Opening Presents

Prior to traveling to NY for the holidays, we went to VA and celebrated Christmas with my parents and also opened each others' presents at my apartment. (Luckily my roomie was there, so she took pics for us!)

Here I am opening my presents. I thought this was a great pic because I can only imagine what he could have been saying in order for him to get this facial expression. :-) HAHA. It definitely shows the type of relationship we have...a fun, goofy, loving one!

Kisses after opening the presents!

I got these beautiful Pandora earrings which I will probably be wearing to the batallion ball coming up. I also got a new watch...I will post pics later about that and explain the story of why I don't have it at the moment.

Hope everybody's holidays were wonderful. I can't believe that A has been home for almost 2 months now and that Valentine's day is now sneaking up.

Time Apart

After A got back from deployment we spent 6 days together, followed by 5 days apart, and then 29 days together! It was an amazing 29 days together and I would not have traded any second of it. However, I really hate being apart now. I got so used to having him around. Now he has been back in GA, while I'm still in VA for 8 days and I REALLY don't like it. So, it's a good thing that he'll be back up here next weekend...but it really needs to go by quickly. This whole 2 weeks without seeing each other thing is going to get really old. But unfortunately with my internship, my life is crazy and I can't exactly expect him to come up EVERY weekend. So I will just have to enjoy every second that I get! :-)

Starting this week...look forward to some pictures from his leave!

In the Beginning...

of leave that is! We are still on leave, but I finally have a chance to do a little blogging. So, I figured that I would start with the beginning of leave and fill you all in on what's been going on. Well, A got home in the first week of December. I was able to spend almost a week with him before I had to go back to VA to finish finals. After finals, I went back to GA to spend 5 days there before his leave began. Well, we were traveling to VA to celebrate Christmas with my family and then getting on the road the next day to NY to get to A's parents' before the holidays were here. Our last night in GA, we were having some friends over for dinner. We only had one car (his car was in NY during the deployment) so he had taken my car to work and then came to get me to do grocery shopping. He was only working half days so it was not a big deal. But by the time I get back to the apartment I really needed to finish cleaning up and starting things for dinner. A decided that he wanted to clean out the car some before being in it for 2 straight days. I totally understood, but there was no way that I could help with that. He had no problem with that and off he went to change the oil and vacuum the car. Much to my surprise...when he came home, he had cleaned out the whole thing, got a steering wheel cover, seat covers for the front seats, and put air freshners in. Isn't he something?! :-) A little early Christmas present. As he said, he knows that I do not really have time to clean it out with school and stuff, so he was happy to do it for me when he had the chance. He's so great! Well here are some pictures of the new stuff...

(New seat covers...getting covered with dog fur already. HEHE)

(New Steering Wheel Cover and Air freshner in the air vent!)

Thanks A for being so wonderful!

Merry Christmas!

What do you get with 9 choir members, 1 choir director, 1 pianist, 1 priest, 1 altar boy, 1 lector, and 25 congregation members?...

A simple, but beautiful midnight mass in the north country!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!

I hope that you all have a fabulous Christmas with your friends and family. And for those of you who are away from family members this year, I pray that you all stay safe and stay strong!

And The Traveling Begins...

It is that time now...A will finally be starting his leave tomorrow. At which point we will begin our travels. We will start by heading north to my parents' house in VA. We will get to spend the evening celebrating Christmas with them before A and I head to NY, and my parents head to Chicago to see my brother. All of us will be leaving VA on Thursday. Thursday will definitely be a day full of traveling since it is about an 11 to 12 hour drive to his parents' house from mine. It will all be worth it, and hey...it's 11 to 12 hours I get to spend with him, right?! :-) I'm looking forward to every minute of it. Pictures and posts will come later as the traveling starts and the good times continue!

Soldiers and Jesus

I have been doing a lot of driving up and down I-95 in the last couple of weeks. Therefore, I have been listening to a lot of music. There have been multiple songs that have "hit me" while I listened to them and I thought I would share this one with you today. I feel like this song is very appropriate as we approach the holidays. All of our men and women in uniform have given so much up and many of them are away from their families right now. Also, the true reason for Christmas is because it is the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. I would like to say, Thank You to all of our troops and Thank You Jesus!

Soldiers and Jesus: By - James Otto

Grand-daddy came home in a B-52
In a pine box covered in red, white, and blue
He was one of the brave and the proud and the few

Twenty-one guns helped us say goodbye
I stood there in silence tryin' not to cry
As the preacher, he quoted, lines written in red
And then folded his bible and in a broken voice, he said

There's only two people who's every died for me
Laid down their lives just so I could be free
They both went through hell, beared crosses and shells
And both got back up again after they fell

They never picked the fight, but they're there
To pick up the pieces

God only knows who we'd be without soldiers and Jesus

It seems like the news loves to run 'em both down
But whenever we need 'em, they're always around
So don't hand me a party's political views
'Cause they're a left side, a right side, and then there's the truth

There's only two people who's every died for me
Laid down their lives just so I could be free
They both went through hell, beared crosses and shells
And both got back up again after they fell

They never picked the fight, but they're there
To pick up the pieces
God only knows who we'd be without soldiers and Jesus

To me, they're both heroes for the path that they chose
'Cause one fights for my life, one fights for my soul

There's only two people who's every died for me
Laid down their lives just so I could be free
They both went through hell, beared crosses and shells
And both got back up again after they fell

They never picked the fight, but they're there
To pick up the pieces

God only knows where we'd be without soldiers and Jesus
Soldiers and Jesus

A Year Ago VS. A Week Ago

Here we were a year ago right before saying goodbye but already having tears in the eyes...

And now, as of a week ago, we have been reunited and I couldn't be happier (even if we were outside in 20 degree weather and we were all freezing)!It is hard to believe that he is finally home, but it really does come to an end. I have been reminded over and over again as to why this past year was worth going through. It has been wonderful to have him back! I love you A!