Weekend Recap: Alamaba-Living

Yep, Alabama-living.  Obviously being away from Pensacola left me missing some good ol' redneck lifestyle so I decided I needed to give in and come to Alabama.

Okay, that's a lie.  But I'm sure you knew that.  I am, however, living in Alabama right now.  Nick and I are currently homeless.  We can't move into our house until the middle of October (just another glamorous aspect of the military life...not having enough time between PCSes {permanent change of station...aka relocation} to find a place available when you need it).  We spent the first week in Jacksonville living with our friends Matt and Jenny.  Except, it was really just Matt because Jenny was traveling on business.  Nick left for SERE last Saturday (an update on that once he's back...for his safety of course) and would be gone for two weeks.
I decided I'd come stay with my sister for those two weeks.  (While I love Matt, it might be a little odd just us two living together with Jenny still gone.  And he works and studies so I'd be bored alllll day long and again all night.  Plus I don't think Matt would care to drink massive amounts of wine while crafting and watching HGTV.)  Leah's nannying job just ended so it actually works out perfectly that we both suck have nothing to do all day and night.


So this weekend recap is more of a week recap since I've been here for a week.  But since everyone loves pictures more than just text, we shall recap in pictures!

One of the best things about being at Leah's (and having Nick gone) is I get to have lots of puppy snuggles!  We don't allow our dogs in the bed with us so sleeping with them is a treat {We allow it if the guest's house allows it}  Anyway, this is possibly even more so a treat for me than them!  I soak up all the Yadi-snuggles I can because she usually isn't a cuddler.  But when you get in a bed, she's all over it!  (In that last picture, she has her protective hand on my hip.  Seriously, this pup is on high-alert, must-protect-mom mode whenever Nick is not around.)

And more puppy snuggling.  The girls love having their cousins to snuggle with as well.

 I'm sure Vino isn't happy I captured this photo, but she's usually just so adorable that I had to snap this rare creep-tastic photo of her!

{Aren't you all jealous of that fabulous comforter?!  I mean, my sister paid top dollar for that!!!  jay slash kay.  It's atrocious!  But it's the "dog comforter".  I think all dog parents have those comforters and blankets that get brought out for the pups.  This fancy comforter is just that.}
Let me also note that one of the most frustrating things in the world is a dead weight dog.  I get up to use the restroom and come back to a 100 pound Weim in my spot.  Except, a 100 pound dead weight dog really feels like a 300 pound boulder.  Now, I might be small, but I'm not weak (lifting is paying off).  I carried massive dressers just a week ago, with absolutely no problem (my husband was actually quite impressed).  But this dog?  Holy eff!!  I could not pick her up and move her!  I'm going to use the odd shape of her body as my excuse.  Let's just hope there is never an emergency when Nick is gone in which I need to haul her ass to the car.  After a few failed attempts to lift and move her, I grabbed her legs and drug her across the bed to my desired position.  And thus producing quite a death stare.  She paid me back but repositioning herself, ass in my face, and then proceeded to let out the most disgusting fart ever.  Touche, Weim.  You win.  Sleep wherever the crap you want.

Our days have been spent making and/or consuming delicious foods.  Of course our day of shopping (really just me gathering ideas for the new house) had to include lunch at St. Louis Bread Co (just accept that I will never call it Panera).
That day also consisted of a trip to Gigi's Cupcakes (pumpkin white chocolate was my cupcake of choice and it did not disappoint.)
Kyle text saying he wanted some McDonalds on our way home.  It's hard for me to go there and not get food.  It's so disgusting and bad for you, but I'll admit I'm a sucker for their fries (dipped in sweet and sour of course), chicken nuggets, and fountain Dr. Pepper {however I was good and opted out of the soda).  But I only wanted a little.  And you're never too old for a Happy Meal!!!  {Can I just say how happy I am that they brought back the old school Happy Meal boxes?  I was hating those dumb bags.}
And because it's fall, I decided to bake some pumpkin goodness.  Being obsessed with chocolate, it needed to be included, thus the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, that I was FINALLY (after 2 falls) able to get to be just right!!!

I've been spending a lot of time outside on the patio, drinking my coffee (out of my new Starbuck's 'You Are Here Collection'.  I cannot wait to get my St. Louis mug!).  

Of course, you can't go outside without all the pups following you.  But it's okay, because watching them romp around the yard is entertaining.

Leah and I had a crafting day, which is typical of us.  And in Vino fashion, she had to be all up in the mess.  {blog post coming soon on my Halloween wreath}

My nights are spent drinking wine (which I'm sure didn't need to be mentioned since you all could have assumed that) while watching HGTV and catching up on all my blogs.  (and yes, I'm drinking out of a regular glass.  I was just too lazy to take the extra steps around the table to get the wine glasses down.)

Mom went to visit Ben (brother) for the weekend so naturally we all FaceTimed.  Thank goodness for technology.

I noticed this weekend that my hair is getting redder and redder (hashtag no filter).  I'm not sure how I feel about it.  I'm trying to decide if I want to dye it.  I do need a haircut (just a trim) so maybe I'll just dye it while I'm at it.  It's been at least 8 weeks since my last dye job.  But then again, I'm frugal.  So maybe the red will just have to stay around...unless it keeps getting more red.  Then I'll have to fix that shiz.

Evenings have also been spent watching our beloved Cardinals and this night, we celebrated the Cardinals winning the NL Central!  Damn it feels good to be a Cardinals fan.  (maybe the red hair is good luck??  Hmmm....I think maybe I shall keep it for Red October!!!)

One of the best things about being here is the insane amounts of exercise the pups gets.  Yadi and Vino absolutely love their cousins and the four wear each other out.  It's great!!!!  Vino and Rogue are the perfectly playmates.  Vino loves to lay on the ground and have another dog wrestle on top of her and Rogue gladly accepts this position.  They play rough but as long as it produces the bottom photo, I don't care one bit!!!  Tired pups=happy mama

And there you have it.  In a nutshell, my week (and weekend) has consisted of shopping, eating, baking, cooking, doggie snuggles, wine, Cardinals, crafts, patio sitting, and more doggie goodness.  Not really all that eventful, but it's been relaxing, which is exactly what I've needed after this and this and this and most definitely this!  Life has finally slowed down a bit (at least for the next two weeks) and I needed a good weekend away with family.  Being here is also a really good distraction from SERE.  I try not to think about what Nick is currently going through so being here keeps my mind occupied.  Thankfully I still get another week here with my sister and BIL.  ...unless they get sick of me and kick me out.

The Shitfest That Was Our Move

We have safely arrived in Jacksonville.  And holy crap was it a shitfest!!! Let's have a recap, shall we??  (It's a long one!)

Let me just say that the past week has been downright awful!  I do not like deviating from "the plan".  Yes, I know I'm a Navy Wife and deviations are just a part of every day life.  But that doesn't mean I like them.  {And you telling me that just wants to make me punch you in the gut.}  Especially when it can be avoided.  I will never, ever, be accustomed to straying away from the plan.  It's the OCD planner in me.

What was the plan, you ask?  The plan was to have the entire house packed by Friday.  Pick up the truck Saturday and have it loaded that day.  Sunday was a day spent for cleaning and saying goodbye to friends.  Monday was to check out and detach from NAS Whiting Field (for Nick) and head to Jax.

However, NONE of that happened.

Friday came and went and we were FAR from having the house packed.  Let me just tell you that made me a ball of fun.  Nicholas takes far too many breaks from packing.  'Oh look, I packed a Wii controller.  Time for me to play with my dog for 25 minutes.'  Then 'oh hey, I'm hungry, let's go get some lunch.'  This caused us to stay up until 1am loading the truck.

Saturday comes and we pick up the truck at 11am.  At least that stayed on task.  But after that?  Not so much.  Saturday we continued to pack and load the truck.  Until about 2am.  Ob-nox-ious.  And we were nowhere near done.

Nick drove his bike up the ramp and secured it with rope.  I sure hope this holds for the move!

See ALL of that in the back corner?  Allll of Nick and his mother's random crap.

Sunday was spent loading the truck some more.  The new tenants also complicated things.  We told them we were moving out on the 16th.  We never gave them a time.  We simply said the 16th was our last day there (and we paid our utilities and rent until the close of that day.)  The guy texts Nick and he tells him we aren't anywhere close to leaving.  The new tenant then tells us that he has a couch he needs to drop off by 1pm.  Um, okay?  (Let me also add they stopped by the day before and dropped off a lot of stuff).  Cool dude.  It's not like we're trying to load a truck or clean the house.  Come on by.  Drop your shit and clutter our space.  So he shows up with the couch in a U-Haul trailer...and then has NICK help him carry it in!  Seriously, dude?!?!  Can you not see we're a little busy here????  I wanted to stay until 11:55pm just to spite him.  Annoying.
Anyway, Nick continued to load the truck Sunday and I cleaned the house (and replaced our screen door since the dogs and their friends decided to create their own doggie door by running straight through it.)  Then we ran into some issues.  It appeared not everything was fitting on the truck.  Yes, the 26 foot U-Haul truck (the largest they have) was not big enough.  So we had to run up and get a trailer to pull behind the truck!!!!!  I'm telling you, Nick has too much shit!!!!
We finally got the truck and trailer packed and we were on our way around 7pm.

Sure, we still managed to leave on Monday, which WAS the plan. But this was NOT at all how we expected it to happen.  I have never been more stressed in my entire life.  Also, this late departure and all day packing meant we didn't get to do the things we wanted.  We had plans to say goodbye to friends but that just wasn't possible.  We had wanted to have sex one last time in our house (not apologizing, I'm a TMI person and it's not crazy to think we'd want to do that one last time in our first home).  But with the late nights, sore bodies, and now rush to leave, there was no way that was happening.  We took one last stroll through the house, hand in hand, remembering all the great times we had here.  Then we packed up the pups in my car, Nick climbed in the truck, and we hit the road.

But not for long.  We hit some insane rain and Nick realized the truck was really hard to drive.  It was scary for me just following him.  I could see the truck swaying from left to right.  Nick said it was exhausting driving it so after just three hours, we decided to stop for the night.  We pulled off at a security monitored rest area so Nick could get some sleep and be fully rested to drive the next day.  Unfortunately, I cannot sleep in a car.  I cannot sleep sitting up.  I can only sleep laying down.  So I didn't sleep that night.  Which was rough considering I only got about 4 hours the previous night.

For some odd reason, Nick climbed in the crowded back of the Accord with BOTH dogs and slept back there.

At about 4:30am, we hit the road again and arrived at the Robida's house (our friends, Jenny and Matt, our best friends from Pensacola whom you've probably read about who are kindly letting us stay with them) in the early morning.  We slept for about 2 hours and then it was back up to go unload our stuff into storage.

This was just a bad day.  We began unloading the truck, putting the odd shaped things out on the concrete (patio chairs, vacuum, office chair, bed frames, laundry baskets, Shop Vac, lacrosse sticks, tool boxes, garment bags, etc.  (The furniture, boxes, and storage tubs were in the back of the U-Haul.)  Then the dumb ass clouds opened up (we were in such a mode that we didn't notice the black clouds that set in over us) and it started raining on us.  We just started throwing everything back in the truck and into the storage unit.  Absolutely no organization at all.  By the time we got it all out of the rain, we were soaked.  We decided to take a break so we went back to the Robida's house and showered.  It wasn't looking like the rain would clear up, so we headed back to the storage unit.  We unloaded that damn truck until 6am.  It was painful.  We had to stop for the downpours which really slowed us down.  It was the most difficult all-nighter I've ever pulled.

I am so incredibly mad that we have to do this again in a month when we move into our house!!!!  Hopefully that won't be such a fiasco!!!


The only positive thing to come from this is that Nick has FINALLY agreed this is stupid and the few thousands of dollars we've made off this move are NOT worth it anymore.  The next move, Nick has agreed we'll do a partial DITY (do-it-yourself) move (where we move some of our belongings, such as his electronics and my clothes and shoes) and the Navy will move everything else for us.  Alleluia!  Praise the Lord!!!!

Unfortunately, we were only able to get another 2ish hours of sleep before we had to take the U-Haul back.  (They made a big deal about it being back by a certain time for the new renters.  When we got there, no one was there!!!!  We waited for a good 30 minutes before someone returned.  And yesterday (one day after returning the truck), we called to see if the new renters found our car key.  She tells us the truck is still there if we want to come look.  So WHY did I not get any sleep to get this truck back to you for someone else?!?!  Annoyed and crabby didn't even begin to describe us.)
Thankfully when we got home, we FINALLY got a few solids hours of sleep.

I'm happy this moving thing is over with, for now.  We have about a month to relax.  I guess I should say *I* have a month to relax.  Nick will soon head off for SERE and when he returns, he checks into the squadron and begins training on the MH-60R.

Finally relaxing.

Random tidbit worth noting since we received this comment a few times:  We heard from multiple people that this move would really test our marriage.  And that we'll get in fights and seeing how we overcome them or deal with them will tell us a lot about our relationship.  We were shocked by this because it didn't test us.  Not once.  Honestly, there wasn't ever a time we were legitimately mad at one another.  No harsh words.  No raised voices.  Nothing like that.  We were most definitely annoyed and frustrated with the entire situation, but not at all with each other.  It just reinforced how strong our marriage is.  Nick and I really don't have those fights.  Never.  Sure, we got annoyed but that's the same annoyance I feel on a daily basis with random things.  Annoyances aren't things I consider a "test" in your marriage.  We're both very understanding and patient with one another (not with other things for myself, but with each other.)  Throughout this entire process, even under insane amounts of stress (and tears on my end) we were able to laugh and joke around with each other, toss random items at one another's head, etc.  And that's what I love about us.  In the midst of something shitty, we're able to still laugh and hug and kiss one another (even when soaking wet, with half our belongings dripping in rain water.)  When I tell people this, that this move didn't "test" our marriage, they roll their eyes and accuse me of lying.  Okay, biznatches, hate on!  It's the truth!

One Month: Grandpa

Today marks one month since this world lost my Grandpa;  a man this world would have been much better off keeping.
I say it's only been a month, but I have to check my iPhone calendar to verify that's correct.  It feels like forever that I was hovering over his body, thanking him for the last 28 years of amazing memories, telling him so deeply I loved him and how badly I would miss him.  It feels like forever ago that I held his hand and gave him one last kiss and told him goodbye.

My world has not been the same.  Thankfully, I've been able to keep incredibly busy with house hunting, packing, and moving.  It's kept my sadness at bay.  But when I lay down at night, when it's just me and my thoughts, the emptiness and pain take over.  I'm completely ridden with sadness and the tears begin flowing.  I miss him so badly.  It's as if the darkness of night also brings in the darkness of my heart.  I can't shake the thoughts.

I knew things would not become easier with his passing for a long while.  But I didn't expect them to get harder.  The calls and texts from friends checking in on me has stopped and it's left me feeling even more empty.  At the same time, I wouldn't want them to continue to harp on my sadness.  It's a lose-lose really.

I just want to talk to him.  I want to share my life updates.  He always loved hearing about our Navy adventures.  It's so hard to call their house and not hear him answer "Yellow?" (He never said Hello").  Or to call, talk to Grandma, knowing I won't end our conversation with my usual "Can I talk to Grandpa?"  I will admit, and am ashamed that I did not call Grandma for a while after I returned to Pensacola.  I was an awful granddaughter.  On the surface, I told myself it was okay because she still had some many family members in town.  But then they left and she was trying to adjust to normal life.  I didn't call.  It took me two weeks to call her after leaving St. Louis.  And it was 100% selfish reasons.  I was scared to call.  Scared to call and get their answering machine, with Grandpa's voice still on it.  Scared to call and talk to her, knowing I would not be talking to Grandpa like I've done the past 10+ years when I call.  Scared that I wouldn't be able to hold it together while talking to her.  The last thing she needs while dealing with this is to comfort me.  So I held off.  For too long.  She needed me.  She enjoyed our phone calls.  I finally realized I needed to suck it up and call her.  Thankfully she answered and the phone call wasn't as hard as I thought.  I did tear up a few times, but not the bawling I thought would occur.  And hearing her sadness eased my mind.
I'm happy to say that since then, I've gotten over my fear to call and talk to Grandma often.  Our conversations brighten my day, especially to know she's doing fairly well, given the circumstances.
But when the conversation ends, I'm stricken with sadness of not talking to him.

Some say, "You can still talk to him".  That's very true.  And I do.  Often.  But it's most absolutely not the same to hear his excitement when I update him on our lives.  It's not the same to hear his encouragement and advice.  It's not the same.  At all.

I miss him.  It hurts.  So badly.  I try to tell myself that it hurts so badly because he was such an amazing man.  Because he was so close to me (and all my family.)  But it doesn't really bring me comfort.  It just angers me that he was taken too soon.  I wanted more time with him.  I wanted my children to meet him.  I didn't want him to just be a story and photos.  I wanted more time with him.
I do realize I was lucky to have him for so long.  But 28 years was not enough.  Honestly, no time would have been enough.  He was truly the best man I knew and no amount of time would have been long enough for me.  It's like that Train song "Forever would never be long enough to feel like I've had long enough with you."

I'm not sure how this healing process should happen.  My grandfather is the first person I was THIS close to pass. I lost my (paternal) grandmother when I was a senior in high school.  But I was prepared for that.  She had been sick almost all of my life.  We had many months and possibly even years of her declining health.  Not to mention, I was nowhere near as close to her as I was Grandpa.  Nowhere near as close.  So this is my REAL first loss.  (Don't get me wrong, I love my Grandma Sally dearly. And I miss her. A lot.  But I cannot deny that I was much closer with my maternal grandparents than my paternal grandmother.)  Being my first real loss, I don't know how to cope.  I don't know what's normal.  I don't know if my constant aching is normal.  I don't know if my constant tears are normal.  I don't know if this pain and nausea from missing him is normal.  I just don't know.

All I know is I miss my hero.  More and more each day.  Each day feels like it becomes harder than the last.  I want him back.  I want to hear his voice.  I want to hug him.  I want to hear his silly jokes.  I want to just sit with him, doing nothing.  I want more time with him.

It's been one month.  Undoubtedly the hardest month of my life.  I miss Grandpa more with each passing minute and he's always on my mind.  Almost everything reminds me of him.  Sometimes it doesn't seem real that he's gone.  But phone calls to Grandma quickly reinforce my reality.  I have never, ever felt a pain and emptiness like I feel now.  I just want my Grandpa back.

Life Update: Packing and Moving

Life has been CRAZY!!!!  So crazy that I have yet to blog anything about Nick's Winging week festivities!  It was truly one of the most exciting times in our lives together and I have never been more proud.  But those posts will have to wait.  I promise to blog about them after we leave Pensacola and life slows down just a little.

This moving thing has taken up all of our time.
Nick winged, family left, we packed for 5 days (and by we, I mean me since Nick was still working 12 hour days), headed to Jax to house hunt for a week, came back and have been packing the past 3 days.  Only two more days left to pack, one day to load the truck, one day to clean, then we leave to start our new chapter!

Here is just a a quick update for you all:

• We are beyond excited for this move.  At first, Nick was pretty bummed to not be flying the MH-53 but it didn't last long (as we all knew would be the case because Nick is truly incapable of being in a bad mood or being a glass half empty kind of guy).  Virginia was most absolutely NOT our first location choice (or second...or third...or fourth) so we're happy to be in Jax, our first location choice.  I know some think we're insane for wanting Jax and being excited about it, but I cannot express how excited we are.  All of Nick's sadness has left and he's stoked about this next adventure.  Every time we talk about our new home and life, we find more and more reasons to be excited.
  We're happy to be in city larger than Pensacola with a lot more going on.  We're happy to be in a location that still does not get winters (well, not cold winters).  We're happy to still be a day's drive from St. Louis.  I'm happy to start volunteering at the Mayo Clinic.  I'm happy to still be near beaches.  And we are beyond thrilled to be near so many friends!!!  Nick's best friend from enlistment, stationed at Kings Bay, lives in Jax, not far from our (hopeful) new home.  Our best friends from Pensacola are there (in the same neighborhood!).  My other Navy bestie is there and has offered us so much advice (as well as letting us crash with her the past week while house hunting).  Not to mention we are so close to Charleston and we have LOTS of really good friends there and plans to go visit them all are already in the works.  We also plan to take mini-vacays to Savannah and of course next spring we'll head to Jupiter for Cardinals spring training!!!

• I'm still having a very difficult time with Grandpa's passing.  Luckily I've been kept very busy and this has helped keep my tears at bay.  But when I do finally get some down time, I can't help but cry over how badly I miss him.
• I'm really annoyed that I've yet to update my resume from my previous job.  (I'm so bummed we're leaving so soon because I truly loved my job, the kids, and my co-workers and I was looking forward to working with them all again for a little bit longer.)  But moving, house hunting, and all that comes with that has taken up every free second so the resume and job searching will have to wait until we're there.
• We're eating the oddest combinations of meals as we're trying to clear out as much from our fridge and freezer as possible.  We've eaten an insane amount of fries lately.  I'm sure we won't succeed and I'll be calling friends to see if they'd like to take any of it before we toss it in the trash.  As for the pantry, that's a lost cause trying to consume it all.  We (Nick) keep far too many things in there!  He has so many bags of chips, boxes of Rice-a-Roni, cans of Steak n Shake chili, tons of cereal, Pop-Tarts, etc.  The kid loves his (pre-packaged, pre-bagged, processed) food.  We will have many, many boxes of food.  And I'd say maybe one box is my stuff (and it's primarily baking ingredients).
• I'm doing my part to minimize the bottles we need to bubble wrap and box by drinking wine each night (and during the day...no shame).  I'm just looking out for what's best for us...saving money on packing supplies and saving space on the truck ;)  Nick has no complaints as the wine helps my anxiety and therefore he's not as tempted to use the packing tape on my anxious, whiny, bitchy mouth.  I will not deny I'm an unpleasant packer.  I'm constantly complaining "I hate this" (or "I hate you" since Nick is the one strongly against letting the military move us and he hoards and owns more than half the shit we're packing) or I'm worrying "We're never going to get this done!" and "All of this is not going to fit on the truck!"  And then the bitching "Get off your phone and pack!  What are you doing?  You're wasting time!"  Surprisingly, Nick stays calm and keeps his eye rolling at a minimum (which is really in his best interest.  Sometimes he even makes us a drink (the best move for both of us.)
• Sadly, this move has not prompted Nick to purge any of this stuff as I had hoped.  Nick is a certified hoarder.  He has so much shit he doesn't need (ie.  pogs...a massive amount of pogs and slammers.  And, a UNICYCLE!  Really?!  C'mon!  We aren't circus performers).  But would he part with any of it?  NOPE!  Now, there are times during this packing process where he's said "Let's sell this."  Yeah, good call jackass.  Let me go ahead and list it on Craigslist considering we have two days left here.  Or he'll say "Let's go through this box of papers." (Yes, he has boxes upon boxes of nothing but papers.)  Um, we don't have time for that!!!!  And the same with clothes.  He has an insane amount of clothes he could easily donate if he had the time to go through them (not kidding you, four 44 gallon tubs of Banana Republic slacks, hundreds of Express button down shirts, etc.  It's sickening.)  But because we have limited time, all this shit has to go with us.  The good news is Nick is crazy motivated to have a nice and organized garage in our new home which means he's willing to finally go through and purge this stuff.  Unfortunately, it can't happen before the move.  Why couldn't he have decided this in the past two years we were here?!  

• Our dogs are so confused as to what is going on.  Dogs thrive off a routine and normalcy, and life has been anything but.  I was gone for 2.5 weeks.  They drove 12 hours to STL and stayed for a long weekend.  They drove 12 hours back to Florida and I was gone from them for another week.  I returned but that same day so did a lot of family and friends (for Nick's winging).  They left and the house began being tore down.  Friends and their dogs came for a weekend.  They left, and we followed, to Jacksonville where they stayed in a new home, with new dogs.  We returned and the house became even more of a disaster as everything they know is being packed up.
  Sadly, this chaos won't be stopping anytime soon.  We pack them up and move them to Jax where they'll live in another new house (a friend's house) for a week.  Then we go stay with my sister for two weeks.  Then we return to Jax to stay in that new house again for another 2-ish weeks.  Then we finally (hopefully) move into their new home and their belongings, the things they're familiar with, return.  I cannot wait for this.  The girls anxiety is driving me nuts.  The constant (more than usual) need for attention and their utter confusion makes packing so much more difficult!  I just wish I could explain to them what is going on!!!

So that's our life update.  Nothing exciting and almost all of it revolves around this packing and moving ordeal.  Hopefully next week I can work on Nick's winging post (once I get all the photos together)

Breezeway Home Anniversary

Two years ago, at 5:30am, Nicholas, Yadi, and I pulled up to our new home here in Milton, Florida on Breezeway Circle.

This might sound crazy, but we quickly came to love our new home of Milton.  I know a lot of people hate it here, but honestly, it is what you make it.  If you keep telling yourself you hate it and it's awful here, then it will continue to be awful.  That's not how Nick and I live life and that helped us to come to love our last two years here.  Life is an adventure and it's all what you make it!

One of the reasons we have loved our time here is because of this house.  We truly spoiled ourselves here.  There were so many things we loved about our home, that we added to our "must have" list for our new home in Jacksonville. (Which made house hunting in Jax so much harder.)
This house has no carpet, all hardwood and tile.  It has three bedrooms and two bathrooms.  A separate office space.  A ginormous walk-in pantry.  An open floor plan with a huge living room.  A two car garage.  A huge, privacy fenced backyard.  A fantastic neighborhood with a really convenient location.
We learned that finding all of these things in a new home was difficult.  We are truly going to miss this home.

Just as we reached this two year mark, we're packing up our belongings and getting ready to say goodbye to our first real home.  I'd be lying if I said I haven't teared up as I've pulled photos off the wall and taken down curtains.  We have thoroughly loved this place.  If these walls could talk, they'd have stories full of love and laughter.  Our marriage started here and flourished!  We added our second "child", Vino, to our family in this house.  We learned what a marriage is all about, growing together as husband and wife, but also continuing to grow individually.  We grew stronger in friendship and love inside these walls.  I can still vividly remember the giddy, newlywed bliss as Nick carried me over the threshold, saying "Welcome home, wife" when we arrived that early morning on September 11, 2011.  I wondered how long that "honeymoon phase" would last.  I'm happy to say that after over two years of marriage, we're still in the phase.  And I don't see it fading anytime soon.
Of course these walls didn't always see perfection.  We faced some difficult times with illnesses, military stress, homesickness, and general uncertainty of life, but together we overcame them.
This house will always hold some of my fondest memories and I know I'll cry when we say our final goodbye and drive away from Breezeway Circle.  But I'm happy to have so many memories  and so many pictures, of the last two years here.
We moved into what was just an empty house, but it very quickly became a home.  These have honestly been two of the best years of my life.

We met the new family moving into our home; a husband, wife, and very young girl.  I can only hope these walls provide as much joy to them as it has to us.  I hope they too leave this house with deeper love and understanding of each other and themselves, just as we have.

I'm going to miss you Breezeway Home.  Thank you for all the amazing memories.  May you continue to bless each new tenant with the same wonderful experience we had.