194 days

the best part of a six month deployment?  the homecoming.  our dear friend, Kelli Campbell, was kind enough to take pictures of fly boy's return.  words cannot express how grateful i am that she captured these moments.

these are the moments i want to remember and cherish.

thank you, kelli.

25 years

i've been able to call her my best friend for 25 years. if this were our anniversary, it would be the year of silver. it started in 1st grade. i remember being her "appointed friend" to walk with her to the nurse's office when a stapler caught her finger. our teacher had no idea that one small act would lead to a lifetime of friendship. we stood by one another through the awkward middle school years (mine, not hers.) she is the reason i am a believer. we went to young life together, played softball together, and essentially took all the same classes in high school together. we went opposite directions for college and remained like sisters. for a short year, we lived 45 minutes apart in virginia post college, knowing it would likely be the closest we would live for years to come. i miss her.

back in october, she came to visit filling in some of the gap between when my mom left and when fly boy returned from the deployment. we cherish these trips. quality time. watching our children play. (and not so secretly hoping that maybe her son will some day marry one of my daughters.)

i'm flooding this post with pictures from her trip to florida.
enjoy!

thankful thursday no.1

it's that time that every military wife dreads.

deployment time.

a time where it is easy to wallow in self-pity, and become completely self-involved.

in an effort to keep the focus off my own sorrows, i'm starting a new series: thankful thursdays. a time where i can reflect the many blessings in my life.

five things i am thankful for today...

no. 5  letter writing and emails.  fly boy and i get to take this time to revive the lost art of writing love letters to each other.  there is something about the anticipation of walkin to the mailbox everyday to see if there is a handwritten letter from my love that cannot be replaced with an inbox or text.  i love his letters.

no. 4 living two miles from my brother and sister-in-law.  being in two different branches of the military, it's got to be a 2% chance that we would not only be stationed at the same base, but at the same time.  huge huge blessing.

no. 3 lucy. those long nights when i can't seem to stop the tears from flowing, i always have a sweet golden retriever's head resting on my lap.  fly boy recently came across a study that concluded dogs are more empathetic to human emotion than other humans.  lucy is proof.  

no. 2 my sweet charlotte.  even in the middle of her first ear infection, she is the joy of my day.  she has never been a cuddly baby, but as she matures into a toddler, she seems to tolerate, even enjoy hugging me or snuggling on the couch.  i love it.

no. 1 wifi and facetime.  charley and i have been able to "see" fly boy almost everyday.  it has made the first few weeks of this deployment so much easier.  charley has loved eating lunch with her daddy.  she even signs for "more" dada after we hang up.  breaks.my.heart.  but at the same time, so good that she recognizes him and misses him.

our last family trip to the beach for a while.

miss you my fly boy!

parents weekend

parents weekend was never a big deal for me in college.
my college was only 4 hours from home, so it never felt as though i was "never going to see my family unless they come for parents weekend."

6 years after college, i think i'm experiencing that void now.

don't get me wrong, i LOVE living in florida.  i just think it would be nice if new york and florida were a little closer than the 1,293.13 miles apart they actually are.  (yet, somehow keep their respective climates...i could see the beautiful fall colors and enjoy the crisp air of upstate new york, then return to the 70 degree november we are having here now.)

one nice thing about living so far away, AND living in a desirable tourist area is that we have gotten almost as many visitors in the two short months we have lived here as we did in the nine months we lived in delaware.

my dad flew down to help us unpack/unload our moving truck in the beginning of september.
we could NOT have gotten everything done without him, nor will we be doing a full DITY move again.

fly boy's mom came to visit for a long weekend in october.

 

my mom came to visit in the beginning of november.

with each visitor, fly boy and i have gotten increasingly better at determining when to get to the beach and which beaches to go.  when my dad was here in september, we had no idea where we were going and stopped at the first state beach we found.  it was pretty, but not as nice as some of the other beaches.  when fly boy's mom was here, we forgot how early the sun sets and almost missed all daylight at the beach.  by the time my mom got here, we knew to get to the beach well before sunset and were able to enjoy a longer walk on the beautiful white sand.  we've got our system down and are ready for more visitors!

somehow i don't think it's going to be a problem to convince friends to come see us in february/march when the north is still covered in snow and slush and we are back out on the beach.  we're ready!

making new friends: 101

trying to make new friends as a couple is remarkably similar to dating...

it's awkward. you get butterflies in your stomach. and quickly become very self-conscience.

being married to the military, i know this is something i am going to have to not only get used to but eventually perfect...  i'm sure moving every three years will aid in that.

but really, the similarities between hanging out with a new potential friend couple and being on a first date are uncanny...

1.  the freak out hour about what to wear before going on the date, including but not limited to trying on every outfit in your closet before realizing you have nothing suitable to impress the potential new friends.
2. the awkward silences while you wait for your dinner to arrive.  you've already covered family, where the potential friend couple grew up, how they met, how long they've been married...where do you go from here?  ask about their hopes and dreams??
3. while on the date, it is inevitable that you will say something stupid and/or divulge too much information too early...things only your closest friends know about you and somehow still love you anyway.  
4. on the ride home, you and your spouse will second guess everything you said while on the "date"
after spending time with a new couple, i've actually thought...
did they like me?
did i talk too much?
were our jokes funny?
5.  finally of course wondering if they will want to hang out again...is there going to be a second date?  will they call us?  how long should we wait before we call them again?

a wise, wise woman warned me before fly boy and i got married how difficult it is to make a friend couple.  not only do you have to like the wife, but your husband also has to like the husband.  easier said than done.  she advised, "when you find that couple, hang on and never ever let go."

that being said, fly boy and i recently had one of the best "first dates" on record.

we laughed. hard.  i'm surprised milk didn't pour out of my nose.
we ate frozen yogart and laughed some more.

we played bingo.  yes, bingo.  imagine a smoke filled room with about 20 other people where we brought the average age down by around 40 or 50 years.  everyone else is using computers to play, we insisted on blotting our own boards.  we had no idea what we were doing.  we all lost.  and it was amazing.

we called 911 for a random car accident we saw on the way home from bingo and stuck around to help out the people in the crash (not exactly "fun," but the event still contributed to our amazing night.)
we capped the night off hanging out in the other couple's living room talking/laughing for another few hours.

if only all first dates included a few hours of bingo and an entire night of laughter...

the world would be a better place.

PCSing

in about 6 short weeks we will pack everything we own in brown boxes, entrust all our possessions to some big brawny men in jumpsuits who drive a massive truck and make the long trek from delaware to florida.
6 weeks.
that's 42 days.
less than two months.
i haven't even begun to think about packing everything, i feel like we just were able to unpack everything from the wedding!

that being said, my bestest friend and her husband are coming to visit next weekend.  it's their first trip to delaware and i'm pretty excited to say the least.  not that she will care, but i've been looking around the house noticing all the small things i want to fix up before they see our house.  all these details are just personal touches, not changes that actually NEED to be made to the house before we move.  nonetheless, i want it to be, well, perfect.

case in point.  for christmas, my parents gave us the matching nightstands for our bedroom set.  they didn't arrive until late april when fly boy was out on a mission.  i rearranged the room to fit the new furniture, but had to move fly boy's dresser.  i wasn't sure if he would like the new arrangement, so i didn't want to move all the picture frames, spackle and paint just to have to move it back if fly boy wanted to keep it the way we originally had the room set up.

this was late april...it's now mid july...
the furniture was kept the way i moved it.
and i still haven't moved the picture frames.

every morning, i look at it, and think, i really need to move those before karina gets here.
have i done anything?
nope.
she gets here in five days.

i am considering making sweetly asking fly boy to move them this week.
6 weeks before we move.
which means we will have to spackle and paint this week, then again in 6 weeks when we move.

 

ridiculous, right? (the pictures, not me...)

and totally worth the extra spackling/painting.