New Family Member

JAKE



After moving into our new two bedroom house, Aaron and i decided that we should get a pet to keep us company. However, we are both dog lovers, but our landlord won't allow us to have them...only cats. So hints why we got a baby kitten.

We went to the animal shelter on post and saw three kittens in one kennel. The first one we picked up was a girl and definitely did NOT want me to hold her, but when we picked up the cute grey, striped one he cuddled up so closeto my neck when i held him and he didn't want to let go. Aaron and i really liked him. But it still took us a weekend to ponder over it....

MONDAY we just HAD to get him. We had been talking all weekend about "Jake would love...Jake would do this...Jake would do that.." and so on and so forth. We were talking like he was already ours. So Monday afternoon after moving out of the hotel, we went back to the animal shelter and picked him up and took him home.
Here's Jake on his trip home...


Now our house was still extremely empty since the movers were not coming till Tuesday (and actually now we know they didn't come until Wednesday...) so when we brought Jake home he was this tiny kitten in this huge house!! Compared to his little cage he had been in at the shelter it was no wonder our lil guy was scared to death. He hid behind me most of the time before he got the courage to go exploring...



Jake ended up jumping at every little creeek of the wood floors. And yeah, like i said, he was so tiny...Aaron ended up going and buying us a tv so while he was putting it together Jake was scared of all the noise and actually hid behind me only peeking his head out a little to see what was going on.



His first few nights he ended up sleeping with us on the air mattress and then later on our bed. (We quikcly ended up breaking that habit and closing him in his room at night so we can get a decent amount of sleep because he ends up biting and playing in the middle of the night)



He slept through the movers coming and bringing our furniture


We've had him for about 3 weeks now and he is growing up fast!! He went to his first vet check up Wednesday this week and they said he was doing great :) My lil trooper!!

He's the love of our life. Sometimes annoying but a good stand-in for a kid right now since we don't want any right now. I love how he keeps me company during they day. He comes and cuddles and sleeps next to me when im on the couch or he'll sleep at my feet while im cooking or washing dishes...i definitely love having him around when aaron's at work...

Anyways..here's a few mroe pics of my jakie wakie :) most of him sleeping :) cause i think that's when he's the cutest ;)

Home Sweet Home

PRAISE GOD!! We finally found a place.

Our last week at the hotel we decided to look for a place off post all week long from dawn until dusk if we had to. Thankfully, however, God had other plans. Yes, we spent all day Monday (7/18) looking for a place and we went from the lowest of low houses to the ones we wished we could afford but weren’t even for rent or sale. We went to a realtor’s office for a list of available rent houses and he was trying ever so hard to get us to BUY a house even after we told him no over and over. He said you can get a good house and could get us a payment that would be $600 a month. HAHA Thank goodness we are on the cash flow plan and according to Dave Ramsey, we need to be able to put 20% down when we get a house…so that’s what we will eventually end up saving for.

Anyways, back to the house. After a discouraging day of looking it was 3pm and we stopped and tried one more realtor. She gave us two houses in our exact price range. They were the last two we viewed that day. Well yep, after looking at both (twice, we went back to each house twice to make sure we were set on a decision) we went back to the realtor and told her we were interested in the first of the two she had given us.

She told us there was another lady interested in the house we liked and let us know that she takes the applications on first come first serve basis. So instead of leaving her office with the application and thinking it over for the night, we applied right then and there. We turned in the application at 4:45 and she called us as we got back to our hotel around 5ish saying that we had been APPROVED!!

So, Thursday we signed the papers….and got all of our electric and water set up, and also got an appointment to have our furniture and stuff brought to us the following Tuesday (7/26).

This is the outside of the house.



CAMPING OUT:
Our days at the hotel had expired, the army’s 10 days were up and we stayed longer on our dime…so Monday 7/25 we had to check out of the hotel and have a camp out that night at our new house with no furniture or anything. So we went out and bought an air mattress…




Let me tell you about the house…

It’s a beautiful two bedroom, one bath house with a big backyard, wood floors and a small, rocky driveway. A perfect house for the two of us just starting out. We’re so excited, this is our very first house together.
--There’s a park right in front of our house and it’s filled with prairie dogs or gopher things and they have huge holes and they’re always out walking around or sitting up and eating something. It’s way cute.
Before we went to bed last night) we took a walk around the park area. It’s very beautiful and a nice little walking/joggin/running area. Here’s some pictures of our sunset walk.





Moving Troubles:

We were supposed to get our furniture and stuff delivered on Tuesday, but when 3 o’clock rolled around we called to see when they might be heading over only to find out that our stuff was lost. They had no idea where it was in storage and they never contacted us until we called them. So the whole day was a waste. We ended up getting up before 7 just to be ready for them at 8am and I was so looking forward to our bed. One night on the air mattress was enough for me. But, you know what they say, “you wanna make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” We didn’t end up getting our stuff until late Wednesday afternoon. Once it was all moved in, Man our house went from being big and empty to feeling small and cramped.





As soon as the movers left we got to work. First and most importantly we wanted to put the bed together so we’d finally have our very own queen size comfortable bed to sleep on.




Then I started on the kitchen so we could finally get a home cooked meal. After three weeks of nothing but fast food or out to eat restaurants. It took me a while but now that it’s all set up im ready to start cooking…





Here's another picture of the progress we're making on the house and unloading....actually we only have a few more boxes to go so it's almost all done! :)






There's some more new to write about but ill have to post it later :) Right now im going to spend the rest of this evening sitting on the couch with my amazing husband watching some tv before church tomorrow.

Welcome to Oklahoma....

We made it to Oklahoma around 5p.m. last Saturday afternoon. We got all our things up to our new temporary home (aka the hotel room)

This is our hotel room from the distance...


What a long trip, thankfully it wasn’t as long as the one from NY to TX. After we got checked in, we got some dinner and decided to just rest at the hotel for the night!


We have a beautiful view of the mountains…I can’t get over how beautiful the sunsets are!




Last Sunday we tried out First Baptist Church in Lawton. It was a good first visit. We plan to continue to go back and eventuarlly try out the Sunday School to see if we can find one so we can get more involved. We were so blessed to have found a great church to visit on the first try. We may keep trying others, but I was blown away by how easy it seemed after 6 months in NY not finding any good churches that use the Word of God.
--we went back this morning and were blessed again with another good message.
Yes, we’ve been blessed and I have a feeling it has something to do with all the prayers from before we even left New York for a church home.

After church Aaron went to the Welcome Center and signed in




Then we spent the afternoon at the mall and driving around post and Lawton to get our bearings.

HOUSING:

We finally got on the housing waiting list on Wednesday thanks to my amazing Aaron. We spent Tuesday looking around at apartments and townhouses….and Thursday we went to look at a few houses just in case we have to live off-post. Im so thankful for Aaron and him getting information about other houses off post that may be more in our budget. He’s so helpful and im glad we’re going through this together. We’re still praying for a place to live (preferably on post) but waiting for God’s guidance to wherever He wants us to live.

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...