Dog Day

Well, he's here. We actually got him yesterday afternoon (a day early) so we've had a full 24 hours with him and so far, we're pleased... and smitten. He's rediculously cute, rediculously fluffy and rediculously cuddly. Who could not like this guy?

Here is sitting beside Aaron like the noble hound he is, while Aaron is touching up our first official home project..

Which was making our pantry cabinet into a chalk board :)

We were finally having a gorgeous day... this is a view of our back yard and garage...

Howard and me

He loves a good belly rub... who doesn't?

Getting comfortable in his new back yard...

Hanging with Aaron

Getting acquainted with the chiminea...

And the new chalkboard cabinet back up in the kitchen... :)

Back Where I Come From

For those of you who don't know, Aaron is currently on his first trip. It came up pretty abruptly, but at the same time, it's been something for which we've been planning for a few years now. By that I mean we knew it was coming--that one of these days, he'd actually be done training and would finally be put to work. Even when we got here, we knew that once he was mission qualified, he could go anywhere at just about any time. Well, on a Wednesday he was officially mission ready and by Thursday he would be going on what was to be a 4 day trip. By Friday, the 4 day trip turned into a 9 day trip. And now, 10 days later, he is "hopefully" getting home sometime late tomorrow night. Guess I should get used to it... It really hasn't been so bad, but that could very well be because I went home for an entire week of it. It was so fun, but busy. I didn't take quite as many pictures as I had hoped, but I did whip out the camera a time or two. Not the best pictures ever but I didn't feel like editing them so here they are in their most pure form...

Monday and Tuesday I was in Charleston visiting Rach and Adam (but they're coming here to visit next week, so let's be honest: I was really going to visit the girls...) Rach had a doctor appointment Tuesday morning and Lucy had school, so Mary Beck and I had a little "catch up" quality time together while I babysat. We watched "Booty" (Sleeping Beauty) and chit-chatted (which for Mary Beck includes words like "Uh huuuuuh" and "thirsty"... the kind of heart-to-heart that a little girl can only have with her very cool Aunt "Becky"), and as you see below, we got all prettied up...

After Rach got home and then picked up Lucy, we went downtown to grab lunch and go to the park. The girls quite literally SQUEALED with delight as we pulled into the parking lot... they knew exactly where we were...

I looooove when Lucy does this facial expression...so concerned and sincere and hard at work playing (an oxymoron? I think not...)

This was after Mary Beck climbed up the side of the jungle gym and was obviously very proud of herself...

Punkin after having conquered the same jungle gym... she's not as proud of herself as Mary Beck was... her look was more of a "What? I've done this a million times... no big deal..."

Me with the girls...

Wednesday and Thursday I was in Atlanta with Mom, Marcus and Marjorie (Emily had to work). Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures... Marcus did, so maybe I will get a few from him.

Friday I was sick, but Saturday, Dad took me down to the pond to go fishing. The final score was 2-0. I won't say who caught all of the fish and who caught none... all I will say is that the fish my dad is holding in the pic below was not one that HE caught.... the hook was caught in its mouth and he had to get it out with the pliers...

And this is another one that I caught. Trying to explain to Dad how to take my picture would've been way too complicated, so I took a little self portrait of me with my tiny little brim... (the second and final catch of the afternoon...)

The end.

Howard Moon, Dog About Town...

We don't get him until this Saturday, but our lovely breeder has been updating us with pictures. Here he is, at 7 weeks old...

We can't wait!!

While The Husband's Away..

...the wife will travel.

Aaron is on his first trip... where, I don't know... when he'll be back, I'm also not sure about... so the day before he left, my mom came up with the idea that I fly home. We don't have our couch. We don't have our bed. We don't have our dog. And I still don't have a job. I thought there was no way I'd find a cheap enough plane ticket but I took a chance anyway and found one! So Aaron left on Valentine's Day morning, I came home and packed, went to the grocery store to rent a couple of movies (girly movies of course), made myself breakfast for dinner to get rid of some eggs we had left, poured myself a glass of wine, and settled in for a Valentine's celebration all alone.

My VERY kind friend Emily picked me up Sunday morning at 4:00am, and after having gotten one hour of sleep the night before (I was a little nervous to stay in the house alone) I was very tired all day. I fell asleep sitting up all over the place that day, the most shocking place being in the plane. Why is this shocking? Because I hate flying. And I mean HATE it. And I had a four and a half hour flight ahead of me. I connected in Atlanta and proceeded onto Charlotte where Mom and Dad picked me up. We grabbed dinner and headed home, I woke up Monday and drove to Charleston, where I spent the night and hung out with Rach, Adam and the girls. Then I drove back through Columbia for dinner with friends and back to the lake house. Mom and I got up Wednesday to drive to Atlanta to hang out with Marcus, Emily and Marjorie and we're still here in Atlanta...

Hopefully there will be pics to come...

Honey, We're Home

We officially became homeowners this afternoon when we got the keys to the new place! To say we were "excited" or "happy" would be a bit of an understatement... I'm pretty sure we were both giddy on the ride over, smiling from here to here (I'm holding my hands far apart in a demonstration you can't see) the whole way home. Our VERY kind friends helped us bring the stuff over from base--it took 3 cars full and 5 people but we got it all (including the piano) in one trip. Aaron and I are staying on base one last night since we already had to pay for tonight and tomorrow, I get up early, pick up Emily and we head over to the new house to wait for the movers to deliver the first round of our belongings while Aaron goes to work to mission plan for his first flight on Wednesday.

And of course, as promised, here are a few pics of the new place. We'll call these the "before" pics (For some reason they loaded a little funny) And like an idiot, I forgot to take pics of the outside of the house. Until I can get those up, just use your imagination--and include in the picture a white picket fence... because it has one of those :)


When we arrived, the woman who sold us the house had left us a very sweet and informational note--it talked about the flowers we'd see blooming, the grape arbor in the back (that really grows beautiful red seedless grapes!) and our favorite part: she told us about the cool, hole-in-the-wall restaurants in our new neighborhood. She also left us a bottle of wine... it was all a nice surprise.

Pete showing Aaron how excited he is for him!

Me with "the movers"

Our bedroom

The Guest Room

Our kitchen!

Another view of the kitchen





And yet another view of the kitchen... (it's my favorite part of this house)

The Dining room



Some different views of the living room

And a couple of very happy homeowners :)

Getting Closer...

Aaron and I are supposed to be closing on our house this Friday and will take posession of it on the following Monday. We'd really appreciate your prayers that it all comes together... they're pushing our closing up so that we aren't homeless come Monday when we're kicked out of TLF :) We've actually had fun living across the yard from our friends Pete and Emily and being on base has made our lives as a one-car family a little easier than it would've otherwise been... but we're so ready to be "home" and settled. By the time we actually get moved in, we will have moved 4 times in the month that we've been here. Argh... it gets old. My stuff is being delivered Tuesday (which includes our wedding presents!! FINALLY WE GET TO USE THEM!! Who here is excited?) and our beds/sofa, etc are supposed to be delivered two weeks later. Looks like we'll be on an air matress for a bit, but at least we'll be on said air matress under our very own roof. We may not have the furniture essentials, but at least we'll have access to our cute dishes and our coffee pot... I guess it really is the little things in life, eh?

Hopefully I can get up some pics of the house soon. I tried to jack some from the real estate's website but it wouldn't let me... darn rules... :)

PS I went on a bit of a posting frenzy today... 3 in one sitting...woah

A Little Fishy

One of the great things about living so close to The Sound is the seafood. Not that I'm particularly talented at cooking much of anything, but seafood is one thing I definitely am clueless about, so thus far, it's been a learning experience. We took great advantage of the wonderful, vast and tasty array of steaks we were privileged to eat while living in Oklahoma, so while we're here, we want to take advantage of being able to purchase oysters, scallops, etc... for rediculously cheap amounts of money (at least moreso than what we were used to back home). On one of what has become our "routine" trips into Seattle every Saturday (at least the 4 Saturdays since we've lived here), Pete, Emily, Aaron, Tyler and I decided to each purchase a type of seafood and cook it together later that night. So we ventured into Pike's Place Market to make our purchases. Pete and Emily bought salmon. Tyler bought a bunch of oysters. Aaron and I bought a bunch of the largest scallops I've ever seen. We all gathered at our "house" on base (plus Emily's cousin and our friend Brittany) and we cooked. Emily roasted the salmon. Aaron and I made bacon wrapped scallops and we steamed the oysters (and left some of them to eat raw). It was a seafood FEAST. And it was a blast. I would be okay with doing this every single weekend... too bad the boys will have to start actually going on trips and doing their jobs soon.


Here's Pete and me, pretending to be involved in the fabulous cooking that was going on...


Mmmm....bacon wrapped scallops...



Aaron hard at work on the scallops...

Tyler working hard to open an oyster...

Me, watching Emily clean my kitchen... haha

How Do You Say "Impulse Buy?"

In order to get settled into our new home (once we are actually in posession of it), we need a few items. No need would qualify as "desperate"... just a few things we need to improve on. One of those would be a better bed. Another example would be a good over-stuffed chair. Perhaps more art for the walls. And an important one would be a couch. So the other night, Aaron and I decided to peruse Craigslist for a good and inexpensive couch. Instead, we found this.

The family who owned it was moving and needed to get rid of it and they were selling it for only 200 bucks. A piano...for 200 bucks... and more importantly, a piano that actually works. True, it needs to be refinished (which we can do ourselves) and it needs a bit of a tune-up (which shouldn't be too hard to schedule), but we couldn't pass it up. That's pretty typical, right? You go to find a couch and instead come back with a large musical instrument. For now, I'm sure the maid service on base is wondering why in the world we have a piano planted in the middle of our living room... at least for the time being, we can use the bench as coffee table :)