A few pictures

Thanksgiving and Shower

So we've had a pretty busy month. We headed to NJ the day before Thanksgiving and it was a very long drive. I knew we would hit traffic but after 14 hours in the car you just want to be there, but we sat for another 2 hours. Thanksgiving was fun. We saw a lot of family and friends and ate a lot of food. Friday we had a memorial service for my grandfather who passed away the week before. It was a nice service, but the church's heat wasn't working so it was a very cold hour. I felt like we literally ate the whole weekend away. We had lunch after and then went out to dinner with friends later on. Saturday was my bridal shower. It was a circus theme and very cute. My family and friends did a great job putting it together. We got so much stuff it barely fit in Quinn's truck. When we got back we had 2 days to move into our new place. We spent all of Monday moving and Tuesday morning we finished up and cleaned the old place. It was crazy. We're under 3 months left for the wedding so I had to get the invitations finished up and mailed out. So with half our our place unpacked I was sitting on the floor putting invitations together. It's been a mess.
Quinn agreed to get a Christmas tree this year. First tree in 5 years together. It was a lot of fun. He even offered to go on a drive through Christmas light show in a couple weeks. It's supposed to be a really good event so I'm excited.
I'll upload a few pictures later :)

100 Days

100 days until our wedding. I know it's still kind of a long time, but when we started this whole wedding process the 100 day mark seemed so far and now it's here. With Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years coming up the next couple of months are going to fly. I'm so excited to get the invitations in the mail to see who is going to be able to make it out to celebrate with us. With all the crazy weather I'm afraid of what February is going to be like. Hopefully they'll predict unseasonably warm weather!! :) Here's to hoping anyway! I can't believe 2012 is only a handful of weeks away. How come Quinn's 1 year deployment didn't seem to go this fast? Well either way I'm so excited and can't wait for February.

Bachelorette Party

Last weekend my sisters and friend surprised me by traveling to Atlanta to take me out for a bachelorette weekend. We had a lot of fun. It's hard when so many friends live all over the place so next to flying EVERYONE in this was a great weekend. Friday started with lunch in Atlanta followed by dinner and drinks at a tapas bar. We headed to another restaurant for a drink and made it an early night. Saturday was breakfast, mani/pedi's, drinks in the hotel, dinner, and dancing. We were definitely the odd group at the bar, but everyone had a good time. Thank you Allison, Erin, and Kristin for coming out to celebrate with me!!

Pictures from our trip

Fall Travels...

Quinn and I have been pretty busy the past few months. We left Washington at the beginning of October and spent 5 days driving cross country in 2 cars to Georgia. Our main goal was to get to Georgia somewhat quickly, but still enjoy a little of our trip there. I decided that since we were moving the bulk of our stuff that I would utilize one of our coolers and pack a bunch of sandwiches and snacks to eliminate fast food stops and unnecessary spending. It worked out pretty well. We picked up a couple things here and there, but only had to eat one meal out. Thanks to La Quinta we were able to have decently priced pet friendly hotel stays as well as free breakfast every morning. That helped a lot. Montana was by far one of the two longest days of driving. I was convinced we'd never get to the state line. Even though our drive to the Mount Rushmore area was a short trip it felt long because I just wanted to get there and be done. Bubba liked the trip there and even though dogs aren't allowed in the actual monument area, we were able to get a "family" picture from the parking lot where he had to stay. He loved the hotel rooms and I think he was just happy to get out of the car like we were. We stopped at the world's only corn palace. Quinn and I saw signs for it while we were driving and kept making fun of it on our walkie talkies. Since we were a little ahead of schedule and bored we decided to stop there for a good laugh. It was actually pretty interesting, but still kind of an odd thing in Mitchell, SD. We also stopped at a casino on the border of Illinois and Kentucky. We only stayed for an hour or so, but it was nice to do something besides drag all our stuff into the hotel room and watch ESPN. One of the hardest things about the trip was that I had my wedding dress in the car with me. I was so afraid to keep it in the car overnight in case someone decided to ruin our day and break into the car and steal the dress just for the fun of it. So I had to drag it into every hotel room along with the 10 other things we didn't want left out overnight. Every morning was a project getting packed up and on the road. I don't know how people travel like this with kids because just that little bit of stuff made me nuts. We finally made it to Georgia in time to move into an apartment, unload the trailer, return it and pretty much pack up to head to New Jersey. In New Jersey I was able to dump my dress off to the seamstress, confirm our church, cake and flowers, finally see our venue, and oh yeah...visit family. It was a nice trip, but we were happy to get back to Georgia and unpack some of our stuff. It all finally started coming together. All we were waiting on was the load of large items that the Army was transporting for us. That all showed up yesterday. It would have been great except for the fact that the ceiling height and sharp corner of our kitchen and living room weren't tall enough or wide enough to get our couch into the room. SO now we're waiting a month to move into another unit in our complex that can accommodate all of our furniture. The most frustrating part is that we've already unpacked 75% of our stuff and recycled all of the boxes. I guess it doesn't always pay to be efficient. Anyway, that's the story of the past month. Quinn heads back to work on Monday and I have an interview tomorrow with a temp agency to see what kind of work is available for me for the next 18 months. Oh yeah, and we're getting married in 4 months. Whew. I'll post a few pictures in another entry.

It's Official

So I've made it official with work that I am leaving on September 22nd. We will be moving on October 1st and can't wait. It's going to be bittersweet because I've grown to appreciate the scenery and cleanliness of this state, but it's tough to tolerate the weather. It's been especially hard this year because we really have only had a week or two of summer weather and it wasn't consistant. That's tough when you have steady rain from November to May. We've also made some new friends and are leaving behind some old friends as well. The stability of having an income to the stress of not knowing when another paycheck will come in has been tough for me (especially with a wedding coming up). Overall it's an exciting time for us. We have plans to hit New Jersey for some wedding appointments and we've put a small security deposit on a rental in Georgia that a friend of ours suggested. Hopefully it's as nice and it looks and we've heard so we can move right in without any problems. Unfortunately, we have to drive two cars, but I'm hopeful that I can still take pictures along the way and document our trip a little better than I did on our way here. The 2,700 mile drive won't be too exciting while we're doing it, but it's always fun to look back on it. We have a few things planned for before we leave here so hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures soon.

Time Flies

So Quinn has been back from his deployment for almost a year. 2 weeks and it will be a full year! He heads out for CA on the 3rd and will be gone for a little over 3 weeks. We have yet to live together for a full year yet even though we've been together for over 5. It's been nice having him home again (especially to take over dog duty).
We are just under 7 months away until the wedding. I'm happy that it seems like it's getting so close now even though we still have some time left. A lot of stuff is in place already. We've booked all of our vendors, most of the girls have their dresses, I've been in touch with the guys about tux rentals and bachelor party, and I'll finally get to see our venue in October.
Oh yeah, AND we're moving. Amidst all the craziness of wedding plans we are moving cross country- again. Quinn will get back from California at the end of August. At that point he'll finish training his replacement and start out processing at Fort Lewis. Our current move out date is October 1st. We plan on hitting Utah on the way through and stopping in New Jersey for a few days to get some wedding appointments out of the way. From there we'll make our way down to Georgia. It'll be crazy, but we're excited for the move. We've spent over 2 1/2 years here and although it's nice when the weather is nice, the weather isn't nice often enough. We're ready to deal with some heat and humidity for a couple years. There's a lot going on for us over the next two months, but we're ready for it. After the move it will be the holidays and then before we know it the wedding will be right around the corner. It's sad to leave the friends we have here, but exciting to be moving on and heading in the direction of maybe buying our first home sooner than later. I never thought the Army life was for me and sometimes I still worry that I'm not the best at dealing with all the obstacles, but it's growing on me and I think our lives would be too boring without it.

Pictures

We haven't been doing too much, but I've tried to take pictures of a few things. We got together with Aaron, Kelli, and the girls over 4th of July weekend and had a really good time. I think that's the most we've done in a weekend in a long time. The girls are so funny. It's fun being around them. We also had our engaged encounter retreat. It was weird but nice I guess. I was able to get a few pictures there too. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can work on using my camera more and figuring out the settings a little better.

A few months behind

I didn't realize how long it has been since I last posted something. We've had some stuff going on the past few months, but I just haven't gotten around to writing about it all.
Quinn proposed on March 27th. It was a fun time. I was half expecting it and half trying not to. We've been together for a little over 5 years now which seems crazy to me. Sometimes it feels like forever and other times it surprises me how much we've been through together. We've managed to survive having a long distance relationship 3 times in the past 5 years. Our first time was about a year and a half long, the second was only about 6 months, and then he deployed in 2009 for a year. We haven't lived in the same place together for a year yet. There have been ups and downs surrounding it all, but we've pulled through and I think we're in a good place now.
Planning a wedding is proving to be a little more stressful than I thought. I went to the doctor a couple weeks ago and she told me that the little rash I though I had was actually Shingles. Apparently it surfaced because of stress. I didn't think I was dealing with that much stress, but I guess I was. My family is doing a bulk of the work in regards to planning. I haven't been to New Jersey since the process began so I've never seen the venue or church, heard the dj, met with the limo service, etc. My sister and brother in law are even doing the tasting for me! I'm kind of going off of what my family says and what I've seen online. My first visit back won't be until October. Hopefully everyone understood what I was looking for because they've made most of the decisions for me already.
We just found out that Quinn's request to be transferred early went through. We'll be leaving Washington by the first week in October and heading to Fort Benning, GA. Not a moment too soon either. There has been talk that his unit is deploying to Afghanistan in December. He wouldn't have to go even if we stayed just because he falls under some rule about not leaving when you have a career course date, but anything can happen so I'm just glad that he has paperwork saying we're heading out. That was a little stressful waiting to hear back on. I don't plan on saying anything at work until September because I need to stay working as long as I can. The thought of having to find another job again is tough.
Quinn also found out that he's getting promoted early. He'll be Captain Overton on July 1st.
I think I'm just a little overwhelmed right now. It feels like I'm in a cloud. Nothing is standing out as super exciting or really bad...It's all just going on around me and I understand it but don't have strong feelings one way or the other. That's about it though. We've had a few things going on and Quinn will head out to Fort Irwin in August for the month. We're not super busy right now, but a couple months from now we'll be starting the clearing out and packing up process for the 3rd time. It's still kind of exciting each time we do this. I don't like starting over with a new employer or leaving the friends that I've made, but it is fun to clear out old junk that needs to get thrown out and experience a new place for a few years. We have mixed feelings about Washington, and I'm sure once we're gone we'll miss some of it, but we are pretty happy to leave Washington winters behind. I'm happy to be heading to the east coast. I'll be in driving distance to New Jersey for the first time in a few years. I've added a few engagement pictures. Not as exciting as I was hoping, but they got the job done.

Where did we go?

It's been a while since I posted something. There isn't a whole lot to talk about so I just end up forgetting to post updates. I don't have any fun pictures for this entry though.
Quinn and I traveled to Utah for Thanksgiving. We had a really nice time getting together with friends and family. It was a very short visit because we got in on Wednesday night and left on Saturday morning. We were able to get family pictures done with Quinn's family which was nice. We headed to Leavenworth, WA to see some Christmas lights in mid December (against Quinn's wishes). Leavenworth is a really fun area, but it was soooo crowded and cold and it took us about 4 hours to get home when it should take at most 2 1/2. I took some pictures, but with all the snow they didn't come out very nice. For Christmas we drove through the night on the 22nd to get to Utah just to turn around at 10am and get on a flight to NJ. We got stuck in that blizzard that hit and had to wait an additional 3 days for a flight out. We ended up back in Utah on a Thursday morning and had to drive to WA on Saturday morning. It was a crazy trip, but it was nice to be able to spend some time with family again. It gets lonely in Washington sometimes without family around. Since then we haven't been doing a whole lot. I signed up for a photography class at a community college. It's only 7 night classes, but I'm sure it will still be fun and I'll be able to learn a lot more than I have been on my own. No word yet on leaving Washington. At this point it looks like it won't be until the summer of 2012. I'm hoping to head out a little sooner than that to avoid another Washington winter :)