Back in the swing of things.

Well, obviously this blog had kid of fallen off the radar.  It was started when my husband was deployed to pass some time.  And once he returned home, I guess we got busy.  But I really enjoyed blogging and I am back now!
As I said, Christ returned home on August 3rd.  And we are over the moon to finally have him with us again!  Kiley sure did miss her daddy.  Anybody who has never experienced a military welcome home ceremony, I highly reccomend it.  They are such a happy time and make you so proud to be an American.  They are just awesome!  Chris' plane arrived near midnight, which in my own weird way I found even more exciting.  Haha!  However, it was extrememly hot!  Everyone was sweating and fanning.  It had to be 100 degrees.  Kiley was miserable and began to ask if we could just go ahead and leave without daddy.  I didn't know if she was going to make it until he arrived.  But finally, they came over the speakers and asked us to walk outside to watch the plane touch down on U.S. soil.  Once we did this and saw the plane come down, Kiley was just excited as everybody else!  She was waving her flag and cheering.  So sweet!  I began to cry as soon as it landed, as it was the official end to the stress, sadness, and worry from the past year.  He was home!!  Here are a few pictures from that very special night!!  Well.. pictures coming soon.. my computer is apparently not in the mood to upload pics at the moment.  :)

Back to the photo challegne!!

DAY 2: What you wore today.

I am such a fan of Nike's running shorts.  They are pretty much a staple of my daily wardrobe.  

I have about 8 pairs in all different colors.  LOVE.

DAY 3: Something green.

A leaf floating in our pool.

And some new photog pics while I'm at it!

I have been loving all the practicing I have been able to do lately!  My best friend Brittany lives up at Fort Bragg in NC.  So I don't get to see her and her family any where near as much as I would like to.  However her daughter Madison was home in Alabama visiting for sometime with her grandparents.  So I was happy to be able to take some pictures of her.  Now if I could just get her mom to come home for a little while!!

 I also got to shoot my good friend Shea's little boy Aidan.  He is a doll!  We had a "Western" theme, I guess you could call it.  There is an old abandoned barn not far from our house, that photographs really cool.  Lots of photographers in the area use it.  So we thought we would try it out!

 

 

 

And then of course, there is my own little model, Kiley.  Model might be a little of a stretch though.  She definitely is the most difficult child that I have ever shot.  People tell me all the time how photogenic that she is.  What they don't know is, that for every good picture of Kiley, there are about 100 ones of her fake smile or pouting, or yelling!  Haha, she is "over it" fairly quickly.

 

 

And here is one of the photographer herself..

Have a good night!!

Yea..

Ok, well we see how awesome I was at following through with that photo challenge.  Whatev!  I am currently (like as I type) procrastinating my move.  I should probably have already done it.  But jeez, moving is such a hassle.  And in case you don't know me, I stress out easy.  Or some other people might call it "being a baby".  Well whichever, I have been actively putting it off.

 

I definitely would rather have the house somewhat ready for Chris to come home to so that he can just come in and relax.  But people don't really jump at the chance to help you move.  Unbelievable right?!?!  I have had a couple friends offer and I will gladly take them up on it.  I don't know why I am dreading it so much.  That's not true.. I know why.  I hate change.  I never handle it well before it happens.  I can adjust quickly but I freak out before it.  And also (it might sound silly), this will be our first time living off-post.  To be honest, I am just kind of scared to be there at the house by myself out in the "normal" world, even thought it isn't for a long period of time.  I should probably start trying to list the things that I will enjoy about it instead of all the things that are bad.  Wish me luck!  :)

Day 1: A self portrait

UGH!

I swear, this deployment feels as though it will never end.  I just got off the phone with Chris and somehow it ended in us both hanging up mad.  I hate when that happens.  Does this ever happen to anyone else?  I talked to him this morning, and I admit I was in a grumpy mood.  Because of my bank, not him.  He happen to call at a time when I was just mad.  It wasn't at him at all, but that conversation didn't go so great either.  And somehow the one this evening became just an extension of that one.  So, my question is..  is it illegal to be in a bad mood every once in a while?  It was right in the middle of me trying to call the bank and credit card people, just bad timing.  But now, I feel guilty (partly because he guilted me)  but I do anyway.  I know that it is the only time that he gets a small break from his day and that he would prefer that I am cheerful and funny and what not.  But also, my life is still going on as it did.  Business wise at least.  The bills still have to be paid and so on..  I was trying to fix that problem and that is when he called.  I wish these phone calls had both gone better today.  But I'm not a totally horrible person right?  :)

Another 30 day challenge!

I have done a few of these things, but this one is different!  This one is a photography challenge.  So, it will be fun and maybe helpful as well.  YAY!

More photography stuff..

When I first started this photography class, I had just wanted to learn about the camera and learn to take decent pictures.  I had never even thought about actually doing this as a business.  But as I have been learning more and more, I have thought well.. maybe.  I have enjoyed it so much.  Tonight was the last night of my basic photography class.  I enjoyed the class very much.  I have learned more then I thought that I would.  I have gotten lots of positive feedback from my teacher and friends.  I don't intend to do anything in the near future business wise.  But I definitely want to take more classes now and learn more and more!  I need to find some classes in Clarksville, and then who knows..  I did some more practicing.  I took some pictures of some friends of mine.  Here are a few of my favorites..

New house!!

Chris will be back mid-summer.  We gave up our house on-post (because it sucked) and I came back to Alabama and we kept all of our BAH.  Which was nice.  But, we figured it was about time to start looking for somewhere to live.  You know, only in the military can you be making a cross-country move in a few months and not prepare at all for it!  Haha ours is not cross-country of course but still..  you get what I am saying!  :)  Well I was doing some googling and what not..  I came across a cute house that had most everything we were looking for in a place to live.  Close to post, check!  Big back yard, check!  Haha, the list goes on and on.  When I called to ask about the house, the date it was available was the exact date that we were hoping to sign a lease.  Perfect, huh??  I am so excited to finally have our life back with our whole family.  And also excited to get it back in a nice new house!  So without further ado..  haha!  Here she is...

Photography class.

I have been taking a photography class for 4 weeks now, and I have really been enjoying it!  I was just going to post some of my recent photos..  Let me know what you think!

It's almost over..

It has just hit me in the last few days, that this deployment is almost over.  Only about 60 more days or so.  I must say, it has gone by much faster then I thought it would.  (which is always good!)  In the next few weeks, we have our big family "pre-beach party", then the big tornado relief benefit that me and some friends are working at, then the beach trip, my 25th birthday in Tunica!!, and then going to find our new house back at Fort Campbell.  I'm sure it will go by pretty quickly with all of these events happening.  But in case..  do you have any suggestions on how to pass the time?  What has worked for you?  Because I am ready to get this deployment O-V-E-R!!  :)

The day that Alabama changed forever..

I woke up Wednesday, April 27th at about 5 in the morning to thunder and incredible wind.  You could hear it howling outside.  I thought to myself "should I get Kiley up and go to the basement?"  But I decided against waking her up because I knew it was right on top of us right then and James Spann (the world's best meteorologist) said that the storm was moving very quickly.  Looking back that was a selfish and stupid decision.  But James was correct, within about 5 minutes the wind and thunder stopped.  So I was glad to have not woken her up.  As I was going back to sleep I heard James Spann say that these storms were nothing compared to the storms that would be heading our way that afternoon.  I then dozed back off..

Kiley woke me back up at about 9 that morning.  And I instantly had an anxious feeling.  The regular shows were still on tv but they would give a weather update probably every half hour telling how these storms were moving through Missippi on their way towards Alabama.  I have never been one to really fear storms, but I had a bad feeling.  I was home alone with Kiley and I am sure that might have been part of it.  (My first storm home alone with my child).  I called my mother at work and told her that I was feeling nervous and she said that was probably for a reason.  So right then I decided that I was not going to ignore this storm.  I called a friends family and asked if they wanted to come ride it out with me.  They lived in an apartment so they needed a basement and I needed mental support!  Fair trade huh?

They began the LIVE non-stop coverage of the weather at 2pm.  A little while into it, they went to a live shot of Cullman, Alabama. (Probably about 30 miles north of my home).  They had a live video of a tornado on the ground. 

It was crazy to watch it actually moving through and not coming off the ground.  After a few seconds, you began to see things flying around the bottom of the funnel cloud.  (or a debris ball)  That is when it hit you that as we were watching this, the tornado was destroying things in its path.

It was still not doing anything at our house yet.  Weather was fine.  About maybe an hour or so after the first storm is when the next one began to roll in.  They went to a live video of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  About 50 miles southwest of my house.  You would think we would have been prepared for what we were about to see since we had already seen one tornado in the day.  We were wrong..

Tuscaloosa is the home of the University of Alabama and home to some of my family and many of my friends.  This is when my stomach dropped.  This storm never came off the ground and continued to get bigger and bigger.  I was scared.  Scared for those there in Tuscaloosa and scared because it was headed our way.  This storm was moving fast/and slow at the same time it seemed.  I don't remember how long it took for it to make its way into the Birmingham metro area but it wasn't very long.  James Spann mentioned that it would be heading through the towns of Pleasant Grove and Concord (both of which I have friends in) and then into Birmingham.  We stayed upstairs to watch the tv for a short while longer so that we could see it.  Both of these towns are small so there were no sky cams so we had not the the funnel cloud in a while.  It made a quick turn and just avoided downtown Birmingham and went about 7-10 miles north.  To the Fultondale/Gardendale area.  My hometown.  This is the last image of the funnel cloud..  In this photo it is probably about 5 miles from my house..

 It was absolutely horrifying to see this.  That is all an enormous funnel cloud.  We immediately ran to the basement.  And very shortly lost power.  Kiley was panicky, but I couldn't blame her.  I tried to calm her down but I'm sure she wasn't buying it.  We waited and waited but nothing really every happened and after about 15 minutes in the basement, the sun came back out.  It had passed.  Relief.  We had made it.  As is always in the south, everybody began to walk out of their houses.  There was all kinds of debris in the yard.  I found a lid to a plastic storage bin and my neighbor found a cd still in the case.  Everybody was glad it had passed.  The neighborhood did however smell of natural gas.  But everybody was fine!  None of us had power anymore and because of that, we had no idea how bad it really was.  At least not until the light of day..

Without power, my "smart phone" died fairly quickly.  The next morning, still no power, I drove to a city that I knew had not been affected to buy a car charger for it.  I bought it, plugged it in, and immediately began reciveing texts messages.  One of my friends younger sister was in Tuscaloosa and rode the storm out in a cellar and her car was destroyed.  And another from telling me that another friend of ours had lost his home completely.  She invited me to go down and help and I agreed.  I took Kiley to stay with my in-laws because they had power so she was taken care of.

He lives in Concord Alabama.  I was glad to help but I was not ready for what I would be seeing.  (All of the following photos were taken by me)

Concord, Alabama

My friend's parents house.

My friend's house.

The pictures can't even begin to do the situation justice.  They and everybody in their community have lost everything.  It is absolutely heartbreaking and it is just like this all over our state.  Alabama is devastated as am I.  I almost feel guilty even saying that because I lost no loved ones and had no damage to my home but it hurts me to see so many people's lives literally torn to shreds.  The death toll stands right now at 250 people with over 450 people still missing.  Even in all of this, people are coming together and helping their neighbors.  Everybody we came in contact with was in good spirits and just thankful to be alive.  I pray for my home state and for all of these people who were affected by this horrible tragedy.

I wrote this blog as a total vent session!  I have been cleaning and picking through rubble for anything that can be saved.  Talking to people, hearing stories of miracles and stories of heartbreak.  My body is sore but mostly my heart is heavy.  As I tried to lay down to go to bed, the physical and mental exhaustion kicked in and the tears came.  So if your reading this, stop and say a prayer or maybe even just a kind thought for the state of Alabama, it could use all the help it can get!

And I'm back!

Well R&R has come and gone.  Much too fast!!  We had a great time though.  We took our first family vacation to the beach.  It was a good two weeks, but dropping him back off was definitely hard.  Two weeks leave is a little bit of a tease!

We are going to miss him, but we only have until mid-summer so not too much longer.  It's only been a day though and my sweet little girl has already started acting out and mentioning that "Daddy had to go back to Afghanistan".  Poor thing.  Just ready for all of us to have our normal lives back!

While on vacation, my husband bought me a Canon Rebel t2i and I am absolutely in love with it!!  I had been begging for one for a few months now.  He was probably just tired of hearing about it.  Haha  The beach we were staying at was about 15 minutes from Eglin Air Force Base.  So we used that to our advantage and purchased it from the PX there so NO tax!  Yay.  So lots more pictures are coming the blog's way because I'm obsessed.  I am also starting a beginners photography class next week and I am so excited.  Below are a few pictures that I have taken and worked with so far!

  What do you think??!   :)

Will be back later! :)

Hey guys!!  Just a blog to say I didn't fall off the planet.  We are all at the beach enjoying our R&R.  Hope you are all doing good.  When we get back I will blog all about it!  :)