R&R

Jeremy came home for Christmas! It was awesome. He got here on the 23rd and we spent the night at the Wynfrey in Birmingham. We opened our presents from each other that night. We had a lot of fun making a mess with all the wrapping paper. LOL.

On the 24th we woke up early and left for Pensacola to spend Christmas with his parents. We had a great time with them. I know Jeremy was happy to see his parents since it had been several months. And playing with his dog, Sabrina was a major highlight. They have been taking care of her for him, while he's deployed. He also got to see his older brother, Steve, whom he does not get to see very often at all.

We left on the 28th and headed to New Hampshire to visit his oldest brother, Chris and his wife Kelly. It was so much fun! There was lots of snow on the way there and when we got there. So needless to say, it made me nervous whilst he was driving. Haha. We mainly stayed indoors while we were in NH. Too cold for us! But Kelly's window on her car wouldn't roll up, so Jeremy kindly offered to repair the mechanism that was faulty. He's awesome like that!

We spent thru New Year's Day with Chris and Kelly and left on the 2nd for Alabama. It was great to know we were heading home and wouldn't have to worry about snow once we got there. ON the first day of driving we made it all the way to Tennessee, where we stayed the night near Kingsport. The next morning, the 3rd, we went to the Chattanooga Aquarium.

It was so much fun! Jeremy had never been, so it was awesome to see him pondering over all the fish and the other marine life. :) We spent almost 45 mins just petting the Rays and sharks. They were so smooth, and the Rays' barbs had been cut off so they wouldn't sting. We were amazed at how friendly they were! They would just "glide" by you hand and let you put them! And their mouths were like little sucktion cups! I loved it!


We got home later that same evening and spent some time with my sister, Amanda and her husband, Tim. And finally went "home" to Mom's. Monday, the 4th, was Jeremy's 25th Birthday. He and I ran some errands and that evening we went out to dinner with Amanda, Tim, Mom, Jennifer (my Best friend!) and her step-daughter, Lindsey. It was a lot of fun getting to be around my favorite people! After we ate, Amanda and Tim went with Jeremy and I to bowl. It was a lot of fun as usual and I'm glad Jeremy enjoyed himself so much. It was great to see him having fun for a change. I know they don't have bowling in Afghanistan. LOL.

The last few days Jeremy was home, we spent them together. We did eat out with his sister and cousin and then played a game at his cousin's house. (I liked the game so much, I went and bought it to play with Amanda and Tim. LOL) Jeremy got to watch the Alabama/Texas game on Thursday and spend some time with the dogs :), but then he had to leave on Friday. :( I hated that he had to go. But he'll be home soon, or at least I keep telling myself that. LOL. It's actually several months, which doesn't seem soon to me at all.

All in all, Jeremy's R&R was pretty eventful. It felt like we drove the entire time! But it was what he wanted to do, so I'm glad he enjoyed himself. :) Can't wait for him to come home so we can take another ROAD TRIP!

Reading, Laundry and Waiting

Not doing much lately. Reading and cleaning. I've done lots of laundry today. Including bed linens and random stuff I found shoved under the bed and dresser. :P Can't wait for Christmas. So excited, for numerous reasons. My friend, Meagan had her baby! Lorelei Adele Doran! She is so beautiful! I can't wait to meet her. She is only 2 days old. Since I am still getting over this cold that I've had since the week before Thanksgiving, I haven't had the opportunity to see her yet. :( But I will next week! She is Meg's first baby, so I know she will want some alone time with her when they first get her home!

Jeremy is doing well! He is also excited about Christmas. No telling what he will be sending me. He's already went way overboard for my b'day. Of course, it was our first major "holiday" apart since we've been together. I'm just glad he is in such a great mood. He loves to give presents as much as I do. Of course, he says I can only spend so much this Christmas, since we are trying to save. :) But, when it comes to presents for him, he won't care how much I spend. Haha.

So, I've read quite a few books since Jeremy deployed; 19 to be exact. Among them, of course, are the Twilight Saga. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of each book. I was deeply saddened when I turned the last page of Breaking Dawn. I wanted to hear about the life of Renesmee. LOL. Perhaps Ms. Meyer will change her mind about not publishing the rumored 5th Twilight book. *Here's to hoping and praying*

Other favorites that I've read recently are:
Rain- V.C. Andrews
Relentless- Dean Koontz
The Mermaid Chair- Sue Monk Kidd
The Giver- Lois Lowry
Messenger- Lois Lowry
Morning, Noon, and Night- Sidney Sheldon
The Face of Deception- Iris Johansen
Pandora's Daughter- Iris Johansen
Where Are You Now?- Mary Higgins Clark

You'll notice that I'll start reading one author for awhile. My favorite has to be Koontz, although I love many authors! I will read most anything. Currently I am reading Mr. Murder, a Koontz of course, and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. It's a slow go on the poetry. I'm not really an avid poetry reader, although I do admire it. Poe is my favorite. :)
If anyone has any books they would like to recommend, feel free to leave it in a comment. :)
Have a great day!

Packrats Anonymous

Mom was looking for her crochet stuff.
I told her it was in the living room closet.
She opens the door and its full of Christmas stuff.
"What's this?" I asked, "The Christmas basketball?".
We keep such strange things.
Pull out 15 pillows; who knows why we have so many.
And there's the bag of crochet stuff.
"Do we really need all these half-used rolls of wrapping paper?"
Commence putting the stuff back into the closet.
Mission is complete.

A Soldier's Bible

It was quiet that day, the guns and the mortars, and land mines for some reason hadn't been heard. The young soldier knew it was Sunday, the holiest day of the week.

As he was sitting there, he got out an old deck of cardsand laid them out across his bunk.

Just then an army sergeant came in and said, "Why aren't you with the rest of the platoon?

The soldier replied, "I thought I would stay behind and spend some time with the Lord."

The sergeant said, "Looks to me like you're going to play cards."

The soldier said, "No, sir. You see, since we are not allowed to have Bibles or other spiritual books in this country, I've decided to talk to the Lord by studying this deck of cards."

The sergeant asked in disbelief, "How will you do that?"

"You see the Ace, Sergeant?It reminds me that there is only one God.

The Two represents the two parts of the Bible, Old and New Testaments.

The Three represents the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.

The Four stands for the Four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The Five is for the five virgins that were ten but only five of them were glorified.

The Six is for the six days it took God to create the Heavens and Earth.

The Seven is for the day God rested after making His Creation.

The Eight is for the family of Noah and his wife, their three sons and their wives - the eight people God spared from the flood that destroyed the earth.

The Nine is for the lepers that Jesus cleansed of leprosy. He cleansed ten, but nine never thanked Him.

The Ten represents the Ten Commandments that God handed down to Moses on tablets made of stone.

The Jack is a reminder of Satan, one of God's first angels, but he got kicked out of heaven for his sly and wicked ways and is now the joker of eternal hell.

The Queen stands for the Virgin Mary.

The King stands for Jesus, for he is the King of all kings.

When I count the dots on all the cards, I come up with 365 total, one for every day of the year.

There are a total of 52 cards in a deck; each is a week - 52 weeks in a year.

The four suits represent the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

Each suit has thirteen cards - there are exactly thirteen weeks in a quarter

So when I want to talk to God and thank Him, I just pull out this old deck of cards and they remind me of all that I have to be thankful for"

The sergeant just stood there. After a minute, with tears in his eyes and pain in his heart, he said, "Soldier, may I borrow that deck of cards?"

Please let this be a reminder and take time to pray for all of our soldiers who are being sent away, putting their lives on the line fighting for us!

Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

Amen.

Deployment

Well, for starters, my husband is a Specialist in the Alabama National Guard aka the United States Army. And he has been in the Army since 2004. His first deployment was to Iraq in 2005-2006 with a unit out of Colorado. After he left Colorado and came to Alabama, he joined the National Guard. On Sunday, 11 October 2009, he deployed to Afghanistan. He will be gone up to 13 months with one 2 week leave around 7 months after being "in Country". *In country being in Afghanistan*
I can honestly say this really sucks. I had to move back in with my Mom so that we could save some money while he is gone. I miss having my own home. I can't leave things where I want to because nothing belongs to me. *sigh* But the worst thing of all is not having my husband here. Especially at night, because that's when we talk about everything right before we go to sleep. Or just hanging out watching tv. I'm not sure what I miss the most. I even miss washing his clothes. I guess this will get easier the more I get used to it, if that is even possible. I don't think it's possible to get used to not being with the one you love! I found a really great quote that explains a lot I guess:
"Missing someone gets easier every day, because, even though you are one day further from the last time you saw them, you are one day closer to the next time you will."
Hopefully it will seem that way soon.
Please keep Jeremy in your prayers. And if you feel like praying for me to, that would be nice. lol.

Josh's Dream

My brother, Josh posted this as a bulletin on Myspace....it made my chest tight.

the weirdest dream.it was set back when i was younger but i was the age that i am now.i took the hand of my youngest sister Whitney(who was around 5 or 6 years old) and we were walking through a museum.she went to get a sip of water from the fountain and i told her that i had to go do something and that i'd be back.that's when i got in my car and left,having no intentions of going back and just leaving her there to wait.out of nowhere,the waterworks began to flow.i was cursing myself and that's when i decided to turn around and go back.then i woke up.my pillow was soaked from the tears that i shed.i don't understand why i was crying in my sleep.that was the first time i've actually cried in over 3 years.i know i sound like a homo but i don't care.maybe it's a sign.or that i need to talk to my sister more often.i'm at a loss for words.suggestions?

Trip to Pensacola

We left from Hoover on Friday at about 10 a.m. We rented a 2009 Chevrolet Impala at the Hoover Hertz Rentals. I drove the entire way, and I think, we only stopped twice. Which is a miracle in and of itself. LOL. I always have to pee somewhere along the way. ha! We got to Pensacola at about 2:30 and went to see Jeremy's dad at his shop on the high school campus. He told us to go pick up Jeremy's mom at the College campus. So, we left there and went to pick up Shirley. When we picked her up and dropped her off at her house, we went to get our hair cut at nearby shop that Jeremy used to go to when he was younger. We got there and had to wait about an hour before Jeremy got his hair cut. Then I had to wait another 30 minutes or so for the lady to do someone else's hair first. Then I told her EXACTLY what I wanted and even showed her a picture. But she kept ..ting. My hair is so0o0 short now! As you can probably tell from the pictures. When we finally left the shop, it was close to 6. We went back to Jeremy's parents' house, I took a shower while Allan (Jeremy's dad) went to get the pizza. When I got out of the shower, we ate and watched a movie (The Christmas Shoes) and then I went to bed while Jeremy went out with his friend Mike. He got home around 11. But I don't remember. LOL.
The next morning, Saturday. We had to get up at 4am to leave the house by 5 to get to Wewahitchka by 9 am, so we could spend the whole time allotted with Steven, Jeremy's brother who is in prison. We got there around 8:30, and after I got checked in to make sure I could go in, they searched us and we went in to wait on Steven to come in. He came in around 9:15 or so and we spent the day with him, until 2. We took pics, but I'll have to get those on here when I get them.
We left the prison and headed back towards Pensacola. (That's when we saw the roadkill...there are pics. ew.) We stopped and ate at Sonny's. It was pretty good. Then we went to the zoo and saw the Zoolights. 

It was a LOT of fun. But it was really cold. I got to feed the goats! They were so cute!!!
We finally got home around 10 or so and I took a shower and uploaded all the pics from the day. And then we went to bed. We had to be up the next morning, Sunday, at 9 am to be at church at 10:15. We went to Jeremy's parents' church. It's HUGE! There are so many seats..It looks like a glorified version of the Alabama Theatre in B'ham. There's even a balcony..and not to mention, the stage turns! There's a another stage behind the choir stage ( did I mention the whole thing turns!?!?!!) And, there's a balcony to seat people too. The service is recorded live and broadcasted on TV. There were over 2000 people there even though most of the college students were gone already for Christmas. I was overwhelmed...and intimidated. It was a nice service though.
When we left church, Jeremy's parents took us to Olive Garden for lunch. It was so good. Then Jeremy and I went to the mall to return a gift he got me, that I didn't need. LOL. Afterwards, we walked around the mall, got my rings cleaned, went to Taco Bell and met up with Jeremy's friend Mike, and his parents.
Then we went back to Jeremy's parents' house and packed up our stuff. We left their house around 4 and headed to Pensacola Beach. It was really windy and the waves were constant....well....you know what I mean. It was so windy, my hair was whipped straight back. Check out the pics if you have a chance and leave some comments!
We left Pensacola around 5 and headed home. But Jeremy got it in his head he wanted to go to the casino. So, we stopped in Shorter, Alabama and played at the casino til about 11:30. We got home around 1:30 and were in bed by 1:45. I was exhausted. Jeremy drove most of the way, but I took a nap after we left the casino, until he started running off the road and woke me up, then I drove from Pelham to Pell City. I had a hard time staying awake on the way home. But we made it! I had to be up at 5:30 Monday morning to be at work at 7. So, I was really tired.
All in all, it was a pretty good trip. I would have liked to stay longer and spend more time on the beach and with Jeremy's parents. But, we have to work, so we had to come back. )=
SO, that's our trip...boring, I know. But, we only went to see Jeremy's brother for Christmas.
Hope everyone else has a very Merry Christmas!!