Sunday, May 29, 2011

16 days!

In 16 days we will be on our way to Punta Cana! We are FINALLY going on our honeymoon!!! We are staying at an all-inclusive resort called Excellence and it looks amazing!! I learned my lesson with the whole Sandals disaster and decided that any vacation I book that I have to pay up front will be booked through a travel agent! 


I cant wait!!!!!!


Paradise, get ready for us! 



Thursday, May 26, 2011

Homecoming: Part 1- Worth the wait...

The weekend before homecoming was crazy, that's the only word I can think to describe it.  I was running around getting all of the last minute stuff completed.  I had to deep clean the whole house, go grocery shopping since I was now facing reality that Kale will want real food and not odd mixes of things like Ive been eating for 9 months, making the homecoming sign, hanging decorations, looking for accessories for my outfit and trying to fit in some "me" time. 


He was expected home Wednesday, May 11th at 5 in the morning. The entire week before, I had something planned but come Tuesday, EVERYTHING on my list was complete.  I never finish my to-do lists, ever! I was shocked but knew that for the last 12 hours, I didn't want to be rushing around, I knew I wanted to rest and relax! 


I was at my friend's OB appointment with her on Tuesday and decided to call the 1-800 number for our battalion to see any homecoming info, for the last 2 days there hadn't been any change so I wasn't ready when I noticed it was a new message..."Regarding flight #5, its been delayed..." was all I heard.


Well crap, that stinks.  The pit grew slightly in my stomach- its been a crazy stressful deployment and its time to get this over with...I called the number back to see the new time and date since I didn't pay attention the first time.  I was expecting a 2-3 hour delay, something silly until I heard "12 May, 5 AM".  24 hour delay...hm, well, I can finish my list...oh wait, I already did....I didn't know how I was supposed to amuse myself for that much longer- I already did everything that needed done!


When morning came on the 11th and I realized that Kale SHOULD have been home, I was bummed.  I woke up to an empty other half of the bed when there should have been a giant mass taking over it named Kale but I know that I cant change it so why fuss about it.  I call the number to find ANOTHER new message, which ANOTHER delay.  "12 May, 10 PM" rang through my phone as I listened to the automated message.


By this point, my house was clean, everything was prepared, I was sick of "me" time, I just wanted HUSBAND time! The whole "dont fuss about it" was going out the window since I wanted to throw a hissy fit but thankfully I kept it off facebook and instead tortured my friends with constant text messages!

The morning of the 12th we got another delay..."13 May, 4 AM" and by the evening, it was "13 May, 6 AM". Two of my amazing friends decided a sleep over was necessary- you know, help pass the time and to make sure I didn't go nuts if another delay came through...We couponed, ate Chinese food, and devoured ice cream sundaes throughout the evening...you know, typical night with the girls!


At midnight, I went to bed only to wake up every hour just to call the 1-800 number to make sure it hadn't changed.  My alarm went off to wake up and get ready at 4am, I hadn't heard from Kale which was weird since I had his phone re-activated the day before so he could text me when they landed in Cherry Point.  


My make-up was done, I was on a pure adrenaline rush and probably wasted 30 minutes of that morning just calling the hot line over and over...still 6 am! It was 4:50 and I got a text from Kale "we just landed, it'll be about 4 hours"


Um, SAY WHAT!! The adrenaline drained from my blood and I was instantly exhausted, after all it was before 5 AM!


Those 72 hours leading up to homecoming were annoying, frantic even but no one ever said it would be easy, they just said


It's worth the wait.


To be continued with the actual homecoming soon!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Im the worst blogger ever!

Sorry!!!!! Ive been gone way too long!!!!!

I promise to get back into the swing of things! Life has been so hectic the last couple weeks- prepping for homecoming, ACTUAL HOMECOMING, and enjoying having the hubster home!

I have so many random topics, stories, recipes, etc. that I want to share and have a GIANT list in my phone so that I wont forget to share them with yall but until I get around to that...Ill just leave you with one photo...

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Wow, its been a while...

I haven't been on here in a while, and I'm so busy right now that I don't know when Ill be able to sit down and write one of the many topics I have floating around in my head. 


Just wanted to drop in and say hi...final homecoming crunch!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Marine Corps Museum

 I went to the Marine Corps Museum with my sister and friend.  It is in Quantico and took me about an hour to get to from my aunts house. It was our last day in the DC area and it was a great way to wrap up the trip! 


Here are some of my favorite pictures from the museum:
 Had to take a picture of the fox hole because Kale has living in one of these for a couple weeks while in Afghanistan!
 The exhibits were so cool! They had some great details and it was just overall amazing.
 I couldnt help it- I giggled a lot when I saw this.  They were talking about when they do gear inspections and they have the guys lay everything out on their racks.  Apparently they used to/still do in some units call it "junk on the bunk".  Its been far too long since Ive gotten some since this made me giggle like a little school girl!
 In the WWII part, they had a big section dedicated to the Marines and Navy who lost their lives.  They had walls of these symbols representing those who passed.

I loved the painting for the walls, very realistic! 


Overall it was a great time, if you are in the Quantico area I would recommend going! It was a blast!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

A sea of yellow!



Yellow ribbons that is!

I almost forgot! About 3 weeks ago a group of friends and I made 250 ribbons for the barracks...

You know what that means.... homecoming is getting closer! 
Woohoo!!!!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Changing my garden plan

Before I left for my trip to Erie, I had bought a bunch of planters to use as my container vegetable garden. As my seedlings started growing in their greenhouse, I realized that they will most likely not grow well with how shallow the planters I got were.  So, before I left for our trip- I gave the seedlings, still in the greenhouse, a good watering and hope they survive the 2 weeks that I will be gone and started to think about how I will rework the garden so it'll actually be successful...


I figured it out, I'm flipping those seedlings UPSIDE DOWN! Thats right, Im going to have a primarily upside down garden! I think the topsy turvy things are pretty ugly but the idea is genius. 


I have 5 milk jugs that Im going to use, as well as some buckets that I plan to get from dunkin donuts, all for free! Well, technically the milk cost money but the jugs would have just been thrown away and I got them from friends and family so FREE! I think the milk jug is pretty ugly so Im going to spray paint it white (already have the spray paint from a previous project) and paint some cool designs with acrylic paint that I also already have!


I want to do:
-2 grape tomato plants
-1 roma tomato plants
-3 bell pepper plants
- 1 cucumber plant
- 1 jalapeno plant
- 2 zucchini plants

Once those are planted upside down, Ill grow the herbs on top including:

- mint
- cilantro
- basil
- Italian parsley


Also on top of the upside down plants will be some other vegetables:
-radish plants
-carrot plants


I'm going to cut the milk jugs that I have so far once I get back from my DC trip so that'll save me just that much time once I get to NC.  This is what I'm going to do the first full day back in NC, in addition to clean like a mad woman!