10 hours

Happy Turkey Day!! I hope anyone that traveled or is traveling made/makes it to where ever safely. James and I left yesterday afternoon around 12:40pm to drive to the Boston area. Normally it's a six and a half hour drive which isn't much fun anyways but it took us about 10 hours to get here this time. Traffic was crazy and so were the people driving. We about got killed a few times by people cutting into our lane earlier than they should have and a couple of those people were the big truckers! Craziness! Oh well, we made it here safely and that's all that matters. We are not looking forward to the drive back, hopefully it won't be as bad though.

We found out some good news about us going to Germany, if that wasn't good news in and of itself! Anyways, we were worried that James would be deployed to Iraq or somewhere else as soon as we got to Germany, which would have been pretty crappy for both of us. But he got an email from his sponsor (the person that's going to help get us settled there) and she said that he wouldn't be going anywhere for a little while at least when we get there. It's wonderful news 'cause I wasn't looking forward to being in a foreign country by myself for a year and change. Now we get to get settle some before he has to go anywhere, YAY!! And possibly get to do some sight seeing too, how fun!

Story Stuff

All right, so, after looking over a few different websites and pouring over many, much, moosen! names I have narrowed the guys name down to two and one girls (even though I said I only needed guys names). I thought I'd get your opinions on which name you like better. So here they are, Quinn Bartley or Gavin Bartley....The girls name is going to be Mackenzie or Kenzie for short. I couldn't find any other Scottish girl names that I liked better than that one. Her name was going to be Coleen but that's Irish and seeing as how the guys names I liked were Scottish I had to find her a Scottish name that suited. Anyways, let me know what you think of the three names and anything else you wish to add, thanks!

Boston!

Well James and I got back from Waltham (just outside of Boston) Monday evening. We had a great visit with my brothers, mom and soon to be sister Amber, Taylor (Amber's first child, a very entertaining 3 year old little girl) and baby Aiden! After much coaxing I actually held him which was very scary 'cause I've never held a newborn baby before, he's so little and cute! It was cool to watch my brother Seth interact with his baby boy, I never thought I'd see the day but it was sweet and made me teary eyed at times. I just wish my dad had been there, that would have been perfect.

Anyways on Sunday my mom, Jared, James and I actually went in to Boston and took a self tour of it, I think it was something called the Freedom Trail...It was pretty neat. One of the first things we saw was an old graveyard that held the bodies of people such as Ben Franklin, John Hancock, Samuel Adams (mmmm beeeer) and Paul Revere. The graves were a treat in and of themselves because of the headstones. Some had skulls and cross bones like what you'd see on a pirate flag, some had skulls with wings on either side of it, some had angel heads with wings on either side, some had what looked like some sort of tree that was bent on them, and some just had writing but it was like nothing I've ever seen at a graveyard! We also saw Paul Revere's House, it's like 300 years old or something, pretty interesting, very creaky. We saw some cool old churches, statues and monuments where obviously a lot of early American history took place. I couldn't tell you in detail about it because I'm not a big history buff so I hope nobody was expecting that! :-P Besides, Jared will probably post something more interesting later anyways...

But like I said, all and all it was a great visit, it was good to spend time with my family. We'll be heading up that way again for Thanksgiving next week so that should be fun also. The drive is not as fun except for the sites. The route we took, took us through New York City which is really neat to see from a distance, the skyline is absolutely beautiful! I can't imagine what it must have looked like before September 11th, even so it was still amazing! And driving across the George Washington Bridge was pretty cool too! For any Law and Order fans that's the bridge towards the end of the opening sequence. We found New Jersey not so attractive (no offense to anyone that lives there or has lived there), there are lots of powerlines and factories really kind of blah. Philadelphia has some cool bridges too, exciting stuff! Random...Dad if you read this anytime soon or I guess anyone that's good with computers, one of the drives on my PC is making it crash or shut off randomly and it also kind of growls at me....help!

Life on Post

I never thought I'd be able to sleep through the sound of an explosion and I'm not talking like little firecracker explosions. I mean full blown they're dropping bombs on us type explosions, but apparently I can. So, seeing as how this is an ordinance post(base), they test or rather blow up a lot of stuff here and the past two days have been quite interesting. I hear on average about 2 explosions every 20 minutes or so through out the day and they are very loud and scary. Anyways, this morning they started going off right around 7:00am and I heard that one then went back to sleep and didn't wake up again until about 10:00am, so I don't really know if that's a good thing to be able to sleep through or not.....there are a lot of deer here on post everywhere, just chillin' and I saw a ground hog for the first time ever the other day as well as a fox the other night, both of which were really cute! But the deer have infested this place, I've never seen so many before and they aren't really scared of people, they just look at you as you drive by, it's crazy! Apparently hunters are allowed to legally kill up to 25 of them or there abouts and that's a lot of deer!

Well I now have a new nephew, Aiden. He was born Tuesday at 3:00pm to the parents of my brother Seth and his fiance Amber. He was 7lbs 8oz, 20" long with a head of black hair and the doctors say he's perfect, my guess is that means he's uber healthy/normal that sort of thing. Anyways, Aiden makes me an aunt for the second time, this time it's on my side of the family, which is pretty cool. James sister Krissie has a little boy, Luke, who is just cute as a button and sweet as can be and she's expecting her second child, boy also, sometime near Christmas! That'll make three nephews with no nieces in sight as of yet! Exciting stuff! James and I will get to see little mister Aiden this weekend. We are making a special trip up to the Boston area where Seth lives half to see Aiden and half to see Jared who is there visiting as well. We will also be spending Thanksgiving with them, Seth and Amber, my mom will be there also and as of right now I don't think my dad will be able to make it and neither will Jared, which will suck but is understandable with work and all that so, yea.

I said I would give a review of the movie Jarhead, so here it is (if you could even call this a review)...I would say it was entertaining but it's a movie about war so I won't say that. I will say that it's the first "war" movie I've seen and been able to sit through without having to avert my eyes from all the gore 'cause there's not really much gore, at least that I remember. However there were a few parts that I did avert my eyes from, I'm sure you can put 2 & 2 together and figure out why for yourselves. Other than that I would say it was an interesting movie about the first Iraq war from the perspective of the Marines that went there. We all know that war is hell but this movie kind of makes the point that waiting for war is also hell. Again not another movie I would take little kids to see. There is quite a bit of language and it has some really funny parts throughout it. Overall I'd say, I'm glad I saw it once, don't care if I ever see it again and don't care about owning it. Hope that helps anyone trying to decide whether not to see it and if not, well then I guess that's your problem! ;-P
random thought, Heather for some reason i'm forbidden from viewing your blog, did i do something wrong? :-( just thought i'd let you know in case it's not just me...

All moved in and other things

well as the title suggests, we are all moved in to our new room and it's everything i hoped it would be! we have a kitchen all to ourselves with a big fridge, big sink, a stove AND an oven, YAY!! soo much nicer than a normal hotel room! we had a nice treat last night also, a couple of James classmates cooked us dinner and desert! we had yummy steak, mac an' cheese (home made, not the box kind), green beans and a jello no bake oreo pie!! it was delicious!

i'm still so excited for my bro and his girl, i wish i lived closer to them so could spend time with them and all that fun stuff. something that i still haven't quite come to grips with being a military wife is that i will more than likely never live close to my family. of course that doesn't mean i'll never see them, it just means i won't see them as much as i would like to. that makes me sad simply for the fact that as my brothers and i grow up our relationships have changed so much and i miss them more now when i'm away than i did when we were younger. my parents fall into this category as well. i'm hoping that as i adjust more to this idea of the military that it won't be so hard, not to say that i won't still miss my family but maybe it won't hurt as bad as it doesn't now.

anyways on a lighter note James and I are going to go see the movie Jarhead tonight. it looks pretty interesting so maybe a review of it will follow soon!

Exciting News!!

My brother Jared finally officially asked his girlfriend Heather to marry him!! :D I'm so incredibly happy for them, I know they both have been waiting a long time for this. I'm going to have a new sister, YAY!! Heather is such a sweet lady and has been really good for Jared, they truly are a good match for one another. I'm excited for the life they will soon have to share with each other. Marriage, aside from becoming a Christian, has been the best thing to ever happen to me and I highly recommend it to anyone who is willing to work at a relationship.

Also I lied unintentionally about the shindig with James class, it didn't happened yesterday it happened this evening. however on my behalf I was going with information that i was told so yeah. Apparently yesterday was the practice run. Anyways the event was pretty short and sweet and they (there were three classes total) all got their little Ordinance pins for their uniforms. James sung the National Anthem too which he did very well, made me teary eyed and impressed a few people that I was standing with. The coolest part though was getting to meet a two star general, shaking his hand and talking with him or rather listening to him. It was cool, though sadly I walked right out of our hotel room without my camera, so no pictures. :-(

More yay news, we are all packed and ready to move out of this hotel room tomorrow morning at 6am! Its gonna hurt getting up at 5am but I figure if my husband and many other military people can do it so can I, at least for one day. :-P And we will have an oven!!! I get to cook real food now! From what I understand it's a two room place, we'll have a bedroom with a bathroom of course as well as an office type room and a kitchen that i still don't know whether on not we'll be sharing but it doesn't matter because it has an oven!! Oh and thanks to all those for the name suggestions, keep 'em coming! I'm trying to find one to fit the male character for the story that popped into my head the other day. I would just use Vincent but he's already in another story that I'm working on so I don't really want to use it again, though I am very passionate about that name. why? beats me! :-P

from hotel to hotel

yay! we are being moved out of this hotel into another one, one that's on post. ha! well, at least from what I understand it will have a stove top (don't know about the oven part) and we may have to share the kitchen which is fine. also they do have high speed internet only we gotta cough up the money for it and of course we will which is also fine again seeing as how the army is paying for pretty much everything else! i just hope they have more laundry stuff than they do here. this quality inn that we are currently at is not a huge hotel but it's a decent size and for the whole building they have 1 washer and 1 dryer, so that's been pretty interesting. the move should be interesting as well. we have to be outa here by noon on friday and wait until the army inn decides to let us into our new room, plus James will be in class most of that day. hopefully there won't be any problems and we'll be able to hop from one room to the next smoothly.

there is some kind of shindig going down tonight with James class. i think he said it was a recognition thing where he and those in his class are officially welcomed to the Ordinance branch of the army. apparently i'm allowed to go which means pictures!! although i don't have a way of posting them as of yet but when we get to Germany that shouldn't be a problem, well as long as our stuff makes it over the ocean successfully that is.

on a side note, i need some suggestions for guys names that aren't very common...