Dogs

I know that Tim secretly loves the dogs.

 

Or maybe it’s not so secret.

How can Chauncey sit like that without breaking her back?

Poor Dwight he is always so tired.

Love that face, he looks so wise.

I love my dogs.

November

This month on Facebook I have been writing one thing that I am thankful for each day. Now I am far from perfect with the task some days I forget and have to add a couple of extra “what I am thankful for” on the next day. I have a couple of friends who do not like the tradition. I can see their point. It does feel a bit like jumping on the bandwagon, something being done because everybody is doing it or we should be grateful every month. I agree. However, and maybe it’s just me, I find it hard to always be giving thanks, to always be grateful and to always remember how blessed I am. It has been interesting to see just how much I have to give thanks for. I have particularly noticed it on the bad days. There was one day where I was quite sad. I was missing my family (both Az and Ky), I was worried about work and school and just not feeling happy. That night when I was trying to think of something to post I had the thought that I had nothing to be grateful for that day and was going to post something silly and be done. But then the thought came to me that I have my health, I am young and healthy and what a great joy and blessing that is. Hopefully when the month is over I can remember to give thanks. To be honest I doubt I will everyday being the flawed human that I am, but maybe on the days when I am prone to grumbling and unhappiness I will be able to find a blessing or to remember just how lucky I am.

 

This month I am thankful for:

Tim-he works so hard and I am so happy that we are together again.

Making new friends-we are not very social people, but we are trying. I really like Tim’s supervisors’ wife, she is a really nice person.

Church callings-Tim and I just got called to CTR 6 and it will be our first time teaching together.

A car-that does not break down every other week. It really is nice to be able to drive somewhere and not worry about the car stopping.

Family (Az)-Mom J, Beth, Iris, Tim B., Eddie, Tecia, Will, Anja, Mike, Christie, Robert, Alicia, David, Steven, Mary, Hannah, Lydia, Aunt Karen, Cammy and Mac, Heidi and Holly. The list could go on and on but I miss seeing everybody and the kids. I am thankful for technology allowing me to see how everybody is doing and allowing me to stay connected.

Family (Ky and Ma) Granny L. William, Lisa, Taylor, Justin and my friends-Even though I have not lived close to them in a long time I still feel as if I am a part of their lives and that makes me happy.

Cooler Weather

The ability to read

Cereal

Water

Blankets

Socks

Green Grass

Rain

Leaves Changing Colors

Really the list could go on, but these things were in my thought. I hope that everybody has a Happy Thanksgiving.

 Love,

Jessica

 

Hurricane Sandy

We survived our first hurricane! I have to admit I was a little nervous about what to expect. People who were here for last year’s hurricane were a little panicky. But we escaped unscathed. In fact it really was not that bad for us. Part of the base was evacuated due to concerns about possible flooding, but not our part. We kept thinking that the power was going to go out, however we were spared that. Tim was off work on Monday and Tuesday so it was like a mini-can’t go outside-because of violent wind and rain vacation. We watched television and played Mario Party on the Wii. We are blessed that so many people checked on us: my mother-in-law, my sister-in-laws, one of my brother-in-laws, various friends. It’s great to be loved.

Do you see that piece of land next to the letter A? That is Delaware.

Scary

But thankfully all we got was this.....

and lots of this.

 Thanks to Sandy it's now cold......

The epic conclusion of our moving tale.......

Upon arriving you would think that we would have earned a nap. But alas there was work to be done and arraignments to be made. We found out the day before we arrived that due to a clerical error we were not scheduled to get our house until Tuesday-so we would need somewhere to stay for 5 days. We were discovering all of this with Tim’s sponsor. A man who has served at this base for 15 years who is responsible for helping Tim get adjusted here. He was a really nice guy who after helping us get to where we needed to be took Tim on a little tour and then gave him the rest of the day off to get some rest.

Thursday-Saturday morning we stayed in temporary housing on base. It was wonderful. Those places are like apartments with everything you need i.e.: washer/dryers, dishwasher, fridge, stove, multiple televisions and best of all the dogs were allowed to stay with us. But alas all good things must end and that weekend happened to be a NASCAR race weekend here, which meant that lots of people were coming to town and somebody with a higher rank had already reserved that room.

Saturday-Tuesday morning we stayed at the base hotel. It was kind of annoying because being a hotel it was just one room. But it was a nice room. Sadly the dogs were not allowed to be with us there. Tim’s sponsor and family agreed to watch them for those days. Tim was given Tuesday off to help me unpack.

That’s pretty much all of our moving excitement. We loved it and hated it. It was lots of fun seeing new places, but exhausting as well. We are glad to be settled for the moment.

The Journey Part 1

No pictures…yet. Please forgive; I want to post pictures of the house….but it is not exactly put together yet. Meaning our garage still has most of our stuff in it and the living room still has bags from basic training that Tim has yet to unpack. On the bright side the bedroom is done and organized so we are making some progress. Pictures soon…I want to say in the next week or so.

 

The trip across country was not too bad. We made really good time and once we got the dogs settled down it was fine. We went through AZ (of course), New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland and finally into Delaware. It rained from Kentucky until we got to Maryland. I took 2 pictures and they were of the dog. I had every intention of taking pictures…..but then I didn’t.

 

The only trouble came when we got to Maryland. The night before we decided it was getting late and we should stop. We were only 4 hours from Delaware, but it was 8pm and the roads nestled between the mountains were getting dangerous. The first problems came when we got off the interstate. In every other state when night approached we simply pulled off the road and picked one of the many places to stay. Maryland proved tricky…..we had to travel about 7-8 miles off the main highway to find a place and they….didn’t accept pets! So we traveled another 3 miles to a Best Western. More expensive, but pet friendly. Exhausted from the 12 hours of driving and the being lost, we went to bed expecting to get up early and be in Delaware by 10 am the following day. We awoke at dawn, actually before dawn at 5:30am. Ate a quick breakfast, packed our stuff, took the dogs on a walk and packed the dogs. We were on the road by 6:45. We went to turn down a side road so that we could turn around (we missed the road that would take us back to the highway) when the tongue connecting the trailer to the moving truck broke. Completely broke. Lucky for us we had pulled onto a side road. We called budget who stated they had to send somebody out to verify that it was actually broken and that we did not break it (even with Tim telling them they should bring another trailer because it was indeed broken) their policy however is to look first and then go get the stuff to fix it. So we waited 2 hours and 15 minutes for a guy to come out and say the following :”It’s broke and you didn’t break it.” Seriously? I was so mad. So the guy unhooked the trailer called budget and then said his goodbyes to us telling us that budget would be in touch. After about 45 min of silence we called budget…who stated they were working on finding us a trailer. While waiting we decided to take the dogs on a walk when a really nice older couple came outside to talk to us. They invited us into their home. The wife gave us lunch and then dessert and then keep trying to get us to eat snacks. The husband loved our dogs. They sat with us for several hours talking and when they had to run errands we got up to leave, they insisted that we stay there and watch television. We protested, I mean we are strangers and they wanted to leave us alone in their house? But they insisted and we relented. At noon I called budget and they stated that a trailer would arrive in 2 hours. At 2 we still did not have one. Tim called and found out one had never been sent. They said one would arrive in an 1 and 45 min. We were furious. Finally after waiting all day we got our trailer at 3:45pm. We were able to leave by 4:15 and were on the road again. We stopped another night. We made it to Dover by 11ish that Thursday.

You’re amazing if you read all this. Our first week will be written about in another post.

Sea Life with the family

  Alicia, Lucy, Mike, Christie, Adden, Berlynn, Annie and I went to Sea Life. Here is the one picture I got of Annie looking at me.

 

Cousins exploring.

 

This eel in particular freaks me out. Alicia pointed out that it looks like one of the evil eel’s from The Little Mermaid. So true!

 Cute!

 

Lucy was so brave. She touched a starfish with her mom’s help.

 

Kisses!

 

Hello.

 

Just a smiling manta ray.

Jaws.

 

Beautiful ladies.

Cute.

Summer 2012

Summer 2012 has been short, LONG, hard, EASY, silly, boring, FUN, silent, LOUD, empty, FULL, working, SLEEPING, friends, FAMILY, busy, not busy, fun, HARD, lots of food, DEPRESSING, road trips, patience, learning, BONDING, hurting, thinking, changing, MISSING, growing closer to Tim while being separated by thousands of miles.

 

I have not blogged in a while and I kind of miss it. I know a lot of people do not read my blog, but writing it is like taking a look back at how far Tim and I have come and I love that. June was busy and kind of easy. I spent it working and I had just got back from seeing Tim so I was missing him less. July was a blessing as well because I was able to go and see him again. Then I started the countdown. Tim was supposed to be coming home on Aug 22, it was set in stone, his plane ticket was bought we would be living together in a few short weeks. Well one lesson learned this summer is that nothing is set in stone and that things do not always work the way I believe they should (I kind of already knew that, but I suppose it’s good to have it reinforced sometimes. J) Tim did not come home.

 Long story short at the beginning of the summer military officials asked Tim (and the other Airmen) a health survey about their wives and Tim answered that I had asthma. Now that is a true statement, sort of. I have asthma attacks when I get bronchitis, or when I get other respiratory illnesses. So maybe two times a year (usually once) I will get sick and then I have to be careful because my asthma flairs up. But I never really saw myself as having an illness. I do not take medication and only very rarely use my inhaler. I believe this year it has been used twice and that was due to having bronchitis. However because of that I needed to have my doc medically clear me to travel with Tim…..something they were supposed to tell him in June and due to a mix up in paperwork they did not tell him until two days after he was supposed to come home.  The 11 page document that had to be filled out by my doctor took a week for me to get filled out and will now take about 2 weeks to be processed. Though Tim was told that they are trying to expedite the process so that we can move to our next base…together.

 August has been the most difficult month for me. I quit work on August 17, in order to pack (as I thought I was moving). So my time is not really filled and as people know nothing breeds sorrow faster than sitting around the house feeling sorrow for one ’s self. Luckily I am blessed with an abundance of love surrounding me. Sister-in-laws who loan me their children, time and house. Aunts and cousins who share with me their food, support, ears and babies to cuddle. Nieces and newphews who play and act silly and dogs who cuddle and give kisses. They have kept me afloat during this difficult time.

 I saw Tim over the Labor Day weekend and it was great. We watched t.v., ate really crappy food, took a road trip (ended up in Oklahoma), saw some cows , horse and more cows, played games and got some rest. It was bliss. I am grateful for that opportunity and everybody who helped by watching my dogs, letting me park my car at their house or by thinking and praying for us.

If you are still reading this you deserve a gold medal. J