Time Moves Fast: The End of Our Stay in Texas

It's amazing how time flies when you really wish things would just stand still because you want to just live in those moments where you're at home, surrounded by the ones you love, and relaxing.
Well that's how i felt the two weeks we were home. Aaron got to see his parents for a few days and i spent most of my time with my family. We stayed at my parents' in Waco the whole time except the weekend we went to South Padre with Amber and Aaron's nephew (and mine!!)
Im so thankful for the time we got to spend back in texas with the ones we loved. Im especially thankful for all the my parents did for us by letting us crash at their place for two weeks and eat their food etc.
My favorite memories were the nights that the four of us (my parents, Aaron and I) would stay up till midnight playing Nertz and the times i got to spend with my little sisters playing soccer outside with them or listening to Arianna read me a story and giving a heart to heart talk to McKayla- big sis to little sis. I love my family and i definitely love being a big sister.

Now here are pretty much a whole bunch of pictures from the last few days we were there....

RACES















We raced to the swings...





My dad and I had a nice chat and saw we were being spotted with the camera so we picked our noses ;) I love him!


Overall, we had a great afternoon at the park.



SOUTH PADRE ISLAND

Aaron and I invited Amber and our nephew Jacob to the beach for the weekend. We enjoyed the schlitterbahn and the ocean…it was a great vacation! We got a hotel actually on the island so we could spend most of our time at the water no matter where we were….there’s a lot that happened but overall we had good memories and nice sunburns to show for our amazing weekend!




And more pics...

TEXAS

Picture from Saturday when we arrived in Texas. Dad sent this photo to mom when we had just got home that afternoon. She was at a scrapbooking class all day and when she got the text she was so excited we were home she text back and said she was leaving early! :)

BACK IN TEXAS

We got to leave NY around 2pm on the 23rd. Aaron and i ended up making it back to Texas by the 25th around 3 in the afternoon. The trip was long. We were able to pack everything in our car, but just barely. We ended up riding with stuff in the front passenger seat too where the passenger should have leg room for a long road trip, but we made it somehow. By Saturday we sure were glad! I don't think we could have traveled very much longer!!

When we got to Waco, we surprised everyone!! I got BIIIIIG hugs from my adorable sisters (all three of them) and my mom and dad. It was great.

Sunday we got to go to church and went out to lunch as a family (everyone but Amber cause she went back to her place)...just a great start to a relaxing few days before moving onto Oklahoma and starting yet another interesting journey of life.

Next step was to make sure everything was ready for the movers to get our storage unit cleared out and taken off to another temporary home until Oklahoma...Boy, we had no idea what we were in store for TODAY!

This moring we had a little trouble with our movers. Turns out that the army double booked us. We had an 18wheeler come and the guy was like "are y'all having movers come to load this thing?" and "Where will you be wanting this delievered" and "Will you be able to take delievery on Thursday?"

Well of course we had no answers for any of the questions. The army just told us the movers would come with boxes and packing stuff and would repack our stuff for us really good and take it to storage until we had a place or for up to 90 days.

So 20 minutes later, Aaron gets ahold of the Movers and they show up with their boxes and ready to load up in THEIR own truck lol...they asked us what the 18 wheeler was doing here because they had NO idea what was goign on with that either. lol





Well, anyways, long story short... the 18 wheeler dude ended up leavign and the movers repacked, loaded up and moved our stuff out of our storage unit.

Phew! Now we're set for the rest of our "vacation time" here in Texas till we go to Oklahoma.

Now Aaron's visiing his parents in College Station while im enjoying time with my family. And this weekend we're going to South Padre :)
Life is Good...

Getting Caught Up

Last week was a pretty FAST week...

TUESDAY *June 14th *
I spent the morning with my friend Brittney and her kids. We went to Target looking for her a swim suit because we were planning to go to a waterpark that weekend. After swim suit shopping we ended up at Lowe’s while she looked for her dad a father’s day gift and stuff. It was a nice morning just chilling and tagging along on her shopping trip. It was nice to get away from the house. Then we had lunch and she had more stuff to do that afternoon so she dropped me off at the apartment.

That afternoon, Aaron and I made a spontaneous trip to Alexandria Bay, NY. It was about a 35 minute trip, not far at all. We ended up taking a boat ride to see Boldt Castle. We got to walk around inside the castle (which definitely isn’t as cool as the castles in Europe) and stuff. It wasn’t as great because they’ve remodeled the castle and it doesn’t look anything like the original *they showed pictures*
But the outside was beautiful and the water surrounding it was too. It was cool going on the boat ride there because we were the only ones on it on the ride over. It was a pretty quiet day, just walking around and viewing the beautiful place. Here are a few pictures…




These show the updated rooms and the way they used to look





And here's some more...





We also would have LOVED to cross this bridge….yep, it’s the bridge to CANADA, but yep, no passports : ( but I still had to get a picture of it!



WEDNESDAY *June 15th*
Aaron and I had a picnic at Thompson Park. After eating we walked about 6 miles walking the beautiful trails, we definitely got our exercise in, by the end of it my legs were burning from a steep hill we had to walk up for FOREVER lol. Gotta love being in the mountain/hilly area! I took random pictures of myself cause I was having way too much fun






Thursday *June 16th*
Aaron had CQ on Thursday. CQ is a 24 hour shift where they “guard” whatever they’re in charge of “guarding.” In this case, Aaron was supposed to man a desk at one of the barracks. So at 8:30 I took him to CQ and dropped him off.
After I left, I went and picked up my friend Jessica and her baby Leon. I had invited them out to walk around the park with me like Aaron and I had done the day before because I felt so good after that good walk and exercise. We enjoyed a nice, but hot walk. Pushing the stroller and the sun beating down on us the whole time (cause we couldn’t take the paths with trees and shade with the stoller, there were too many stairs) it was really hot so we didn’t stay as long as I had hoped for, but the conversation was nice and to get out with Jess was fun. We walked 5K, but by the time we made it around to the car we were pooped, and lil Leon was sweating even though all he had to do was sit in the stroller while WE pushed and WE walked lol

*After dropping them off I went home and made some sausage bread for the Yorks. Brittney and Sam have been amazing friends since we’ve been up here, they’re so nice and I kinda wanted to make it to say Thank You for letting us use their washer and dryer sometimes so we don’t always have to go to the Laundromat.

I brought Aaron lunch and we played some Nertz for an hour or so and then I went to the Yorks and dropped off the sausage bread. I then headed home to get the computer and make brownies for Aaron while he was on his shift. At that time I decided to take a shower and get movies, games, and candy so I could stay with him for a while until it came night time.
Well, I ended up staying up with him throughout his whole shift. We barely made it. And yes, I’ll admit I went to sleep in the car when he had to go turn in some of his army stuff and when he went back to finish off his shift. So, I stayed awake for all but an hour of the 24 hour shift…I definitely feel sorry for those guys. It was so boring and I had Aaron around, I can’t even imagine what it would have been like to be alone for that long, it was definitely a LONG SHIFT!!

Needless to say, FRIDAY when we finally got home after his shift, it was about 11, we got showers, ate lunch and PASSED OUT!! There was a “ladies night” but I was way too pooped to go. Im sad that I didn’t too because it was the last one that all of us were able to get together before we leave and then everyone else starts leaving after us.



SATURDAY
We went to a waterpark with the Yorks, their two kids, the Morris’s and one single soldier I never really got to talk to him so I don’t really know his name…but it was a fun filled day. It was small, definitely not as great as the ones down south, but for NY it was pretty awesome. Im just glad the weather wasn’t too cold. There was wind, and there were chill bumps, and I could see mountains…haha the water was even HEATED in all but one ride, but we rode almost all the rides and had a GREAT day. I even came back with weird burns in random splotchy places because apparently our sunscreen splattered on weird?! But it’s turning into a tan and it was my first real GOOD tan for the summer!! Can’t wait to perfect it once we get to Texas.



GETTING CAUGHT UP:

We’re leaving this week. On Thursday. I did some major cleaning today around the house and I’ll probably start packing on Wednesday since we don’t have too much to pack, it shouldn’t take a whole day to pack everything. Aaron’s just trying to finish all he needs to do with clearing and then we should be Texas bound at midnight of the 24th!! AMEN!!

June- Our Last 23 Days In Watertown :)

Two weekends ago, (June 3rd- 5th) Aaron and I made another trip to Syracuse for the weekend. We left Friday night and got to the hotel and just relaxed in the room enjoying cable T.V for the evening.
Saturday we both slept in and then went to lunch at Chili’s. After that we went to a little shopping center mall and walked around and shopped a little until both of us were ready to drop by the time 5 o’clock rolled around. So we went back to the room and ended up watching 3 Lifetime movies, one after the other because they were rather interesting. Then we went and brought McDonalds back to the room for dinner. We were so exhausted but it was a good evening of some more relaxing.
Sunday we went to church at North Syracuse Baptist Church and it was AMAZING!!! We finally found a good church after months of living in New York. Since we’re only going to be here two more Sundays, Aaron and I decided we were going to make the hour and a half trip to that church the next two Sundays!! We were so excited to find this church. All the churches that we had visited in Watertown we were disappointed by because the preachers never seemed to use their Bible. That’s something I desperately long for is for a good preacher who actually uses God’s word…opens and uses the Bible and you know had a personal, deep relationship with our Lord. I don’t like it when they find one verse and then add all their opinions to it and make you feel good about your life. I need the TRUTH. I like it when they use the Bible and use other verses to back up what their main topic is about and when they have you leaving convicted and knowing you need to keep trying to be better. I don’t like the feel-good services because we’re not perfect we shouldn’t feel like we’re doing everything right. (OK, let me get off my soap box)

Anyways, we had an amazing worship service. After that we went to CiCi’s Pizza because I had been craving it for some reason for the longest time! lol Then we went to the zoo. It was really hot to walk around but my favorite part was the elephants….there was one that seemed to be dancing to his own music playing in his head…he was bobbing back n forth on his feet with his trunk swaying…and a few minutes of watching him, he then closed his eyes and added his ears slowly flopping front to back. He was having the time of his life it was sooo adorably cute.



After the zoo we went to the big mall in Syracuse that is like 5 or 6 stories. We shopped till we dropped and headed back home to Watertown and our apartment.

It was overall a great relaxing weekend.

---TUESDAY-
Aaron dropped me off at a friend’s house after lunch. Me and Birttney watched a episode of hoarders on Netflix while her kiddos were taking a nap. She then broke out the Rock Band and we rocked out the rest of the afternoon until the boys got off work and we got ready to go to our friend Jen’s place. Jen had a “Princess Party” with pampered chef type products at her house that evening (Aaron stayed at Britt‘s house with her hubby Sam and they played xbox while we were gone lol. Jen’s was fun though…It was a great evening of hanging out with the girls and also getting some information about the very expensive products. Lol By the time Britt and I got back to their house Aaron had blood shot eyes so I took him home.
When we finally got home we were able to catch the last little bit of the two hour live episode of The Voice (our new favorite show to watch Tuesday nights) It was a busy/fun day.

Wednesday I got my eyebrows waxed FINALLY, they look and feel much better let me tell ya, then Aaron got off work and we spent the afternoon together

THURSDAY was my favorite day of this week. Aaron got off work early and we went to Thompson Park and had a picnic with lunch from Wendys. It was something different and relaxing very peaceful and exciting to have a picnic with Aaron. After eating we walked around the park a little bit and got our exercise in for the day.






We then proceeded to the SPCA and looked at all the cute puppies. We fell in love with yet another one, but had to hold off because we need to wait till we get to Oklahoma.




When we got home we watched some Netflix (yes, this is all we have these days lol) and then went to Walmart and got two games, Scrabble and Minute to Win it. Aaron made hamburgers for dinner and then we sat down at the coffee table with some music playing and played Scrabble (Aaron won) and then played some Nertz…it was a close game but I eneded up winning. We’re getting ready to play Nertz with my family who is hardcore into playing that game…it’s going to be so much fun when we get back to Texas!




Anyways, that’s about it….it was an amazing and “out of the ordinary kinda day” I love my husband!!!

Stepping Out in Faith

So we are in the process of getting ready to leave Watertown, Ny and head back to Texas for two weeks to visit family, and then going on to our next duty station at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Aaron and i can't wait to get out of this place. He's starting to line up his appointments so he can start transferring out from Fort Drum.
The past few days we've had plans and dates set for when we were traveling back to Texas, but those have changed more than two times. And now i THINK we're set on leaving June 24th. Let's hope that this doesn't change again.



But once we get to Oklahoma July 9th, we will start our new journey of our assigned 4 years at Fort Sill. There has been some frustration about housing. We tried to get on the housing waiting list for Fort Sill when Aaron got his official orders. There's a 9-12 month wait for housing so we wanted to get on there as soon as possible. However, we are not able to get on that waiting list until Aaron actually reports and signs in. It seems very frustrating, but today as i was doing my Bible study i got hit in the head with some extra faith and excitement.

I was reading Joshua 3 about the Israelites crossing the Jordan River.

(V15) Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge
(v16) the water from upstream stopped flowing....

Through my study i realized that the priests, who carried the ark of the covenant, had to "step out in faith"
They didn't wait for the water to stop flowing before they stepped in, they put their feet in the water with the faith that God was leading them and He had a plan.

From this i got more excited...Aaron and i have already been prepared to get on the waiting list and we decieded to give them a month to give us housing on post before we go have to get housing off post.
So here we go....stepping out on faith that God will provide us housing when we get to Oklahom so we can put our roots down for at least 4 years that we're stationed there. It will be such a comfort to get a "home" together for once instead of just living in "temporary" ones :)

Oh how we can't wait to see family in Texas for two weeks!! And im most looking forward to seeing SUN and having hot temperatures. It's getting warmer here, but there's still alot of cloudy and rainy days...not many great "outdoor" weather type days. But i am trying to keep a positive attitude while we still have to live here for another month...

There's a new song called Waiting Here for You by Christy Nockels that totally fit my emotions for today and our next steps. The beginning starts like this...

If faith can move the mountains
Let the mountains move
We come with expectation
Waiting here for you, I’m waiting here for you