Happy Mother's Day

My wonderful momma sent me these pictures of us this morning! I bet looking at these pictures brought back a lot of memories for her! 

 

Today I just want to thank my mother for always being my best friend and best supporter in everything that I've done! She is one of the strongest women that I know and if I am half the mother that she is to me I'll be so lucky. Mom, thank you for being the amazing mother that you are! You have showed me what it is to really love a child and I cannot wait to have a daughter to show her the same relationship that you have showed me. There is nothing like the love between a mother and daughter! Thank you for being such a wonderful example of how a mother should be! I am learning from the absolute best! Mamaw would be so proud of you for raising three pretty awesome kids if I do say so myself! :P I know Mother's Day is hard on you sometimes because I know how much you miss her. I hope you find comfort in knowing what a wonderful relationship that you had with her and that she is up in heaven smiling down on you at the mother that you have become. Jarrett, the puppies and I love you! Happy Mother's Day!

To my mother in law, Suzanne, thank you for always being a second mother to me and always loving me as if I was your own daughter! From day one you made me feel like I was apart of your family and I am so grateful to you for accepting me into Jarrett's life. You are another wonderful example of how a mother should be. I will use what I have learned from you and my own mother to be the best mother I can be when it is my time! Thank you once again! Happy Mother's Day! We love you! 

I also feel so lucky to have come home from work on Saturday to this in my backyard! I was so shocked when I saw a huge empty box in the garage. I thought to myself, "what the heck did Jarrett buy while I was at work?" Jarrett and the puppies (lol) got me this gorgeous patio set for Mother's Day. Jarrett and I are actively trying to start our family and he wanted me to feel special on Mother's Day because of our puppies and because we are in the process of trying to have a baby! He is so good at surprising me and I loved it! I felt so special! I may not be a real mommy yet, but I sure felt like one today! I can't wait until we can celebrate Mother's Day for real. I cannot wait to know the joys of motherhood. Maybe next Mother's Day will officially be my first! I guess we will see! :)

The Real Military Wives of Blogland [Link Up] and some exciting news

Hello all! Today I am linking up with Samantha from The Samantha Show and Mallory from Mal Smiles to bring you The Real Military Wives of Blogland! I absolutely love this linkup because you all get to hear all of my thoughts on being a military wife and how I got to this amazing point in my life. Being a military wife is a role that I never imagined playing. If you would have told me years and years ago that this was the main role that I would occupy in my life, I would have laughed in your face. Throughout this whole process of becoming who I am today, I have learned that I am stronger than I ever imagined! Here is how it all began!

The summer after my high school graduation, I began working at the local burger restaurant Fuddruckers. I had friends that worked there so it naturally worked out for my to get a summer job there. Little did I know that I would meet my future husband at my summer job. Jarrett had already been with the restaurant for about a year before I came along. He was one of the main cooks and I was a cashier/baker/guest services representative. I kid you not, the second I saw him for the first time, I knew I was looking at my husband. I know it is cliché to say that I "just knew" when I met him, but I really did. It was the most breath taking moment of my life. The wind had been knocked out of me. I can even really explain just how amazing the feeling was. You had to feel it to believe it. 

Back in the day, Jarrett was pretty shy and not very talkative. It scared me with how I much I liked him and it scared me even more because he was not a very forward guy like most guys. I figured that if he really liked me he would at least talk to me at work and seem interested. Nope. No interest seemed to be there. When I met Jarrett, I was still trying to come back from a terrible heart break that I endured in high school, so since nothing seemed to be happening with Jarrett, I saw that as a sign to just take a step back, be single for a while and focus on college. I decided to do that until a co-worker gave Jarrett my cell phone number. One night while I was out to dinner with my dad, I got a text from Jarrett. We had little small talk via text for a couple hours and then he finally asked me out on a date to the movies. That text was the beginning of our beautiful life together. 

Now, lets fast forward to when I found out that I would be an Air Force girlfriend. When I found out that Jarrett had enlisted in the Air Force, he was literally a month away from leaving for basic training. I was floored and stunned that he waited until the last minute to tell me. He was terrified of me leaving him because of the life that he'd be living. The thought of leaving him didn't even enter my mind at that point. The thought that entered my mind was that he'd wise up and realize that he didn't need a girlfriend while entering the military. A lot of guys didn't want that distraction entering in to the military. I would not have blamed him if he ended it. Well folks, he didn't end it and neither did I. 

Before Jarrett left for basic training, he asked me to marry him and obviously I said yes! I went from being a scared and heart broken girl to a girl engaged to a man in the Air Force after dating him for only a few months. Who was I? Was I ready for this life? Was I prepared for everything that would come along with being a military wife. Did I want this life? Was I making the right decision? Question after question invaded my mind at this point. I then decided that I would continue to focus on my studies and that no matter what happened with Jarrett, I would take it as it came. Before we knew it the years started flying by. Jarrett was stationed in Virginia three hours away from me. We drove back in forth between states to be together. I graduated from Wor-Wic with my Associates degree in Business and transferred to Salisbury University to obtain my Bachelors degree in English. Jarrett went through two long deployments to Japan. We decided to get married at the courthouse. I graduated from Salisbury University with my Bachelors degree. I moved to Virginia to begin my new life with my husband.  

Before I knew it, I was a military wife living three hours away from my family and fiends. I was essentially on my own now. I had to learn how to be a wife and make my husband hubby in the home. I also had to find a real full time job now that I was a college graduate. Failure one after another hit me like a ton of bricks. I could not find a career in Virginia to save my life. I was also so homesick and felt like a failure in front of my husband. It is times like these when you realize just how much someone loves you. Jarrett loved me through my pain and failures. I felt like I did not deserve him because I kept failing at everything I did. His love pulled me through. Although I only worked retail positions in Virginia, my job at the retail store Hallmark really pulled me through my job rut. I met some of my absolute bet friends there and they helped me to overcome my home sickness. I began to really come out of my shell in Virginia because of this job. I finally felt comfortable in my new married life away from my family and friends. 

So, you know what happens when you get comfortable and when you get entirely too comfortable? Life throws you a curve ball. Or in my case, a ginormous curve ball. A ginormous curve ball large enough to take out a whole country. Yep. Orders. Crazy, insane, far far away orders. Orders to Alaska. BAM! I was so shocked when we found out we would be PCSing to Alaska. Alaska has been on my husband's list ever since he enlisted so I don't know why I was shocked when we received the orders. I guess I just could not fathom us living anywhere but Maryland or Virginia. Well, we were going to Alaska and we had to be there in five months. It was happening. Military life was about to get even more real. Here came the real goodbyes. Not three hours away from family and friends type of goodbyes. These were I am moving 4,000 miles away from everyone goodbyes. The type of goodbyes that you absolutely dread having to say. 

As hard as it was, we packed up our life, left all the people that we loved in Virginia, visited and said goodbye to the rest of our family and friends in Maryland and drove 4,000 miles to our new home in Alaska. As hard as it was to move here, I did it. We have been here seven months now and it has been the best seven months for us. As soon as we got here we got into a beautiful spacious house on base, we bought a new vehicle all on our own, I finally found a great career with tons of room for promotion and we got another puppy.  Also, I have not felt so crazy homesick. I feel strong. I feel stronger than I have ever felt before. I feel like a new person. 

I am here in this beautiful state living this life with my husband and our two adorable dogs. Our life has changed so much over the past eight years and I would not change a thing about how everything played out for us. Now that we are in Alaska and all settled down, we are officially in the process of expanding our family and I do not mean with a third dog. After eight years together, we are finally trying to have a baby and we could not be more thrilled. As I am excited about potentially becoming a mom soon, one thing that I wish people knew about military spouses is that not all of us want to start popping out kids right away because we are married to the military. I am that wife that is determined to have a full time career, raise a family and be an Air Force wife. That is me and those are my goals. 

Every military wife has her own thoughts on whether to have a full time career, be a stay at home wife, have kids, have a full time career and kids or be a stay at home mom. We are just like every other woman trying to figure out what will be best for her, her husband and her family. We are told that we should do this or do that because of our husband's job. People assume that we will do this or do that because we will be moving a lot. Let me tell you. There are no limits on us military wives. If I want to do something, I will fight for it. We all will fight for what we want while we fight to take care of everything while our husbands are gone. We are fighters and we fight for what we want just like all women and wives fight for what they want for themselves. People need to understand that we can do anything that we put our minds to. We are not limited. 

Easter weekend stuff

We had the best Easter weekend considering this was our first Easter away from our family and friends! I worked on Saturday and had the best Sunday off with Jarrett and the puppies. Usually on Easter, Jarrett and I go to church with our families and then we have an amazing meal with both families. This year, Easter snuck up on us so fast we didn't even have time to find a church to visit or even finalize our Easter meal. 

 

Since we moved, we have been trying to create our own traditions since we are unable to spend the holidays the way we normally do. During our first Thanksgiving and Christmas here, I cooked the meals that I was use to being served by both our families. Both meals turned out really delicious and I had a happy hubby. For Easter, I literally forgot about planning my meal. Yesterday morning, Jarrett asked me what we were going to cook as our Easter dinner. No clue. I felt awful for not planning an Easter meal or planning any Easter plans at that. Jarrett then planned out our day. 

Since it was the most beautiful sunny day as well it should because our Lord and Savior rose on this day, Jarrett said we would take both dogs on a hike in our new favorite hiking spot. Later on in the day we would go to the shooting range and then come home and cook dinner featuring bacon wrapped steak with side dishes to be determined. I'm not going to lie. I felt weird not attending church on Easter Sunday. This was the first Sunday in a really long time that I did not attend church. While I do not plan to make this a habit on Easter Sunday, it felt kind of amazing to just sleep in with Jarrett and then get up and spend the whole day in the beautiful outdoors!  

We slept in, I went and grabbed us Starbucks for breakfast and then we hit the road with the pups. We went on an awesome hike with both of our babies and it felt so cool to have both dogs out on our favorite hiking spot. They did so well considering there were other families and other dogs out on the trail too. Leo led the way on the trails like he had been on them before. He was so cute. We kept trying to get a good family picture, but we could not get both dogs still enough before the self timer went off. It is literally impossible to get those two to sit still for a picture. Needless to say, we still got some good pictures even if we couldn't all four be in them. 

After our hike, we came home for a little bit and watched The Bible. I love The Bible so much and still want to see Son of God in the theater. I heard Son of God was really good! After we relaxed for a little bit, we went to the shooting range. Going to the shooting range is one of those mutual hobbies that my husband and I love to do together. It is nice to have hobbies that my husband and I can agree on. After the range, we came home and made our Easter dinner. Dinner consisted of bacon wrapped steak, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy and apple sauce with sprinkled cinnamon on top. After dinner I also made a spring funfetti cake with vanilla Oreo icing. Everything was so yummy! 

How was your Easter weekend?

Did you spend some time outdoors too?

Did you cook or eat a yummy Easter dinner?

Jarrett's 27th Birthday

So, two months and one day after I was born, this handsome guy was born! My husband turned 27 yesterday and we celebrated by taking him to breakfast and then taking him to his favorite store Cabelas which just opened here in Anchorage. Cabelas is Jarrett's absolute favorite outdoors store and it just so happens that they opened the day before his birthday. Perfect timing, right? After a long afternoon of shopping at Cabelas, we came home and ate birthday cake. I got Jarrett a strawberry ice cream cake from Marble Slab Creamery. It was so delicious and he loved every bit of if! It also worked out really well that his mom was visiting during his birthday. It was just an all and all great day spent with the birthday boy and my mother in law.

Now a letter to the birthday boy. 

Dear Jarrett, 

Happy birthday honey! We are both officially 27! Woo hoo! I cannot believe that we are now considered in our late 20's and that we are basically pushing our 30's! Insane, babe! We met and started dating when we had just turned 18. My how time flys! I just want to say that I am so proud of you for all of your accomplishments! You have done so many amazing things since you entered the Air Force and I am so honored to be apart of it all. You are the best husband, Staff Sergeant, fur daddy and future father to our children and I cannot wait for the future with you. Thank you for choosing me as your wife even though I know I can be a lot to handle sometimes!  No matter how tough our military life may be at times, I will follow you to the ends of the earth! That will never change! I love you, honey! Happy birthday once again! 

Friday Five

Happy Friday y'all! Please excuse the fact that I did not post over the last couple of weeks. I have been SO busy since Jarrett left for Florida, but now that he is back I have a little more time to get things done and focus on the blog. I promise to start posting regularly again as I find my balance between working full time and my blog. It is exhausting working full time and having to take care of this massive house and two crazy needy dogs while Jarrett is gone. I am also so busy with getting the house ready for my MIL's visit tomorrow. I am so excited to finally have some family here in Alaska, but I am a perfectionist when it comes to having visitors and I want everything to be perfect. Okay, enough rambling. On to Friday Five.

1. So, a couple weekends ago I had to go to the ER because I had a massive bladder infection. I have yet to post about this issue because it is not something I really like to talk about, but I finally feel like I have the courage to talk about it on here. For those of you that really know me, you know that I have battled infections for years and years. I have been through so many tests and all my doctors have determined that there is nothing wrong with me accept that I am just prone to infections. With knowing how prone I am to them, it took me making some positive changes. I changed my diet and the way that I did certain things I have been able to manage the infections and I had not had one in over two years until last weekend. I have been eating and drinking very poorly while developing other bad habits since we moved to Alaska. I knew that it would catch up to me at some point and it did. Now I am on a mission to get back to eating and drinking healthier while getting back to those good habits again. I started drinking my Plexus Slim pink drink on Monday and I already feel myself not having those usual cravings for soda, coffee and tea. These are drinks that can trigger infections and I hope to cut them out completely very soon!

I will be doing a post soon on bladder infections because it is a problem that has developed more and more over the years in many woman and I want to educate women on what they can do to keep themselves healthier and keep these infections away. I use to think that I was the only one that suffered through these, but clearly it is a problem that a woman will deal with sooner or later in her life.

2. With starting my Plexus Slim pink drink,  of course getting healthier and cutting out those certain drinks and foods is my main concern, but I also want to lose a little weight and ton up. I have gained almost ten pounds since moving to Alaska and apparently it is not shocking. A lot of people gain weight when they move here and I guess it could be due to the fact that Starbucks is everywhere you turn, it's dark all the time in the winter so people get depressed, plus it's a little depressing when the temperature is negative fifteen. With my Plexus drink, I am hoping it will help me to curb those cravings of soda, sweet tea and coffee drinks. Maybe it will even help me to curb those sweet treat cravings. We shall see! 

3. My dad works for Perdue Farms and recently they have come out with an animal line called Full Moon. Before they came out with the line my dad would send me samples for the dogs to try. Oh man did they love the samples! Leo is VERY picky about the treats that he eats and I was so glad that he loved these treats especially since they were from his Gampaw! I was very excited when I learned that the treats were now in stores! Recently, my dad mailed some more treats to the dogs. They are way too spoiled. They ate both bags of treats within a day and a half. I've never seen them go through a bag of treats like that before. My dogs love them plus they are really healthy for them. Full Moon dog treats are USDA approved human grade meat and are cooked in the Perdue Farms kitchens using only 100% all natural ingredients. You can find these treats in your local Walmart store. I also encourage all pet owners to check out their website at fullmoonpet.com. 

4. My little Austyn will be turning one this month and of course I had to spoil her. You've seen me talk about this sweet girl many times on here and I just love her to pieces. It is still exciting that one of my best friends since middle school is a mom. It is hard to believe that we are all at that point in our lives where we are getting married and having babies. Crazy. And now most of these babies are turning one and two and so on. These babies are growing up way too fast. I tell ya though, there is nothing like shopping for a little girl turning one. I had a blasts shopping for her and putting her box together to ship. I hate having to miss out on her growing up and I guess I am trying to make up for it by spoiling her. 

5. It feels so wonderful to have Jarrett home again. I know he was only gone for three weeks, but it seemed like a lifetime. In the military, even a week seems like a lifetime. He ended up coming home on Monday instead of Saturday. I worked all day Monday then headed straight to the airport to pick him up. I also had Tuesday off from work so it worked out perfectly with him coming home on Monday. It feels so good to have my family together again. More than anything I missed all of our couch cuddling sessions. Those are the best. At one point all four of us were cuddling on the couch together and it was pure perfection. I live for moments like that. 

For your weekend and week ahead, I will leave you with a picture of my husband wearing a snake. I may or may not have ran away from him like a scared little girl. I am not ashamed! Ha!

Friday Five: Leo and Lucy Edition

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful week. My week was good except for Jarrett leaving for a few weeks, but all of us military wives know that it could be so much worse. I will take my two and a half weeks gladly and be thankful even though I already miss him so much. Since he left two days ago, the puppies have been just a tad bit rebellious and have been driving me a little crazy. 

1. Since Jarrett left I have been coming home for lunch everyday to check on the pups. Yesterday, I came home for lunch and this is what I saw from Lucy's crate. Now, usually she's perfectly fine in her crate and she never chews on her bed. I guess that is over and I guess she is mad about her daddy leaving. She tore her bed all up in pieces. This picture does not even do it justice. I basically had to vacuum the entire family room. Needless to say, I was livid when I came home and the rest of her bed went to the dumpster. Nice Lucy. Real nice. 

2. This happens too whenever Jarrett leaves. Leo likes to go crazy with the food and water bowls. He started this years ago and now he has Lucy's bowls to fling all over the place too. Sometimes I find the bowls in the most odd places. I once found them under the couch, under the kitchen table and I once found one of the bowls upstairs. I am very tempted to try and film him throughout the day to see what he really does. I bet it would be a hilarious video to watch. Lucy doesn't seem to mind it though. As you can see, she'll eat the food regardless of whether it is in her bowl or on the floor. 

3. I know, I know. Look at that face. How could I be mad at him. I was pretty mad when he did it yesterday, but today I just laughed and took pictures. I have no clue how to get him to stop doing this. It's like his signature thing to do when he realizes his daddy is gone. I love Leo to death, but I am getting just a wee bit tired of cleaning up his messes. He might be cute, but he is one messy boy. 

4. And then there are sweet moments like getting kisses from my baby girl that make all the puppy chaos all worth it in the end. I came home from work today and of course both puppies were all wound up and ready to play. Once they have played and chased each other around the house seven billion times, they calm down and want to cuddle with mommy. I think they are finally realizing just how stressed I have been since Jarrett left. I know it's only two and a half weeks, but I have so much going on and I am so crazy busy. I get into a routine and that routine changes a lot when Jarrett is gone. I guess I just want the puppies to act like perfect angels for me when I get home from work so that they do not add to my stress. For those of you that are dog owners, you know that won't always be the case, but when they are all calm down and all they want is to be by your side, that is what makes all the hectic moments worth it. That is when my stress level goes down.

5. And then there is this gem. After I got home from work, it decided to get even colder and a lovely blizzard came with the temperature drop. I decided to lay down and watch a movie since I definitely wasn't going to go out in all that crap. At one point I realized that the dogs were very quite and then I noticed that they were both on the top of the couch watching the snow fall together. My heart melted when I took this picture. How perfect are these two together? These little moments remind me that I am a great fur mommy and that I am going to be a great mommy when it is these two and a new born baby to take care of during a TDY or deployment.