Blog Deja-Vu

Thank you all for sending over your email addresses. This blog is officially private and it feels fabulous! Anyways, today I wanted to write about my "blog deja-vu". First I should start by saying I've been awfully sick for the past week. It started towards the end of my Oklahoma trip so as soon as I got back I went straight to the Dr to get it taken care of - I have NO time to be sick! Who does?

I was pretty sure when I went in that I had bronchitis, even though I had no symptoms except for trouble breathing. Sure enough, I was right. How did I know? Well, almost exactly a year ago I blogged about having the same thing. I was reading through some of my old blogs last week and came across one where I was sick and the way I described how I was feeling was exactly the same as now. It's an atypical bronchitis so I have no outside signs that I'm actually sick (like coughing, sore throat..). It's really strange, and apparently my body thinks that every year at this time I need to get it! It made me wonder if over the years I will look back to my November/December blog posts and always read about me being sick. Maybe next year at this time I should just go to the doctor and ask for some antibiotics in advance :)

Anyways, I'm finally starting to feel better and am excited to get caught back up on work and school and life. And I'm really excited because in just 2.5 weeks I'll be headed to Portland for Christmas to see all of my family! I seriously LOVE the holidays! I'm listening to the Michael Buble holiday station on Pandora as we speak.

Before I go, I want to show you a funny picture of Bailey & Badger. Last night I was laying in bed snacking on some banana bread and apparently the dogs really like banana bread because they sat and gave me these pitiful looks the entire time I was eating. I can never seem to get them to sit still but I guess I found a new trick!

My Blog is Going Private...

As of Monday morning, my blog will be set to be viewed by invited readers only. I've been debating whether or not to do this for a while now but yesterday I got a few "anonymous" rude comments on some of my blog posts and that made up my mind. Not sure if it was spam or just a random mean person, but either way it made me realize that only my family and friends should have access to the details of my personal life.

So here's the deal... Anyone who already receives my blog through email (which as of now is mostly my family) will still have complete access - No need to do anything. Anyone else who follows my blog or reads it through my links off facebook will need an email invitation. To get an invitation, leave a comment on this post with your email address and I'll add you, or you can send me a facebook message. I love and appreciate all of my 60+ blog followers and don't want to leave anyone behind so please don't hesitate to ask for an invite.

Thanksgiving in Altus, Oklahoma

As most of you know, Jake is currently at Altus AFB doing specialized training on the C-17 for a few months and while he's there I'm spending some time with my family in California. When we first found out we were going to be apart for 6 long months, I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with it. Thankfully, it hasn't been as bad as I thought and we've been able to see each other every 3 or 4 weeks so far. And since Jake came out to visit in October and is coming back to the west coast for Christmas & New Years, we both decided I would come to visit him for the Thanksgiving holiday. I was very much looking forward to it and counting down the days - I was really excited to finally have a visual of the life Jake's been living for the past 3 months. It's so weird to be so physically disconnected from each others lives.

The flights over there went smoothly and the long 8 hours of traveling went surprisingly quick. I was pretty well-equipped with yummy snacks and juicy celebrity magazines :) When I landed at the Lawton airport it was interesting to see that the landscape in Oklahoma is totally different than that of Mississippi. Oklahoma is VERY flat, golden and you can see for miles and miles; Mississippi is very green with tons of trees and windy roads. While I was landing I was singing to myself "O.....klahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain". I know, I know... I'm a nerd. Oh and the other landscape thing that I was fascinated with was the miles and miles of cotton fields. I'd never seen cotton fields before! They surrounded the highway for as far as I could see. Very cool!

Jake took some time to show me around the base in Altus which is a pretty nice base. It was neat to see where he trains and spends his days. After that, I got a tour of the town which took a whole 5 minutes! Seriously though, Altus makes Columbus, Mississippi look HUGE! Next we headed to Jake's hotel so I could settle in and relax after a long day of traveling. And yes, Jake is living in a hotel, in a beautiful King suite room with free breakfast every morning, daily maid service, pool/spa and everything... FOR 17 WEEKS! He totally got the hook-up because the base dorms were full when he arrived to training. Staying in a hotel for my trip really made me feel like I was on a fabulous vacation :)

Although, for the entire week I was there we really didn't do much at all. I mean let's face it there really isn't not a whole lot to do in the area surrounding the base, and absolutely nothing was happening on base because it was a holiday week and almost everyone was gone. Luckily I did have a chance to see some of our good friends while I was there, as there are several people that we know from Columbus who are also doing specialized training at Altus right now. That was really nice!

But really not having much to do sounded just perfect to me. If there's one thing I am especially fantastic at, it's relaxing :) I put away all of my work for a whole week (gasp!), took advantage of being able to sleep in late and lounge around in my pjs everyday, enjoyed the hotel spa, and loved the fact that Jake didn't have a kitchen so that meant lots of eating out! However, our dining options were quite limited and most of the restaurants were either locally owned or small southern chains. We had fun eating at places called "Whataburger" and "Pick-up Taco". Seriously. Ah yes, going to the South when you are not from the South is a fun experience!

The only day that felt weird to be in a hotel was on Thanksgiving. It was strange and lonely not to be celebrating with a huge group of loved ones, stuffing our faces, laughing, playing games, taking an after-turkey nap by the fire, and scanning Black Friday ads together. I definitely missed that. But Jake and I did manage to have a decent little turkey dinner at Applebees... which happened to be almost connected to Jake's hotel so it was very convenient. Then for Black Friday, we decided to get out of Altus for the day and headed to Wichita Falls, Texas for some shopping. We didn't really buy much or score any amazing deals but it was fun to just spend time together, browsing the stores and people watching.

Well I think that's about all I have to tell you about my Thanksgiving in Altus, Oklahoma. Overall it was just really great to spend some quality time with my husband and relax a bit together. I'm so looking forward to seeing him again in just 3 weeks for the some fun holiday celebrations on the west coast!

I Just Couldn't Stay Away

I've been away from my personal blog for a month now and lately I've really been missing it! I might not have time to blog as often as I'd like but there are some days where I'm itching to blog about a story or event and I hate not having the option :) So no promises on how much I will be blogging but I AM BACK! And of course, with me being obsessed with blog makeovers, I decided to come back with a new look and a new name... Home is Where the AF Sends Us! You like? I realized that most of my blogs are about life in the AF or stories about our travels and moves so the title seemed pretty perfect.

Anyways, I'm excited to share with you all the things going on in my life right now. I'd write more in this post but I think it would get really random and sporadic so I'll break it down into smaller posts as the week goes on. I can't wait to write about my trip to Oklahoma (Altus AFB) last week to see my hubby, the crazy "blog deja-vu" I experienced this week, our experience so far with our upcoming move to Travis AFB, exciting plans for my sister's wedding, and more! See what I mean, I just couldn't stay away :)

Blog Hiatus

I'm sad to say that I've decided to take a short break from writing on my personal blog. I originally started writing because I had moved to a new place and was having new adventures and wanted to share with my family and friends back home. Well now that I'm living back at home for a few months I haven't been able to find as much motivation to write... because many of the people I write for are now with me on a daily basis.

I absolutely love blogging (this you know!) but I think I am just a bit uninspired and burnt out with it right now. I promise though that as soon as Jake and I get to our new AF base in March, I will be back in action with my writing. That will be such an exciting time for us as we explore the new area, get our new home, friends, life, work, etc. and I intend to document ALL of it!

In the meantime if you still want to keep in touch through the wonderful world of blog, I'll still be posting several times a week on my design blog, Busy Thoughts. To follow along with that blog, click here. To subscribe to my design blog posts by email, click here.