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 :)

Sunday Out

Tricky 15k

So I signed up for a 15k about a month and a half ago (when I was still working out a lot and running 2-3 times a week). Since then I got pretty lazy and stopped running on a regular basis. I thought that the 15k yesterday would be hard, but I was aiming to do it in about an hour and 40 minutes. Yeah. That didn't happen. Long story short: The run was full trail running, which I didn't think would be too terrible, but we started off with nature stairs (dirt and wood blocks), had a bunch of one lane hills, a bunch of down trees that we had to hurdle, some mud, cliffs and finally a hill so steep that they had a rope with handles that you had to use just to get to the bottom. Needless to say I did not meet my goal of an hour and 40 minutes. More like an hour 58 minutes. It would have been hard even if I was training properly. The fact that I hadn't been just made it that much worse. I was just sorry that I didn't have a camera to take pictures of all the crazy obstacles along the course. A tree root tried to take me out at mile 2, but I recovered with only minor scrapes, bruises, and dirt and kept going. It was so crazy that all I could do when I finished was laugh. Quinn had heard about all the crazy things from people who finished before me so he had a huge smirk on his face when I finished. He knew I would tell him how ridiculous the run was. He told me that if we're still here this time next year we can try it again...I think I'll let him do it and I'll watch.
What makes this story even more crazy is that the race was a 15k, 30k and 50k. The people doing the 30 and 50 had to go through the course 2 and 3 times. By mile 7 I was ready to see the finish line. By mile 9.6 I was ready to cry. A rope course and half a mile later I finally made my way out of the woods to the sidewalk with the finish line. I could not imagine doing it 2 or 3 times. They are troopers. Laying on the couch in sweatpants I can say that it was pretty fun. At the time I would have told you to take a hike. We'll see about next year.
Lesson learned: Look at the course before you sign up for the run.

trying to branch out

So I wanted to know if anyone (or anyone you know) might be interested in purchasing any of the little items I have pictured below. The picture quality isn't great, but the quality of the item is pretty durable. I don't do mass quantities so if you want a wrist strap attached or a button instead of velcro I can do that. The one item I made at first as a joke for my sister, but it comes in pretty handy. It's a chapstick/lipgloss holder. I like attaching it to a zipper inside my purse or to my keys. It's good for kids at school too because you can just attach it to their backpack and they won't lose it as easily. The other thing is a little wallet of sorts. It's big enough to hold a lot of cards, cash, or random items that you have floating around in your bag. It's also good to keep bandaids, tissues, or small jewelry. I've also made a couple for kids. With the strap it's like a small purse for little girls or a wristlet to take out to dinner or if you go to an event that you would rather carry a smaller bag. I can do all different patterns. I usually ask for colors that people like and then pick out a pattern that complements the colors. I'm selling the larger "bag" for $6 + shipping and the smaller chapstick holder for $3 + shipping. Both offer additional padding inside so it's not so flimsy. They can all be hand washed which is good if you send them off to school or have them out at a restaurant. If you or anyone you know is interested please let me know. Thanks for your support!!