I'm still here...

Only here is now Cincinnati =)  It is SOOOO good to be "home", but I miss my husband who had to go back to FLW for a couple weeks.  It's been a great visit so far.  I've been to 2 bridal showers, a birthday celebration and MY HOCKEY TEAM WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP!!!!!!!!!!  I've spent lots of quality time with my family and plan to spend even more time with them this weekend at a Reds game and a mini family reunion.  Next week I probably won't blog, as I'm making an unexpected cross country road trip.  One of my bestest friends has been going through a rough patch in her life and she has decided to move back to Cincinnati from Oregon.  I don't want her to make the 36+ hour drive home in a UHaul by her self, so I'm flying to SLC where she'll pick me up and we'll finish the drive together.  Should be fun and I'm sure I'll be back to post photos eventually.  For now



Be safe and remember what we're celebrating this weekend!

It's been the longest winter with out you...

I can't believe it's been a whole year since I lost my best friend.  A year without our multiple times a day phone calls.  A year without your unbelievably good advice.  A year without your laugh.  A year without being able to tell you the ridiculous stories of my life that you loved so much.  A year without your hugs. A year without shared tears. A year without your wrinkles (that I'm slowly starting to see in the mirror.  and since they remind me of you, I don't mind them as much as a 27 year old should).  I miss you grandma!

You are my best friend!  Always have been & always will be!  I LOVE YOU!

Right now, I want...

Vanilla soft serve ice cream with rainbow sprinkles!  Apparently the only place in this podunk town that can make my wish a reality is Ryan's. The buffet place, and I really don't feel like paying for a buffet just to get an ice cream cone!  Somehow no one in town carries rainbow sprinkles, how UN American of them!  My friends keep suggesting I just buy sprinkles from WalMart and take them with me, but it's simply not the same!!!

At the top of my to do list once I arrive in Cincinnati on Thursday is to hit up PUTZ's, the best ice cream joint in the world I've ever found!

Oh, and apparently it's Sunday, so it's time for...



1. The most expensive thing hanging in my closet is.....?
I don't exactly have a closet right now, so the most expensive thing laying in my suitcase is my jeans.  I can't wear "normal" jeans, I need extra long, so I splurge on them! (never over $100, I have my limits!)

2. Have you ever played a team sport?
Yes. Softball and Volleyball in high school and I miss it!

3. If you were a bug, what kind would you be?
yuck!  I'm stealing Sarah's answer, a butterfly!  it's a short life, but at least people wouldn't run away from me or try to swat me with a flyswatter!

4. Where on your body is the worst place to get sunburned?
My nose.  It's the only place I ever get sunburn, so I wouldn't know if any other spot was worse.

5. Are you happy?
yes!

6. People are always abbreviating..are there any abbreviations that make your skin crawl when people use them?
not that I can think of.

7. Do you love where you live..or could you live anywhere?
We've made the best of it here, but now that our stuff is on it's way to Japan, I'm over it and ready to get out of small town, USA!  I can live pretty much any where, it's the in between times, like right now, that get to me!

8. What, if any, extreme measures do you go to to keep yourself from overeating when you're full?
I don't have a problem leaving food on my plate.  I try to eat everything I put on my plate, but sometimes my eyes are bigger than my stomach and I'm ok walking away with out any extreme measures.


Hope everyone has a great week!

Nothing New...

Not much going on here.  Nothing blog worthy anyways!  Lots of drama, but it's not my drama, thank God.  We're still staying with friends living at a friends house who is out of town.  It was nice to be able to cook today! So nice, in fact, that I made lunch AND dinner today!  We had PW's homemade sloppy joe's for lunch and they were SO much better than the stuff out of the can!  Then for dinner I made something that I've had bookmarked for months and I wish I had made it sooner!  Pretzel crusted chicken with a cheddar mustard sauce.  It will be on our meal plan, probably, at least every other week.  I loved the crunchy crust and the sauce was the perfect compliment (and easy to make!)  I didn't take any photos, but I definitely recommend both recipes!

One of the girls who was a bridesmaid in my wedding got engaged last weekend and she asked me to be in her wedding.  I'm so excited for her and can't wait to be a part of their day! We went dress shopping last week and she found her dress within a few hours on the 1st try.  I was quite impressed!  She's going to be a beautiful bride!

I'm ready to head back to Cincinnati for a couple weeks.  Jason and I are driving up in a few days, then he has to come back to FLW for a couple weeks, but I'm staying behind to attend some bridal showers (it's wedding season!), a family reunion, a bachelorette party and I get to go to some hockey games!

The minor league team in Cincinnati has made it to the Kelly Cup finals and I REALLY hope to be celebrating like we did 2 years ago when they won it all.  For hockey fans, it's all about the CUP and after following this team for 10+ years, getting to celebrate with the team was one of the best nights of my life!  I loved that final series and celebration SO much, I'm going to relive it real quick share it with you =)

It was quite nice that we were playing against Las Vegas, so it starting with a trip to the Sin City with my BFF and some other great friends!

We made some new friends

and weren't sure we were going to make it out of there with out throwing up at times

But we did =)  The team came back to Cincinnati with a 3-2 lead over Las Vegas in the best of 7 series.  Winning the final game at home could not have been any sweeter!  That night, June 5th, 2008, will be one I remember forever!

I was so happy to share this experience with my best friend since 4th grade!

And some other great friends

I may or may not have shed a few tears of joy (yes, it's that serious!)

Then the real fun began! My husband was deployed at the time and I had promised him that I would not drink while he was deployed UNLESS the Cyclones won the Kelly Cup, then it was on.  There was no way I was passing up a chance to drink out of the CUP!  We headed to a local bar with the team, staff and the CUP!

me, coach Weber & the Kelly Cup

me & our All Star goalie

with the team captain

and a fan favorite

then I drank from the cup

and drank some more

then drank some more

spent some time with friends

and did some shots with the girls (lemon drops are our official hockey shot!)

and got a little excited about what had actually happened

celebrated with "hat trick" (3 goals by the same player in one game in hockey is called a hat trick and a friend started calling me and 2 of my friends hat trick because the 3 of us were always together back then)

then I kissed the cup, a dream come true

We celebrated long into the summer

And I would REALLY like to do it all one more time before we move to Japan in the fall!

(Sorry that got so long, but it made me really happy to remember that time and I went a little over board with the photos!)

And after looking through all these photos, if we get to do it all again this year, I will wear a shirt with straps so I don't look NAKED in almost every single photo!

Saw it coming

I just got the phone call I'd been dreading anticipating...my baby sister just married her fiancé while he is home on R&R.  I'm a tad upset because they did it in secret.  At least when Jason and I went to the JOP we invited our immediate family.  I guess all that matters is that she is happy.....

Back to my hockey game.... I LOVE PLAYOFF HOCKEY!!!!

GO PENGUINS!  I hope they repeat as Stanley Cup Champions!

PCS part 1 is OVER =)

PRAISE THE LORD!

I don't even know where to start.  This week has been absolutely CrAzY! I guess I'll just start at the beginning, and hope you bare with me and make it to the end. 


We thought that they were coming to pack/pick-up non-temporary storage the stuff we are NOT taking to Japan, the things that they will store for us here in the States.  So Tuesday we moved everything that we wanted to go into storage into our blue bedroom and everything we didn't want to go to storage our of that bedroom.  I was confident I could handle telling the movers just to pack the stuff in the blue room and not touch anything anywhere else in the house.  We figured it would only take them a couple hours at most and we would have the rest of the day/night to get stuff ready for our house hold goods pick-up the following day and to pack the stuff we wanted to keep with us for the summer.  Our house was a mess, but we already had our accompanied baggage set aside, so we were doing pretty well for a couple of procrastinators!

Well, Wednesday morning rolls around, Jason takes off for a 12 mile training ruck march with some buddies and I spend a few minutes catching up on my Google reader before the movers show up.  Once they arrive, I confirm that they are there to pick up our stuff for storage, to which the head guy says, "nope.  we're here to pick up everything you want to send to Japan."

WHAT?!?!?  NOOOOOO!!!!

I was INSTANTLY thrown into PANIC mode!  If I had still been 1/2 asleep when they showed up, I was now wide awake!  The guy showed me his paper work, and sure enough, it said "destination: Japan".  I was sure something had been mixed up  but didn't know on whose end so I called my husband (I had made sure he took his cell with him on the ruck march, JUST IN CASE) and all but yelled, "I DO NOT CARE WHERE YOU ARE, YOU NEED TO COME HOME NOW!"  (There may or may not have been a few expletives in there)  He told me he was about 6 miles into a 12 mile ruck march, but luckily, they hadn't just marched 6 miles into the woods, they were on some path and a guy was driving around timing people and he just happened to drive by while I was on the phone with hubs and took him back to his car so he made it home in about 25 minutes.  During that time, I had called transportation and they had confirmed that, indeed, they were picking up our HHG that day.  So I sent the movers into the office, told them to start there and give me about 20 minutes before they touched any other part of the house.  I started the dishwasher and went into our bedroom and started grabbing anything and everything I thought I could possibly need for the summer.  I'm pretty sure that I grabbed everything I need, and if not, I'll just buy a new one.  I am done worrying about it now, there is nothing I can do about it now.  That morning was one of the most frantic of my life.  Go ahead and call me melodramatic if you wish, I can take it!

Then, that afternoon, our property manager called and I'll spare you all the details, but essentially there was some miss communication between her and our renters and they thought they were moving into our house on Thursday!  Um, no, sorry, our stuff won't be out until Friday morning.  Not happening.  After some drama in our drive way, the people we thought were going to rent our house decided not to.  More stress we did not need, especially after the morning we had.  The PM did find someone the next day to rent our house, so it all worked out, but the whole day was absolutely CHAOTIC and I was SOOOO happy when it was over!

I wish I could say the rest of the move went smooth, but Thursday, when I took the dog to the vet to get his final blood test before he could begin the quarantine period, the doors were locked and they appeared to be closed.  I saw someone inside so I knocked and the girl who normally sees our dog comes out and tells me that there are no vets in the office today and they can't send out the blood work until a vet signs the paperwork.  She checked my file, and luckily, one of the vets had signed a blank form and all she had to do was draw blood, fill it out and send it in.  Crisis #3 averted! 

Speaking of our dog, I think he's depressed.  He's been mopey all week and Friday while we were getting the last bit of stuff out of the house and packing it into the car, he sat like this the whole time 

He was determined not to get left behind!

I guess the hubs in not going to Sapper school now, so we rented out our house but aren't leaving town yet, so we're living with friends for a few weeks.  I'm not sure how much I'll be posting...could be more, could be less, but I am reading all of your blogs, even if I don't comment!  If you made it to this point and actually read all of that non-sense, I appreciate you!  I'm sure I'll look back on this experience and it will seem like no big deal, but while it was happening, it definitely seemed like the end of the world.  Here's hoping things go a little smoother on the other end!

Project365

{27APR10} Pretty purple flowers in our yard

{28APR10} Prep'ing for the move

{29APR10} Finally finished the invitations I made for a friends bridal shower

{30APR10} The hubs was cold (and didn't feel well) so he grabbed the only thing in the room we were in to cover up with...my (uncleaned) wedding dress in a bag

{1MAY10} with my love at the wine festival

{2MAY10} yummy pizza to freeze and eat during the move so I don't have to cook!

{3MAY10} I saw this car about 5 times in 1 day and wanted to remember to look at her website so I took a photo to remind myself

{4MAY10} A local restaurant that has pretty good all you can eat fried catfish on Friday nights

{5MAY10} Buster watching our stuff being taken away and not caring one bit that he was in EVERYONE'S way!

{6MAY10} If you're military and the military moves you, FEED YOUR MOVERS, they'll be much nicer to you and your stuff (like packing $100s of dollars worth of liquid bath lotions/soaps that they normally don't pack!)

{7MAY10} turning over the keys to the very 1st home we owned...I felt like I should have been more sad than I actually was...

{8MAY10} it was hard to find my drink amongst all the garnishes

Almost DONE

Tomorrow is the last day of movers coming to our house (THANK GOD).  Sorry I've been absent for a while, I will return once the chaosness of this PCS is over (I have some greaaat stories for you)!  I've stayed up to date for the most part with my reading, but posting and commenting just hasn't made it into the schedule this week.  To all my new readers, HI and welcome!  I'll be back  to regular posting/commenting tomorrow soon!

Fun day in Missouri!

It's hard to believe our time here is running out!  We've been trying to pack activities in in the past couple weeks, that we probably should have been doing the whole time we've been here.  Like going to see the state capitol, visiting the tourist trap Branson, and today, going to a wine festival.  Central Missouri has more vineyards and winery's that you'd think and today we went to Sip 'n Savor in St James to taste some of the local wines.  We know a local radio personality and he hooked us up with a couple of free tickets, so we figured why not, and I'm really glad we went.  We had a great time and I FINALLY found a wine that I REALLY like!  Too bad they  were gone for the day by the time we went back to buy a case bottle and there aren't any retailers around here, but we'll stop in STL on our way out and pick some up!

Our free wine glasses

Purple flags meant free stuff...we liked purple flags =)

pretty flowers and yummy cheese

a local German band

that Jello shot in my hand was made with strawberry wine....SO GOOD!

LOTS of empty glasses

even a booth set up in a gun shop...only in Missouri!

and my favorite photo of the day...love this man!