A Year at Home

Every relationship has its important dates. The day you started dating (April 16,2008  around 1am), the day you got engaged (December 21, 2010 around 1 am...this is the first time I noticed that. I can assure you it was not planned on his part!), the day you get married (March 7, 2011, a Monday morning), and then if you're as cool weird as us, the day you had your wedding party (June 15, 2012, 4pm). For those of us in the military, we also have other days. Days when our soldiers get back from deployment (and days when we have to say goodbye, but those are not the fun dates I'm talking about). Sometimes we don't know what day a redeployment will be until a day or two before. But these are also special days. I was lucky enough to get my husband back right before Christmas last year (December 18, 2011, around 3am). Why do I have a sneaking suspicion our kids will be born in the wee hours of the night? ;)

This year is the longest we've lived in the same town since high school (graduation 2006). I've more than once found myself saying or thinking, "so this is what it feels like," to have a "normal" relationship. Even if our normal includes a constant threat of another deployment, I'd take a normal day with my husband over an extraordinary day with anyone else, any time.*

Check out the video I took last year of Kyle's redeployment ceremony. Or don't. It's mostly shouting and marching and flag waving.

- Mrs. M

*Maybe unless that means a normal day is driving for 12+ hours with unhappy cats for a couple days. Never again!

Our First Halloween

We didn't know what to expect out of Halloween down here, our first time handing out candy from our little house down in Texas. We had four bags of Reese's; you can see an elementary school a street over if you look out our front door, so we figured it would be a pretty highly kid populated area. We also didn't know when trick-or-treating started/finished (we guessed 6-8 or so; it seemed to be about 6:30-8:30). We kept count through the evening and got a total of about 83 kiddos. There were some pretty cute kids, some who didn't say trick-or-treat (to which Kyle prompted with a, "what do you say??"), some who didn't try to pretend to dress up at all, and some whose parents drove along in the car (really?!?). We were not super impressed with the get ups; the best worst were a group of four young teen boys, dressed mainly in black with fake guns of sorts hanging on their shoulders; their reply to our inquiring what they were was: "Uhh...child services?" Oy. I laughed a lot, though (you know, being a social work student), in a #funnybutnotatallfunny sort of way. And then I went out to leave for work this morning, to find candy wrappers strewn about our yard. In particular, wrappers from the candy we gave out. Are you for real, kids of central Texas? I hate to say it, but I gotta say it: kids these days.

(note: if you are new to the blog, I promise husband and I are not super old, uncool folks. That's right- we're only 24, and still mildly cool some of the time. The youths just bring out the old in us.)

- Mrs. M

Home

I love my husband our kitties, and the little home we've made here in central Texas. He's out in the field doing Army things for ten days and I miss him. I'm reminded of this song my friend Allie introduced to me a while ago, and I believe it was played at our wedding (I can't be expected to remember every detail from that day, right?!). :)




- Mrs. M

At Home

Some things we've been up to back at home in State College, PA...

Going to the shooting range with Kyle and my Dad. It's one of my dad's hobbies, and Kyle obviously knows something about guns since he is in the Army. I had never shot a gun before, and we started with a really big, really loud gun, but once I realized I probably wasn't going to accidentally kill someone or have the gun kick back and break my face, I was pretty comfortable. We shot a M4 Carbine first, which is basically what Kyle was issued during deployment so he taught us how to use it. I did surprisingly well (also I forgot my glasses for seeing distance), better than some folks in the Army who are trained to use these things (good for me, not so much for our armed forces?). Then we went over to the handgun range and tried out a revolver and a couple pistols. They are definitely harder to use accurately, I'll just say that.

the objective is to get all your shots close together in a cluster, and then depending on which quadrant your cluster is in, follow the instructions to adjust the front sight and rear sights so that your cluster will then fall within the black target area. so I did pretty well considering! 

Enjoying State College foods.

Stickies from the Diner (I don't actually have any attachment to these but apparently they are a thing)

Herwigs Austrian Bistro with the McPhersons

Kyle and I in pig figurine form?

Playing/hanging with the kittens, hanging out with family, eating more tasty food.

haha sleeping on Kyle

I think we've finally worked it out that we can go to Pittsburgh the 24th and return to SC the 27th, then head back to Texas the 28th and 29th.

- From the desk of Mrs. M

Our First Christmas

Our Christmas involved:

opening such wonderful gifts!

eggs and bacon breakfast 

skyping and chats with family

holiday tunes

a little more tree trimming

playing with my new computer

beer can chicken

chai & baileys

baking mint chocolate cookies

watching Super 8

cuddling

I hope your holiday was merry and fun!

Thank you to husband, family and friends for making it wonderful. 

- From the desk of Mrs. M