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?

I'M BACK with a four month update

Well, hello there everyone! I am BACK after nearly four months away! It feels so good to be finally back in the blogging world. I hated being away from the blogosphere, but I felt it necessary to take a step back and focus on my new job for a little. Now that I have been in my job for over four months now, I have really gotten the hang of things. Now that I have found a balance between working a real full time position and adjusting to my new life in Alaska, it is time for me to balance my blog as well. So, here I am. I am back. For now, I will take it slow with only two or three posts a week, but I hope to really be able to balance even better soon and get back to posting five to six posts a week. 

If heard from many people and even bloggers that if you love something enough, you make time for it. They are so right! I have been tossing and turning about when to come back or even how to come back. I decided I loved blogging enough to never give it up. Working full time and putting 100% into making my blog what I want it to be will be hard and very time consuming, but I am so committed to balancing everything perfectly! I am going to start planning out my posts and writing all of my posts for the week on my days off. I know that once I develop a balancing system that works, everything will all work out. 

So with this come back post, I will just give you all a little four month update because a lot has happened since my last post.

1. I started my full time position with Alaska USA Federal Credit Union last October and still four months later I love my job. I actually ended up staying with Hallmark until the end of the year, so for two months I worked both jobs. I ended up leaving Hallmark at the end of December because I was so exhausted and never got to spend time with Jarrett on the weekends. Now that I just have my full time job, I feel so blessed to be working for a great company that I will be able to have a wonderful career with. I love the branch that I work at and I love my supervisors and co-workers. I am well on my way to promotions in the branch and higher positions within the company, and I cannot wait to see myself grow in the company. I have been trying so hard to just be patient for the right job and I have finally found the right place for me. It also feels amazing to finally be making a real income. I must admit, it feels so nice to be able to pay bills and have a lot of money left over instead of barely having anything left. I can now put plenty of money in savings, pay down bills more and buy more stuff for myself. It's so wonderful. 

2. One of the biggest things that you guys missed out on was the arrival of our second puppy, Lucy Hayman. Lucy is a mix of German Shepherd, Husky and Lab. We adopted her from the Alaska Dog and Puppy Rescue and are so grateful that we did. She has been the best addition to our family! Her and Leo have also gotten along much better than I ever thought they would. Jarrett and I have also adjusted just fine to having two dogs. I thought it would be a huge struggle, but everything feels so normal with two dogs running around. Now, the struggle will come when it is two dogs and a baby that we are adjusting to, but that will be a post for another day! For now, I feel so blessed to finally have a little girl in our family to even it out. She is the sweetest puppy and I can tell just how happy she is every single day! 

3. We experienced our first Alaskan winter already and it actually wasn't as bad as we thought. It started snowing in November and it has been snowing ever since. It snows pretty much every week and I cannot lie, at first it was weird to be dealing with all this snow and so early in November, but now we are pretty use to it. We're from the Eastern Shore of Maryland where we'll go a whole winter without snow or we'll get a little snow but not until like February or March. Here in Alaska, you experience a real winter. It snows when it's supposed to snow, but it also sticks around for a while. We probably have a little over three feet of snow on the ground that has accumulated since November. 

It also stays darker longer in the winter here. From about November until January the sun came up around 10am and went down around 3pm. That's five hours a day of sunlight. It was the weirdest thing. Now the sun is going backwards and pretty soon the sun will be up most of the time. We'll need to purchase blackout curtains because the sun won't go down until 12am and even then the sun won't go completely down. It's crazy! I'm just glad we've adjusted to the winter and the darkness/daylight. I thought I'd go crazy with all the darkness, but I survived even though it made me tired all the time. I have just decided to embrace each new thing that Alaska has to offer. 

4. I was really worried about how I would adjust to our first Thanksgiving and Christmas away. Even though I felt a little sad on both days, I survived them as well. Jarrett and I have decided to create our own holiday traditions since we are away from home. On Thanksgiving, we cooked our very first Thanksgiving dinner all on our own(with a little help from my mother in law on speaker phone)! We cooked our first turkey with my mother in law's guidance and it turned out amazing! We were so proud of ourselves! That fact that we made this huge traditional meal together was just wonderful. We spent the rest of the day face timing with everyone, just relaxing together and then putting up Christmas decorations. On Christmas Day, we cooked a delicious ham dinner and then went to the movies. We've decided that each Thanksgiving and Christmas we will cook a big meal and then go to the movies. I cannot wait for this Christmas because we are planning on flying home for a week. Although we won't be able to fly home every Christmas or even every year, we will do what we can to fly home as much as possible.  

5. I celebrated my 27th birthday and my first birthday away from everyone. My birthday fell on a Monday, so Jarrett took me out the Saturday night before. Jarrett took me to a steak restaurant called Sullivan's Steakhouse for dinner and they gave me a yummy free dessert. Jarrett got me a few gift cards to my favorite places as my gift. We are at the point where we hardly ever leave any gifts to buy for one another because we both always buy what we want. Gift cards are just the easiest thing to get. I love getting them because I can go buy what I want plus I just love going shopping! 

Monday morning when I got to work, my boss had two peanut butter and chocolate pies on the table and had spelled out my name in Reese cups. I loved it and the pies were delicious! All in all, I worked on my birthday so it felt like a normal day, but then Jarrett got off work earlier than usual, so I at least got to spend a little time with him on my birthday. We do not get to see each other very much during the week due to our opposite schedules, so I was ecstatic to get to spend a tiny bit of time with him before I went to bed for the night. Next up is Leo and Jarrett's birthdays! I cannot wait to plan something for my boys! 

6. The past four months I have also been working really hard on making our house a home. I have been working on one room at a time with my main focus on the bedrooms. We bought a new bed set for our bed and then we got a full size bed from one of my Hallmark co-workers and moved the old bed set to that bed. Now all we need is a little bit of furniture to go with the full size bed. Eventually everything in our bedroom will move to the larger guest bedroom and we will purchase a king bed and all new bedroom set and furniture. That is the goal for now. I want to get the bedrooms all done and then I want to work really hard on the living room and family room which will require many more furniture purchases and finally getting rid of our torn up couches. Leo and Lucy have holes all over the couches and I have done everything from buying tons of new pillows and throws to cover the holes up. The couches do not look too bad with the new pillows and throws, but I would first like to really get these dogs trained better in regards to chewing on stuff so that they do not ruin our new furniture. I will definitely keep you guys up to date on our house coming together. 

It feels so good to be writing again and it feels so good to have updated you guys on everything. If you follow me on social media, you probably already knew most of these updates, but it feels amazing to share them on the blog. Our life in Alaska is finally feeling normal. Life finally feels normal again. I never stop missing my family and friends, but we are truly making a life for ourselves here. More and more every day I realize just how lucky we are to be living this life here. 

Now that I am finding balance in my life again, I want to learn how to balance my blog with my hectic schedule. I want to be that organized blogger that puts 110% into her blog no matter how busy her schedule is. I want to learn how to handle everything with ease. I promised myself that I was not going to give up on something that I love because I was too busy or too tired to commit to it. Blogging is way too important to me and I will make time for it. Soon you will see me organizing and planning out my posts each week so I can post regularly and you will see a new look to the blog because I can finally afford to pay someone to help me with the design. There are other aspects that I hope to take on with my blog, but for now, I am taking one step at a time. Before I know it, I will be that blogger that I always wanted to be.

Life lately through Instagram

Being silly with Leo / Leo eyeballing my silliness / great deals from BBW / a comforting quote from my Diane / our future family (three boys and a girl) / a blog post about Christmas (yay) / Leo's big yawn / a sleepy boy / a blog post about the company AAFMAA

A blog post about being an Overcomer / Leo and the printer / Leo loves to lay in clean laundry / Leo falls asleep in the weirdest places / yummy IHOP stuffed French toast / a great deal from verabradley.com / good morning from the doxie / a blog post about traveling with your pets / a blog post about Fall must haves (Vera Bradley edition)

Family snuggle session / sleeping on mommy's cheek / passed out / happy family / a Friday Five blog post / a Friday's letters blog post / a yummy after dinner dessert / a blog post about God's recent blessings / writing and sending thank you notes on my day off

Since getting to Alaska two months ago, life has finally slowed down a bit. We are settling in just fine in our house and getting use to our surroundings. Leo is also doing pretty good and settling right in with us! Jarrett and I are both very busy working full time and I am starting my full time position at Alaska USA FCU in a week while maintaining a part time position at Hallmark. Once I start this job I will be even busier, but I love it so much! Since we have been so busy, we have not had much time to really get out and go site seeing, but hopefully we will soon! We have though found some really good restaurants, awesome malls to go shopping in, sweet movie theaters and some delicious frozen yogurt and ice cream places all really close to the base. Also, we know our way around base pretty well and all in all really enjoy the luxury of living on base. Once we get a really nice day with great weather, we will drive around and get plenty of pictures of the base. I cannot wait to really see Alaska when we have the time and take some amazing pictures! I also cannot wait to share them with you guys, so please stay tuned for some more exciting Instagram pictures real soon!

 

Traveling with a pet 101

When we first got our orders to Alaska I had a million thoughts running through my head and most of them were about Leo and how he would deal with the long move and transition. Like literally my mothering instincts kicked in with how would our little puppy deal with moving so far away. I know I am not a "mom" yet, but I am a fur mommy and Leo really makes me feel like a real mom especially during the move and even now living here. Today I want to talk about traveling a long way with a pet and share my advice about my experience with traveling 4,000 miles with our little guy!

1. Use Dramamine and calming pills for car sickness. As I've said before, Leo gets car sick a lot. He has ever since we brought him home. Our vet recently told us to try Dramamine tablets to use on our trips to Maryland. They actually worked pretty well for him for except he would still whine from time to time. We then found calming pills for animals on long car rides. Our vet said we could try those with the Dramamine tablets to see if they would keep him calmer. I hated having to give him pills on the trip, but they both really did their job. Leo barely whined at all the whole way. He would either sleep or lay there and play with his toys. Perfect little angel. I would however talk to your vet before trying any of these techniques. Every dog and animal has a different body and you do not want to give your dog any over the counter medication without consulting your vet first.

 

2. Use a pet seat belt if necessary. If you have a dog that likes to climb in your lap when you drive, you might want to try a pet seat belt. Ours worked wonders for us! We use to crate Leo in the car, but it enforced his car sickness so we stopped using the crate on small drives and our trips to Maryland. We then use to just let him roam free in our laps, but then he always wanted to get in Jarrett's lap while he was driving and no matter how many times I pulled him off of Jarrett's lap he would still try to climb over to him. Hence the seat belt. We bought it, tried it and loved it. We took our F-150 truck on the trip so we were able to have Leo in the middle of us with the seat belt on. The seat belt kept Leo in place while being comfortable at the same time. He didn't fight it or try to get out of it. He basically just laid down and went to sleep.

3. Make your dog comfortable. I don't know about your dog or pet, but Leo gets a little whiny in the car sometimes because he is so stressed out thinking that he is going to the vet or that we are leaving him. This trip, we made sure to make him as comfortable as possible so that he was not as stressed as usual. We brought his favorite blanket and wrapped him up in it and gave him a couple of his favorite toys to keep him a little busy. These favorite items really kept him happy and comfortable the whole way. With his favorite items, his seat belt and a little medicine to help with sickness, he was wonderful on the trip! 

 

4. Check to see if your dog is allergic to anything. This has become a huge deal for us. Before we moved, we bought some extra food, treats and more supplies to have just in case. We also bought silicone travel bowls thinking that they would be easier for Leo to eat and drink out of. Well, although they were much easier for him to use and for us to store in his travel bag, they were the worst thing for him. We found at later on that Leo's lip sore was caused by an allergic reaction from the silicone bowls. The sore progressed over the trip and we didn't even notice it until we got to Alaska. We didn't think much of it and continued to use the travel bowls in our new house because they had good suction to the kitchen floor and he could not spill them over. The sore got worse. After three vet visits for his lip, the last vet mentioned the bowls and that we should return him to his normal metal bowls. We changed his bowls and got rid of the silicone ones. His lip has gotten so much better since then. His lip is just about back to normal again! Thank Goodness!

5. Try to make stops every two hours. Obviously we had to make a lot of stops on this crazy long drive. We decided to stop every two hours not only for us to take a breather, get a snack and go to the bathroom, but for Leo to do the same thing. We wanted him to have plenty of potty breaks and plenty of time to walk around and get some exercise. We felt so bad having to have him all couped up in the truck, but he didn't seem to mind. Depending on how long your trip is, you can stop at different times that work better for you. If you need to stop with your pet every hour then definitely do it. We still made really good time with all of our stops and even with the day that we took off. You have to do what is best for you and your pet to make the drive more comfortable for everyone.

 

6. If traveling through another country make sure you have all of your documents. Make sure you plan a visit to your vet within a month of driving through another country. You must make sure your pet is up to date on all their shots and that they are cleared to cross into another country whether you are just passing through, taking a vacation there or actually moving to another country. You must have a pet health certificate clearing them for the drive and also all of their medical records. I also recommend crating them while going through customs just so they are not a distraction to the driver while speaking with the customs officer. We had no issues getting Leo through Canada and I am glad we were prepared.

I hope my experiences have helped and prepared you for traveling if you plan to travel with a pet soon. These are just my experiences and I'm sure we all have our ways of preparing our animals for a long trip. At the end of the day, you always want to consult your vet before going on a long trip. Get as many tips from them as you can. Eventually they get to know your pet just as well as you do, so they know what is best for them.

What kinds of pets have you traveled with before?

What are some of yout pet experiences in the car?

Does anyone else have pets that have had allergic reactions to silicone?

 

Our drive to Alaska part 4

I think during our last couple of days on the road were where I took the most pictures! During those last two days were where we saw the most beautiful scenes we would ever see on the drive. Mountains with a little bit of snow on top, beautiful lakes and rivers, wildlife just hanging out, the sun shining down on the lakes and rivers, mountains reflecting off of those lakes and rivers and the list goes on. We saw so much during those last two days. My favorite part was actually getting out of Yukon Territory and entering Alaska officially! We of course stopped at the Welcome to Alaska sign and took some pictures. There were other couples and families out there too taking pictures so we were able to get some people to take pictures of us. It was so surreal seeing that sign and knowing that we were actually in Alaska. We had made it to our new state. Not too long after entering Alaska came entering back into the U.S. Yes, technically, when you enter Alaska, you are not in the U.S. yet. It's a little weird, but a tiny part of Alaska is not in the U.S. About twenty minutes after entering Alaska came the U.S border finally. We were hoping that we would not have any problems entering back into our own country. After all the trouble with the Canada border, we came fully prepared a little more. This time was smooth sailing. The border patrol officer was very nice and we went right on through to the rest of Alaska. Whew it felt good to be back in our own country. Although it was an experience driving through Canada, we missed America!
 

After getting to the border, we had about an hour left until we got to our final stop of the trip. We stayed in a city called Tok, Alaska. It was a very small town and we ended up staying in a hotel in an RV Park. That was definitely an experience too haha! It was a neat little RV park/Motel though and the people that ran it were pretty nice. The only thing I hated about that town is that they had bees everywhere. I mean they were swarming around the truck and the outside of our room like it was nobody's business! If you really know me, you know I HATE bees! I have never been stung by one and I never intend to. Luckily, I didn't get stung of which I am surprised. Jarrett thought it was hilarious too that I was so scared of them. I might have also had a freak out moment outside of the room of which there were people outside that saw it. Jarrett may have also pretended that he didn't know me at that point haha! I wouldn't blame him though! If he had a freak out moment from the bees I would probably walk the other way too! haha! Any who! That night in Tok, Jarrett took me to this awesome restaurant called Fast Eddy’s! It was a nice restaurant for such a small little town. We both enjoyed a huge seafood feast! I got this dinner that included lots of shrimp, fish, clam strips, chicken, hush puppies and a baked potato! Jarrett got the Alaska king crab leg dinner! Oh man were those crab legs big! We had never seen crab legs that big up close. My wonderful hubby was also nice enough to give me some of the meat and oh boy it was good! After dinner we went to this huge gift shop right next to the restaurant. Jarrett bought me a couple of t-shirts and an Alaska key chain with my name on it. He also got a sticker for his truck that has the shape of Alaska on it. So cool!
 

That night in Tok, we slept like babies and woke the next morning ready to knock the last six hours of our trip out! We were so ready to be done driving! We drove and drove and drove and around 5'oclock in the evening, we had arrived in Anchorage, Alaska! Whew what a relief! We drove around town a little bit and then headed to our hotel for the next three nights! We called our family and friends and told them of the news that we had finally made it. Our families were so proud of us and it made us feel so wonderful to hear that our parents were so proud! The next morning we awoke in our new state. We couldn't wait to get out and drive around. We got up and immediately went winter clothes shopping. We got coats, gloves and hats! We also got some stuff for Leo. We then drove on our new base for the first time. We drove the whole base and found where Jarrett's new work was. We also drove through the neighborhoods to get a feel for the houses and where we could possibly be living. We loved the base automatically! It was our new home for the next 4+ years so how could we not love it? As you know already, on that Monday we got up early and went to the housing office to see where we were on the wait list for a house. About forty-five minutes after getting to the housing office, we were offered a house of which we fell in love with and accepted the offer. We moved in two days later and the rest is history!
 

Seeing all of those beautiful mountains and lakes made me realize just how lucky we were to be moving to Alaska let alone driving 4,000 miles to get there. We were accomplishing a dream that had been thought of for years. There were many times when Jarrett brought Alaska up to me as a possibility, but I never in a million years thought that it would happen. There we were. Two days away from our new home. We were almost done and we could not believe how far we had come. Till this day I still cannot believe that we did it. Every person I meet here in Alaska, I tell them that we drove here from Virginia and they are completely amazed by the thought. We are still amazed at ourselves and amazed out how much our life has changed over this past month since we got here! We have accomplished so much in such a small amount of time and we have 4+ years to accomplish so much more!