Drumroll, Please!

Wow everyone,

I can't believe I have been this neglectful!

I truly am sorry. 

We have been swept away by so much the past few months,

it's still hard to believe.

First of all, 

BE finished his program and I finally got to pin on those beautiful silver wings.

I don't think I've ever been so proud of anyone in my life!

We also found out we will be a very happy B-52 family!! 

I jumped up in tears when I realized that we had gotten our first choice.

I am so grateful that BE worked as hard as he did through this program

so that his scores would enable us to go where we wanted.

Then, just this week,

we got official notification that after his training

(which will be 8 months in Shreveport, Louisiana)

we will get to stay in Shreveport at Barksdale AFB long-term

instead of getting transferred to the other B-52 base in Minot, North Dakota.

My mom cried when I told her we would be staying close!

We also had our renewal of vows ceremony,

and it was so beautiful!

It was all I ever dreamed, and so so so much more,

probably because while we had all of our family and friends there,

we got to announce that

FINALLY....

WE ARE PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!

I still can't believe it myself.

I think we are both sincerely in shock,

mostly at just how absolutely HUGE God is

and how much more than us He knows. 

We had finally gotten in to see a reproductive endocrinologist,

which was booked 4 months out for a first appointment

(ridiculous)

so we had just decided to lay all our trying aside 

and fore-go all the methods our regular doctors had had us trying

and we said we would just pick back up with whatever the RE told us to do.

Then, days before our appointment,

we found out that we were pregnant. I was at work and went downstairs and had a tech draw blood for me as a favor, and sure enough, when she handed me the paper back,

I swear I expected the millionth negative result.

But there it was.

The most beautiful word I have ever seen.

Positive.

I literally fell to my knees in tears.

All I could do was sit there,

crying and praying with all my heart.

After so long,

all those tearful heartbroken months,

all those disappointing tests,

all our friends' announcements after a month or two of trying

(or not trying at all),

all those nights spent crying into the carpet,

begging God to just tell me why He wasn't making me a mother.

I was one.

To make it even more perfect than it already was,

guess when we are due?

Christmas Eve.

GOD IS GOOD. ALL THE TIME.

Sometimes I think He does it on purpose,

just to remind us of our place in the world.

And I'm so glad He knows better than I do :)

Trooppaws Giveaway Winner!

Congratulations to...

CHAMBANACHIK!!

She is the winner of my Trooppaws giveaway!

 I am so glad she won because she was a very faithful Tweeter!! 

 I am also very excited 

 because the husband and I are going to the Air Force ball tonight

 and it's always fun to get all gussied up

 and go out with friends,

 you know? :)

 Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!!

Oh, Wednesday

Well, today is back to Day One with the hubs - CSO school officially began for him bright and early this morning (the alarm went off around 0430 and I wanted to punch him), so I'm left to tackle my NCLEX-RN studying alone, which I thought would be a good thing but in reality has completely and totally killed my motivation with no one in the background like a second father telling me to STUDY! constantly. So Animal Cops Houston has been the majority of my morning lol (Buster watches tv if there are dogs on it, and we're all about some justice seeing as how he was a humane society dog himself). While my husband struggles to survive death by powerpoint, I am left to stare slack-faced at my computer screen for the rest of the day, and try to break it up with chores around the house as I go.

I am pretty excited to be going to see Winnie the Pooh in theaters this Friday - judge me all you want but I LOVE those old stories and can't wait to see what they did with it in movie form. You are never too old for Disney.

One week from today I FINALLY have my GYN appointment. Only took me over a month of fighting to get it. You would think being on your "week" for over a month would be considered slightly emergent - guess not. Luckily I have stopped (for longer than two days this time - WOOHOO!!) and so BE and I are back on the baby-making warpath. I am treating this like a personal battle against my own body - and trying to overcome my faith doubts in the process. It's hard seeing people like Casey Anthony and young adolescents having children and then look at us - married with a home, the finances to support it, and all the love in the world to give - and make sense of it. Sometimes it's easy to convince myself that either God has abandoned me or that he doesn't hear me when I fall on my face and pray. It's easy to waiver in faith when your body doesn't work "the way it's supposed to". Somehow I have to trust that he knows my heart and how badly I want this, and trust that he has the power to make it happen. Fingers crossed that he will.

Thoughts From The Hubs

Sometimes the things my husband says give me the best chuckle, and tonight was one of them. He sent me this picture of him with his plane out at IFS:

to which a friend of his commented (referring to Top Gun) "Do you have the need??" (If you've seen the movie, you would know that after that, Goose replies, "The need for speed!!"). Well, my husband replies, "There's not much speed in this one. She's only got 125 HP, and our max airspeed is 164 knots, or about 190 mph. It's hard to buzz the tower at Mach 0.15." LOL. 

and here are the rest of the guys in his flight!! I teased him that they have the sorority pose down perfectly.

On another happy note, here is a picture from our romantic dinner celebrating our 6 month wedding anniversary (which we celebrated early before BE left) at a great little spot here in Pensacola called the Fish House. I can't say enough good things about the food!

I was so happy he wore his yellow shirt! We met online, and when I was flipping through his pictures I wasn't really stopping to look very long until I saw a picture of him in this yellow shirt. That was the moment that I stopped and decided that I thought he was super cute and I just couldn't resist, and I finally responded to the message he had sent me a few days earlier. So in all technicalities, that yellow shirt started all this! Here is the original picture, so you can see how we've changed lol

Such a stud! We are very excited that we are going to be heading out on our cruise here in the next few weeks!! We actually won it on our honeymoon cruise that my parents sent us on since we had such a tiny wedding. We took a 5 dollar bill into the casino to gamble with (high rollers, I know), I turned it into $20, and we walked out. Well, that night we got invited to the past guest reception since I had cruised with Carnival before. (we really only went because there were free drinks lol) but while we were there they ran a deal just for past cruisers on the raffle that they had been running all week to win another free Carnival cruise. Well, usually you only get 10 tickets for $20, but that night you got double tickets, so I went up and just for kicks and giggles put our $20 into the pot and got 20 tickets. The last day of the cruise they had this little boy come up on stage and pull out a ticket, and it was one of ours!!!!!!!!!! I thought BE was going to pass out. So anyway, we decided to take it when he came home from IFS, so now I'm gearing up! We picked our excursions today, and we will be....

riding horses on the beach (which BE picked out all himself and surprised me with, because I have ridden horses my whole life but never gotten the chance to ride on the beach!) and...

swimming with dolphins!!!! I am so excited about this trip! The fact that 5 of our first 6 months of marriage have been spent apart has really put some stress on our relationship, so I'm very excited to have a week of relaxation and fun and JUST US! Hope everyone has had a fabulous Wednesday :)

See You When I See You...

"Let's don't say goodbye...I hate the way it sounds. So if you don't mind, let's just say 'For now'..." Well, it's off to the next phase of training for BE and the guys, but at least this time it's not as long as OTS was so I think I will handle it ok. Waking up at 3 a.m. for the airport run wasn't fun though! I'm hoping I can find some things to do during this TDY. I have a huge quilt in the works for our bed and didn't get as much of that done last time as I wanted to, so that's on the agenda; some of the ladies from BE's OTS class are considering putting a trip together, and that would be super fun (if it's somewhere I can afford to go!), and then I have two weddings to go to (it's going to stink going alone though) and then I have friends in Auburn I could go see as well as family (if they can squeeze me into their busy schedule). Honestly, what's sounding better than I thought it would right now is going up to stay with BE's parents for a while. They live on the side of a mountain up in North Carolina with a gorgeous waterfall in the background and some swings on the front porch looking over a view that will take your breath away. Nothing better than that to renew and relax!!! Plus, they are so sweet! I wish everyone had in-laws as great as mine are.

So, options are open, which is nice. I'm about to register for the Kaplan course that teaches strategy for taking the NCLEX, which I'm hoping to do by the end of summer so I can get my RN license and get to work. Lots of possibilities. Lots of things to do. Places to go. Projects to complete. All of which sounds awesome to me! Nothing like a busy schedule to pass the time! Plus, it's sunny out today, and the beach is calling my name :) Gonna stay positive!!

I Have Arrived

So, tomorrow I get to have the ceremony I have been waiting on for four long years - my pinning ceremony from nursing school. I am so excited I can barely stand it. Then, by Monday afternoon, I will officially be the first woman on either side of my family to graduate college. WOW. What a huge weight to carry on my shoulders, and what a huge reputation to uphold. My mom is ecstatic - she says I never could have given her a better Mother's Day present than seeing her daughter be the one to achieve that. But I told her that it's in large part due to her - she stayed home with me until I hit school, and constantly worked with me every day so that I was far past my developmental level for the grade I was in. She was my first encourager. By the time I hit 6th grade I was reading at an "above 12th grade level" and they had to bring in books for me from the high school so I could complete my number of reading hours I had to meet for my middle school class. She's the one who sat with me at the bar in our house for two hours every single day after school helping me with my homework. My parents really struggled financially to send me to Auburn, because they said that after graduating high school with a 4.2 GPA and a 32 ACT score, I deserved to go wherever I wanted to go. I felt that succeeding in college was simply a way to show them "I appreciate that you have sacrificed for me to be here, and I'm proving to you that it hasn't gone unnoticed." So now here I am, on the eve of one of the happiest days of my life (other than the days my little brother was born, the day I adopted my dog, and the day I got married), all ready to go with a brand new dress and pair of shoes (thanks, BE!!). I think it will give me a whole new perspective on life not being in college anymore. Granted, I still have my boards to take for my licensure, but it's going to feel so weird (in a good way) to just be a wife for a while. I wish that this day wasn't shadowed over by the fact that BE is off again soon. But it will be ok, I'll survive, and it'll be over before I know it. IFS is a partially self-paced thing, and dependent on weather, so the number of weeks he's there is dependent on quite a few factors, so I told him to not tell me when he will be back home ahead of time so that I don't get my hopes set on a date that he may get there and just not be able to meet. Plus, then it gets to be a surprise, and I love surprises :)

Hope everyone has been having a great weekend, and a special Happy Mother's Day shout-out to my mommy wives out there!!!! Hopefully one day soon I will join your ranks :)


Verse of the day: Proverbs 16:3 "Ask the Lord to bless your plans, and you will be successful in carrying them out."

A Word of Appreciation

HAPPY MILSPOUSE DAY to all the other amazing military spouses out there :) People really don't realize how hard our job is. Saying "see you later" every few months, learning to relive your life when they leave and then relearn it again when they come home, constantly changing role expectations, for some the battle of juggling kids alone, the tearful nights spent with their shirts and cologne, the counting down of months and days and weeks. We really do have a tough job, but then again, we are TOUGH PEOPLE!! Military members, and especially spouses, often don't get the recognition out in the civilian world like I wish they would, but at least between all of us, we know the sacrifices that are made and the effort put into our relaitonships/marriages, and we know that it's worth it for the love that we have found in our significant others!! Plus, better yet, we have each other to lean on and learn from and I personally have found it to be the best group I could ever have been a part of. I love you ladies and am blessed to know you, and I wish you all the happiest of days today.

BE has finally cranked up the new grill for steaks tonight, and I am going to enjoy a nice dinner just the two of us (and Buster Brown, of course) before I have to face him being off to more training here very soon. But it's going to be a great weekend and nothing is going to get me down!! I also graduate on Monday morning from Auburn, and will officially be a BSN graduate!!! I am so excited. I will be the first girl on either side of my family to finish college so it's a pretty big deal :)

Flight Suits and the "Man Grill"

So BE was issued his flightsuit, helmet bag, and flight bag yesterday. Not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but I am really torn as to how to feel about it. He is so so excited, and I want to be that excited for him, but a part of me has hit a new level of terror now that it feels "real". I had tried to get him to not go to OTS and stay with me and get a "normal job" way back in the day when we were first together. My biggest fear of all time is airplanes, in general. I have to be heavily medicated to even go near an airport, even to pick someone up. Being that close to a plane makes me super nervous (I think God is probably STILL laughing at the irony of making the man I was destined to marry a flyer). After he explained to me that he wouldn't feel fulfilled in his life unless he served his country, and this was really in his heart how he felt called to serve, I realized that I had to put my personal preferences aside and support him regardless. I have no place keeping him from his dreams, and when friends of mine ask me how I live with the fear of someone showing up at the door to tell me he had been killed, the response I give them is that I would rather him die at 25 knowing he was happy with what he was doing and felt like he was answering God's calling for his life and had no regrets than to have him die at 100 years old an unhappy businessman who hated his job and felt like he had never really made a difference in the world because he had sacrificed a dream because I was a scaredy-cat. Not going to lie, that doesn't make the fear totally go away, but it helps. I like seeing him happy, and I like seeing him happy with his job. Not many people can say they love their job. But seeing that flight suit hit me like a lead brick. It was that moment of "oh my gosh, this is really happening," and I froze up. I wanted to celebrate with him and ooh and aah over it, but my fear really gripped me. Has anyone else ever had a moment like that?

Anyway, the "man-grill" (as it has been officially dubbed) is now taking up half of our garage lol. BE refuses to put it outside until we find a cover for it, so he's parking his car outside instead LOL. Boys. So I've been promised a steak dinner tomorrow, and I'm pretty excited about it! I also just got a coffee grinder, and I love it! It really does make the coffee taste fresher, and I thought all that stuff was just a way to get you to spend money on their product. But it was sooooo good! I'm a believer. I'm also debating whether I should combine my two blogs (I have another one for family recipes) or just leave the food one a separate thing... thoughts? Well, love ya'll, I'm gonna go help the hubs do dishes :)

And In Case You Hadn't Heard...

So, now that everyone knows the BIG NEWS and has had a day to reflect, I wonder what the blogosphere thinks about the reactions they have seen from others out there. Personally, I watched the news in shock. I was out in my driveway talking to our neighbor when I got a text from a friend who is dating an Army man, and literally lost my breath. Instantly all of us ran back inside and I yelled at BE to hurry it up and find the news. Sure enough, there it was in big red letters on CNN - Osama bin Laden is dead, killed by U.S. Navy Seals yesterday. My first reaction was total and complete shock. I just listened and listened to the news reel, and swore I was dreaming. We have been waiting for this day as a nation for so long. After that, I felt joy; joy that all of those families of people killed on 9/11 and all the troops killed in the war since then, can finally say that a huge mission was accomplished, and that they have (at least a small bit) been avenged, even though I know that they can never get their loved ones back and nothing can ever, ever replace that or take away that portion of their pain. I'm sure that even a decade later it is still hard to wake up in the morning and bear. Then, I'll admit I got a little scared. What about retaliation? Obviously there are going to be some realllly pissed people over there. Then came the questions, Will my husband be deployed? Will they speed up his training? What about our troops over there now, are they safe? What will the next step for the country be? I know everyone has their questions, but at the end of the day, I had to realize that there's really nothing I can do about any of those questions. If they call, my husband will go, proudly and quickly. If they speed up his training, oh well, not like anything else about his military career has stuck to its original timeline anyway. I gave up being Type A a loooong time ago. Our troops, of course they are in a dangerous place, but then again they have been in that same dangerous place for years now, and I have ZERO doubt about their competence, so I know that they will take care of each other and do the best job they can do (like they have been for the past ten years already). As for our country, I don't know what the next step will be. I know security is already heightened, because all the bases moved up to FPCON Bravo yesterday (my husband was wondering why he got that message yesterday afternoon). As much as I sometimes disagree with what our political leaders do, I'm sure that they have thought of a possible retaliation and have taken measures to prevent it. Our military makes it possible for us to lay our heads down peacefully and sleep every night, and they will still be doing the same thing every other night. Last night when I was getting worried about everything, my husband just turned to me and said, "It seems crazy right now, but everything will be all right. Don't you have faith in God? Don't you have faith in us [the military]? Just trust them. Pray and trust them." I was so calmed by that!! It's true. We have a great God and a great military, both of which I trust immensely.

I am reminded of Matthew 8:26, where Jesus said, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

Please take the time today to thank any servicemen and women that you know - it is because of them that we can say we live in the mightiest of nations, and because of them that we could go about our daily lives today as if nothing had ever happened. And, pray for them, and for our political leaders. Because, "Where two or three gather in my name, there I will be in the midst of them." -Matthew 18:20. GOD BLESS THE USA!!!!!!! (p.s. and a HUA to our troops! love, your ever-faithful Air Force milwife)

Milspouse Friday Fill-In!

1. Have you and your spouse ever agreed to live in separate locations (a geographical bachelor tour) knowing that the short-term inconvenience would have long-term benefits for your family? How did it work for you? submitted by When Good People Get Together.
No. I still lived in Auburn while he was in OTS until I moved to Pensacola in February to set up house here, so I did the commuting thing 3.5 hours away to Auburn whenever I had classes, but decided for monetary reasons not to keep the apartment we had up there. Now we are permanently in P'cola but I just finished classes today (graduation in a little over a week! woohoo!!)

2. What is your favorite thing about being a MilSpouse? submitted by Sarah Ruth Today. 
Well today it was Case Lot sales!! lol, but seriously. In general, probably the pride I feel whenever I see any uniformed serviceman/woman these days, or how I love it when someone thanks BE or I for our service, or the amazing friends we have already made at our new station. It really is a great family (and people actually know what you're talking about!!)

3. If you could still have your spouse/significant other and your family, but take the military life out of it...would you? submitted by Trust. Love. Believe. Bake.. 
Well, a few weeks ago this would have been an emphatic YES YES YES!!! But lately, with BE having to go through this new flight physical here shortly and there always being the chance of not passing, we confronted the question of "what would we do if..." and when I thought of moving back home and him getting a "normal job" and us not being in the military anymore, I actually froze and panicked. So, would I take the military life out of it? No. Would I take any chance of my husband getting hurt/killed and me potentially being left alone because of the military out? Yes.

4. What have your homecoming experiences been like after a year long tour of separation? submitted by Army Soldier, Army Wife, Army Life :).
We haven't had to be apart for more than his 3-month TDY to OTS, but with that being the first thing ever it was hard and the homecoming was wonderful in ways and terrible in ways. He was different, and was really picky about everything from being scrutinized so much - it was like he literally couldn't settle down, even to watch a movie with me. He would rather be dusting. But it was nice to get to go out to dinner and see him face to face, or to wake up in the morning and him actually be there. I can't imagine a whole year apart and I hope I never have to do it.

5. If you have a child(ren) why you chose their name(s)? If not, why you would name your child something? submitted by Tiaras and ACU's. 
Well, we don't have any children (other than our adorable Buster Brown furbaby), but I like Kaleb, Noah, and Inman for boys' names and Olivia and Sofia for girls' names, so maybe one day!

In Need of Blogosphere Besties

So this is my first ever blog about my life (I have one that I list family recipes on) and I'm nervous! Will people like me? Do people care? Will I really connect with others who I can relate to? I hope so! I had to be back up in Auburn for a week to do a mandatory review course for NCLEX (the nursing exam to get your license) and I'm not gonna lie... listening to the same woman drone on to me for 8 hours each day for 3 days when I have the book in front of me that word for word lists everything she's saying (gotta love scripts!) and am perfectly capable (I'm pretty sure) of reading it for myself, is driving me INSANE. Especially since BE leaves for IFS soon and I am wasting precious time!!! Sometimes everyday life really gets in the way, doesn't it? I knew I was a dependent person before the whole military thing, but ever since he was gone at OTS I've realized just how absolutely pathetically dependent I really am.

On a happier note, we finally have all of our pictures up and it finally feels like home! We are really enjoying life in the Sunshine State and I think BE is finally figuring out how to get around town. We had about 16 people over for Easter, and it was wonderful!! It was the first holiday I've ever spent away from my parents and grandparents so it was nice to have a full house. I cooked a 12-pound ham (I know!) and everyone brought things that were common at gatherings with their family, so we ended up with tons of great food! We are really blessed to have such a great Air Force family stationed with us down here that we can share such an important occasion with!! Because the real reason for Easter is CHRIST, as much as I do LOVE those Cadbury eggs.... but Jesus' sacrifice to face a horrible death so that we could all be saved despite our sins (of which I know I am grateful!) gives me SO much hope. Especially as a military wife, I know I am grateful every day that BE encouraged me in my faith and that we grow stronger in it as a couple every day, because I know that despite anything this world or this military life can throw at us, we will be together in the end because God triumphed!! And how incredibly comforting is that?? God is so, so good, ya'll :)

So how does this stuff work??

Hello everyone! I'm AM :)

I am a newlywed, soon-to-be college graduate, and now also the brand spankin' new other half to a 2d Lt in the US Air Force (those ranks still have that 'new car smell' too!). I moved us to our first PCS in Florida a few months ago and finished school long distance while my hubby went through OTS, and this is the result: one crazy, overwhelmed, stressed, but happy Airman's wife (who is also a VERY proud Auburn Tiger!). I decided to blog when I ran across a community of other military spouse bloggers and was relieved to find out that I was not in this alone. You can find the community here: http://www.household6diva.com/2010/06/military-spouse-blogging-community.html . So, here I am! More will come later when I figure this whole blogosphere thing out. I'll admit I've spent two days working on one of those "advanced templates" just to end up back at square one. This stuff is so frustrating, especially when you're as technologically ignorant as I am. Sigh. Well, see ya'll again soon!