My Veteran

So today I had a special day with my favorite Veteran! We heard that Applebee's was offering free meals to Veterans today so we decided to go out for lunch. We knew it would be busy so we held off till 2pm. Sure enough we get there...PACKED. Applebee's is located near a movie theatre and the adjoining movie theatre parking lot had a LOT of overflow vehicles parked in it. WOW. So that was not going to work, we were hungry. Josh remembered that there's a pizza place (called the Pizza Joint) nearby that has 50% off on Wednesday for military. What luck- it's Wednesday! So we decided we would go there. Not free food, but close. :) So we get there, turns out 50% doesn't start till 5pm. It's 2:30 by now. We say, just forget it, we'll have pizza. It was super good! However it was full price. So now we've filled our out-to-eat quota for November. Probably not a bad thing.

So we headed home, passed the Applebee's again on the way back and what do you know 3:30...even more packed. DANG!

For supper we made one of Josh's favorite meals. Pancakes. I've included pictures. I'll let you guess who's is who's. Josh really likes making pancakes, if you can't tell! He's great at it, too. Very yummy! Side note: Josh is wearing the shirt the nurses gave him after my surgery last year. I got one, and he asked if he could have one, too. Sooo they found him one just big enough to be adult sized. ha ha ha. (It says, my operation was bearable at Children's Mercy Hospital.)




We had an excellent day together. One thing I love about the military getting time off on Federal holidays is that we get just a little bit of extra family time to make up for the reason he is a vet to begin with! God has given us so much to be thankful for, and I'm thankful to have insight into a lifestyle I never gave a second thought to before becoming an Army wife. I'm glad we have this day!

I'm proud of you honey! Thank you for following the Lord and serving Him and us all at the same time! I know there are many sacrifices and frustrations, but you handle it well and I'm so thankful to be YOUR wife! LOVE YOU!

Diversity: What it means in the Kingdom!

I spent Thursday thru Sunday of this last week at the PWOC Southeast Region Fall Retreat. PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) is the main ministry for military wives on base. Since I was introduced to it at Ft. Leonard Wood, it has been one of the first pieces of information on my list of 'find outs' for a new base. This weekend, God opened my eyes to even more reasons why PWOC is such an amazing ministry.

PWOC contains women who have husbands who do all sorts of crazy jobs in the Army. Wives who have been through 6 deployments in 9 years, wives who have moved 13 times in 16 years, brand new wives figuring out Army life, those new arrivals to the base, those who have retired there and continued to be involved, new moms, moms of LOTS, prior service soldiers who have married soldiers, gotten out of the Army themselves, and started attending PWOC...etc. Ages 21-86, black, white, asian, hispanic - some who met their husbands while their husband was stationed in Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, Cuba, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine...etc. Are you getting my drift- there are women of all kinds here!

I say this all to paint a picture of the experience at conference. 20 different Army and Air Force bases were represented, and over 400 women were there. The keynote speaker was telling us how blessed we are to get to experience God on a different level than most. Here's why. Picture God as a diamond- a huge diamond with 1000 different facets. In my life, I have experienced God meeting needs and answering prayer in a way that has shown me who He is. When I worship God, I am praising Him for the part of Him that I know and have experienced. For our picture sake, lets say I see one facet of all of who God is. Now my PWOC friend from Korea, who's been married to her soldier husband for 15 years, brings an entire different experience of the Lord with her. Not just because of her culture and upbringing differences, but because of her own life journey is different than mine, and she sees different characteristics of God differently than I do. Take my PWOC friend who has been stationed with her husband in 13 different places...5 different countries included! She brings yet another aspect of God to praise, things she's seen and experience in her walk with the Lord.

All this to say, that God gets BIGGER praise when we worship and fellowship together (because more of who He is has been recognized by those present) than if I was by myself, or if I had simply surrounded myself with women who were exactly like me. The challenge came in noticing our tendencies on how we invest ourselves into other believers. If I check out my top ten friends, or top ten social events, are they all late twenties, married, expecting/young kids...or am I following the example in Revelation 7:9 that says God's Kingdom includes those from every tribe, tongue, and nation. We can experience so much more of HIM by expanding our friendships to those of all socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities, age groups, denominations, etc.

It was a wonderful retreat. I will probably post more about it, because that was only 1 session of 8 that I went to. It was really encouraging and challenging- just what I needed! :)

Ta Da!

And now the moment you've all been waiting for... more pictures! ;)


This is me at 28 weeks.




This is me at 30 weeks...what a difference 2 weeks makes!



And this is me now. However, it is not the best picture because I am wearing a shirt that is too small so it's stretched like a tent and still too short so you can't see the shape as well. BUT, do you like our new baby room curtains? I do!

Speaking of...Martha- you haven't posted pictures of your finished baby room yet. Not that you're not busy and all, but you should probably get on that. :)

Well, thus starts another week! On Thursday we met with the Doc and Baby weighed in at 3 lbs 5 oz and about 17 inches long (estimation). I can't quite remember if I put this on here before or not, but nearly every ultrasound we've had (we've had 7) she has had her legs stick straight above her head. And both hands by her face. So she's been folded in half for months now. Find something comfy and stick with it I guess! She's going to start running out of room soon enough. She must take after her dad in wanting something over his face/by his face when he sleeps. However, Josh could not get his feet by his face to sleep if his life depended on it- ha ha. That would be funny.

So...6 weeks left!

Even more exciting: Martha is counting in at 38 weeks...ANY DAY NOW!! Bring on my niece!! :)

Halloween Recap

We had our first GA Halloween. It was really productive! We got a lot of things done around the house, cleaned a LOT, went to the gym, got the baby room mostly set up/assembled, and still watched football, grilled out, and handed out candy to trick or treaters.

Our neighbor really gets in to decorating for Halloween so we went over to see his creation. Here are some pictures of what's in his front yard. He makes everything himself. He really enjoys it.





Crazy huh. We had quite a few entertaining costumes come to our door. The favorites were a cow, two little fuzzy chickens, and three transformers (the coolest BumbleBee Transformer costume ever.) Thus ends a pretty crazy day!

8 weeks left to wait:

Yup- that's right! Only 8 weeks left. WOAH!

The baby is growing like a weed: just under 3 lbs and 15 inches long. We're getting into the end! I actually get a few weeks off from going to the doctor's...don't have to go back for 2 more weeks (he gave me an extra week for good behavior- ha ha).

We've actually had our first tastes of fall weather here in GA. If you watch the news or national weather you know that we have been getting A LOT of rain. Nearly everyday is overcast and showers (downpours) off and on. Blocking the sun for the last 10 days has yielded chilly and wet temperatures. Which means bring on the soup! :) We had cider at Bible Study on Thursday night and hot tea last night. Yes!

Getting closer and closer to a house full of Christmas decor. :)

Vacation - Part 2

And thus began our second annual Washington DC trip for the Army 10-Miler. We flew out of Chicago Midway on a Southwest flight (love that airline- I'm so sad they don't come to Atlanta- we miss them!) and our flight was less than 1/2 full. So nice. We rented a car...only to find out it was a PT Cruiser. ha ha ha. We laughed so hard. Anyhoo, I guess it's not a bad car. I mean its no Geo. We found our accommodations at Mr. Brooks' house and ventured downtown to get checked in for the race. Amber came down from NYC to run with Josh and it was so much fun having her with!

The race was early the next morning and both Amber and Josh did fabulous. 10 miles in 70 minutes for Josh and 79:41 for Amber. DANG! They did awesome! Amit came down from Baltimore to spectate with me. There were 21000+ finishers, and among them there were wheelchair competitors and amputees. Awesome to watch. There were of course soldiers running in full gear, and some with flags, and other runners with shirts dedicated to loved ones. The runners start at the pentagon, run by Arlington National Cemetery, across the Memorial Bridge towards Abraham Lincoln's memorial, around the Watergate hotel, past the Washington Monument, around the Centennial Mall, passed the Capitol building, and a few Smithsonian museums, back to the Pentagon for the finish. It's a pretty sweet deal.

After we all got cleaned up we drove to Baltimore to tour Amit's house and city. We had a great time going to a downtown festival right off the Chesapeake Bay and eating at a local pizza place. Josh ate a fried Twinkie. I tasted a few bites. It was one of those things you just have to try, ONCE. Nothing like running 10 miles and then eating a deep fried twinkie in the same day. We had a great time - Baltimore has a totally different feel than other cities I've visited, we really liked it.

Monday and Tuesday Amber, Josh, and I became tourists again and visited more DC sites. We went to Ford's Theatre (and saw a play!), saw the Peterson House (where Lincoln died), went to the National Portrait Gallery, saw the Smithsonian castle, Arlington National Cemetery, the Jefferson Memorial, Washington Memorial, and the Solar Decathlon competition. The Solar Decathlon was spread out on the Mall, and was a competition of many different colleges and some organizations from other countries competing to build the best mini solar powered house. So there were many houses under construction made of all sorts of materials. It was pretty cool to watch. We also ate at Chipotle as many times as possible because they don't have them down here in Augusta. And we had a Panera Pink Ribbon bagel every morning. If you haven't tried one, I suggest you do it. It's the bagel of the month for Breast Cancer Awareness. I LOVE THEM. I'm actually super sad they only offer them in October.

We had so much fun on our trip! Way too short as usual- but here are a few of the pictures we took: enjoy!

Vacation - Part 1

Where to start!? We had so much fun on our vacation! We were gone for 10 days to Michigan and then Washington D.C. where Josh ran the Army 10-Miler for the second year in a row.

Let's start where we left off! Ryan and Martha came to Georgia to visit for the weekend and we had a great time, the weekend Ryan could get off work just happened to be the weekend before we were starting our vacation so we all got to fly back to Michigan together. That was pretty fun! It was an adventure for sure. Navigating Atlanta is always fun, and so is cramming as much activity into a day as possible. Not to mention near death experiences...here's us on the plane:


Michigan is always a jam packed trip. No matter how many times we say "we're just going to relax this time" it never happens. There is just too much fun to be had!

We got in Monday night, and on Tuesday, Dan and Kim and Kaleb came down from Grand Rapids to visit. We had a great time playing with all our nephews and watching them all play together! Here's a bunch of pictures from that:


Wednesday I got my teeth cleaned and also got a new hair cut, and got a new MI driver's license. Marth and I also did a little shopping. White's came over for some yummy soup and then the boys went to play Wednesday night basketball.

Thursday morning Martha and I went to her women's bible study which was awesome, then Josh went to go get his teeth cleaned. Then we hung out with the boys and went over to Schoony's for supper. Here's some pictures from that! Garrett really likes Buzz Lightyear right now. He's super cute walking around with Hunter's gift of a Buzz toy, saying "BUZZ?!" all the time. :) There are a couple of pictures on the end of Friday afternoon because they are cute.


Friday morning Josh and I had to run more errands, then we went out to lunch with Momma Eileen and had a great time.



Then Martha and I ran more errands while Josh played with the boys. Friday night the four of us adults went out for supper and desert at the Chocolate Cafe (YUM) partly for Martha and Ryan's anniversary and because it's really fun! Then Saturday bright and early Josh and I delivered a new car to my bro and soon to be sis-in-law on our way out of town...it's always fun to meet people at the airport, except when you only get to see them for 10 minutes. BOO. But, it was still great to see them (last time before the wedding!!!!)


Waaay too much fun!