Getting into the holiday spirit....

Hello there! I hope you all are having a great week so far!! We have been busy, busy, and again, busy!!! My husband is going crazy with no downtime, and I think I'm starting to catch it too! Luckily this last weekend we had some time to just hang out!

Last Monday was my birthday! We had a great time! Since my birthday is the same day as the Marine Corps' Birthday, the guys all had the day off so we had a huge group celebrating!!! We started with lunch at this little restaurant on base that I LOVE!! We had some great food, and Ashley and Mike brought me a cake :) It was delicious, probably the best ice cream cake I've ever had!!! Joel and Victoria brought me balloons, and I loved them! Jordan loved them too! Then we had about 20 people that came out to the beach at Bellow's and just hung out all day! It was fabulous!!! The guys had their man-time in tihe water with their boogie boards, and Doc showed his buddies how to body surf. Meanwhile the girls had fun having girl talk and getting some great rays!! Jordan and Kamryn played and had a blast. We all were out there for about 3 or 4 hours!! The waves were VICIOUS!!! The girls and I tried to boogie board, and it was downright comical! We could barely even stand up because of the waves!! We're all strong swimmers, so we braved it for a while, and then finally we just quit! LOL Mike McDaniel and I figured out that day that we had a common favorite movie (The Cowboy Way) so he and Ashley and the Silva's came down that night and we ordered pizza and watched the movie! It was the perfect birthday, and I am so thankful for everyone who came to celebrate!! Doc hid a card on my pillow, hoping to surprise me when we went to bed that night, but I found it early :) It was adorable though, and I loved it!!

I am finding myself really longing for some Illinois fall weather right!! Yesterday it was about 68 degrees, and SUPER windy, so it felt ALMOST chilly! It was amazing!! I took Roxy for a super long walk and just enjoyed the weather!! It got me into the holiday spirit!!! I've been going through all of my Christmas decor and trying to decide how I want to decorate!! I don't think I'm EVER going to find glasses to go in my sconce in my entryway, so I think I'll take it down and do stockings there!! Since Doc and I are going to be gone for Christmas, I had originally thought that I didn't want to decorate, but I was so wrong!!! We are still going to do a holiday party, which I am super excited for!!! The girls and I are doing a cookie decorating party of the afternoon while the guys frolic, and then we're doing appetizers for dinner and a couple's board game night of the evening. I'm very excited to have this party!! I had planned on hosting most of my friends for Christmas this year, but when the opportunity to spend it with our family came up, we jumped on it!! We're so excited to see them!!!

Doc and I had a very scary experience on Friday night. He had just gotten home from a field op on the Big Island, and Jord and I were on our way home from the battalion's family day. We got home and saw that Daddy had already eaten, so we were heading back out to the car to hit the McDonald's drive through. I decided to take Roxy with us, since she loves car rides. I stuck Roxy in the car and shut the door REALLY fast so that she couldn't jump back out. When I did, I looked down, and Jordan's fingers were latched shut in the car door! I opened the door REALLY fast, and she started bawling!! I felt like the worst mother in America!!! This is a happy story though, because God was right there with her, and she wasn't injured at all! It definitely hurt, and it was red, but no broken bones, no bruises, minor swelling that was gone by the end of the night, and NOTHING else!!! It was incredible!!! We have always been praying for her protection, and God was right there with her!! We are so thankful!!! He truly is awesome and faithful in every way! My husband had a feeling we should take her to the hospital just in case, and though all x-rays came back fine, I'm glad that we did. Acting on those intuitions is something he and I are working on very heavily. It is our firm belief that THAT is how God leads us, and we need to not be prideful and fight it, but rather listen to Him and go with it!

So as I type this, I am completely and udderly in amazement at my daughters development. Last weekend she sat down and read Doc and I an entire book!!!! She's not actually reading it, it's just memorization, but still!!! She remembers EVERYTHING!!! She's such an intelligent child, and I find myself SO concerned with doing whatever I can to keep it going and keep inspiring her to learn more!!! She sings songs with me in the car alot now! Her favorite is "Lucky" by Jason Mraz and Colbie Callait. (my favorite too!) She can count to 20 in English, and to 7 in Spanish. She is still doing her signing, but not as much now that she is speaking in full sentences. She knows almost the whole alphabet, though she gets a little turned around sometimes. She is in the new phase where she repeats everything like a dramatic newscaster! She says "Do you see it Mommy? Do you SEE it????" It's so funny, and so adorable!! While we were at the ER on Friday night she stood up very boldly, stuck out her pointer finger and said, "Oh my gosh!!! There's a puzzle Mommy!!!" I laughed so hard at her!!! Doc, however, was not so thrilled. He says that "Oh my gosh" is a gateway saying and that we need to break her of it. I guess that means that I will have to stop saying it too...

Well, I hope you all are having a fabulous November. I will update again soon, and we love you all :)

BEST GIFT EVER!!!!!

Aloha!!! I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend so far! We are having a great one! So far we have had a blast!! AND, we still have 2 days to go! WHOOHOO!!! We sure love those 96's! :)

I have had SO much on my mind this week! After all, it has been a pretty huge week! We have a new president, President Elect Barack Obama. Living on a military base, I see ALOT of disappointed Republicans right now! I'm not one to debate politics, and I surely wouldn't call myself an expert on the subject, but I am excited for the change that I think he will bring! I do not vote party, I vote candidate, and I almost always would consider myself a Republican until t his election. I understand the concerns that our more conservative friends have for our country, as I myself don't agree with everything he stands for. But I do think that, as in any election, the things he stands for that create debate were very VERY stretched and exaggerated during all the campaigning. The one that sticks out to me the most (that I actually posted on myspace and believed until I did my research on it! OOPS!) was the video of a nurse talking about his support of partial-birth abortions. They make the man out to be a homicidal lunatic, ready to begin his 4-year baby killing rampage in January, and that is SO far from the truth! His thoughts on the war were another one that got blown out of proportion. The Conservative media made it sound like he wants to pull completely out and surrender. The debate that I listened to talked about pulling out of Iraq within a year and a half (far long enough to wrap up) and then shift focus to Afghanistan, ya know, the country we ACTUALLY went to war with in the first place!!! I'm so glad we got Sadam, but I would be pretty dang excited if we could catch Bin Laden!!! I'm glad that this will be a priority now! I am very excited about his urgency to find another energy source and do away with our rewardless oil dependency. The relatively immediate future of this planet depends on our ability to stop polluting it, and I thank God that we didn't put someone in office who's answer to everything is to keep drilling. Please, don't get me wrong, I'm far from an earth-muffin. I'm just a mom who wants to see her children be able to grow up and have children of their own without climate change interfering. I have always felt as though his thoughts on healthcare are far more conducive to accomplishing the goal of a well-insured America, and I am excited to see him take action with both of those issues. Our pastor today talked about the election, and with a completely unbiased opinion, he reminded our congregation that regardless of how we feel about our new president, we all have a responsibility to pray for him and all of our leaders. With the shape of our war and our economy, whoever was to be elected would be extremely needy of all of our prayers. I will pray for President Elect Obama everyday, and for the task he has at hand, and the decisions that he makes. God is still sovereign over all of creation, and that alone is enough for me to have faith in our future!

Doc, Jordan, and I have enjoyed a very quiet weekend so far! We went to a cookout on Saturday with all of the Corpsman that Doc works with. It was a nice opportunity to meet people, since most of my friends are Marine Corps wives :) I got to meet alot of Doc's, and a couple wives, and Jordan had a blast with all that guys! She was the only child there, and her big bright eyes and charming smile had won over everyone by the time we left! All by herself she started calling one of Doc's friends "Uncle", and then she sweet talked another into giving her a chip buffet, as well as emptying her tippy cup of water and refilling it with soda! LOL Man she is growing SO SO fast!! I really thought that we were in for a terrible day yesterday when I saw 16 single men show up and not one person with other children, but Jordan quickly became the life of the party and we had a great time :)

Tomorrow is my birthday, and a big group of us are going out to lunch and then to Bellow's to the beach all day! I'm super excited for a nice low key celebration :) I think this next weekend Doc and I are going to try to do a date night, and have our own little celebration then! It should be lots of fun!

Also this week, Doc and I received the most awesome gift, and we are SO SO SO SO SO excited for it!!!! For a wedding gift, my Father-in-Law and Step-Mother-In-Law, as well as Brother-in-Law and Sister-In-Law bought us 3 plane tickets to come to Oregon for Christmas!!!! We will finally get to spend the holidays with Doc's Dad's side of the family out west, as well as with John and Brenda (Doc's brother and his wife). There are no words to explain how much this means to us! I will finally get to meet some people that I have been emailing for years and never gotten the chance to meet face to face, and we will be able to have a Christmas with our family!!! WOW! We have never been able to spend a holiday out west, so this is just awesome! AND, the best part is that it will be COLD there!!!! You wouldn't believe how much you actually miss that! I can't wait to go shopping for jeans and sweaters!! (and surprisingly enough, they actually sell them here! the locals like to pretend like they have a winter....they're a little nutty!!) Hopefully we'll see snow, and get to take Jordan tubing! SO exciting! We are set to fly out on Dec 23rd, and come home on the 1st! Anyway, we'll keep you all posted on that!

Well, I hope you all have a great week this week! Have a wonderful Veteran's Day!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE thank a Veteran if you see one!!! As a matter of fact, THANK THEM ALL!!!! They all deserve our most sincere appreciation, and as a daughter of a Veteran, I can personally tell you that it means the world to them to know that someone remembers their sacrifice! Thank you to all of my friends who have or are currently serving our country, and thank you to all of their families! You're all heroes, and your courage and bravery has made this country what it is today! One Nation. Under God. Indivisible. With Liberty And Justice For All! Have a great week!

It's been a long time!!

WOW! It's been a LONG time since my last blog! So much has changed and I have so many updates and so many praises and blessings to tell you about!! I can't believe I neglected this thing for so long, and I am so sorry, but it has been crazy busy around here with Homecoming, Jordan's Birthday, the wedding, out-of-towners, Marine Corps Ball, my birthday right around the corner, and now work-up for the next deployment already! However, I will brief you on all of that!

1. HOMECOMING!!!

It was perfect! Absolutely perfect! We spotted the plane in the sky, and as it circled back to land, we couldln't see it, but we could hear it. Ya know what sound I'm talking about? The sound of plane landing.....I will never forget it for the rest of my life! Then as it got louder and louder, it finally touched down about 20 yards from our faces!!! It taxi'd for what seemed like FOREVER, finally came back, the Marine Corps Band started playing, and finally the door to the plane opened! The guys started pouring out, and they all looked exactly the same. Until, Doc came out. I spotted him within seconds of his feet hitting the pavement, and he spotted us too! It was amazing, he couldn't get to us fast enough! We were running, he was running, it was amazing! Jordan wasn't scared of him AT ALL!!! She went right to him, and said "It's my Daddy!!!!" The rest is history.....He loved his surprises though, so I will remember that for next deployment.

2. Jordan's Birthday!

My baby is 2!!!! She had a great birthday party! We had about 20 people over, and we grilled hot dogs and brats (on our new grill!!) and enjoyed the outdoors! (with our new patio set!!!) We laughed at what a Dora-freak this child is, because EVERY SINGLE GIFT was Dora themed!!! Except for one, and I'm pretty sure it was still in a Dora bag!! LOL We are so thankful for our friends here that have become family! Our friends here love Jordan and care about her so much, and it is just such a blessing!!

3. Just in other news:

On September 28, my husband was baptized in the ocean!!! Doc was raised Catholic his entire life, and had been going to a Nazarene church with me before he left for BUD/S, and before we moved out here. He was baptized as a baby, as all Catholics do. While he was in Iraq, he started reading "One God, One Message" (an awesome book, by the way). I haven't finished the book yet, so I can't speak for entire thing, but I know that it changed my husband's life!!! He converted to Christianity and accepted Jesus as his Savior in Fallujah, Iraq, and came home eager to go to our new church and get involved in ministries! We attended a new members class, where he expressed the interest to be baptized! The following Sunday, we were blessed that my parents and my lifelong best friend Jenny (from Illinois) and her boyfriend were able to join us at Sand Island State Beach here in the ocean and witness my husband's public confession of faith!!! WHAT AN AMAZING THING!!!! My husband was in the most stressful, dirty, dangerous conditions for 7 months, and yet look at this AMAZING blessing that came from it!!!! I am so proud of you Doc, and I cannot wait to see what God has in store for us as we continue to serve Him! We are just getting settled back into our church (after a couple weeks off for wedding stuff) and we are eager to start giving ourselves to the ministries where we can be of service! I'll keep you all posted!!!

4. Now for the one I know you all want to know about: THE WEDDING!!!!

It was absolutely amazing!!! We had such a fabulous time with our family and friends, and we were so blessed to have them here with us!!! Staying in our home we had my parents, Jenny and Dave, Doc's Mom, and Christy! That was interesting, but we made it work and it was great to have them all! Doc's brother John and his wife Brenda, Doc's Father and Stepmother, and one of my best friends Dana and her boyfriend Stuart all stayed downtown in Waikiki. We had a BBQ for everyone on Wednesday, which was a blast. On Thursday Doc and I took our wedding party to Bellow's for some good bonding time at the beach! Friday started the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. We did both at Germaine's Luau. We rehearsed on the beach, and then went into the luau at check-in. We had a great time! The girls and I all went on stage to learn to hula, the guys learned the proper way to give a hone hone (kiss on the cheek), and we had SUCH a great time!!! Doc went to stay with the Gambles that night (one of our groomsmen and his wife), and Saturday was the fun day! We started early with mani's, pedi's, and hair downtown at the salon that I usually go to. Our stylists had put together an awesome champagne breakfast for us, and we had muffins, fresh fruit, cheese and crackers, champagne, juice, and sparkling cider for the mom's and I. We had a fantastic morning of girl talk and bonding, and I couldn't be more thankful!!! My best friend here (Ashley) got to meet all my best friends from back home, and all of our family had such a great time getting to know everyone! The girls went home to get ready, and I went to MAC to get my make-up done. I finally made it home, got into my gown, and the limo came to pick up us girls at 5PM. We headed to base. All the way there I couldn't stop asking Jenny if she had the vows, and asking Ashley if she had the ring! I had to be driving them nuts, but I couldn't help it! The limo pulled right up onto the golf course, and drove us all the way back to the hole for our Hollywood entrance! The 16th hole is about 10 yards from the shore of the beach, so we were able to have our beach wedding on grass! A perfect compromise. My Dad (in tears, as well as I) walked me down the isle, as our Ushers (my friends' husbands in USMC dress blues) fluffed my dress. Doc and I wrote our own vows, and I'm so glad. Doc's were amazing, poetic, romantic, and everything I could have ever wanted them to be. Mine were funny and serious, but very honest and romantic. The Chaplain of Doc's unit did our ceremony, but we also opted to have our Pastor from our church do a prayer and scripture reading so that he could be a part of the ceremony! We had a perfect 70 degree day, with a perfect sunset, and everything went off without a hitch!!!!

After the wedding, we hopped in the limo and headed to the Officer's Club for the reception. We ate some delicious chicken and shrimp scampi, listened to some beautiful speeches by Jenny and John, and got ready to dance! My Dad and I danced to "I Loved Her First", and then he turned me over to Doc :) Our first dance was to "Love Me Tender", by Norah Jones. We cut the cake, ate it, and danced for a couple more hours. I feel like the whole thing is just a blur. I hate that, but I knew it would happen. We went to a hotel that night, since we had people at our house!! We actually stayed 2 nights in the hotel, but ended up coming home during the day to be with our friends and family that were visiting. A week later, our house was empty :( It was so sad to see everyone go, but we were ready to get settled in. It was actually the first time SINCE HOMECOMING that we didn't have houseguests. We felt like kids who's parents has just went out of town! LOL It was awesome! We had our friends here over for dinner alot, spent time with each other, and had a really great time enjoying the rest of Doc's post-deployment leave. And thank God we did.....which brings me to our next exciting piece of news...

5. Deployment #2

We have begun work-up for our second deployment already. Doc is set to leave in March. Yes, that is less than 4 months from now. That's insane. What's even more insane (if I may gripe about the Marine Corps for a moment) is that some GENIUS decided that it would be better "for morale" if they give the guys their pre-deployment leave over Christmas, and then send them to CAX in Twentynine Palms the first part of February, and deploy them straight from there, which would pretty much tack on an extra month of deployment. There is loose talk about them not leaving until May, so with any luck, that will be the case! We also found out recently that this deployment will not be to Iraq, but to Afghanistan instead. That absolutely scares the bejesus out of me. When Doc left for Iraq a little over 9 months ago, I was very sad that I wouldn't be able to see him for the next 7 months, but I never doubted that he wouldn't come home. I always knew that he would come home to me, and I had a feeling of security and comfort the entire time he was there. I prayed for it, and I was given it. Thank God for his faithfulness! This deployment feels different. I know this sounds insane, but I actually feel comfortable with Iraq. I feel like I know the terrain, I'm familiar with the places and the cities and camps, and that it is totally safe there. (I know that is far from true, but it's how I feel) Afghanistan is different, hostile, and scary. I know that I need to get it together for my husband. I know that I don't have time to be afraid, and that I don't have time for a pity party. I need that security back, and I'm praying for it daily. I know God will see us through this!!! I just know it! I ask for your prayers over this situation!

Well, I believe that is all for our updates!!! There is so much more I would love to say about our family and friends visiting, and I know I'll never have time to tell them just how much we appreciated seeing them!!!! We had an absolute blast with you all, and we love you so much!!!! Thank you for being here with us, and we will cherish these memories forever! Thank you all for the prayers over homecoming, the wedding, and our lives in general. We are constantly praying for you all as well, and we hope the best for everyone. Well, back to my housewife duties I go! Doc is already back to working 12-14 hour days and hits the field again next week! For THAT grouchy of a man, only a Tammy's Famous Quesadilla will help, and I have chicken to thaw.....Love you all!!!! :)

PS Here are some pics from the Marine Corps Ball this last weekend! It was awesome!! Before another grueling training cycle, it was exactly what I needed to restore my pride in my husband's work and sacrifices! Again....we love you all!!!