101 Days/14 Weeks

  Shawn decided it would be better to count down the weeks until he's home instead of the days, but I prefer days so now I'm doing both. :) I think I prefer days because each day is one day less whereas I have to wait an entire seven days before knocking down the number. So anyway now we're doing both.

  Awesome News!!! Stella started this afternoon! It had warmed up to -27 today, about 25 degrees warmer than before, and she started. She didn't want to and she struggled the first time but she ran long enough to warm her engine up and get her into the cozy garage. I am a happy camper.

  More awesome news! I officially start school on Feb. 13th! I enjoyed my semester off and time with my husband and family but its time to get back into the full swing of things.

  And the second the best news today! My honey got promoted!! So yay!!! Super proud of what he's accomplished so far. :)

  And to put the icing on the cake I got to talk to my baby three times today. We've been super lucky this last half of deployment with communication and I must say that I love hearing his voice. Our last conversation he was being super sweet. Just reminiscing about when we very first began dating. And as in love with him as I was then I can easily tell you that I love him more now. We have been through a lot as a couple and as a team and it has brought us closer and closer each time.

  When I first met Shawn he was this tough, partying, rocker guy who made my heart race. I thought he was beyond good looking even if he wasn't "my type." When we first began dating I fell in love with this man who just swept me off my feet and made me feel like I was the most precious thing he had ever laid eyes on. And he'll tell you to this day that our first date was supposed to be a one and only thing. But he told me that it all changed when he kissed me. Rewind to about ten minutes before our first kiss and we had pulled up to the boat ramp on July 4th and there were easily 100 people there to see the fireworks. Well right when the show started we kissed for the first time and its like time stopped. I have never gotten so lost in a kiss before. When we finally pulled back and looked one another in the eyes we realized that the fireworks had stopped and everyone had left. I couldn't believe it. From that moment on I was hooked.

  I fell in love with Shawn so deeply that even time a part and indifference's didn't keep us a part. And neither has time or distance between us. I think we have the kind of love the people write realistic, but good, books about. Now I'm not saying we're perfect, we aren't. But we have been tested by trials time and time again and we have come out in the end better because of them. Shawn makes me the happiest woman in the world. He has given me so much joy and so much love and laughter in the three and a half years we've been together. He has been the person who held me together after my world crumbled a part, and he has always been there to hold me after a nightmare.

  He asked me tonight if I look at him today the same way I looked at him when we first began dating. And my initial answer is yes. But, honestly, no. I don't look at him the same way. I look at him with more love and pride and passion and joy than I ever have before. I have never been more proud of anyone than I am of him because of his service to our country. I have never seen someone after months and been so overwhelmed with emotion. Loving a soldier is not an easy task to ask of anyone, and there's days when being in this life is truly, truly the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. But, and I would bet you that every military spouse would say the same thing, I would not trade it for anything in the world. It's not easy and it's not a fairytale but it is the most rewarding things I have ever experienced in my life. And loving Shawn and him loving me as much as we do makes every heartache and every bad day worth it because seeing him home and safe is the most incredible and indescribable feelings in this world.

  Sleep sweet ya'll. Hope you liked the read baby, have a good day and I'll talk to you in the morning.

102 Days

  Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious. What a couple days it has been. So Saturday morning at like 8 AM I get my keys and go to auto-start my car. I do this from inside the house and always stand at the window to make sure Stella turns on, well after a couple minutes she didn't. So I went outside and tried to start her again and I get *chug, chug, chug, dead* So thinking that somehow the cord she's plugged into isn't working properly I get a new cord and leave her alone for four hours. I call off work and wait. Four hours are up and I try to start her again. Nothing. So I decide to give it another hour. Mean time I call my mom and tell her the situation, more venting about the frustration of it than anything. I also tell her not to say anything to my dad. Love him to death but I didn't want to worry him unnecessarily. So she meets him for their normal evening coffee and begins to explain a "hypothetical" scenario. I imagine that she did this while looking down at her hands tracing the coffee cup nervously, while trying to hold off a smirk. Well Daddy saw through that real quick, not ten minutes am I off the phone with Mom that I get a frantic call from my Dad asking me "What's wrong? What have you done to fix it? Why isn't it working?" Etc. So I explain to him the entire situation and then call my Mom back. Mom: *Shyly* "Hi JD." Me: "You. Are. Fired! So fired. Like torched and never telling you anything again fired." All the while she and I are laughing. Figures. So anyway tried the car once an hour, on the hour. Never started. So at like 6 pm I decided to let the car sit overnight and see if that helped the charge.

It didn't.

I went out this morning and it still tried to turn over but Stella still wouldn't start. So I called a friend and we tried to jump it. Think that worked?

Nope.

So now my poor Stella won't start. Oh I think I forgot to mention....its been -50 the past two days. And yes that does say negative fifty. So theory is is that the engine is too cold to start. So I am going to wait until it warms up some and its able to thaw and try her again.

Meanwhile though because I inadvertently had three days off I have been able to get the majority of my house in sorts after vacation. AND I cooked dinner and I'm getting used to a little less creamer in my coffee each day. Yay me!

So after being in the dumps about the car for two days I decided this afternoon I needed to get out of the house. So I did. I went to Wal-mart (yes we have one of those) printed out some of Shawn's and my leave pictures, picked up a pizza, and went to my best friend's Steph's house where we talked, watched Katt Williams, and had pizza and cheesecake. And to top off my wonderful evening I got to talk with my hubby. So yay for crappy days turning into good ones.

Tomorrow its work, finishing the laundry and dishes, and maybe the gym. I should also figure out what exactly is going on with classes. Anyway that's about all for now.

Night ya'll. Goodnight baby. <3

103 Daysish

When I first fell in love with Shawn I had no idea how drastically my life would change because of it. I did know that I would follow that man to the ends of the Earth and back if I needed to and, in a way, I feel like I have.
I can't even begin to explain to anyone how deeply in love with him that I am and how much he completes me in every facet of my life. I came into this marriage with a pretty realistic view of it. I knew that the "honeymoon" stage would wain and we would fall into a routine. I knew that there were going to be days that I didn't like him very much and there would be days that he would annoy the crap out of me. But I also knew that there would be these wonderfully glorious days where all I would want is to be next to him, to spend the day laying in bed and watching movies, or taking the dogs out for a walk. And its those days I reminded myself of whenever the other days seemed to be creeping up on us.

The benefit of deployment though is that you rarely have the days where you dislike him. Because of the time a part, the emotions of where he is, and the rarity that it can be to talk to one another I think you end up cherishing one another even more than before. Although I would not wish this situation on my worse enemy, I do wish everyone could experience the feeling of receiving a phone call after not hearing from them for two weeks (or months.) I wish they could experience that moment in an airport where you spot one another after months of being a part. I have never experienced such joy in my life.

Shawn's and my's marriage is not perfect, no one's is, but we make an awesome team and we love one another through thick and thin. Life without Shawn would be incomplete, black and white as my mom would say. Life is meant to be shared with the people you love the most. And I love sharing my life with Shawn. I love knowing that he will be the one to hold me when I cry, that he will be the one who makes me laugh, that he will be the one who will experience victory and defeat with me. I normally refer to life as a book, myself being the author. But I also find great comfort and satisfaction that Shawn is penning my story with me.

I could not ask for a better man to love and who loves me in return. He is truly one of a kind and has made me exceedingly happy since we've been together. We have been through a lot more than your average "newlyweds." But even so I think everything we have gone through has only made us stronger, and that's the most you can ask for.

Anyway sleep well dear friends.

Lessons about Alaska and Military

When Shawn and I went back home we were trying to explain what life is like here and some of the things we described were outrageous to people. For example;

*You must plug in your vehicle at 0 degrees or below..if you don't and you try to start it the next morning you may end up cracking your engine block.

*It gets below -40 here. The lowest I have seen is today at -47 however this winter is worse than last and I imagine I might see even further below temperatures. My tattoo artist has seen -65.

* If you are not careful you can get frostbite in seconds in the right conditions.

* Getting into a car wreck on I-4 is terrifying. Getting into a car wreck with a moose and you have a 95% fatality rate. Because moose are so tall you normally hit them in the knees causing them to fall into, literally into, your car. It's a 2500 pound animal, as my mom would say..."big wins."

*When I was driving Shawn's truck to and from work fishtailing and sliding were everyday life. In fact when my best fried Lacy visited I told her while we were driving to Wal-mart that; If we start sliding 1) You cannot scream. 2) You cannot grab me. 3) Grab on to the handle and ride it out. Now I have my little AWD Element EX and I no longer have that problem.  :D

Something else that I learned on our trip is something that even I didn't know until I was in that situation.

Everyone asks you how long you're there for and when you go back to Alaska/Afghanistan. Now I realize that the people asking are only curious but please the next time you have military personnel and/or their family visiting please don't ask how long it is until we're separated again. I know that's not how you meant it but there is always a mental countdown as the sun sets on another day but being asked about it 3-5 times a day was like a constant reminder and every person who goes on leave will tell you that its a time to receive a temporary release from thinking about being a part from their loved ones and/or going back to a war zone. If you would like to know when we go back ask our parents.

Anyway life in Alaska today is very, very cold. It's actually the first day I've put on my heat. (The downstairs tenants have their heat on and heat rises. :) And there is frost/ice on the inside of my windows. When its this cold you shouldn't wear cotton as an underlayer because if you sweat and then go outside it can freeze to you and cause frostbite. You should also have everything covered...including the majority of your face.These temperatures, along with clear skies, are great for seeing the aurora. Apparently, and I could be wrong on the reason, but with the lower temperatures of late there has also been quite the increase in moose vs. car/train accidents. When it goes below -45 the schools close. It's -50 at Denali National Park today and the visiting center has been closed.

I guess that's all the fun facts I have for today. Now its time to turn up the music and start cleaning my house.

104 Days..roughly

So much has happened since I last wrote but there really isn't much important news to touch on so...here are the highlights.
1) I am Acting Store Manager of the Pac Sun up here.
2) I have officially lived here for one year.
3) Shawn and I truly enjoyed our leave time in Florida two weeks ago.
4) I took a leave of absence from school because of work.
5) I start again on the 13th of February.
6) 104 days about until the day Shawn should be home from this deployment for good.

Well I hope this blog finds you and yours well and that you enjoyed all of the wonderful holidays that commenced after my last blog and that you are already getting ready for Valentine's Day!! *sarcastic* Woo Hoo! I'm not even going to begin to express how disappointed I will be this V-Day so I am choosing to ignore it and buy myself chocolates instead. OH!!

I just remembered two VERY important events that took place.
1) Shawn and I celebrated our first year of marriage on November 23, 2011
2) I got a car for Christmas! WOOHOO!

Ok..anyway..

I'm missing Shawn a lot tonight..don't get me wrong I miss him every night but day is the first day that I've been truly alone since I left Florida on Sunday. And it sucks. Saying good-bye a second time was much harder than the first. And it was even harder to say good-bye to my family too. I have always been very close to them and living 5000 miles away just seems astronomical sometimes.

On the bright side though we did have an amazing time on leave. We stayed at a little beach house the first week and went out and about on the town, did some shopping, and laid around a lot. Second week my parents put together a little shin-dig for us at their ranch which was a lot of fun, about 50 people total ended up coming out and seeing us. The second week we spent a lot of time with family and we went to Texas De Brazil..an awesome restaurant, I highly recommend it.

I've been very lucky since he left for Afghanistan that he's been able to contact me at each landing point. I wasn't expecting to hear from him for three or four days but so far the longest I've gone without hearing from him has been roughly 12 hours. For which I am truly and thoroughly thankful for.

Over the last few months I have realized just how much of a toll deployment can take on an individual and on a marriage. Although this deployment has not been as hard as I thought it would be there was a point a couple months ago where I was really concerned about the strength of our marriage. I knew that I loved Shawn more than anything, that he completed me in a way that I had never felt before...but he did something that really hurt me and when he did I began to slowly shut him out. It got pretty bad between us and I went out with one of my girl friends, just completely at my wit's end and was talking to her about it and she asked me if I still loved him. And I told her yes, I always had. And she told me that if I could give him one more chance and it worked out I would be grateful forever. But if I walked away and never gave him a second chance that I would question myself every day. And I realized she was right. Long story short Shawn and I did a lot of talking and discussing. We went and got some one on one time with my parents' pastor and we did some praying too, and let me tell you something. It was like the last eight months and pain and hurt had never even happened. I can tell you today with full certainty that I am more in love with him right now than I ever was before. And that I trust him and have completely let my guard down.

Life with Shawn is amazing. We are constantly holding hands, or touching in someway, or we'll look at one another and realize what the other is thinking. Even though we bicker and banter back and forth we know that without a doubt we will always be there for one another. Tonight has been a rough one, but hearing his voice for just ten minutes turned my entire world right side up. I almost can't believe we have been through 9 months of deployment and at most have 3 months left...or roughly 104 days.

Anyway that's all there is for me. I'm going to try and write more...I actually really enjoy it.  :) Night ya'll.

Catching Up

A pic my Mom edited

My best friend who is visiting me in AK in a month!

Molly looking out the window in the new house.

Shawn and a puppy they "adopted" in Afghanistan they named "Sharkbait."

It has been almost 4 months since my last post and I apologize but so much has happened! So let me see if I can get everyone up to speed.

I, of course, came home from Florida and I must say that I had an absolutely wonderful time. My best friend of 6 years married her own military man and I could not have been happier to share that day with her. I also had an awesome night out with all my friends from my old job, 25 (!!) people showed up to spend some time with everyone and say hi to me! We all had such an awesome time. I really enjoyed all of my time back home, spending time with all my friends and family was so wonderful.

But, as life goes, it came to an end and I headed back home. Since then it has been a whirlwind of several big events.

About a month after getting home things at the house began to get a bit odd and unsettling. So I started looking for a place and after about a week of looking and considering I settled onto a place about 8 miles out of town and I absolutely love the place. But, omg the move was horrendous! One of my girlfriends and I moved my entire house in 2 days. It was insane! But we did it and I love this place. It's about the same size as the old house but it has washer and dryer hook-ups, a huge backyard for the dogs, and a really nice sized open living room. I absolutely love it. It's also set out away from town a bit so its always really quiet and peaceful which is wonderful.

After that, about a month later I decided to quit my job at American Eagle because a better opportunity presented itself across the hall (literally) at Pac Sun. And so I have been at this new job for about three weeks and I will hopefully have some fantastically awesome news for you guys in about two weeks! But as of right now I am a full time assistant store manager, basically the same job as before at AE, but better benefits. Lol.

Other than that nothing much has changed. I'm still going to school and I am officially halfway to my A.A. degree in Business. Gibson, my German Shepard, just had surgery on his tooth. He cracked it before we adopted him and it was beginning to bother him so we had it extracted.

Shawn is doing really well, although we are just getting over going through a rough time emotionally. Sometimes the deployment takes more out of us than I think we're willing to admit and it certainly tests our reserve and patience. But I am ecstatic to announce that in about 3 months I will be headed back to Florida and back in his arms...if only for a little while. And in about 5 weeks we will officially be halfway through this @$#^$W#@$!#$ deployment. And I am so grateful for it. I am beyond ready to have my husband home!

I am also happy to announce that my favorite cousin and her husband had their first baby, a little boy named Gavin Luke. He is so stinkin' cute and I cannot wait to hold him when I get back!

Anyway that's all my exciting news and goings ons here in Alaska. I hope you enjoyed it and I promise to try and make a more concerted effort to updating more often. Love~n~Hugs.

Not Knowing

The hardest thing about being an Army Wife is just the not knowing. A friend of mine keeps her own Army Wife blog and in one of her installments she was talking about the "rumor mill" and how nasty it is. Each time she heard something she would approach her husband asking if it was true or not and the answer was always the same, "No, not true." And so finally she just stopped asking. I have since tried to keep that in mind as I hear various things about our Company. A couple weeks before I headed up here I was told that the men were supposed to come home in January and that is why they were moving everyone's R & R dates up. But I spoke with my FRG leader and I found that it wasn't the case, that they were not planning on coming any earlier than next spring. And I hadn't held my breath on the rumor because I learned pretty quickly to ignore them.

One the same note, I had a very scary moment about a week before I got in Florida. I was driving home from work and as I pulled up to my house there was a strange car parked there and my heart leaped into my throat and my stomach dropped to the floor. I immediately began looking for two men in Class A's terrified that my eyes would find them. And finally I realized that it was just my inconsiderate neighbors who parked in front of my house. But I cannot even begin to explain to you the feelings that I was experiencing in that moment. As a military wife the not knowing is the hardest in my opinion. I can handle long nights on my own, I can "keep the home fires burning," I am actually finding that I'm pretty independent and happy with the life I'm establishing for myself. However knowing my husband is in danger and not hearing from him in over a week is the hardest. And you try not to think about it but its always there. There's no going around it. And what's so hard right now is my Dad is an avid News watcher. And he insists that I need to watch it in order to understand what is going on. And there are moments where I want to grab him by the shoulders and scream at him; "I KNOW what is going on, we are at WAR, my husband is THERE, and he may NOT come back." THE END. But I refrain and instead resort to walking out of the room or ignoring him altogether. Lol. Not that I don't respect my Dad, I do, and if I do want more information than what I've been given then its him I call to get it. But I worry enough on my own that I don't need the news to tell me how dangerous my husband's job is.

My Mom and I were talking one evening and I found myself struggling the first couple months in Alaska trying to decide if I was "worthy" of being considered an "Army Wife," because I hadn't been one for long. I wasn't sure if I had "earned my rank" so to speak. And as I tried to explain this to my mom she was shaking her head and I asked her what she was thinking and she said; "It's not necessarily what you have gone through that 'earns' that status, but what you signed up for, and what you prepared for." And I thought about it for a moment and she's right. Whether you have been a military wife for two months or twenty years you are still entitled to the same fear, anxiety, sadness, and difficulty the other wives are. Now, I'm not giving anyone permission to dwell on it, but I certainly can't think that I am the only one who has ever felt this way, and I just want to state that time doesn't matter, its what we have come to accept about the realities of our husbands' jobs that makes us the military spouses that we are. It's knowing that he may not come home, and praying with everything you have that he will. It's falling asleep in his t-shirt and spooning his pillow. It's that feeling you get when you see the FRG leader calling your phone or you hear that one of our soldiers has been killed. It's the emotional war that we fight day in and day out that gives us the right to say we are a military spouse.

I want so desperately to hear his voice...its been almost a week...

On a different note I had a great dinner with my girlfriend Kat this evening. We went to this awesome soup and salad buffet and it was so delicious. And then I came home and my mom and I watched "No Strings Attached" which was super cute. And then we played this new card game I'm addicted to called "Egyptian Rat Screw" and we had a great time with that. Tomorrow I'm going to the beach with my little sister, I'm hoping to TAN my front half because yesterday I fell asleep at the beach and ended up burning my back half. Sooo I'm hoping to smooth and tone it all out tomorrow. And then its off to appetizers with my guy friend, Dexter.

All in all the week will be busy but I'm looking forward to all of the time spent with friends and family, its something I've really needed and looked forward to. Anyway I'm going to jump off of here and head to sleep, it's 2 AM EST so it's off to dreamland for me. Sleep well my friends.

***Star gazing until I am with you again my love***