Most of our friends are already off island and the homeschool group is nonexistent to my knowledge so its been a long and kind of lonely time. Luckily our friend Christine is always up for a walk around the mall and lunch somewhere so we've taken to weekly "dates" where we each take turns to choose the lunch spot. She and her husband leave the same time we do so we're trying to fit in our favorite food spots and any places that have been on our list before we head off on our respective new adventures (hers Hawaii!).
Rock and Roll Stella who decided she NEEDS a leather jacket on one of our mall runs with Christine
The kitty has continued her quest as cutest kitty ever (you can tell we're spending a lot more time at home lately...haha!)
She's obsessed with yoga and the minute I'm on my mat, so is she. She is especially fond of my yoga wheel and foam rollers...
This month has seen us really dig in and start the prep for the move. We've been going through boxes and unearthing some of the best stuff... we found old love notes from high school that we passed to each other (cue collective "Awww's") and I found a box of corsages that I saved from every Prom and dance we went to... somehow they have survived 18 years and 11 moves (good grief we have moved a lot). Rather than drag around a box I never open, I took them all apart and turned our high school prom memories into a Christmas ornament!
We've also gone through stacks and stacks of pictures. Back in the day before cell phone cameras, I always had a disposable camera in my purse. Always. I don't know how much money I spent on those damn things, but we have an insane amount of pictures. I took the time and went through them all.
We found some real gems...
My cap and gown portraits...
We discovered that Jared and I are twins separated by 4 years....
And that Matt has always been goofy
That we took an obscene amount of engagement photos...and I keep finding prints EVERYWHERE
And that Gramps is one of the most awesome humans ever... I love that he's winking at me while I snapped pictures at Jared and Denise's wedding
And I found some that tugged on my heart...
Ellie... she was like my bonus grandma and my moms best friend. She encouraged my book worm, is who I get my love of the "f" word from, who taught me how amazing good bleu cheese spread on water crackers is. When she passed away (while Christopher was in boot camp) hers was the first real loss I had experienced in my life and it absolutely wrecked me. She lived across the street from us for most of my childhood (and I ran around with her granddaughters when they came to visit!) and when she moved into assisted living we had a standing date with her every single week. The day she died we visited her in the hospital and I brought my wedding gown to show her. She wasn't doing well and we knew that she wasn't going to make it to the wedding but I wanted her to see my dress. So Mom laced up my gown in the cramped hospital bathroom and I showed her and she beamed at me. I know she was there that day... just like I know she had a hand in getting Stella's adoption paperwork pushed on through... Stella's Gotcha Day is Ellie's birthday and I can't tell you how much I love that.
Everyone in this picture has crossed the rainbow bridge... this was one of many pictures of the pups that I found. There was a time in my life that we had 14 or 15 dogs I think? It was wild and noisy but so awesome and each one of those little guys was so special.
But one of the best things that came out of all that was this giant pile... its the get-rid-of pile. Its the duplicate photos and the blurries... the shots of the inside of my purse or weird pictures that make no sense all these years later that I'm sure were hilarious when I was 17. And its also the pictures of people we no longer have anything to do with... the people who walked away or turned out to not be the people we thought they were. They are photos that we've carried around with us and weighed us down-physically and emotionally. And we purged them and tossed them and I felt a weight lift. I've been lucky in my life to come across some incredible people. People who mean the world to us and who became an intrinsic part of our lives. But we've also come across some really, really shitty people masquerading as decent humans who eventually showed their true colors. So this pile represents some culling down of excess but also some therapeutic tossing of the trash!
We also went through Stella's box of baby stuff. I'm not too terribly sentimental when it comes to "stuff"... there are a few things that we've kept that we'll hold on to, but we don't hoard physical reminders of memories. I had no problem passing on most of Stella’s baby stuff to other mamas and baby’s and I don’t regret it for one second. But I've got this one box of baby stuff of Stella's that meant more than just a random outfit and I went through it the other day.
Parenthood is weird.
I was fine sorting through the Christmas dresses. The teeny onesies. The hats that swallowed her head then and seem so small now. I was even fine with the fact that the clothes still faintly smelled like her babyhood. But damn if the teeny tiny paci didn’t absolutely wreck me.
And speaking of the girl... she was recruited to help with Mom's hair for the first time...so the getting older thing isn't entirely bad, I guess.
And for her troubles she got the pink back in her hair!
She has also decided she wants, no needs, her nose pierced. Unhappy with my declaration that she has to be older before it can be done, so fashioned a Barbie bracelet into a nose ring and has taken to wearing it out every where we go.
September also marked one year of being vegetarian for me and I've spent the month "celebrating" the with some awesome new recipes. This one is a Khao Soi inspired curry noodle soup that was incredible and a side of homemade Thai tea with tapioca pearls!
We celebrated at the Khaki ball
We had some things to do on base and saw this crazy bird hopping around scrounging for food while we were there. I've not seen one like him the whole time we've been here- Stella was fascinated!
We also discovered that Stella is not a fan of sorting money. We had a big box of random coins from all over that we needed sorted so we put her to work... not super effective way to get it done in a timely manner, but it eventually got done.
We capped off the month with this guy reenlisting for the hopefully last time. If all goes to plan, this is it and he'll retire at 20 years...hopefully....maybe...probably....
Either way, we are so so so proud of our salty Senior chief and were happy so stand by him while he said his oath and continued his commitment.
It's been a long almost 15 years. We've been through a lot, seen a lot, done a lot, yes. But this guy? This guy has sacrificed sleep, meals, taking care of himself, time with his family, and time with the baby girl he wanted for so long and so badly. And he's done it because it needed to get done. He is one of the most steadfast, dedicated, and committed people I've ever met. He can't not do the job. And I didn't understand that for a long time. I was bitter and angry about the last reenlistment and was so ready to be out and done with the Navy. But he wasn't. And still isn't. Because it isn't in him to be done. There's a job to do and people to protect and he will continue to show up and do it no matter the sacrifice. I could not be prouder of who he has grown into. Not everyone is so lucky to watch their partner in life grow up and grow into the person they are meant to be... but I have had the privilege to do just that. The shy, sweet boy who asked me to be his girlfriend isn't there anymore, but the confident, strong, compassionate, intelligent man is and I could not be prouder of him!
He had to go back to work after his reenlistment so our friend Nate asked Stella if she wanted to have lunch with him in the Officers club. She's been curious about it since we got to Bahrain since its door is right next to the Chief's Club door and she goes in there plenty. Nate planned it all out and surprised her with Taco Bell and we headed in. She was a bit of an asshole that day (the sass is STRONG with this one...stronger than normal) but Nate and Christine bought and personalized a mug for her to toast him with and these two solidified the start of their journey towards world domination.
September FLEW by. August seemed to drag on, but September was over in a flash.
