Taking Advantage of "Now"

I've found myself extremely torn recently. Part of me is anxiously counting down the days to my sabbatical where I get to take 3 weeks off of work, enjoy a trip to Croatia with my sister, as well as a full week back home in MN... the other part of me is wishing that time would slow down and Bobby's deployment wouldn't come nearly so soon. I've been lucky enough to have him around so much lately that it's definitely going to take me a while to get back into the swing of doing things myself and being by myself. (No offense Wrigley and Gracie.)

Since I can't control the time, and the Navy has made it abundantly clear that I can't control Bobby's schedule, I'm trying to take advantage of every day we do have together. Songs like Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying" are a good reminder of living each day to the fullest but, lets be honest....I can't really live like I was dying. If I knew I were dying next week, I'd be eating everything I could get my hands on and would have left the country to squeeze in as much travel as possible. Not sure how many "final days" I can really afford...and I really don't want to have to buy another bigger pair of jeans. :) That being said, I'll just stick to enjoying every hug and relishing each conversation we get to have face to face until he heads out again. Looking on the bright side of things, it's the last deployment with VQ-1! Wooohooo!!

Deception Pass Bridge

Work has been crazy busy these days and my brain can't spend another second thinking about anything advertising related. So, why not update the blog?! :)

It's hard to believe but Bobby and I have very few weekends left in Whidbey Island...together at least. In a couple of weeks Bobby will be taking off for another 4 month (give or take....normally take) deployment. That will most likely bring him home in January ad we should be making the big move in the beginning of March. Scary!

That being said, last weekend I signed us up for the Deception Pass boat tour. The Deception Pass bridge connects Whidbey Island from the main land and is only 10 minutes from our house. Given the millions of times that we've crossed it and the fact that it's one of the top tourist attractions in Washington, I figured we should actually stop and enjoy the view for a change.



It's quite the view! Especially on a day like we had on Sunday. I couldn't back up far enough (or I'd fall of the bridge) but you can faintly see the mountains in the distance just off of B's left shoulder.



We got our tickets for the boat tour but didn't have to be at the dock for another half an hour. In the mean time, we thought we'd hike around the top of the bridge a bit more. I even got Bobby to smile for some more pictures! Small miracle...






The boat tour itself was pretty cheesy but just being on the water and having the weather we did was enough for me. We don't get too much sun around here so I was definitely enjoying it!



Mt. Baker was in full view - there's something about Mountains being so near the water. I love it!





The boat slowly made its way around the bridge through some ridiculous currents. I had all but tuned out the tour guide by this point so I can't tell you why they're so strong but oh well. You don't really care either. :) We'll just leave it as "it looks cool."




We even caught site of some bald eagles! (they're in the tree towards the top...clearly I need a zoom lens)



More of the bridge...






We were starving after the tour so we hopped back into the Jeep and grabbed a late lunch at the Deception Pass cafe. Clearly this was a theme day so we figured we might as well just go with it. I would have gotten a picture with Bobby and his burger but he ate it so fast I couldn't pull out my camera in time. He said it's the best burger he's ever had so we may need to go there again this weekend!

Back to the beach...

Virginia Beach that is... Yep, it looks like we'll be moving across the country (again!) some time around March of next year. Although Virginia Beach isn't my favorite place in the world, it happens to be where Bobby's top job choice is located. I'm really excited for him and am trying to remember the things that we did like about the area such as....ummm....well I'm sure I'll come up with a few before the big move. Ha!

We'll be in VB for at least three years but could easily stay as many as six. After having moved three times in the past three years, the thought of staying put is actually quite scary. Packing and moving can be exhausting, frustrating, and annoying but it's also very exciting! I love change and exploring new places. Staying put for this amount of time will allow us to actually set in our roots though so, putting my A.D.D aside for a while, we're very much looking forward to buying our first home! I'm sure that will provide me with enough things to keep me busy for at least a year, right? :)

COC Craziness

When you (or your spouse) is in the military, your language changes from English to acronyms. At one time I would have never known what "I won't be able to make the COC because our PRD is March," meant. Hearing that so-and-so is "going on Det to SWA" might as well have been in Spanish as far as I was concerned. However, it's amazing how in a short amount of time you find yourself relaying these same "sentences" to your family and then trying to explain what they mean. I'd like to personally thank the book "So You've Married The Military" for their index in the back...it probably saved me from a few potentially awkward moments. For those of you without that book, here is my short short version so you can actually understand this post.

CO - Commanding Officer. The head dude/dudette of the squadron. (#1)
XO - Executive Officer. The #2 dude/dudette of the squadron. (#2)
PXO - The next in line to take over the XO's job.(#3)
COW - The CO's Wife (or spouse)
XOW - The XO's Wife (or spouse)
COC - Change of Command

That all being said, we just finished up with COC madness around here. Each year this Change of Command involves a number of events...5 to be exact. You have the formal COC dinner where the standing CO welcome the XO into their new position of CO. (Did you catch that?) The official ceremony, with all of the pomp and circumstance, where the CO hands off his job to the XO to take over. And finally the COC "after party" where the new CO welcomes the PXO to become the XO. I warned you at the beginning of this blog there would be very few words to keep up. :)

After this all has taken place, the spouses then hold a party for the new XOW, welcoming her to the squadron. Then, finally, we hold a congratulatory party for the XOW (pronounced kind of like SOW) who has taken over as the new COW. As women, these acronyms are as bad as they could possibly be so, obviously, we try to make the party supplies as obnoxiously filled with cow print as possible. Here are just a few pictures to bring you through each event....

The COC held at the Majestic Inn in Anacortes. Bobby played a big part in planning this dinner so I not only really enjoyed the event, but I was super proud of his organization skills...this coming from a post-wedding planning bride. :)



Our awesome table-mates, the Infante's and the Walther's...



Some of my girl-friends...



More of my girl-friends....



Bobby and I at the bar across the street post dinner...



The COC Ceremony on base was great....although FREEZING. It didn't occur to me that the hangar the event was held in would be without heat.

The girls praying this will start quickly so we can all go and warm up...








This is me trying to smile while being an ice cube.



Next was the "after party" held at the Nantucket. The Nantucket is an awesome old house in Anacortes and luckily we were blessed with awesome weather. The CO and his family not only paid for food and drinks, but they hired an awesome band that played the night away. Overall and awesome night!!...just had to get the word "awesome" in there one more time.



The CO's son busting a move...






I think I've dragged this post on long enough so I'll stop it here. Pictures of the COW and XOW event to come later. :)

Day at the Beach!

The weather is finally turning around here, meaning that the sun is out a bit more often, so last weekend Bobby and I seized the opportunity to take the dogs to the beach on base. They LOVE it there, to say the very least, but it's definitely a selfish move on our part because we also know that they'll be absolutely dead for the rest of the day.

Although there is a cliff enclosing the beach that generally keeps the dogs contained, our two crazies like to keep things interesting so it has always proved to be a two-person job. The story tends to go something like this.....

Lara: Wow, this is so much fun. It really doesn't get prettier than this.



Bobby: Ha! Look at Wrigley hopping through the waves! (he does this weird jumping thing when we gets in deeper water as opposed to the more typical doggy paddle)



Lara: OK, I'm tired. Why don't we start heading home.

Bobby: Crap, there goes Wrigley! WRIGLEY!!!!!



Gracie generally comes when called so I try to get her on the leash while Bobby sprints after Wrigley.





Then comes the bait and switch. Bobby finds Wrigley, I bring Gracie up (while still on the leash) and try to get them to play so we can snag Wrigley and get him on the leash. This particular instance, however, Gracie wasn't needed. We found Wrigley face down in a pile of old Chinese food. It's funny because, although they obviously don't speak, their face can say it all.

Wrigley: I could either run right now and keep this fun going, or I can quickly eat as much of this Chinese as possible until he gets me. Fried rice wins.

Luckily the rice and salt water combo didn't "come back" to haunt us later. :) It's never an easy trip to the beach, but how can you resist these faces?

Tulip Time!

It's no secret to anyone that I love it here in Washington. I may be one of only a few that feel this way but to me, what's not to love? It's green year round as opposed to the shades of gray (and freezing) winters that I grew up with... we're surrounded by stunning mountains although yes, I need to just imagine them most days because of the clouds blocking the view... and we can afford to rent a nice house with a FENCED IN YARD so our dogs can run free instead of pulling me on a leash four times a day. Who knew that getting older meant being truly excited about things like fences.

All that said, whether you like to live here or not, it's impossible not to love the month of April in NW Washington. Say the word "April" to anyone familiar with the area and they think "tulips." I thought fields of tulips were exclusive to the Netherlands but it turns out that we have a lot of Dutch heritage up here and I'm thrilled that they kept up the tradition.

Bobby and I went to Bellingham on Sunday and, much to my excitement, we had to drive right past the fields to get there. It was cold, windy, rainy, and gray...but I think that made the colors even more vibrant.



We're nearing the end of the season and it has been very windy but the flowers were still holding up well and I couldn't have been more thrilled to wind up and down the rows. Bobby....not as excited. However, I spent the day going through bike shops and wandering around REI so it was a fair trade. Here he is whistling and trying not to seem as bored and miserable as he really was.



It's hard to believe that this is just one of the many fields in the area...






I was finally able to get Bobby to pose in a picture with me. Those of you that know him well, or saw any of our wedding pictures, know that Bobby can't smile on demand. Luckily, he thought that squatting in mud between rows of flowers was the most ridiculous thing ever and couldn't stop laughing.





I could have stayed there for hours...



Bobby had about all that he could take though, so we finally meandered our way back to the car. However, he was nice enough to drive slowly with his window open so I could snap a few more shots of the field just down the road. Marriage is all about compromise, right!? :)