A not-so-typical Christmas.

Jake and I left for Tennessee on the afternoon of Christmas Eve and got in around 9pm. We were really worried because on the way Bailey got really sick and was throwing up a lot almost every hour. We thought maybe she was carsick or that we fed her too much or something but after we got there the sickness didn't go away. Poor thing, we felt awful because she wouldn't eat or drink or play at all. On the upside though, it was kind of nice to just be able to leave her in her crate and let her sleep while we visited with Leah and Alex (Jake's Cousin). It was so great to see them. We all have so much in common and don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. They are in the Air Force as well and are actually moving to Germany in a couple months which is very exciting. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were fun. We just relaxed, did a few presents, and ate a big dinner. To be honest though, it definitely didn't feel like Christmas (which is ironic seeing how I just wrote a blog on how it did feel like Christmas here). It was just so different than any Christmas I've had and I really missed being around a loud house full of people. I missed playing games and cards and catching up with distant relatives. I missed opening stockings and seeing a tree full of presents. I missed a full and busy kitchen and the part where everyone sleeps after dinner. None of that was really here this year. That's okay I guess; many more Christmases to come. Another reason it didn't feel like Christmas was because Bailey only continued to get more sick :( On Christmas day she started throwing up worms (which by the way is SO disgusting). We couldn't call the vet or anything because it was Christmas and even if we could, we were almost 5 hours from home. We were so sad for her and scared that something serious was wrong with her, but there was not much we could do for the time being so we tried to enjoy our trip anyways. When we got back on Friday, we took her to the vet right away and they said that she had worms. Turns out most puppies do have worms especially if they are born at a shelter. The vet said that it would be an easy fix though and that Bailey would be feeling better really soon. Within 24 hours of her appointment, Bailey was cured! We are so happy. The vet said that everything else with her was normal and healthy. She does have to go in again in a week to get her 2nd round of shots though, which I'm sure will not be fun.

Since the trip, Jake and I have been busy continuing to fix up our house. Jake has been busy trying to fix the awful teal tile in the bathrooms while I worked on finishing up the painting and hanging up all the curtains and decorations. The living room is actually completely done! It's nice to have one room of the house done so that we have a place to relax away from the boxes and clutter. We are really happy with the way the house is turning out. It's just so great to have a home. Tonight we had our first house guests too! We invited a couple over (the same couple that we went out to dinner and bowling with last week) for dinner. I love having guests for dinner! It's so fun. I made a lasagna and stuff for dinner and we ended up just talking and hanging out for a few hours. It was nice to have some other people around. It's been pretty quiet with just me and Jake lately.

All in all, I think I'm feeling pretty at home here now. It's different now (better) that everything is all set up and settled. I am missing friends and family a lot though and its hard knowing that I've set up this great house that most of them will probably never get to see. It also is hard because we don't get any phone reception in our house. Seriously, most of the time our phones say "no service" when we are inside. It's such a pain to always be missing calls and having to stand outside in the cold whenever we do want to make a call. However its not practical for us to get a phone line seeing as how we only use our cell phones and neither of us really even like talking on the phone. So please note that if you call us and we don't answer, we probably never even got your call. It stinks but oh well I guess. On a better note, our internet and cable is being hooked up at the end of the week! That is so exciting to me since I am home for so many hours every day.

As far as pictures, I have taken some of the living room and just need to load them on the computer. I also have some cute ones of Bailey to post. Tomorrow I will try to do a picture post for you all to see. Well, that's all for now!

Tomorrow...I promise...

This post is just to say that I didn't forget about blogging. I've been SO busy this weekend and promise to post some new stuff tomorrow :) Hope ya'll had a great Christmas!!

Feels like Christmas.

Christmas is definitely different this year! Since we just got out here, we weren't able to home to be with our families, which is definitely a bummer. But Jake's cousin and his wife and their new baby are going to be spending Christmas just a few hours away from us in the southern part of Tennessee and they invited us to join them. We plan to be up there today, tomorrow, and Friday; we loved the thought of not spending Christmas by ourselves. So in a few hours we will be packing up our things and preparing Bailey for her first big trip (it's about a 4 hour drive). They also have a dog so it really worked out for us bringing Bailey along. Let's just hope she keeps doing good with not going to the bathroom indoors or I'm going to feel really bad!

Even though we're not with family, it definitely still feels like Christmas. The weather is cold and everyone here in Mississippi seems to be all about Christmas. You know those ugly Christmas sweaters that people wear to be funny at Christmas parties? Well, people of all ages here wear those for real. They go everywhere decked out in green and red and have tons of trashy Christmas decor on their lawns. I kind of love it! Any store you go in to, people are always saying "Merry Christmas!". I know that sounds typical but something about it is just so different than California; I don't know, it's like they celebrate every time they say it. So Christmas out here is still Christmas, although I sure do wish we would have had time to get a tree.

Quick update on Bailey: she didn't let us sleep much at ALL last night :/ She woke us up about every 2-3 hours for us to take her outside to go to the bathroom. We are exhausted! She's so cute though and she's still doing such a great job with the training so its hard to be mad at her. Hopefully she will do well on this trip for the next few days. We may be coming home tomorrow night instead if she isn't behaving well at their house.

Anyways, I hope everyone is having a nice Christmas. Don't forget the reason we are celebrating!

New House + New Puppy = Hard Work

Wow, yesterday and today have been very exciting and eventful. Let's see, yesterday we got our house in the morning and the movers came right before lunch. It still blows my mind that we have a 3 bedroom house. A house! And I'm also kind of amazed that we are able to furnish it all already. After we got all our belongings yesterday (thankfully with no missing boxes or big damages), we unpacked like crazy. I don't know what happened but by midnight we had unpacked almost everything. It was insane. We both completely passed out after that long day. I'm glad to say that I LOVE our house! The bathrooms, like I said, are pretty gross but we are trying to fix that. Everything else though is SO perfect! The kitchen is huge and has more than enough storage and we have the perfect setup in the living room and dining room. Jake has been so wonderful in dealing with my organizing and decorating obsession. To my surprise, he's allowed me to buy almost everything that I had wanted for our new house. We got a new TV stand and area rug and tons of little things here and there. To be honest, I'm very surprised that our house looks so nice. I spent all day today painting the living room area and wow what a difference that made! It looks great!

On to the more important subject of Bailey (our new puppy)... Turns out that the vet wanted her to stay an extra night to recover from all her shots and everything so we didn't get to pick her up on Monday. We were really bummed but it turned out to be nice because it gave us time to finish unpacking. We got to pick her up today instead. We were SO nervous going to get her and were pretty sure we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We picked her up to drive home and she was a serious bundle of energy! She was so excited and loved being in the car. Once we got her home, we had so much fun playing with her and were surprised at how much energy she had for how small she is. I mean she is only about the size of my 2 hands put together. We spent the rest of the day implementing our training techniques that we researched. Although she's only 7 weeks old she is SO smart and is already taking to the whole potty training routine. She had this cycle all day where she plays hard for 20 minutes then sleeps for 30 minutes to an hour. In between she eats and poops and thats about it. She is just the perfect addition to our family and home here. Honestly, she will probably be the most spoiled dog ever.

But Jake and I are just beyond exhausted, with the moving, organizing and painting not to mention the efforts of entertaining and training a puppy. I doubt, too, that we will get much sleep tonight with the little puppy in the house but it's all worth it. I'll write again tomorrow to talk about our plans for the holidays!

The good and bad of AF life so far.

Having no Internet connection has really been throwing off my ability to blog lately, but today I will attempt to catch you up. In this blog I want to talk about our newest family addition as well as the good and bad things I have learned about living on base at Columbus.

As most of you reading this probably already know, Jake and I got a puppy!! Her name is Bailey and she is a feist terrier mix. It is exactly the type of dog that we have wanted. She will stay pretty small (less than 30 pounds) and her breed is known for being very intelligent and easy to train. Like most terriers, she will probably be very energetic, athletic, and friendly. We got her from a shelter and were able to see what her mom looks like so we kind of know what she will grow up to be, however it is unknown what breed her dad was so we could still be in for a surprise. Right now she is only about 6 weeks old so its hard to tell, but physically she looks just like the mom. Here's the story to how Bailey ended up in our lives...

Jake and I were just driving around town on Friday checking things out. We went by Lowe's to check out paint colors for the walls and went to get a few things for the house. We knew that the Humane Society shelter was nearby and Jake really wanted to go look at the dogs and also see about us volunteering there. To be honest, we really had no intention of getting a dog, at least not yet. We wanted to make sure that when we got a dog that it would be the perfect one for us plus we wanted a puppy which is rare to find at a shelter. Turns out there were 2 puppies there that had just become the right age to be adopted. Jake loved the mom dog and thought she was perfect. Once we saw her puppies we just fell in love with them. We got to hold one and we just knew she was the one we wanted. Jake whipped out his iPhone and started researching information on the type of dog she was while I guarded the cage making sure nobody took her. Turns out that her breed was exactly what we wanted. We signed the adoption papers right then but told the lady that we couldn't pick her up til Monday because that's the day we move into our house. That actually worked out fine because the puppy needed to see the vet there on Monday before she can leave. It was also good that we took her then instead of waiting because someone called to adopt her as we were signing the papers and the other puppy was being adopted as we left. It was perfect! Jake and I decided to name her Bailey and right after we left we went to go buy her everything she needed. She's not even with us yet and I think she is already the most spoiled dog ever. We got her everything a puppy could want! Jake and I have also been researching on training methods all week so that we are prepared. She will be mostly an indoor dog so we want to make sure she is trained really well. So that's our new baby girl Bailey. I will post some pictures of her after we get her in the house tomorrow night.

Other than that excitement, I think this is the laziest week I've ever had. It's like I don't have anything to do so I just want to sleep all the time. I guess that's okay though after having such a rough semester in L.A. Alright now for some of the good and the bad I have figured out so far.

I have already written about most of the good things but I will recap and expand a little. I love the town of Columbus itself. Its so cute and everyone is so nice. There are lots of things to do and surprisingly there is plenty of shopping (and apparently we are even getting a Target this summer!) The base is really nice too. I mean the weather makes everything kind of gross looking at this time of year but you can tell that spring will be so beautiful. The base is like a little town and has things like a gym, a grocery store, a regular store, a bank, a gas station, schools, parks, a bowling alley, an arts and crafts center, a thrift store, and on and on. There are 3 different large neighborhoods on base that allow most people to live on base and live in a community. We are in the old neighborhood which is duplexes but even still I just love the thought of having a house; and they really aren't that bad, definitely nicer than anything else we could afford. Another great thing is the amount of time I get to spend with Jake. We have not spent this much time together since we've been married, with my crazy unit load and his long work weeks. Its been so nice for it to just be us out here and enjoy our days together. I know I better enjoy that while I can because we will have lots of hard times apart in the future.

Okay now for the bad. Maybe I shouldn't use the word "bad". There's not anything awful, just some stuff to get used to I guess. But I figured that I need to acknowledge the bad stuff in my blog too, just to be realistic. First off, almost every person we have met on base is kind of negative and very opinionated. Its really hard to be excited when you are around couples who constantly point out the bad things in life. They are always saying things like "I can't believe we have to be in the old houses" or "Its too cold here" or "Its too boring here". I'm thinking, why do you have to say things like that when there is nothing you can do about it? Why not make the best of it? We only have met a few couples so far because we are in the hotel right now so I still have hope that we will find some fun (and optimisitc) people. Another negative is the weather. It's not bad but completely sporadic. For example yesterday was 75 degrees and today is in the 30's with a low of 18. Seriously?! That's weird. Tomorrow is supposed to be even colder and then it will warm up again for a few days. I honestly do like it better than L.A.; at least we get some sort of winter. Okay back to the people on base. There are basically two types of guys that Jake has met so far: the single ones and the married ones. The single ones are so annoying. They act like they are still in college and are always cussing and partying. Not our type. The married ones (and this is not an exagerration based on the people we've met so far) ALL have kids, babies on the way, or are trying to have kids and that's all they can talk about. I don't get it. Whats the rush? I mean most of the wives here are my age and some are even younger! The wives seem to think that pilot training is a good time to have kids because their husbands can't be deployed but the guys are working 12 hour days during training and are studying all night once they do come home. The wives are practically single mothers and that does not sound fun to me. I am praying that we can find a couple that is not planning on having kids right now and can talk about things other than their kids with them. Along with this, there is an almost universal acceptance here that women should stay at home all day. When I tell people that I plan to work full time, they either say "that's sweet" or they look at me like I;m so wierd. However this might be because, like I said, I haven't met any wives without kids. Its just sad that these women don't have any ambitions or goals of their own other than popping out babies. I'm thankful that Jake and I are on the same page with all this baby and work stuff. I'm sure there are other women here like me, I just need to find them! One last negative...when we get together in groups for dinner or to hang out, it is Air Force talk 24/7. Jake loves it of course but there is only so much that I can handle. I would love to talk about something else every now and then. I'm trying so hard to learn all the lingo and abbreviations so I can be in the conversation but the truth is that I am already sick of all that talk. Once again, I just need to meet some girls I can relate to so that we can let the guys talk and we can talk about something else...anything other than babies or planes.

Well, I probably just made everything sound really negative but that want my intention. Its really not. There are sooo many great things about being here, its just an adjustment and its always hard trying to meet new people. The person that I have met that I do really like is moving away in a few months so I'm trying not to get attached. It will be great when we move in tomorrow and can meet our neighbors and some more couples. I also cant wait to pick up Bailey tomorrow! Shes so cute! Its great to feel like we have a little family now :) Anyways, I will try to write again soon but I might be preoccupied for a day or two with all the moving stuff and the new puppy. I'll definitely try to write another update before Christmas and post some pictures of our new house and Bailey. Hope all is well with everyone else!

More Updates!

Wow my days seem to be very eventful lately. I'm not sure how much longer this will keep up but for now I have more updates! Here are the updates since I posted my blog yesterday...

After we left the library yesterday we went to drive by our house again. I knew we wouldn't get to see it or anything but I thought it would be nice to see what it looked like in the daylight and maybe peek in the windows :) Turns out, there were three ladies cleaning our house and they invited us to come in and take a look at the inside! I must say that it is the smallest three bedroom house I have ever seen. The living room was much much smaller than the one we even had in our apartment! The kitchen was pretty great though. Much bigger than our old one and it has new cabinets in it which are really nice compared to some of the other ones we've seen here. The bedrooms are pretty small but there are three of them so we have more than enough room. The house also has hardwood floors everywhere except the kitchen and bathrooms and the floors are really nice. It will work out great when it comes to potty training our new puppy. I should also mention our oh-so-lovely bathrooms (not!). We have bright teal tile on the floors and walls! AH! It is very obnoxious and its in both bathrooms. After leaving the house we decided to stop by the housing office to see what they would let us do about that tile. It turns out that our house is actually slated for demolition in the next 5 years (ha! that shows how nice it is). They are redoing the base housing and ours is being completely torn out. They basically said that we could whatever we wanted because its going to be torn down eventually. We are going to try and find some sort of tile paint and paint it white just because its a cheap and easy fix and we aren't going to be living in the house long enough to make any permanent changes. So anyways, thats the house information. AND we got confirmation that all our stuff will definitely be delivered on Monday when we move in. Yay! I really can't wait for Monday!

After that, the rest of the afternoon was spent waiting for my luggage. It finally got here at 4pm which was great because at 5 we were leaving for dinner and bowling with a couple. Dinner was great; we went to Applebees, then we went back to base to the bowling alley, which was actually really nice! We could only play 2 games though because the wife of the couple we were with is 5 months pregnant and that was about all she could do. Its so weird that almost every couple here is the same age as us and either has a baby or one on the way. Pray that won't be us! I am so not ready for that!

Today I met up with my friend, Angela, that I have known for over a year now but have never met. We have kind of been email buddies since we randomly met last fall. Her and her husband have been here for over a year and a half now. She works at the university just up the road. We met for lunch in downtown Columbus and got some soup and salad. I was a little nervous because we knew so much about eachother but had never actually met before, but we had such a great time and definitely just clicked right away. After lunch, I took some time to wander around town and get familiar. It is such a cute town! I love it so much! I was very excited too when I noticed they have a department store in town that is almost identical to Macy's, except its called Belk. I had never heard of it but it is awesome and has everything that a normal department store would. You all can imagine my excitement about that. Now I am back at base, in the library using their internet. It's so nice not to really have anything to do. It's giving me a chance to spend time with Jake and for us to get to meet other couples here. Its really been an easy transition so far for me and I just love it here. Everyone is so happy and courteous and seems to genuinely want to get to know you.

Well thats all for now. I'll write more later and I have some funny stories that I need to post too when I get some time and I know that I really need to post some pictures. But right now Jake's waiting on me to go get some food so I better go! Thanks for reading!

A seriously long day.

I'm bummed that I couldn't update this much for the last two days. Monday was crazy busy with finals and closing things up at school and yesterday I was literally traveling ALL day. First I will tell about my long day yesterday and then I will get into details about the town and the base. Hang in there, this is going to be a long blog...

Yesterday morning, after saying all my goodbyes, Cassie and I left for LAX at 9am to make sure I would have plenty of time to check in to my flight that left at 11:50. I checked in and checked my bag, which by the way weighed EXACTLY 50 pounds (that is the limit), and everything was going great. Then I went to security and I showed my military ID (which I still think is so cool!) and they put a red circle on my ticket. I was thinking "oh that must be because I am military or something", thinking I was special. Turns out that was NOT the case. After walking through the security line, they pulled me aside, grabbed all my bags and took me into a separate room. They proceeded to pat me down and empty all my belongings out of bags (which made me mad because I barely got everything to fit in my suitcase to begin with). Then the questioning began..."why are you only flying one way?", "where are you going?", etc. At this time, after I had been in the room for almost a half hour and was very upset, I asked "Do you treat all your military members this way?". The ladies in there looked at each other and said "You are military?"and so I showed them my ID. They said "We're so sorry, you can go ahead and go". I then strategically repacked my suitcase and bags and ran to my gate. I thought it was so weird that they would check me like that. I mean I originally showed them my military card. Did they think it wasn't real or something? Anyways, not a good way to start the day.

So then I got on my plane and of course I ended up sitting next to "chatty Kathy". Oh yes, she wanted to know all the details of my life story. I just wanted to sit and read my magazines, listen to my music, and fall asleep. Oh well, at least she was nice. Then I landed in Atlanta, which by the way is a HUGE airport. I had to run to make my connecting flight and get on a train to switch concourses. Of course, my two terminals were pretty much the farthest apart from each other. But, I made it, and with a little time to spare actually. So then I boarded the smallest plane EVER to take me into our town of Columbus. Thankfully, the plane was only half full so I got two seats to myself and tried to get comfy. This flight was great in that it was only 45 minutes long; it was like as soon as we took off, we were ready to land. Although, I don't think the flight attendant ever stopped talking and she had probably the strongest accent I had ever heard. I mean, she really loved that plane microphone. She then said that we would be there in 2-3 minutes so I pulled my window open to try and see anything, even though it was really dark and foggy. It was honestly the creepiest thing ever. There were no lights below, no signs of life, and nothing to indicate that we would be anywhere near ground. And then the wheels touched and I was so weirded out. Definitely not Los Angeles.

Here's where the story gets just wonderful. My checked bag was lost. Oh yes, of course that would happen to me. Turns out, it never even made the connecting flight in Atlanta. This was just wonderful considering that all that was in my carry on was shoes because they were too heavy to check. So I had a ton of shoes but nothing to wear and none of my bathroom stuff. Luckily, it was at this time that I got to see Jake, and it was hard to be upset when I was so happy to be in his arms again. We talked to the worker there and he said that my bag was not actually lost but it was definitely still in Atlanta and it would be on the next flight out here. Even still, I had no clothes with me or anything comfortable to wear, and I definitely wanted to change after traveling all day. Time to hit up the super Walmart! Yep, Jake took me there and I got to pick out some wonderful Walmart clothes. Actually I got some pretty comfortable sweat pants and a shirt (and a toothbrush of course). Then we got some good food and took a nighttime tour of the town.

The town is so cute! Its like we went back in time a few decades. Lots of little shops, and gorgeous historic southern buildings and houses. Then we went to the other side of town and I was SO pleasantly surprised! Guess what?! They don't just have a Walmart; they have a JCPenny's, a Sears, and an Old Navy! Not to mention that they have all the food places that I like. I was totally wrong about the town. Its not much worse than Turlock used to be as far as things to do. Jake couldn't stop laughing at my intense excitement about Old Navy and Chilis (haha!)

After getting the tour of the town, we drove to base which is about ten minutes down the road (literally down the one main road that goes through town). It was so comforting that the guards at the front of the base check the ID of every person in the car. I already felt so safe in my new home. Jake drove around to show me the base and, while it was pitch black because it was like 11pm, I could tell that the base was perfect! It was just what I had imagined. Its like a little town in itself, with everything you need right there. We drove by our house (that we move into on Monday) and I could hardly contain my excitement. Actually, I didn't contain my excitement at all. I made Jake pull into the driveway while I studied every detail of it and jumped up and down. Its our house! and it looks way better in person than it had in the pictures! I still haven't seen the inside yet though :/ Basically, I am so so excited. And can I say that it was SO nice not to sleep on a couch and to be able to sleep in as much as I wanted. I must say that the time difference is really throwing me off though.

So today is my first day here. And when the Revalie (you know that military trumpet song) played this morning at 6:30am I like jumped out of bed, scared to death. Apparently, every morning that song goes off blaring SO loud all around base at 6:30. I guess I will have to get used to that. It is weird here to finally be in winter weather. Its not too cold today but it is SO foggy and dreary. Its kind of sad that the grass is all dead and yellow and the trees are bare but I can imagine that this place is so gorgeous in the spring! We don't have Internet access anywhere yet but right now I am in the library on base and they have Internet. Although, facebook is blocked so I can't check that except on my phone. Hopefully my luggage will get here soon too; the flight from Atlanta got in at 11:30 this morning so hopefully my bag was on there. I really hope so because tonight we are going out with a couple that Jake met and we are going to go to dinner and then go bowling. I really would love to shower and wear something other than sweats for that.

Well, there ya have it; every detail of a very eventful day. I'll write more soon! Also, if you are reading this, please post a comment or something so that I know that someone is actually reading this and I am not writing all this out for nothing (haha).

The next 48 hours.

Less than 48 hours til the big move. Oh yeah, tomorrow is my last day of school (eek!) Jake has been in MS for a few days now and despite a few hilarious stories about the small town folk of Columbus, it has kind of been a disappointment for him. Personally, I think he just needs me out there. You see, Jake and I compliment each other wonderfully in that I am an extreme optimist and he is, well, a bit pessimistic. Although he has had some experiences that would make me upset too. For instance, the first guy he met at work was a complete jerk...not a great introduction and he said that the base is very dead right now and a lot smaller than we had anticipated.

I remain optimistic though! We do have our house (even though we can't move in for another week because they are cleaning). It's not much, its a duplex with an outdated kitchen and bathrooms, but I don't even care. It's ours and its a HOUSE! a three bedroom house at that! And I have faith that a good coat of paint can do wonders for any room in the house. I am excited to decorate and start cooking again!

Alright, now to focus on reality. Tomorrow I have finals...Luckily, most of tough ones were last week so I'm not worried. I'm more worried about getting everything done on campus that I need to and saying goodbye to everyone, being that its my last day in L.A. My wonderful girlfriends are throwing me a going away party tomorrow night after my last final! Yay! It will be a good (and hard) time to say goodbye to my best friends. I just can't believe I am basically done with college and am starting a totally new chapter of my life.

Ok so I know my blogs are totally redundant at this point but I promise once I get out to MS they will be about something else (haha). I'm sure I'll write again tomorrow...probably about the move again :)

Columbus, Mississippi: Soon to be my new home!

I had a little bit of downtime this afternoon so I thought I would investigate this new place Jake and I are moving to. I've never been anywhere in the south and have always had this movie-themed, western kind of picture in my head of what Mississippi would be like. I kind of figured it would be a whole different world and that I would never relate. While some of that might be true, as I know I will be in culture shock without Nordstrom and Starbucks (hehe...), it actually looks like a very fun and beautiful place. The town and base have tons of activities and fun things to do. For a while I think it will kind of feel like camp...me filling my days with little activities and adventures, meeting new friends, and feeling a little out of my element. It seems like a lot of stuff that goes on in the city and on base is just my style!

I'm including some links that tell a little about where I'm going, if you are interested in checking it out. The first one is the city of Columbus' website: http://www.columbus-ms.org/ This gives miscellaneous pictures and info about the city around the base. Looks cute right? The second link will take you to the pdf file for the base events newsletter for November and December: http://www.cafbservices.com/Events/cal%20Nov%20Dec08.pdf There seems like so much fun stuff to do! I'm totally liking this whole air force wife thing :)

Maybe I am overly optimistic but like I said, I am SO excited and ready for this new adventure!

Torn between two sides of myself.

This week has been insane! Sadly though I think I have gotten used to having way too much homework to do and surprisingly have been doing well to get it all done. I've been trying to fill whatever extra time I do have with anything and everything though to keep my mind off of missing Jake. I even taught myself to knit and am making a scarf! (yeah I know I'm a grandma right?). But its hard to think that we've only been apart less than 2 weeks and I am missing him like crazy. I say its hard because I know that this summer we will be apart for 6 weeks while he's at training and realistically I know thats not the longest we will have to be apart during his Air Force career. I really am thankful for his career though. It is giving us the opportunity to do so many different things, see new places, and meet new people.

As I am getting ready to say so many goodbyes this week, I am kind of torn in two. One side of me can't imagine leaving my best friends. I had to do that already when I left Turlock 4 years ago and to do that again makes my heart hurt. Some of the best friends I will ever have are here, at Biola. Everyone seems to be sad too. It seems like everything I do lately is "the last time" I will do it. For example "my last class" or "my last fountain time" (sorry if that makes no sense...its a tradition with our friends to sit and talk for an hour by the fountain after chapels before we go to lunch). Its hard to think of leaving everything I know to go to a place I can barely even imagine. I mean, I've only ever lived in California and really do not know what to expect in Mississippi! My whole world as I know it is about to change.

But then there is this other side of me; the side that won't let me be sad because every time I start to get sad, this part of me overrides it. This is the side of extreme excitement! Anyone who knows me, knows that I am an independent person who actually really loves change. In fact, I get bored with things (places, etc.) after a pretty short time. God built me for my destiny as an Air Force wife. I can't imagine all the exciting things that are waiting for me after we move. I can't be sad because I am so ready for the next phase of my life. I'm ready to make new friends; not that there's anything wrong with my friends now because they are amazing but you can never have enough friends right? I have been preparing for this move for over a year now and am finding it hard to believe that everything is really going to change...on Tuesday!!

If I seem like I am not sad enough about leaving and moving on, its not because I am anxious to leave friends, family, and Biola, because I will miss this place more than I even realize right now. But I am so overwhelmed with the exciting future that lays before me that I cant waste time concentrating on being sad. I don't want to leave with sad "goodbyes" but with a happy "see ya again soon ok?" I mean with cell phones and facebook I think everyone will still know so much about my life.

So this is where I am at; trying to take in every "last time" that I am experiencing. But I can't hide my happiness and the joy of having a new home that is all about my new life with my new family (me, Jake, and our soon to be new puppy!).

Life is good. Change is good. Moving on is hard, but change is good! And I am ready...

Here I go again.

I have tried to blog regularly in the past because I really do enjoy it; however, with the 23 units I have been taking this fall plus being a newlywed, blogging is the last thing I have had time for. Now that my semester is over in just less than a week, I am going to try to write consistently again. I think this will be a great way for my friends to stay updated on all the little random things in my life while I am in Mississippi (oh and yes, one week from now, I will be there!). Also, its a good way to vent out life's little frustrations. Anywho, please post comments or add me as a friend if you'd like. I will try to stay up to date with this whole thing.