So Proud of My Love!

I just wanted to let everyone know how proud I am of Michael. During his yearlong deployment he spent a lot of time thinking about what he wants to do after he gets out of the Marine Corps, which led him to take his SATs while in Afghanistan. He had to travel to a base where the test was being proctored during thanksgiving weekend. Then he had to wait TWICE as long as a normal test-taker to find out his scores.

Not to my surprise, he did great on the exam! I mean, he took his SATs in a combat zone after being out of school for 4.5 years and did as well as I did when I took them.

Once he returned home, we were in a rush to get applications in by their deadlines. A lot of colleges wanted their applications right around the same time he got back, and some deadlines had already passed. He ended up only applying to a few, the ones he was really interested in that were still accepting applications.

He spent the many weeks after applying diligently checking the mail with anticipation of decision letters. Then one lazy Saturday, I checked the mail for the first time in a really long time and waiting for Michael was an envelope from WSU. A big envelope. A big envelope that said congratulations on the outside of it. I let Michael open it, even though I really wanted to.

He got in!

I love this man.

So, it's official.... we're headed back to our home state after Michael's enlistment is completed. And my hubby is going to a university! He's excited and I'm so excited for him! I have a feeling that this is going to be quite the adventure for our little family. :)

All Dressed Up...

Michael and I went to a dining out event on base yesterday. It was fun to get all dressed up and go out for the night.

We snapped a few photos before we left!

Dinner was delicious! They served chicken wellington with a white sauce on the side that made it taste like chicken pot pie -- which is what the whole table we were sitting at decided the dish was! I'm pretty sure it was chicken wellington though. Chicken, mushrooms, and puff pastry... yum!

It was fun to see old faces and meet some of the marines and sailors that Michael got to know while being deployed this past year.

Here we are during cocktail hour... :)

Eric and Michael:

Ethan and Michael:

Starting to Feel like Springtime!

Michael and I have been enjoying the spring-like weather here in North Carolina. I can't believe spring is almost here already! I'm excited for the grass to be green again and for the trees to get their leaves back. :)

Since the weather was so nice, Michael grilled chicken for dinner the other night! It was delicous.

Getting the temperature for the grill was a little bit of a challege the first couple times we used it, but Michael has pretty much mastered it now. He's the best.

And I love it when I'm only in charge of preparing a couple side dishes!

Talking about spring approaching... look what randomly popped up in the backyard:

One little daffodil; makes me think of home!

We also enjoyed some beach time this week. It is our favorite place to get some walking in, and there is hardly anyone else on the beach this time of year. :)

Hope everyone has been having a great week!

The Happiest Place on Earth :)

While driving Michael to the airport on the last day of R&R we were deep in a conversation that seemed to change subject by the second. We were beaming with excitement because we just found out that were expecting Miss Baby Wiggles. At some point in this conversation, my sweet husband told me "I'll still take you to Disney World".

I really really wanted to go to Disney World before while we still lived this close to it. So, for our "baby moon" and post-deployment vacation we headed south to sunny Florida last week. A few people seemed perplexed about this vacation choice when they found out. "What exactly are YOU going to do in Disney World." Haha. I mean, I wasn't riding any roller coasters, but in all actuality there are only a few rides at each of the parks that aren't recommended for pregnant women. We still went on plenty of rides and had a ton of fun. I even convinced Michael to ride a couple of rides without me, it took quite a bit of convincing though. I was able to wait in line with him and then slip away to an exit ("chicken exit") once we got to the front of the line. Some rides even had a little sitting area to wait for the riders to get off the rides, like the one below. :)

We went for the full Disney experience. We stayed at a Disney Resort and got a Disney meal plan. We loved it. The first day we went to Magic Kingdom. I thought that we'd have a difficult time completing a whole park in a day, but we had no problem -- granted it was the first day so my feet weren't killing me yet! We just picked up a map and wandered to each place on it that we wanted to. We finished up right before the fireworks and amazingly Michael found a little table and two chairs tucked away in a corner with a perfect view of the show. It was kind of the perfect way to end the first day.

My feet and legs got pretty swollen from all the walking while we were there, but we just took a lot of breaks and even went swimming one night before dinner, which was so nice for my tired feet and ankles.

I think our favorite park was Epcot. The first part of it has a science/technology theme -- perfect for us! The rest of the park is like a little tour of the world, including Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Morocco, France, United Kingdom, and Canada. I loved the food options at Epcot! We ate at the Italian restaurant for lunch. We came back on our last night at Disney World and ate at the German restaurant. We ate with a awesome couple from New Orleans and then finished dinner just in time to watch Epcot's firework show!

Animal Kingdom was also really neat! We watched a bird show (so fun!) and had good time looking at all of the animals. We also went to Downtown Disney a couple times to shop and eat -- we would take a short ferry boat ride from our hotel to get there. :)

We decided to take the train home, instead of flying back, since neither of us had any experience with train travel. We really enjoyed it! We were on a sleeper car, so we had a little tiny room and ate lunch and dinner in the dining car. We liked that it was extremely relaxed compared to plane travel.

Well that's all for now... hopefully I'll find some time to get a pregnancy update posted soon! Have a great weekend! :)

Home Finally!

I have a minute to get on the computer because my dear-sweet-amazing husband is cooking me breakfast. I just wanted to give my blog readers a special preview of how last Friday went for me before I post all the pictures on Facebook!

Exactly a year ago today, my husband deployed to Afghanistan. 

He's now home safe and sound!

 Cullen, my friend's husband was so kind and took pictures for us.

 Here I am waiting for the buses with Dylan's Family. (Dylan is probably Michael's best marine friend... this is their second deployment they completed together.)

 First bus!!! Dylan's son is the one in the plaid coat. :)

 It took a while to find him in the crowd. He actually ended up finding us. :)

We're having a wonderful weekend together. 

:)

Four Weeks

[Written 9/13/11]

Today we found out that I'm pregnant! We're elated!

I decided to test in the morning, before taking Michael to the airport. Since this was the last day of R&R. Seeing that he was only home for two weeks, actually becoming pregnant seemed unlikely, but also having a positive pregnancy test before he went back just seemed like a improbable scenario to me.

I was already convinced that it was going to be negative. It was a digital test, so when you're waiting there is a little hour glass that flashes... like the result is downloading or something. Ha. I didn't watch it. I was going to check it three minutes later. Then somewhere between 30 seconds and a minute after I set it down, Michael announces,  "It says pregnant" while holding it up. I think something like "Nah Uhhh!" came out of my mouth. You'll have to ask Michael about this if you want more details, he probably remembers my reaction a bit better than I do.

We ate leftover strata for breakfast while using an online calculator to calculate the baby's due date. According to my LMP, I'm due May 22nd. At some point Michael took a bunch of pictures of the test. He's adorable like that.

Our happiness nearly overshadowed the sadness of today's schedule. We snapped a picture together before heading to the airport.

According to the due date calculator, I'm exactly four weeks along, which I thought seemed really weird. I mean, Michael was only home for two weeks, so how could that be? Hahaha. Turns out you get two freebie weeks when counting pregnancy weeks because they count from your LMP, you can read more about that here if you'd like.

:)

Sweet, Sweet Time

I decided to just do one post about the sweet, sweet time I spent with Michael. Just a brief look into our two weeks together, with some of our favorite pictures of course!

We went to the beach a few times --  we're lucky to live so close! We found lots of shark teeth to take home and even were lucky enough to see dolphins!

We spent four nights amazing Nights in Charleston, SC. If you ever get a chance to visit Charleston, I highly recommend it! We were able to walk pretty much every every where we wanted to from our hotel. There are so many neat historical buildings and parks and museums.

We were upgraded to a ridiculously awesome suite -- it was huge and had its own doorbell, too funny! We were welcomed with champagne and yummy chocolate covered strawberries. The roses on the table were a surprise from Michael the night before, though, I brought them from home. :)

We explored Charleston and went where ever our feet took us -- the aquarium, a couple museums, civil war historical sites, a submarine, an improv comedy show, lots of restaurants, an outdoor market, and many beautiful parks

The day we left, we stuck around the town for a bit and saw the last few sites we missed!

We also made stops on the way home: Mellow Mushroom and a state park!

We were also able to sneak in a day trip to New Bern, a little bit of furniture shopping in Wilmington, and have dinner at one of our favorite places -- The Melting Pot!

These two weeks were extra special for us, it was the last time we'd be together for only a set amount of time. (All our time spent together has always had impending goodbyes. My school breaks always come to an end and Michael leave would only give him so many days home.) We just enjoyed our sweet, sweet time together. And as always, it was hard to say goodbye.

After the Storm

Well, I took I longer break than I intended from blogging, but I'm happy to say that I'm back now. Why the break? To spend some precious and long-awaited time with my love! But let's back up a little.

Last time I posted I was awaiting a hurricane, but not too long after that post I voluntarily evacuated with a couple of my close friends, and their babies, and their boxers, and a cat. So we (Me, Amanda, Lisa, baby Mason,  baby Carter, Brady the dog, Jacks the dog, and Buzzy the cat.) packed up, left town, and drove 4 hours inland to Lisa's parent's home. They graciously took us all in and fed us and pretty much let us take over their home for a few days. I had the quiet car, seeing that my only travel companion was Buzzy. :)

Shortly after the storm hit, I received a quick phone call from Michael saying that his plane would be landing the next day. So I decided to pack up and head home bright and early after getting some rest. The girls packed up my car the night before with what they needed me to take back (traveling with three ladies, two babies, two dogs, and a cat means lots of luggage!) Buzzy accompanied me on the trip home as well:

I wanted to get home as early as I could, but I also needed to follow the city and county curfews, so leaving too much earlier wasn't really an option. The curfews allowed emergency services and city crews to complete the work they need to after the storm. 

Shortly after passing through Wilmington, Michael called me to let me know that he was getting on an airplane in Atlanta and that he would be landing at the Wilmington airport in a little over an hour. This was actually a lot sooner than we originally thought. Michael was supposed to fly into the local airport, but it was closed because of the hurricane. He lucked out and made it on a flight to Wilmington that was departing about 20 minutes after he arrived in Atlanta.

So much to do so little time! I dropped off Buzzy and unloaded my car, and then I headed towards our house. I considered not even stopping at the house, but I decided to stop by very quickly because it is on the way to the airport anyways. Once I was at the house:

1. I noted that my mailbox was missing.
2. Didn't try to find my mailbox.
3. I RAN around the house making sure there wasn't any major damage.
4. I noticed the giant puddle of water in my dining room. 
5. Ignored the puddle.
6. Changed into a dress without even taking my shoes off.
7. Hung up the banner I made Michael in about 10 seconds.
8. It was a little crooked.
9. I didn't have time to care!

I made it to the airport about 30 minutes after Michael landed, I think. Wow! Stressful, crazy, fast morning. But it was so worth it. :)

Will be posting again soon! I'm so behind I'll probably have to skip over a lot of the good stuff, but no worries. I'll eventually make up for it by adding a bunch of pictures to facebook. :)