Listen, I know it's been months since I blogged. I am obviously not as dedicated as I once was, OR, I have a really good excuse. We moved for the second time in seven months. Since Chris was still in The Basic School, he wasn't around as much as I would have liked to help out. With a few choice hissy fits, Chris did help me scrub above the cupboards in the kitchen, vacuum, and dust the fans-pretty much all the areas I couldn't quite reach myself. He only grumbled a little. I had to treat him like my own mother used to treat me; I told him that if he could work hard for an hour, cleaning, he would be free to do whatever he wanted. Only once did I catch him downstairs sitting down on the recliner. It was fairly obvious because recliners tend to move when you get up from them. I really couldn't be mad, because he was doing some of the gritty work.
I am a firm believer in getting back your security deposit. Aside from my room at my parent's, which I may or may not have neglected to clean, I have scoured each place I have lived since then. Chris, however, is not used to scouring a place as he moves out, so he didn't understand most of my cleaning practices. He did not understand why he had to dust the fans, or above the kitchen cupboards...sigh. Someday he will learn. Hopefully soon because we are just going to keep moving!
It was very emotional leaving Quantico. As most of you have heard us say, we adored our landlords and our neighbors, and we made some of the BEST friends while in Quantico. Chris really connected with his fire team, I really connected with their wives, and many other wives of Charlie Company. It is both exciting and sad that we moved away from one another. It means that no matter where we go, we will probably have a place to stay or someone to visit, but it means we can't get together all the time like we did then. I spent every other day with the girls at the height of summer. Graduation had many mixed emotions, as we were very proud of the boys and excited for the next step of our Marine Corps journey, but saddened by the thought of leaving one another. Chris, I think, hid his emotions very well. He was quiet all week and directly following graduation, he just went home. We were actually leaving Quantico the next morning on our move to Florida, so I took my sweet time. I met most of the girls out front to say goodbye. We hung around, trying not to be the first one to actually say "goodbye". But eventually the others had to tend to their families; I got in an empty car, headed to an empty house aside from my husband, dogs, and necessities. I couldn't help but drive even slower than needed on base, looking around at all the places I'd been, ran, and stopped. I grabbed us some Subway sandwiches and realized that would be my last interaction with anyone on base for a long time.
The morning came all too soon. I had said my goodbyes. My sweet neighbor girl had come over the night before and we cried a little. It was just so odd leaving the house. It was still dark. I couldn't sleep, so I just got up at 3:30 and we were out the door by 4:30. The dogs were pretty nervous but settled once we got into the car with them. We had very little wiggle room for the ride but we had food, clothes, cleaning supplies, our safe. The typical baggage for a move. Since it was still so dark, Nalli took advantage and slept for the first few hours of the drive.
We had talked about the move many times and knew most of our friends were driving down through Atlanta, Georgia. Some were planning on doing the drive in one day, some two. We decided to avoid Atlanta, because we were hoping to avoid any traffic, and decided to stay in Savannah, Georgia for one night. We broke up the drive into two tolerable days, and tried fried gator tail for the first time. It was absolutely delicious, and since it was Halloween, our waitresses were dressed up as green army men. They looked hilarious. We tried some local beers, and then Chris' dad sent us a photo of Chris' mom in the 70s, with their dogs, sitting near an anchor statue. Since we didn't have the dogs with us, we weren't able to replicate it exactly, but we did have a random foreigner take our photo next to it.
I think our first shell shock was when we stopped for lunch in North Carolina. First of all, we kept forgetting that is was Halloween. We thought that North Carolina was full of goths, but it turns out they were just dressed up. Our costumes, for this Halloween, were snowbirds. Our waitress approached us in NC and was dressed as a vampire, complete with makeup and teeth. It was probably hard to hide our shock. Her accent was as ridiculously Southern as you can imagine, and I bet Chris and I stuck out like sore thumbs.
The second day of driving took a while, but we had to laugh because the roadside of Florida reminded us of Jurassic Park.
Probably all the alligators. Fences to keep out those damn alligators.
Chris has teased me multiple times about alligators because he knows I am afraid of them. He tried to tell me that they hide in sewers and come up through your toilet hole, so you always have to look before you sit down.
Locals disproved his lies and made me feel like a fool, but I will get him back.
Nalli got pretty nervous a few hours in. I'm not sure what her issue was, but I had to give her a Benadryl. I felt very guilty for doing so, because after that she slept like a rock, only waking up when we let her out to potty. I definitely took the easy way out, but it was much safer than trying to calm her down while driving.
When we move, Chris usually drives ahead of me. I let him drive ahead of me until we got within a few blocks of our new home. He was taking too long for my taste, and then he took a wrong turn. That was the last straw. I flew around him in my car and ran to the mailbox to grab the keys. We opened the door, let the dogs loose, and ran around the house, screaming as we realized that our house was huge. And beautiful. And Florida-y (which is definitely an adjective).
The ceilings are very high, we have lots of big windows, and lots of rooms. Our master bedroom has a bathroom with separate walk-in closets, a giant tub, and a shower. The kitchen is really fancy, with the oven and microwave stacked, the stovetop is on the counter, and there is tons of counterspace as well as a pantry. The laundry room is separate and had enough room for our small deep freeze. There is a formal dining room as well as an informal dining area, a study, a second bathroom, and three bedrooms we chose to turn into a second bedroom, music room, and man cave. Everyone gets their own special area, and we didn't seem to have enough furniture to fill this big place!
We had hoped that our Christmas present to each other would be a TV. We had discussed it earlier but then realized we wouldn't have a TV to watch The Walking Dead on. So, I guess we realized it was necessary to go buy a TV. And Christopher would not settle for just ANY TV, so we ended up buying a 50" Smart TV.
I admit, I do have the TV on a lot, so it was a good purchase.
Somehow we have already lived here for over a month. We haven't met our neighbors. Okay, I have met one neighbor, but it was really awkward because I just wanted to get the mail, so I had neglected to wear a bra. Oops. Our other neighbors we know are our friends from Quantico, Sarah and James Sebesta. It is pretty amazing that they live caddy-corner from us. Sarah and I always carpool and are partners in crime when it comes to spending too much money at say...Hobby Lobby. There is another spouse I just met who lives on our block as well, and she has dogs. I assume we will be fast friends.
We weren't thrown together as spouses here like we were in Quantico. There was a practically mandatory meeting for spouses in Quantico where most of us met our initial friends. We continued to hang out as a group until we sort of figured out who it was that we really connected with and spent more and more time with.
It wasn't quite like that here in Pensacola. Although I adore our Family Readiness Officer, she had some difficulty reaching out to us. Only four of us attended her meeting. It was unfortunate that she was unable to reach out to the rest of the significant others from Charlie Company, because FROs can be incredibly helpful. Our second meeting with anyone from the area was a meet and greet coffee with the hospitality chairs of the spouses of student aviators group. I really enjoyed the meet and greet-it gave me a taste of what our time here would be like. I thoroughly enjoyed the other girls' company and was pleasantly surprised to find out that the following week we were having a Christmas party.
The Christmas party was just last night. I ate too many sweets and drank enough Sangria to put me in a sugar coma but it was worth it. There were quite a few girls here, and I realized that it may be more difficult to make friends here because the groups are already slightly established, but I have talked to a few girls that I feel I could be great friends with! It's not always going to be easy to make friends no matter where we go; that is something I am just going to have to get past. Last night was a cookie exchange, which made me laugh because the majority of the girls brought no-bake something or others, but I did make Butterfinger Cookies and tried some really yummy stuff. We were able to take home copies of the recipes if we chose.
Five favorite things is a really great Christmas gift exchange idea-you bring five of your favorite things under $5, and pulled names out of a bag to hand them to. I decided to bring my homemade cowboy candy, because I love it and love to put it on cornbread, steaks, and over cream cheese at Christmas time. In return, I received gift cards, homemade marshmallows, sweet treats and hot chocolate additives, and lip gloss. All things that made me very happy! I also chose to embarrass myself by asking why all the girls from New York and Texas didn't have accents, which sparked the debate about my "accent", or lack thereof, in my opinion, and kind of loosened up the room. There are girls from New York, Texas, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, and Missouri. I was very, very happy to hear a Wisconsin accent as it reminds me greatly of my family. Time flies when you are having fun, and soon Sarah and I decided to head home because our husbands were there.
Poor Chris was already asleep. His schedule has been pretty hectic, as he has a test nearly every three to four days and the Marines are only allowed to fail two tests before they are dropped from the pilot program. Chris passed his first test with flying colors, which I thought was well-deserved because I saw how much he studied. He has another test today and another on Monday. The one on Monday is supposed to be fairly hard, and so I assume we will do what we did for his first test-I black out the answers on the practice test, make him take it, grade it, and review with flash cards. He has studied some really difficult material-physics is something I haven't touched since high school. I am not sure how he did on his test yet today, but he sure seemed to know the material when we were studying last night.
I am going to have a very lazy day today. I will most likely doing the stretching episode of Insanity. I ran eleven miles yesterday so I am probably going to take it easy. I made my own body glide (which if you don't know what that is, don't ask), and it worked out really well. It even helped prevent the blisters I have been getting on the bottom of my feet. Unfortunately, I forgot to put it on the top of my feet so I have some gnarly blisters there. I love my Vibrams but they have more miles in them than they probably should. My newer Vibrams are just a tad large so when I wear them for running they tend to make me hurt more than they should. I am hoping to go to the library today to get a library card. We are driving home for Christmas, which is about an eighteen hour drive, so I need to get some good books to read on the way there. I have been re-reading Harry Potter but I can't convince Chris to read it to me while we are driving, so maybe if I find something else he will.
We took the opportunity to visit Chris' brother in Tampa, Florida, as it was the last weekend he would be there. He is studying to be a podiatrist and he was doing a rotation in Florida, so he stayed with Chris' aunt and uncle for about three months. It was actually the last full weekend he would be there; he headed toward home on Thanksgiving. His next step is in St. Louis so he will be living with Chris' brother-in-law and sister. It has worked out really well for him so far to live with family! We got to spend some time with Chris' Aunt Diane and Uncle Peter. They are really great people-his Aunt Diane is SO much like Chris' mom; her voice is the same and so is her laugh, the only difference is that she swears. Chris and I couldn't help but cringe when she swore because she sounds so much like Chris' mom (who never, ever, ever swears). She had us laughing pretty hard.
Even better, Chris' cousins were able to come down from New York for Thanksgiving, early, so we could meet. I have never met Casey or Ryan but have heard a lot about them. They are awesome. We had such a great time with them and Ryan's girlfriend, Jess. Ryan and Jess are beer snobs like me so naturally, we became fast friends. I hope to see them again, soon, because I really enjoyed their company.
The weekend flew by and soon we were headed home. It was good timing, though, because I feel that John was very excited to go home. He and Melissa have been married for a year and some odd months and they hardly ever get to be together. I was very happy that he could go home for Thanksgiving and now Christmas!
Speaking of Thanksgiving, this was the first Chris and I spent alone. We went the night before to our favorite pizza spot to order our pizza for the next day. We drank a couple of pints while we waited for them to make our "pig-out" pizza-a pizza with 13-toppings. We also had pumpkin pie that I made from scratch. I was very proud of myself as I haven't really made pie before! Our little dinner was delicious, cute, and perfect for just the two of us. I have been trying to practice better portion control, and it was a lot easier when there was no smorgasbord of food in front of me.
This morning my friend Sarah and I went to the local library to get library cards and check out some books for holiday traveling. It is not a huge library by far, and I am slightly picky on what I will read. I found a few, though, and am most excited to read a book about Julia and Paul Child. Since I feel as though I am just sitting around waiting to hear about my nursing license, I might as well be reading and exercising my brain a little.
I would like to get our house very clean before we leave for the holidays so we don't come back to a mess. I also need to figure out what to pack, because I have yet to worry about a coat this year. Luckily, my mother parted with a very warm peacoat for me prior to moving away from Nebraska. We have quite a lot of things to fit in the car, between weeks' worth of clothes, dogs, and gifts. Chris also wants to bring his guitar, which I sure hope he can because he gets bored so quickly.
After the library we killed some time at our most favorite store-Alyssa's Antique Depot, and then moved on to go see our friend Desiree and her one-month-old son, RJ. He is so adorable. Today was the first time I had heard him coo and he just sounds so adorable. We could have sat there for hours just watching him.
Chris is home now. We are snuggled on the couch with blankets and snuggies. He is studying and I am reading one of Betty White's books. Ruby is begging to be pet and Nalli is sulking behind the couch. Life is good.
