my little man.

I just wanted to take a second to brag tell yall some fabulous news: my sweet 4-year old nephew, C, earned an A today at his cello lesson. And that's an A from his TEACHER, not mommy! That has never happened before. He's never come close to an A. So today I would like to say: WAY GO TO, BUDDY!!!!!

Also, he announced today that he is going to join the military and be with Uncle M. He said, "I'm gonna join the military! and I'm gonna fightcha GOOD!" .. as he did a karate kick and a big punch. We bought him his own camo outfit at the BX during graduation weekend. I swear I didn't make him pose like this. He has watched M's BMT video about 6 times, and he is OBSESSED with the military. Today he said, "Why are those ladies in the air force?!" Haha!!! Such a cute little man.

sorry the picture is teeny and stinky. my phone insists on resizing pictures. Lame.


also, his neck looks all.. puffed out. he's actually WAY skinny in real life. i'm not sure why he's standing like this. my guess is he saw the guys on the video and tried to imitate it! hilarious.

I've got answers.

On my last day with my airman, I met lots of new people. Mothers and wives of airmen. I got asked a few times how long M and I had been married. It was just easier to say, "He left 2 weeks after we were married."

And then their jaw drops. And then they say, "Oh my gosh..." Yep. So one mother said, "That must be terrible for you!! How do you do it?!!" I only had the strength to say, "It's fine..." What else could I say, really? Then she was even more shocked.

"Fine!? How are you fine?!" ... I replied, "Well, I don't really have a choice, you see. You do whatcha gotta do." And that was that. This whole thing sucks, but we deal with it. It's not the most ideal situation, but we're making the best of it. Really. My husband is serving our country and providing us with a solid future. He'll actually have a job next year, which is more than 10% of our nation can say. I am really really proud of him for all of this. He's living his dream and creating a life for us and our family. So that's the truth. We are learning more about communication than ever before. We now appreciate each other on an entire new level. We are really lucky, in a lot of ways. My heart skips a beat every time I see his name show up on my cell phone. It's horrible being separated, but millions of wives have gone through this before me. Wives of soldiers who fought for our freedom. I wish people would just be proud of him instead of continually asking me how I do it. I just... do. and then I proudly wear my Air Force Wife pin and my collection of Air Force t-shirts, and I go on my merry way.

Okay, so I've been asked a bunch of questions since I've returned from graduation, so I decided I should answer them on my blog for the whole world to read!

1) What happens next? I'm glad you asked. M is in Wichita Falls, Texas & he's studying to be an electrician. Well, technically electrical systems. He's set to graduate on August 26, 2009. He shares a room with 1 other guy, and he has a lot more freedom. Well, not a lot, but more than in basic training! I am going to move to Texas after I finish this semester. We're pretty sure I'm on his orders to move. My friend has even asked her cousin, who is an officer, and he's confirmed it. The other husbands have also gotten word that their wives can move too. So... now it's just the waiting game. Don't worry - I'll let you know news as soon as I hear it!

2) So why can't you touch each other? I'm sure you noticed our pictures - we're all spaced out and everything. While M's in uniform, we can't touch. At all. No holding hands, hugs, etc. If he were out of uniform, he could do whatever he wants. Too bad, so sad - he had to stay in his uniform during graduation weekend. Don't worry - he touched me all he wanted to at the hotel. Ahem. Just not in public. Why? He has to be "professional." We held hands at the basketball & hockey game though. We would be standing next to each other, and his hand would automatically go to my back - he would pull away immediately because he realized what he was doing! If he had been caught touching me, he would have lost his free time immediately. I'm not exaggerating - one of our good friends was "caught" escorting his wife at the BX & he was screamed at in front of everyone. Psh. Lame.

3) How's married life? Hahahaha. Very funny. I'm not sure if you're trying to be "funny" or if you're serious. Regardless, it's great! My husband clings to every word I say, and vice versa. That type of marriage is very rare. We are best friends! And we really rely on each other for everything. So - to answer your burning question - married life is fabulous. Oh, and we never EVER fight. It's very hard to fight when you're separated by 1,000 miles.

4) So when do you see him next? I plan on moving there at the end of May. If, for some unforeseen reason, I cannot move, then I will just take a trip to Texas anyway. So we're basically on a 45 day countdown (give or take a few days).

5) Does he get to call you now? Yes. He isn't allowed to carry a cell phone, but he does have a cell phone. It stays in his dorm. I get phone calls at night. Last night he called me 3 times, and he texted me the entire day - he was traveling and being processed, so he had his cell phone on him.

6) Does he have Internet access? Why, I'm so glad you asked that one! We just bought a brand new laptop during graduation weekend. He bought some kind of $50 internet package for 1 month. He's going to try to get online tonight. He also promised that he would blog at some point. So be on the lookout! That will be a very special day when he actually blogs on Fort Cox!! He's like a celebrity around here - considering how this whole blog is about him! It sure was funny explaining to him how his name is "Prince M."

7) Did you get alone time with him this past weekend? Oh, yes. We sure did. This blog is a family-friendly place, so I'll leave it at that. But don't worry - we had a blast. And for those of you who are so sure we were going to start our little family on graduation weekend, think again!! Look for that post a little while down the road...



If you have any more burning questions that you're just dying to ask, feel free to post a comment! I'll edit this post with the answers. Go ahead, don't be shy! There should be a little link that says "Post Comment" underneath this. If you don't have a Blogger account, you can just click the Anonymous button and that will be fine!

Love yall!

where has PM been these past two months, anyway!?

So maybe you've been wondering where PM has been sleeping for the past two months. Or maybe not. In any case, I'm going to give you a little tour around the barracks dorm. He's in the Air Force, yall! Not the Army!

As you may recall, M's duty was to clean the latrines. Here he is in the shower. I didn't get a picture of the stalls!

Take a look at this beautiful bed. Not one wrinkle! I hate making my bed - hopefully PM will continue this "habit" when we finally live together. I'll let him make our bed anytime he wants!

His shoes... all neatly lined up.

A little peak into his locker... well, part of it, anyway.

and a peak into his drawer. Here you can see his neatly rolled up socks, towels, etc.

They make them roll their socks a certain way to create smiley faces in the sock! M's showing me the smile, but you can't really see it in the picture.. He looks thrilled to show me his sock, no? :]


Underneath his drawer of socks and underwear, he has a locked up drawer full of a TON of stuff... including all my letters! He opened it up and there were all my gawdy bright green envelopes, all lined up. How sweet. He said he loved the green envelopes until the very end when other wives began sending green envelopes. Copiers! Sheesh! :]

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I've gotten about 10 texts from M today - but no calls. He made it to Sheppard AFB safely, but he says the town looks rather stinky. Great! He also told me that he will graduate August 26th... we were not expecting a date that late. Oh well. I will just have to miss next semester of college. I guess I will spend 4 months pinching pennies so I can make it back home for Christmas and designing our new home.

and I am on M's orders - I saw the paper myself! We think I can move in 30 days. Too bad I'll still be in school. I will be done with this semester roughly in the 2nd week of May. Now we're just playing the waiting game to see when they'll move me & where I'll go. There is a waiting list for base housing there, but maybe if M gets on the list right away, we'll have a chance.

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Sadly, I do not have a Not Me! Monday for today. I'm a terrible blogger, I know. Graduation sucked up my entire week, and I don't think I did anything too embarrassing. Instead of reading about me, you might want to go check on Baby Stellan who is having some serious heart problems. His heart won't stop being over 200bpm, and it has to stop. His little body can't take much more. Please pray for a full healing. He's also been projectile vomiting for quite a while. He needs lots of love and lots of prayers sent his way. I don't really understand why God allows Stellan to endure so much pain and crap - he's only 5 months old. But I know I shouldn't question God, so... I won't. But prayer works, so get to it!

Tomorrow I go back to my high school - but this time it's to teach! How crazy. Wish me good luck. I, too, will need lots of prayers... dealing with high schoolers might take all the energy I have.

Seeya tomorrow for a jaw dropping Terrible Tuesdays. Was there another blog carnival for Tuesdays? I can't remember... I've been out of the loop for a while...

a whole day of crying.

Ahh. Sunday. Best day of the week. Except not.. because I had to say goodbye to my husband for another two months. At least. Do you know how much it sucks to say goodbye and not be able to touch them!? It's horrible. I cried the entire day. No exaggeration. Good thing I had makeup with me!

We went to Burger King for breakfast since we had no car and had to walk. Long lines, but pretty good.

and we got to sit with Lisa & John!!! He slept right next to M, and I have been talking to Lisa since the very beginning of BMT. We've become really really close. I love her!

Then we headed over to church. Here it is:

oh, and here's a bunch of trainees walking to church..

and here we are in church before I started crying. We just sat down. Believe me, I was crying within 30 seconds of sitting down.

You'll probably need to click on these two pictures and enlarge them since they're hard to see. When the guys get in there, they all link arms and sway during the music videos. They've memorized all the words to the videos. They're all so close to each other, depending on each other and everything. Plus, there are Christian music videos playing, such as Letters From War by Mark Schultz. Yeah. That'll make you cry instantaneously. I have never been to church like this. The guys literally scream the words because they're so passionate about worshipping - not because they're soldiers. In the picture above, you can see on the screen a soldier hugging his wife.. yeah.. way to make a girl cry!!

Of course, it was pretty cool when the preacher [chaplain?] stood up and said, "Are yall ready to worship God?" and everyone in the building screamed: SIR YES SIR!

Ha.



See this airman walking down the aisle? His only job is to pass out tissues because everyone just sits and cries. It's horrible!!!

After church, we went outside and took pictures. All 3 of these men are going to Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, Texas to do electrical systems! How cool!


Oh, and here are some 1st weekers that haven't been issued boots. M wanted to get a picture as he laughed at them..

Holy smokes! That's one hott airman... carrying my luggage. What a sweetheart!

Here's me and my buddy Cara!! She, too, has kept me sane throughout BMT. I love her!!!!


me with my AF wife pin..

and our last picture together. Sigh.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuvbBwsMTgI

Saturday with PM!

First of all, it's been too long since I've blogged. For those of you who don't know what to do without my blog, I'm sorry. Now let's continue...

Saturday was our first completely free day with PM! We picked him up at 9 at the bowling alley [now allowed to go to his dorm!! He'd get in serious trouble..]. First we drove to Best Buy and bought a laptop. We settled on an HP. I've never had that brand before, but we shall see how it turns out! That took way too long. My memory is now a little fuzzy, but I believe we went to eat at the Golden Corral afterward. We ate a ton of food - buffet style (PM's favorite) and then headed back to Best Buy to pick up his laptop!



We dropped my parents off at the mall and had some time to ourselves. Ahem. Then we picked them back up & headed to the Riverwalk. Everyone has told us just how beautiful the Riverwalk was. It was pretty neat. We started out with the Alamo - but we never actually went inside. The line was too long, and we wanted to see other things. Although, I must agree with Brittney when I say that I always thought the Alamo was in the middle of the desert with cactuses surrounding it. Nope! It's stuck in the middle of the city! ...very weird...

[this is us not touching.. blah]

We wandered around downtown for a while and then went on a boat tour. M took about 300 pictures during the 20 minute boat ride. Ha. We got off and just walked around for a while.

one of my best friends, Lisa & her husband John!! We finally met!!

After some leisurely time at the hotel, we went on the search for Joe's Crab Shack. Well, we never could find it. Our GPS navigator, Sarah (who I thoughtfully named), led us to a street that did not include Joe's Crab Shack. Sooo... we settled on Hard Rock Cafe. All 4 of us got huge hamburgers and fries. M had cleaned his plate completely while the rest of us hadn't even eaten half of our hamburger. The waiter even came over and asked him about the military and if they had starved him... ha.

Then we went to a hockey game. None of us had previously been to a hockey match, but it was AWESOME!! Let me just say - hockey beats all other sports. Period. And yes, I am just saying this because I love to see fighting. Oh my gossssh. I'm not really one to encourage or love a good fight, but geez. I can't help but get excited when I see two burley men punching each others lights out in the middle of the rink! I'll blog more about that later. And no - I have no pictures of us at the game because my camera is "too big." Blah. Who ever heard of that!? And it's not even THAT big!!! Geez louise. Anyway.

breaking all the rules. very quickly. ha.

Then we took M back to the bowling alley and he marched off to his dorm.

So that was our free day.

and now I'm probably going to blow about 10 more times.. I have way too much to talk about..

PM is an Airman!!

Okay - I want to clear up any preconceived notions you might have about San Antonio. You might think it's hot, sunny, and amazing down here. Wrong!! It's absolutely freezing. The sun doesn't really come up until 8:30 or nine. The wind is gushing. You pretty much get goosebumps nonstop until noon. I'm pretty sure those of you in my hometown are probably warmer than I am. It's insane... okay. Now that I've cleared that up...

Yesterday, M graduated from BMT officially! We left our hotel room way too early to get the best seat, because I'm anal like that. It was pitch black, obviously, since the sun doesn't rise here for a lonnnnng time. We walked forEVER to get to the parade grounds. There I was. In a cute dress. With cute black flip flops. Walking through muddy grass. Mhmm. My feet looked wretched. Ugh. Also, I was freezing to death. I met up with my buddy Cara, and we got great seats right in front of M. We sat there for about an hour and a half until graduation began.

They played a bunch of songs, screamed a few things, and said their oath. Here are some pictures:



I have never been so proud of my husband than when I saw him in the band. You probably don't know, but I am a super huge band nerd. I nearly majored in music in high school! I did the whole 9 yards on clarinet - all state, honors band, all district, etc. So, when I saw him beating the bass drum, my little heart melted with pride!! He, however, hated it. His flight didn't get to march like everyone else. He had to stand in a block the entire time and play. Stinky.



There he is again! Second person from the right.. kind of.

The whole drum & bugle corps. The conductor was pretty funny. Also, the trumpets sounded like 7th graders at their Christmas concert. But... it was cute!

M really sticks out here! He's so super tall. Ha. This is him swearing in - what a proud moment!

Afterward, he had to go and put his .. stuff.. on his shirt. It took forever. He kept having to go back and ask his TI if his shirt was okay. Then he finally got it right - and he stayed back and helped every single person fix their shirt. He was pretty much the last one to leave. What a helper! I was busy snapping pictures of him like paparazzi. He's used to it by now.


Meep. What a cute airman!



So here we are on the way to the car. After graduation we went to the Reception Center for pizza and cokes. We were waiting for the Spouse Briefing, but it was canceled. We then decided to go to the mall. It's kind of a dinky mall - it kind of reminds me of a horrible excuse for a Target, but it was okay. We sat at Starbucks for a while and he told lots of stories. Then we left at 2pm for FREE TIME!


Here PM is reading MY BLOG! He really really really missed being on the computer during BMT.


Oh, right. Here we are after he graduated. Note how my sweater is buttoned incorrectly. Yes, I do realize that my 4-year old nephew has better fine motor skills than me. Ahem.We can squeeze close together in the car. We really like being in the car.

PM posing for my future header for our blog. He has grown accustomed to hearing about my blog throughout the entire day.



Us in the hotel room. Yay, I can finally touch him!!



After our free time, we went to a place called Hungry Farmer, I think. There, we had huge steaks and baked potatoes. It was very yummy. and very country. But still really good. M ate a ton of steak. It was insane. Then we went to Best Buy to look for a laptop for him to buy. We pretty much narrowed it down to two. He's going back today to buy one!!! How exciting! Too bad I won't be able to use it... ahem...

Then we headed to the Spurs game!!! How exciting. The picture above is us waiting in line. Oh, I forgot to mention - earlier at the mall, we were just walking around. Then this little boy came up to him, looked up, and said, "Thank you for serving our country, sir." ..... okay, I pretty much had to look away and pretend I didn't hear it. Otherwise, I would have cried. Later, while standing in line for the game, a teenage boy came up to him too! He also thanked him for his service. How sweet!!!!

So got to the front door of the stadium, and the man informed me that my camera was too big. How annoying. I had to check it in at Guest Services, so I have no pictures of us at the Spurs game!!!! Grrr. Well, the game was really awesome. I'm not a fan of sports, but this was pretty cool. Plus, I got to see Eva Longoria's husband. That's kind of a celebrity. It was a really fun time. About 4 minutes into the game, PM decided he wanted a "snack." We walked around the entire arena and decided on a chili cheese foot long hot dog, ultimate nachos [an entire BOWL of nachos topped with cheese, salsa, pico de gallo, olives, and jalepenos] and a huge drink. And CRUD. I just realized that we bought the souvenir cup for 2 dollars extra and we LEFT IT under our seat!! Wow. That is really, really sad...

After the game, we turned on Sarah, our GPS navigator [I named her]. She got us mildly lost, but we returned M time so he wouldn't get in trouble!

What a day. We are about to go pick him up for a full free day. Our plans include alone time [my favorite], the Riverwalk, and the Alamo. Plus a lot of eating. Oh, and a hockey game tonight. Are hockey games cold? If you've been to one - let me know!


[[Note: I have a ton of pictures that I haven't posted. Why? My laptop is stinky. I will show you more later. I promise!!]]