Our drive to Alaska Part 2

Our day off in North Dakota on day five was so perfect. We slept in until about 10:30, lounged around the room for a couple hours and then got ready to roam around town all day. We found the Air Force base in Minot and took a couple pictures as we drove by it. We then found this awesome store called The Boot Barn where you could buy any and all types of cowboy boots and outdoors boots. Jarrett and I have been saying for the longest time that we wanted to buy some legit cowboy boots and we finally did! After we bought our boots we did a little more grocery shopping then grabbed lunch. We then came back to the hotel and did a ton of laundry. It felt so good to get caught up on laundry especially when you are traveling. The only bad thing about doing laundry was having to jam pack our suit cases again. I'm pretty sure I brought way too many clothes with me, but hey what's a girl to do when she is traveling across the country for two weeks then probably living in a hotel for another month (or so we thought then)? Yep, I packed a ton. After doing laundry, we basically just relaxed some more in our hotel room. Out of all the hotels that we stayed in, this one was my favorite. I could have taken another day off just to sleep all day in that room, but we really needed to get going again.

 

Once day six came around, we were well rested and ready to cross the Canadian border! We were about an hour from the border where we stayed the night, so it didn't take long at all to get there. Before we went through the border, we decided to stop at a Duty Free station to exchange some our our currency for Canadian currency. I'm not gonna lie, it felt so awesome to spend Canadian money the first time. I even felt cool exchanging our money when the clerk handed me the Canadian money the first time. I know, what a nerd I can be. It is just so neat to me to have money from another country and see how different it is from your own money even if it is the same amount of money. Canadian bills are so neat. Okay, enough with the Canadian money! So, after we exchanged our money, it was time to head through the border. I was pretty nervous because sometimes Jarrett and I have really bad travel luck. Lets just say that we have had two failed honeymoons and we have still yet to have one after almost four years of marriage, but that's a story or blog post for another day! Basically, we seem to hit disaster all the time. I just knew in my mind that somehow there would be a problem getting into Canada and I was right!

 

We pull up to the gate and of course the guy asks us a ton of questions with his straight forward face and attitude. Border patrol make me so nervous and he kept staring at me all weird like. We then think we are good to go until he ask if there are any fire arms in the vehicle. Of course, we know you cannot bring fire arms into Canada and we did not. We had all our guns shipped with the rest of our belongings. I'm not sure how, but the fact that our guns were shipped with our stuff did not set well with this officer. He needed all of our proof from the moving company that our guns were shipped and then proceeded to ask us more questions regarding the guns even after we showed him everything that we needed. Finally, he got so frustrated with us that he just let us through. It was the weirdest thing. It didn't make sense to me. We did not have the guns on us, but that did not seem enough. He didn't even ask about Leo being in the car. He was so concerned with the whole gun thing. Oh well though. We made it through Canada and that was all the mattered to me at that moment. I can't even imagine all the things that we would have had to do had we not made it through Canada. That would have thrown off our whole entire plan, but we were very blessed in that moment.

Friday's Letters

Dear Husband, Can you believe that we made that drive? We did it, babe! We drove here for real! Can you believe that we have been in Alaska for three weeks now too? Where does the time go? And all that we have accomplished in those three weeks! My goodness I am exhausted and I know you are too! Even though I miss home some days, I feel so blessed to live here and we wouldn't be living here if it wasn't for you! Thank you for everything! Thank you for putting up with me in the car for two weeks and thank you for putting up with me now when I have "those kind of days!" You are the best and I love you! Dear Leo, Mommy and daddy are so proud of you for doing so well on the trip here! I really really hope your lip gets better soon too! You are doing your best to adjust to this new life and these new surroundings, but I wonder if your health is still not what it was before we left. Your tummy still gets a little messed up every now and then, your lip is healing slow and with all the rain we've had here lately, it is hard to get you to go potty in the backyard sometimes. I hope you're okay! We've already brought you to the vet twice since we've been here and we hope we don't need to again any time soon! Stay healthy little bud! Dear Alaska, Wow, you are different than the Eastern Shore! It's much cooler here, there are mountains everywhere, you are four hours behind, there are wildlife everywhere and it gets dark at midnight pretty much! Hopefully I will adjust to the whole darkness and crazy winter thing that you get going on. You will just have to be patient with me when that time comes. Dear Maryland and Virginia friends and family, Wahhh I miss you all so much! I hate being 4,000 miles away from all of you, but your love and support of us keeps me going through this transition! Thank you to each and every one of you for making this distance a little more bearable every day! Hey who knows, before we know it we could be sent back to Langley AFB after our four years here. You never know. You will just have to be patient to find out what

Our drive to Alaska Part 1

So I have definitely been lacking in posting about our four part drive to Alaska! I meant to begin doing these posts like a week and a half ago, but have been so busy and wanted to put other blog posts first. Without further ado, here we go!

 



Basically, Jarrett and I left Virginia early August and said "see you later" to everyone there before spending some time with the rest of our family and friends in Maryland. We spent a little less than a week in Maryland and somehow managed to squeeze in pretty much everyone before leaving for good. I still cannot believe how many people that we visited with/visited us in that short time. When Wednesday came, I was ready. I was ready because I had seen everyone, we said our "see you laters", everyone wished us luck, and I finally felt at peace with the day actually being here. I thought I would dread that Wednesday, but it turns out, I didn't. I thought I would dread the moment that I really left my mom, but I didn't. I mean, it was hard. Very hard deep down inside, but I somehow pulled through and so did she. There were not a billion and one tears, so that made us both feel better.

Our truck was packed from back to front with two months worth of our belongings. There was so much stuff that I can't believe that we fit it all in there. Thank goodness for the awesome truck cover that Jarrett remembered to get. We were able to keep everything organized better that way, plus our stuff would not get wet when it rained. Whew. Then came Leo. We were very worried about how he would act on this trip. He is known to get car sick and sometimes he can be very uneasy in a moving vehicle. We decided to buy a pet calming pill and add it in with his Dramamine that we usually gave him on car rides to Maryland. It always worked pretty well for him. The combo of pills worked wonders on him the first day and then for the rest of the drive. We had a perfect little angel the whole entire way. Another whew!! Our little boy surprised us big time with just how strong he was. All he did was cuddle up to us and sleep every day. Of course we stopped every two hours to take a break and let him out. We got into a routine with him and it all worked out much better than we had imagined. All and all, it took us eleven days to drive from Salisbury, Maryland to Anchorage, Alaska! We made great time because the military usually predicts about thirteen days, so they give you thirteen days of pay for your drive and whatever you have left over you keep. We made great time even though we took a day off to rest and unwind in North Dakota.

Day One consisted of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Basically we drove about eight to ten hours a day with some days only being six to seven hours long. We started out strong the first half of the drive so we could have some shorter days. Our first night, we stopped at a Best Western hotel in Ohio. Of course when you're traveling with a dog, you have to find pet friendly hotels. As long as we were still in the US, we would just book our hotels as we got close to a stopping point for the day. After our first day of driving, we really felt good about the trip because we were making good time already and Leo was doing so well. On day two, we drove the rest of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Little did we know that the hotel that we booked was smack dab in the middle of Chicago!! Although it was nice to get to see Chicago so close up, by the next morning we were ready to get out of that city. Way too much hustle and bustle for us. On day three we drove the rest of Illinois, Wisconsin and stayed in Minnesota for the night where we did some more grocery shopping to add to our cooler. I loved Minnesota! We stayed in St. Pauls and we loved it! On day four we drove the rest of Minnesota and drove a little further into North Dakota about an hour from the Canadian border where we stayed two nights in the nicest La Quinta Inn we've ever seen before. Our room was HUGE and we knew that we needed to take a day off to recharge and rest in that nice room.
 

Brooke's Wedding

The gazebo where Brooke and Matt got married! Love it!

The bridesmaids getting ready to get their hair done

A toast with the bridesmaids before go time

My beautiful best friend and her amazing dad

Mr. Kieth giving his daughter away

The cupcake tower wedding cake! Looks delicious!

The back of Brooke's dress! Stunning!

The wedding party

The bride and groom with their mini groomsman!

*These pictures were taken from Brooke's Facebook page and not taken by me because I could not be there! :(

 

 I HATED not being able to be in my best friend, Brooke's, wedding on Saturday! I spent the whole day being sad about it. Lets rewind shall we! Last year a little before Christmas I believe, another one of my best friends got engaged! I was so excited for and she could not be marrying a better man than my awesome buddy Matt. It just so happened that Matt lived in the house right next to our other best friend, Erica. Brooke, Erica and I have been three peas in a pod for a long time now, so it was natural that Brooke would be over at Erica's house a lot. Of course, one thing led to another and Brooke and Matt began dating. After dating for a little over two years, Matt popped the question. I was so excited because I knew I would be asked to be a bridesmaid. Not long after the engagement happened, I received a text from Brooke asking me to be a bridesmaid along side with Erica and of course I said YES! As a Christmas gift, Brooke even gave us all a sea shell ornament with our name on it and bridesmaid written underneath our name. Adorable idea! Little did I know that months later, I would not be able to fulfill my duties as bridesmaid because of our orders to Alaska. By the time we had received the orders, I had already bought my dress, of course. I could not get my money back either, but it's okay because I have this gorgeous coral dress that just needs a little alteration and it will be ready to wear to any formal event. Viola!

 

After receiving the orders and knowing that we had to be in Alaska before the wedding just broke my heart. I felt as if I was ruining her wedding day! I should have been there for her. I should have found a way to be there, but you know in the military that it is hard to commit to things sometimes. I did not want to commit and tell her I would find a way and then not be able to find a way at all. I could not disappoint her a second time even though she understood very well as to why I could not be there. Even though I could not be in the wedding or at it, I was able to attend her bridal shower that you can see here and also her bachelorette party that is here! I'm so glad that I could be there for her in some way!

 

I hated how I felt on her wedding day. I am four thousand miles away from everyone that I love and many people that I love were together at the wedding without me. My mom was there and it was hard for her to be there without me. She actually felt guilty for being there knowing that I was sitting at home so far away, but I was so glad she was there. It made me feel a little bit better knowing she was there and knowing that she had a wonderful time. A couple hours after the actual ceremony, I found myself stalking Facebook like a crazy woman waiting for those tagged pictures to pop up on her page. One by one people started posting and tagging and I'll admit, I got a little teary eyed looking at those pictures, the pictures that I should have been in. When I caught myself feeling sad again, I immediately stopped, took a breath and realized that it was not about me and whether I was there or not. It was about my best friend marrying the love of her life. She was not mad at me for not being there. She knew I loved her and that I was thinking of her. I did not ruin her wedding. I finally stopped feeling sorry for myself and started being happy. I was happy for her. I was happy that she was surrounded by tons of friends and family. She had a beautiful and heart felt wedding day and I was so glad for her. And because she is such a wonderful friend, she had the wedding recorded for me and will be sending me the CD as soon as she can! I cannot wait to watch it!

 

Our first real house

Top: Our first apartment/town home together (it was a shoebox)
Bottom: Our new base house (isn't it beautiful?)

Our last summer in Virginia
Top: The summer wreath I made for the door of our old town home
Bottom: My patio at the old town home

The new house all ready for Fall!
Top: The Fall wreath on the door of our new home
Bottom: My mother in law and I switched patio sets
before we moved so we would have something a little bigger!
It goes absolutely perfect with the house!

I LOVE our new house so much! It still amazes me that it is ours and that we were able to get it and move in right away! Insane! This is how I pictured everything going down: We would get here during the weekend, go to the housing office on Monday to see when we would get a home, them tell us that they don't know and that we would just have to wait and stay on the list until further notice, us go to TLF and end up being there forever and eventually getting tired of the hotels again, end up renting an apartment off base and then much much later on getting a crappy house in a not so good neighborhood. I know, I just sounded like a synical person, but that is really how I thought things would turn out. Not that good things don't happen to me, it's just that there always has to be a problem. Nothing ever ever comes easy for me no matter what. I did not expect this housing ordeal to go smooth and easy AT ALL, but it did in a huge way. When we got to Anchorage we had an off base hotel reservation and we had gone ahead and made our TLF reservations a month prior, so we were already prepared to stay in the base hotel for as long as we had to. On Monday we decided to just go to the housing office to try to find out when we would be offered a house. Jarrett figured it would not take long at all so I just stayed in the truck with Leo since it was raining really hard that day. Jarrett then texted me five minutes later telling me that it might take a while, so I still sat in the car with Leo and waited. About 30 minutes after he texted me here he comes outside with a house key in his hand! I almost fainted because I knew what that house key in his hand meant for us. We were just offered a house!

 

We were offered a house even though we were high up on the waiting list because we had gotten to the base two weeks earlier than Jarrett had to report. We wanted to get here early and not mess around so we could get settled in and learn our way around town. Little did we know there was a bigger reason why God got us here sooner than expected! He sure does work in mysterious ways! The housing office gave us the keys to go look at our new home. Our home was in one of the nicest and newer neighborhoods! I have been dreaming of living in a real house for forever! Practically all of my friends and their husbands or boyfriend have bought a house already together and I was always so envious of them even though I was so happy for them at the same time. When you're in the military, you can't just go buy a house when you are only in one place for four years at a time. It's not that Jarrett and I could not afford to buy a nice house, it's just that we were logical in the fact that we would not be living in Virginia very long at all. We knew better than to buy a house with the possibility of us being transferred! Although I did love our first little town home together and we were very blessed to have it, I could not help but dream of more for us.

 

On the day we first stepped foot on base, I noticed houses everywhere! Big houses, small houses, run down houses, beautiful houses, everywhere we turned! I told myself that I would love whichever house they gave us no matter how big or small. I would turn it into our home for the next four years no matter what it looked like. I just wanted a place to call home. I dreamed of us getting one of those big beautiful houses though. I dreamed of getting one of those houses, all of our belongings arriving to it, me decorating it, hanging our pictures in it, having friends and family in it and raising a family in it. Little did I know I was literally dreaming a dream that came true. After we were given the house key for the first time, I was so nervous as we drove around trying to find our new address. I felt so materialistic wanting one of those big houses as much as I did. I didn't want to care what our house looked like, but deep down inside, we all want a beautiful place to call home. Once we pulled into our new neighborhood, excitement came over me like nothing I had ever felt before. We were really getting one of those big beautiful houses! We pulled into our driveway for the first time and all I said to Jarrett was "OMG this is ours, babe!" Jarrett couldn't believe it either. Three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a living room, a family room, a fenced in backyard for Leo and a garage for a second vehicle! In true minion fashion..."WHATTTTTTT?" Yep, little minions went off in my head when I walked into the house for the first time!

 

The housing office wanted us to look around the house and make sure it was what we wanted and that there were no problems because if we did not like the house, they would give us a second house offer. We quickly looked at each room and scrambled out of the house back to the housing office. We couldn't get there fast enough to tell the office that we would take it. Before we knew it we had accepted the offer, signed all the paperwork and moved in two days later with all of our belongings. Although we did not technically buy a house, we felt like we did and we cannot wait to actually buy a house some day. If we stay in Alaska longer than four years of which we could possibly, we will buy a house here. If we do and we end up being sent elsewhere we will still keep it and lease it out to others. We could also use it as a vacation home because we definitely know that we will want to vacation here after we move. The possibilities are endless. For now, we are all unpacked with everything beginning to be in it's rightful place. The only thing left to do is decorate for Fall, hang the rest of the pictures, buy furniture for the family room and get a guest bedroom set up for upcoming visitors. Jarrett said we are checking things off the list one by one: new house, two jobs, new car and now he says it's time to get pregnant(in a just joking away)! Haha, I told him to let me find my full time career here and then we can really talk babies! I mean, we do have a huge house now for both another puppy and babies! Thank goodness!