27- Why are you doing this 30 day challenge
Day 28- A picture of you last year and now, how have you changed since then?
Day 29- In this past month, what have you learned
Day 30- Your favorite song.

Summer Fades to Fall

Its my favorite time of year again...I love when you can be perfect in a sweatshirt and shorts! I love when you can have the A/C and the heat off (our bank account loves that too)! Sadly, this seasons make me miss home even more! Football games, camp outs, Mardi Gras, Halloween. Just makes me ready to be back home!

I know most of you know this but Josh has been approved for cross-training, he just signed a 23 month extension for the Air Force. So it will the military life for us for awhile...most likely until he retires but you never know what the Lord has in store for you! We are in the process of waiting for our next base, which we have been told we could find out soon and we have been told we could find out much later. So again...its just a waiting game. We're really hoping to come back to Scott AFB to be close to family, the thought of that just makes me smile! Sunday dinners back at my Grams! Life doesn't get much better than that.

I have been in the process of applying for a X-ray tech position on base...in the waiting process for that as well : ). I'm just ready to know the outcome, I think my life will change a lot going from a housewife to a 45 hr work week. I think it will make our time left here in Aviano fly...which I will not complain about as long as we can fit in our cruise to Greece! I'm still working on my college classes through Grand Canyon. These next three months are going to be rough with school because in order for me to use the full MYCAA scholarship I have to double up on classes from here on out. So hopefully I can handle the workload!

We haven't been traveling around much, although this weekend we are heading up to Munich, Germany for the 200th annual Oktoberfest. I'm preparing myself for a lot of people....hopefully Josh and I don't get separated! I'll post pictures when we get back.

That's about all the news I have for now. Hope everyone reading this is doing well! Missing you all back home!!!

Halfway into Summer

This post is LONG overdue. I have been on the run since the end of April. My in-laws arrived towards the end of April, stayed until mid May. My sister Hillary arrived the day after they left...stayed for three weeks. Then Josh, Hillary and I all traveled back to the states for most of the month of June. Thankfully, we arrived back in Italy safe and sound....and I must admit it still feels odd not to have anyone visiting.

So here it is the first of July. Crazy how time seems to fly. Only 13 more months left here. Hopefully soon we will find out what our next step is, this is depending upon Josh staying in the military. He is currently trying to switch to a different job, if this i

s approved he will accept and that means 4 more years :). I am very open minded at this point. I think we both still are. All we know is that we want to be closer to family and friends. But after being here, I think even Alaska would feel closer.

This weekend the base is having 4th of July festivities. We are planning on taking our landlord to watch the fireworks and to experience some of the American culture. Hopefully this year it won't rain!! So far the forecast looks good.

Not really much else to report. I start my next class on the 19th, and I need to get my butt motivated to go into the hospital to volunteer. Other than that...same ol, same ol here in Italia.

Ill leave you with a few pictures of the highlights of the past few months!!

Fireworks at Magic Kingdom

Josh and I in Ireland

Hillary and I in London

At Hillary's Wedding

I love Spring!!!

Italia is beautiful right now, I wish everyone could be here to see it. I arrived at the end of April last year...and I don't think it was as pretty then as it is now. I think this is the greenest grass I have ever seen! But besides that life is great. Josh is home from yet another short deployment (this time it was Turkey). My best friend here is Italy had her beautiful baby girl on April 1st. My in-laws arrive to visit on April 29th, and then my sister Hillary gets here on May 13th, and we head back to the states on June 1st. I started school this Monday, and so far so good. I'm trying to get back into the swing of things as quick as I can. I feel pretty confident about it right now. LIFE IS GREAT!!!!

Time of change

As most of you know since October I have been babysitting little miss Leyla. Her mommy was deployed in the desert and Leyla was placed under her grandparents guidance for the time being. Her mom will be arriving in Aviano over the next week to come and take her daughter back to the states. This leaves me with mixed emotions, yes I got tired of the routine from time to time. On the other hand I have never gotten a chance to watch a child grow and develop on a weekly basis. It has been so much fun, when I started working for the Landers Leyla couldn't even walk, now I have to be on my toes constantly to chase her down. I love when she says my name "Ha-yee", and when I walk in the door she always has the biggest smile on her face. I feel like I have learned a lot from this experience, and it has all been filed in the back of my brain for when I get the chance to have a child of my own. (which better not be anytime soon!!)

As this door closes in my life, the Lord has opened another one. I will be attempting to return back to school next month. I have been out of the school routine for almost two years. I will admit Im very nervous. I hope my studying skills will come back to me in a hurry. I will be going back to get my Bachelors in Medical Imaging. I'm super excited, as I have always thought I wouldn't be satisfied with an Associates. I'm so thankful that my first year of school will be completely covered financially thanks to the MyCAA scholarship of $6,000. I originally was planning on starting in March and then the scholarship program was suddenly halted. The DoD said they needed time to reorganize the program. I feared the worse, that since I hadn't applied in time I would be left with no funding. However last week the program was announced back up and running. So I hit the ground running, not wasting anytime at all.

In other news, my summer plans have changed a bit. Originally I was going to be going home for the whole month of May and staying until the end of June. My sister Hillary is graduating High school and I wanted to be there to cheer her on. Instead Hill has decided that she would like to come spend a few weeks with Josh and I here in Italy. I will be so excited to have her visit again. Last time she was here was way to fast and time passed WAY to quickly. So the plan now will be for her to come mid May and then all three of us will return to Illinois for my sister-in-laws wedding June 12th. May can't get here soon enough!!!

Thats all for now, I will update you all again soon.

Love and miss everyone back home <3

Just rambling...

Two years ago today, Josh graduated Basic Training in San Antonio, TX. We were just dating at the time. I can still remember like it was yesterday!! I remember the butterflies I got in my stomach, right before seeing him for the first time since the 6 week long training. I remember how FREEZING it was in Texas that weekend (me wanting to look all cute only packed skirts and things like that). I remember how proud I was when he told me he made Honor Graduate, and how lucky I felt to be an Air Force girlfriend...

Fast forward two years, and now I can say that I am still just as proud of him today. But today I can say I am proud of my husband. I am so thankful that he choose the military life, because I honestly enjoy it very much! I sometimes complain about the things the Air Force puts us through...like how they can send our husbands away for weeks at a time. Sometimes we don't even know when they will be back! But those few things that cause a damper on our time together are pretty small in the big picture of how nice we have it!!

Anyways, I will stop the rambling. In other news: Josh is still on mids, and also has to work this weekend before leaving again for another training mission. Tomorrow is my friend Tiffany's baby shower! I hope she enjoys herself and that little Miss Brynlee gets LOTS of cute clothes and such. I will leave you now with some pictures of Joshs BMT Graduation!!

Paris, France

Josh and I traveled to Paris on Feb 27th and stayed until March 1st. We had a great time, and saw pretty much all there was to be seen. The weather wasn't the greatest but I didn't complain because it wasn't cold. After the initial stressors of traveling to a new country, we managed to figure out the transportation system and arrived at our hotel. After unpacking our backpacks we heading out and started at the Eiffel Tower. It looks very different in person, just not as big as I had always imagined(which becomes more and more the truth the longer I'm in Europe). We thought about going up to the top but the 3rd level was closed so we changed our mind. Then we headed over to the Notre Dame church, which was impressive but I'm not a huge fan of Gothic architecture. I liked the churches in Rome, they are much more impressive! We didn't go inside, so I can't tell you what it was like. By this time our stomachs were starting to get hungry, so we set out to find our favorite restaurant when we travel.....McDonalds!!! Which at first it seemed impossible to find, but once we found one we found them on every corner! After finally finding something to eat we headed to the Arc De Triomphe and the famous Champs-Elysees Blvd. I loved the Arc, it looked like such a neat monument! We wanted to go over to it, but it appeared to have a ceremony going on under it so we didn't want to disturb. After a lot of pictures we started our stroll down the Blvd, I could have spend SO MUCH money in those stores. Josh even encouraged me to go into the Louis Vuitton store (no I didn't buy anything) the cheapest item in there was a hair clip and it cost 259 euro, which is close to 275 dollars. (CRAZY!!!!) After we had drooled over the watches, sunglasses, and clothes we headed back to the hotel. By this time it had started to rain, so we were trying to decide if we should venture back out in the rain and see the Tower at night. We did, and I'm so glad we did. Josh and I had fun walking in the streets in the rain( I was smart and wore rain boots). By this time it was close to 11 at night and we noticed that the tower was taking people up to the top, so us being us decided that we needed to do it! The top was so neat, it was super windy and I didn't get great photos but come one how many people can say they have been to the top of the Eiffel Tower! By the time we got back down to solid ground it was after midnight, so we headed back to the hotel for the night. Well after a late night snack from a pizza stop right next to our hotel! Our hotel had zero channels in English so we instead watched the Olympics in French!!! It was fun!

Day two: We set out about 9, finally found the Mcdonalds close to our hotel and had breakfast( I enjoyed the free Wi-Fi). Then headed to the National Army Museum, this was Sunday the day of the terrible storm in which 50 people died in France!! We had not watched the news/weather so had no idea this was all going on. Instead we just commented on how windy it was and didn't let it slow us down. We spent 3 hours in the Army Museum( I was ready to go in about 30 min : ) ). I let Josh man the big camera, and he didn't fail! He took over 200 pictures in the museum alone! Men and war stuff, I will never understand! We got to see Napoleon Bonapart's tomb, which is the biggest tomb I have ever seen!!! After Josh finally gave the okay that we could leave we headed over to The Louve, I wish it would have been a nice and sunny day, because I think I could have sat around that area for a very long time. I loved the Pyramids! We got through the ticket line pretty quick and started to follow the crowd to the Mona Lisa. I'm not sure if this is planned out, but she was at the VERY end of very long maze! Same goes for the Sistine Chapel, it was at the VERY end of the Vatican. Maybe they think that is the only way they can get people to walk all the way through it, who knows. Anyways, when we finally found her I pushed my way to the front of the crowd (throwing elbows and all). I was amazed at how small it was, I'm talking MAYBE an 11x14....Not to mention the enormous security glass that covered the wall almost. After we had decided we had enough photos and video, we wondered around and took some more art in( we aren't huge art lovers..but Josh liked the Egyptian stuff). After the Louve we decided to start souvenir shopping, which we quickly discovered was going to be a pain because most everything was closed on Sundays. The huge shopping gallery was even closed! We had one more sight to see before we left and that was the Statue of Liberty. Many people don't know that there are actually three Statues'(one being in Paris), I only knew this because of the movie National Treasure. We found via internet that she is in Luxembourg Gardens, so we mapped out the metro and decided it wasn't too far away. We wondered around for awhile, to find out the Gardens are closed during the winter!!! Real bummer, because we wanted to say that we have seen the Statue of Liberty in Paris, before we have seen the one in NY. Oh well.... After two days on our feet we were starting to wear down, we decided we wanted to eat dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. Which I was thrilled about, I had amazing Chicken Tenders (of course!) and some awesome Macaroni!! To wrap this up, we flew out the next morning!

I liked the atmosphere in Paris, it was just how I imagined. Romantic, and man did we see a lot of people who loved PDA!!!!! I've never been a fan, so rest assured Mom that we did not partake! Paris was one big city that I have dreamed about seeing and now I can mark it off my list!!! I'm so lucky and blessed to have these opportunities! Thanks to my amazing husband for my Valentines gift!!!! It was one to remember and we have many memories!!!! Also thanks to the Chris and Megan for watching Buddy for us!!!


I'll finish this up with some picture, even though you have seen them on facebook!! Miss you all, and I will post another update soon!

Ciao for now!!

Recap of visit to the states

I traveled back to the states to visit with family and friends in January. Josh was going to be in Spain at the time, so I figured why not go home to help pass the time. And pass the time it did, The 17 or so days went by so fast, and I was extremely busy. Which I have found that both time I have gone home you almost are always going to be busy. I did lots of shopping (mostly for Josh), ate lots of good food, and spent some much needed time with my family. Big thanks to Tiffany for watching Buddy for me while I was home.

In other news we are planning to head to Paris in a few weeks. I'm really exciting to knock one of our "big places to visit while in Europe" out. It will be a short and jam packed trip, but I kinda like vacations to be like that. I'm still babysitting a few days a week, and I'm looking into going back to school for my bachelors. Thats about it for this short update.

Here are a few pictures from when I traveled home.

P.S. Is it just me or is everyone ready for it to warm up outside. I'm changing my background in hopes that it will make Spring come faster!!

First update of 2010

I hope this post finds everyone well, not much has been going on here lately. I think I prefer the summer and spring in Italy over the wintertime. Although I do enjoy the snow on the mountains. Ah the grass is always greener on the other side.

Anyways as most of you know I'm attempting to head back to the states next week. I'm praying for a spot on the rotator and smooth travels overall. Josh will be gone for some training so I thought why not head home and spend some time with the family. I can't wait to see everyone!!

I had my wisdom teeth taken out on Monday and the procedure went very well. I'm still a little sore, but nothing that I can't tolerate. I'm getting impatient on not being able to eat solid food ( I think I might give in today).

I think thats it for my updates. Hope everyone is doing well and that Lord willing I will see you all next week!!

Ciao,

Holly