Deployment Positive Thursday- Week 6

For once: A wayyyy early edition of DPT! In fact: I started this before midnight, so I'm kinda cheating, but I was just so excited about this one, it couldn't wait.

So here it is, the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:

I finally faxed our wedding contract over to the Hotel Hershey today! Deposit is officially put in, and we are just waiting on the event manager's signature before we officially have August 4th, 2012 reserved for our wedding reception!!! I could not be happier if I tried! This is all starting to come together and everything is falling into place!

I feel like I want to shout it from the rooftops and run up to every stranger I know and tell them! This makes everything official! I am so excited, there are no words! We are so incredibly lucky to have such amazing families who are making this beautiful wedding happen for us! And I am so lucky to have my dad to talk to these people about all the nitty-gritties of the contract; definitely something I am NOT good at! 

Other than that, the biggest news in the past 4 months, I have been so thankful for family and friends this week! On Monday, I met one of my first college friends at the King of Prussia mall for an amazing dinner/catch up session! Keels- LOVE YOU, I'm so glad we got to finally meet up! It was totally worth the long drive home in the snow when Etown plows decided not to start working or salting yet even though there was over an inch of snow on the road. Oh well, positives, right Tines? It was so great to catch up on everything I have been missing from home/Boston lately. I can't wait to get up there and see all the girls again, I am long overdue for a trip. Here we are Freshman year of college, first semester. I love this picture:

Tuesday night (as always) was Bowling and Hennigans. Tonight I had a special sushi date with Andrew's cousin, Michelle and her 3 kids, as well as Gavin, who I was watching for Shannon while everyone else was at CCD. I had gotten wind that Michelle's almost-three-year-old, Landon, loving Spicy Tuna Sushi, so obviously I had to eat some with him; as that particular flavor just happens to be my favorite, too! It was so fun, and I love having someone else in town to get sushi with! I have been looking forward to that for so long. It was a bit crazy with 4 kids 4 and under but we still had a blast and the boys couldn't have possibly had anymore fun trying to use chopsticks on their sweet-and-sour chicken (Gavin's was more like ketchup chicken, as usual)! So fun to watch them all having such a great time! 

So with this week officially more than half over, I am heading to bed. I had one of the best workouts I've had in a long time at the gym tonight and I am pooped! So excited to see what this weekend has to offer.... 

Pre-Wedded Bliss

Disclaimer: If you are a boy, I'll warn you right now, this post is going to either put you to sleep, or convince you that you NEVER want to be around when the woman you love is planning a wedding (Andrew definitely had the right idea with this whole deployment thing)! But you really can't complain all that much, because I write about sports, too! It's not all girly and flowers and rainbows and pink around here all the time.

This was the wedding weekend extravaganza that I have been looking forward to for months! I planned everything around the Hershey Bridal Expo at the ACAA (Antique Car Museum) and things kind of unraveled from there! Friday night, Mom Dolan and I kept it low key and went for manicures and pedicures and out to dinner- where we had one of our famous hours-long conversations and nearly shut the restaurant down! It was the best!

On Saturday morning, my mom flew into BWI from Manchester, where my brother's girlfriend, Emily (future-Olsen, as I introduced her as this weekend), picked her up. Emily lives just outside of DC so she picked up my mom at the airport and they drove up to little-old Etown together. They met me, Mom, Lisa, Shannon, Lillia and Alisia at the Bridal Emporium on Market Street. I'll admit, it wasn't overly thrilled with their service or selection of gowns. Last weekend we went there and it was a totally different experience, but something was off this week. 

After a quick lunch at Subway, we drove down to Lancaster to go to a new Bridal shop, In White. I was expecting the quality and price of their gowns to be higher than other shops I had visited because of what I had seen online and from driving by, but decided to give it a shot anyways! I can't even explain how happy I am that we went there; everything was top-tier... except the prices!! What more could I ask for? They didn't even have the gowns in cheapo plastic bags to protect them, but they just let them hang there so you could really get an idea of what each one was like! Of all the gowns I've tried on (probably 30-35 at this point; I'm not very good at decision making) none of them even compared to the 5 I tried on at In White! AND to top off my perfect experience there, they had the exact color (Infantry Blue) I was looking for for bridesmaid dresses! We even brought a blue cord with us to see if we could find a perfect match! Overall, Day 1 of the weekend extravaganza was a raging success!

Today (Day 2) started out great as well! My mom and Emily stayed here at the Dolan's house for the night (in the midst of a kitchen remodel!) We woke up and Dad Dolan made us all Mickey Mouse waffles (I got Magic Mickey for the first time ever!) and then went to church were I introduced them to fifteen Dolans in about 30 seconds before mass started! After mass, we were off to Hershey for the expo!

It wasn't like anything I could have ever imagined! The best part was that when we bought our tickets, we said we have 2 brides in our party and they gave Emily all the bridal stuff I was getting too! (My brother would have my head if he found out about this, love ya Marko!) It was so much fun to see all the vendors and get ideas of things I had never even considered yet! I definitely got to a point where I was just done and exhausted so we went to get lunch in Hershey. We finished up around 4, came back to E-town and my mom and Emily hit the road so that my mom could catch her flight back home. 

For dinner we went over to Sean and Lisa's for pizza. I finally gave the kids books that Andrew and I have had for them since before Christmas. The books were little age-appropriate stories about being a flower girl or ringbearer or junior bridesmaid (in Alisia's case). For Jared we decided to go the cool-route and get him a book all about soldiers from different eras and wars and branches of military; also they really don't make any sort of wedding book that would be appealing for his demographic. Inside each book we wrote a note officially asking the kids to be a part of our wedding! The girls were overjoyed, Jared was instantly enthralled in his soldier book, Quinn was jumping up and down, Austin was more concerned with the Real-tree camo wrapping paper we used, and Gavin unwrapped and then headed right back to his game of mousetrap--- that he was playing against himself! I explained that Uncle AJ and I have very important jobs for them to do in our wedding, and if they would like to, we would be thrilled if they would like be a part of such a special day for us! It was an overwhelming YES from the whole crowd! Lots and lots of hugs and kisses and "thank you, Aunt Tina"'s going around! It was such a fun moment, but totally bittersweet because I didn't get to share it with Andrew. I meant to have someone video tape it so that we could send it over to our favorite solider, but in the excitement of the moment, I completely forgot (really sorry, babe!). Sean did manage to snap this one picture (after Gavin left the party on the couch) which I absolutely LOVE! I can't wait to officially be these kiddos' Aunt! 

In other news, my better half, over in Afghanistan is doing great. Well, he is really, really cold! They've been getting lots of snow in his province, and a buddy of his who is only about 70 miles away is complaining about the seventy five degree weather! It's crazy! We are still talking online every night and every morning which I will always count as a blessing!

Deployment Positive Thursday- Week 5

Happy Birthday, Papa!

Today, my weekly positive is the easiest it has been ever. Today is a tribute to the world's best dad, who just happens to have a birthday today!

May 1995- I'm probably trying to get away with something sneaky; and he is probably going to let me.

If anyone were to describe what I was like when I was growing up, saying I was a complete and total daddy's girl would be the understatement of the year. Not the spoiled kind who gets everything they ask for because they cry a fake tear or throw enough tantrums. I was the kind of girl who was absolutely 1,000,000% spoiled by my dad's love, and in turn had nothing but love and respect for him. 

As the first-born, dear-old-dad didn't really know what to expect when I came into the world in September 1986. He admits that even though I was two weeks late, he and my mom had forgotten to buy me a baby blanket, so he ran out to toysRus when mom and baby were resting on the day I was born to get me one. I'm not even a little embarrassed to admit that that same blanket is still sitting right next to me in this bed as I type this blog entry. 

Because I was first-born, when I started talking (pretty late in the developmental scheme of things because my mom was always speaking German to me, while my dad and everyone else was speaking English- that can get pretty confusing pretty quickly!) and started with the ma-maaaa (as most children do for Mommy) my parents decided to let it stick. Mama is German for Mother, as Papa is German for Father. Instead of trying to get me to say da-da over and over again, they opted for Papa, to honor my mom's German roots. (For those of you who don't know, my mom was born and raised in Germany and didn't move to the US until her late 20's for a temporary assignment. Long story short, temporary assignment turned into long-term, long-distance relationship, marriage, house in the suburbs, two babies, and a dog. Now THAT is the American Dream) I always loved that I had a special name for my dad that none of the other kids in school had, and I still love calling him my Papa, even though through the years it has become slightly more Americanized and now sounds more like pu-pu.

He was the one who worked all day, came home to kids fighting, dog barking, phone ringing, wife stressed trying to make sense of it all (I feel like I'm taking these lyrics straight from a country song) and still came busting through the door singing Hello, Dolly! every single night. My favorite part (and the part he always emphasized the most) was "It's so nice to be back where I belong!" I would always run to him and demand "ups! ups!", begging for him to pick me up. We were one of those lucky families who got to see our dad in the morning before school started, because he worked less than a mile from the house. In the summers, Mark and I used to bike over to the office (through a secret short-cut path in the woods) to have lunch with him. My dad walked us to the bus stop every morning for the first few years of school (even though it was just to the next-door neighbor's driveway, not even 100 yards down our not-very-busy street) or, if he drove us to school, always made us give him a kiss before we left the car. In my middle school years, I acted like it embarrassed me, but secretly I always loved this tradition we shared. 

He was the dog's master and best-friend; and no matter how cold or rainy or snowy, Papa and Nugget would go out every single night around bedtime to walk around the house a few times. I used to love going out with them on summer nights and sitting on the hill in our front yard watching the stars. The first, and only time, I ever saw my dad cry was in 2007 when he and my mom told me we would have to put Nugget down after almost 14 full years of having her grace our lives. (Time for a new pup yet?!) I am so thankful that he knew the exact-right time to bring Nugget into our lives and complete our family: Thanksgiving Day 1993. 

As I got older, he taught me to drive and manage my money, never allowing me to go overboard on a single purchase. He gave me my passion for the Red Sox and taught me what baseball was all about. He helped me pack up and move back to Stonehill for four years in a row, even though I know it broke his heart every time. He let me work at his company for a few months after I graduated from college, even though I know they didn't need the help- which in turn gave me the opportunity to spend as much time as I could with Andrew the summer before he started BOLC training in November 2009.

He loves me and respects me. He tells me constantly how blessed he has been to have me as a daughter and I, in turn do not tell him nearly enough what a joy it has been growing up with him as a father and a role model. He pushes me to do and be my best, even when I give him a hard time; and encourages me to always explore all of my options. He encourages me to be independent, but is always there to back me up when I need him.

And, I am so thankful that he survived (and passed with flying colors, I might add) that moment that I am sure every father dreads; somebody coming along and asking for his daughter's hand in marriage. I am so thankful that Andrew asked for his permission (well, blessing I guess) to marry me. In fact the first thing I said to Andrew (after I was done crying and saying "YES" a million times) was "did you talk to my dad about this?" I couldn't have imagined going home without first knowing that my dad had given his official seal of approval. I know that he was probably more shocked than I was about the whole engagement (because let's face it- I had been warned that if I dropped any more hints about getting married/engaged before deployment, Andrew would make me wait until we were both practically geriatrics before he proposed) but he was so excited and thrilled for the both of us. It is not going to be easy for either of us when the time comes for him to give me away: prepare yourselves for the two of us sentimental saps, blubbering like idiots and crying our eyes out when we walk down the aisle. But that's what I love about him, his undying love and support for me no matter what.

So, Happy Birthday, Papa! Thank you so much for all the experiences you've provided me with, places you've brought me, lessons you've taught me, love you've shown me and everything in between. You and Mama have been so supportive through this whole military adventure that has become my life, and I will never be able to thank you enough for that. You have welcomed Andrew into your family as one of your own, and that means the world to me. I could go on and on about family traditions and holidays and every special moment we had in our lives, but what it all boils down to is: I love you so much, and could have never had a better dad.

Benchmarks

In my family, I have always been known as the Queen of Dates. If my mom wants to know what year we took a certain vacation, or my dad wants to know the date (and year) of a second cousin a gazillion times removed's birthday, I am the go-to-gal. That is just the way my brain works for some reason, I'm really good at remembering dates.

So imagine my chagrin when Andrew Dolan comes waltzing into my life almost three and a half years ago. The boy can hardly remember his own birthday, let alone anyone else's- or any other milestone! (I have so many stories to demonstrate my point, but I can't let myself get into them... it is simply too embarrassing and heartbreaking for all parties involved). We physically could not be more different in this aspect.

Today marks exactly one month since Andrew left for Afghanistan, and it is almost hard to believe that we have made it to the first huge milestone! I am so relieved this first month is over and we are getting into the swing of this deployment.

Because I am always thinking about dates and things that have happened in our lives, each month I find myself looking forward to a few key days. Always having something to look forward to definitely makes time go by faster! This deployment, I have 5 main days every month that I really look forward to; and they all serve as benchmarks to another mini-milestone that has passed.

4th- One month closer to our wedding day: August 2012

16th- X-Day: this deployment officially started: January 2011

19th- Our "dating anniversary"/first kiss: October 2007

22nd- Andrew Proposed in Boston: October 2010

27th- Ranger School Graduation: August 2010

I know that some people, including my betrothed, think it is silly to celebrate an anniversary each month (actually, truth be told, I think that is silly, too), but there is a difference between "celebrating" something each month (with gifts and cards and extra lovey-dovey-ness) and just looking forward for that date to come (and pass) each month. I will say that I, by no means, keep track of how many months we have been together as a couple or anything like that, but there is something nice and refreshing about having each of these days come around each month. To me, it means one less of those "days" are left until we can finally be together again... and that has been making time F-L-Y!

I Hate Myself for Saying This. . .

.... but I love Valentines Day!

I do. I really, really do. Every year I try to convince myself that it is just a silly made up holiday and I don't need anything special or anything like that, but every year when this day rolls around I realize that it is just such a fun excuse to feel love in the air for the day!

Today was awesome for so many reasons:

• Pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training! WOO Baseball Season is almost here!
• My bosses were out of town so my co-worker and I can wear jeans to work (and of course my Papelbon Jersey to support my team!)
• The weather was absolutely beautiful (57 degrees on my way into work, I should have worn flip flops) and it finally is starting to feel like spring around here!
• Got to talk to my soldier who got my care package that I mailed exactly two weeks ago
• Walked to lunch with AmyMarie (my coworker) and had one of the best caesar salads ever
• Called a(n undisclosed) location about our rehearsal dinner and it looks like everything will work out to have it there
• My car has been in the shop, and the mechanic called me back with the price to get everything fixed and it was actually lower than I was expecting to pay
• Came home to a big box addressed to me on the dining room table; opened it up to find a miniature rose plant from Andrew (this was definitely my favorite part of the day! I love that he thought to get me flowers [and a jumbo hershey kiss]! It is so meaningful that if I take care of them I'll be able to have them maybe forever!) They had a tough journey, I'm guessing, and need a little TLC but in a day or two I might have a full-fledged miniature rose bush!! Thank you so much, honey!
• Andrew's parents and I had a wonderful Valentines Dinner. I told them I would be happy to go out to Shannon's or find something to do so that they could have their own romantic dinner, but they were happy and excited to share it with me! We had steak and potatoes and salad and a wonderful cabernet my parents brought down when they came in November (wow, was that really almost 3 months ago?) I honestly couldn't have been blessed with better future-in-laws (Victor and Lisa... we sure lucked out marrying into this family!)
• Amy made a flour-less chocolate cake this weekend and we devoured it! It was the perfect ending to the perfect night!

Our Valentines Dinner... in the midst of a Kitchen Remodel! Love this family!

Now I am off to bed a little bit early to get some reading done before I hear that "ding" on google chat telling me that my Valentine is messaging me all the way from Afghanistan! What a great day!

And just a side-note: I am taking bets as to how many engagements and proposals will happen tonight? I'm waiting for them to start showing up on my facebook news feed!!

Happy Valentines Day, Everyone!

Deployment Positive Thursday- Week 4

(Sorry I made you wait until literally the last second, Michelle!)

I need to do a better job of not posting in the middle of the night, but my days have been getting away from me lately. I love always having something to do! These E-town Dolan's are THE BEST at keeping busy!

I'll be honest though, today did not start out on a good note. In fact, I was wracking my brain for a good portion of the day trying to write something positive that wasn't about communication again. But, my bummer day really had nothing to do with deployment, it was just a dumpy Thursday. I guess it wouldn't have started so poorly if I wasn't so sick of this freezing cold weather! As soon as you go outside the wind whips through you and chills you to the bone. UGH I'm dreading it tomorrow morning.

Things at work were going fine, although I feel like I wasn't very productive today. For lunch I got sushi and took it back to the office, but first stopped at Citizens' Bank (AKA the worst bank in the entire world) to make a deposit and ask about a transfer. Good ole' Citizens' didn't let me down on my expectation of zero customer service skills. I've been trying to make a transfer to Andrew's USAA account for two weeks now and the guy basically told me it's impossible to do online because it gives me a means to commit fraud.  I can't even get into how utterly ridiculous that is! I need OUT of that bank, every few months, it's another problem with these guys.

On my way home from work one of my indicator lights was flashing (in red) and beeping at me, so I scheduled an appointment for Monday to get it looked at. The guy at the VW garage said "if it's beeping and flashing, you shouldn't be driving it" well, buddy... I've gotta get home somehow! As I was driving, I was seriously contemplating what in the world I was going to write about tonight.

That's when I got the call from the wedding coordinator at our church. After a ten minute call it was like the skies cleared and I could almost hear that choir singing "hallelujah!". I am planning a wedding. Not just any wedding, our wedding. To celebrate our love and commitment to one another forever and to finally start our life together. Andrew gave me the most fantastic gift I could have ever asked for by asking me to marry him when he did (and no, I'm not just talking about the ring- which by the way is beyond gorgeous)! What could I ever ask for that is more exciting to look forward to than the beginning of our marriage? I am so trilled and excited to be planning this and each day that it creeps closer, it becomes more and more real to me.

We are about a week away from signing the contract with the Hotel Hershey and putting our deposit down; the Church is booked; and I'm meeting with a photographer next week. One by one, I'm seeing a lot more check marks in my little book of wedding planning lists!

So forget about all the nonsense that happened before. Not every day can be the best day ever. But every day for the next 18 months I can dream about and plan our wedding! And you know what, as the time gets closer to the wedding, it also gets a heck of a lot closer to homecoming. And homecoming, my friends, is what it is really all about these days.

So basically, I'm happy to be loved by someone who I love deeply, excited to be planning our wedding, and overjoyed to continue counting the days....

The Longest 2 Months in Sports

Every year, as they count down the final seconds of the Super Bowl and begin the celebrations on the field, my heart saddens a little bit. (To be completely honest though: I skipped the sad feeling in 02, 03 and 05 though when the Patriots won) Surprisingly, this sad feeling doesn't usually come from the fact that my team lost, it comes from what I know lies ahead...

The longest two months in sports.

The time between the end of football season and the official beginning of baseball season. This year we only have to suffer through 51 days of this torture (for Red Sox fans; we open on April 1st) but gosh, April seems like millions of years away right now.

Every year I try to help pass the time by feigning excitement in March Madness, but it's just not the same. I'm a Football and Baseball kinda girl. Simple as can be. I'll always be a Boston fan, nothing's ever going to change that; it's just a part of who I am.

There is one good thing, however, that comes with the end of the football season: the end of countless debates and arguments between Andrew and I. No more pointless "Tom Brady has the worst hair ever" or "Ben Rothlisberger looks like a homeless hick" comments (trying to keep this clean for the kiddos here... you know where these accusations can start going...). UGH Football season can be so stressful because of all the bantering back and forth, back and forth!

But alas, the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel: Baseball Season. There is nothing on this earth that Andrew and I could agree more whole-heartedly on. The Red Sox. The single most amazing team in the whole-wide-MLB. We've got the history, the curse, the beloved ballpark, and now, thanks to Theo, we've got some serious talent in the field and power at the plate. If all goes according to plan, this will be one heck of a year to watch the boys from Beantown work their magic. Theo and the rest of the management team stated last off season that 2010 would be a "rebuilding year". While it was disappointing to hear (and watch) at the time, I am constantly reminded of the Sox last rebuilding year: 2006.

2007 brought another World Series Championship to Boston. Rebuilding: Success!

So here is to the next 51 days passing quickly and quietly. The signs of spring are right around the corner, and before you know it, they'll have that massive American Flag waving and covering the entire Green Monster and it'll be time for the first pitch. I can't hardly wait....

Something to tie myself over until April 1st:
My favorite moment in (my own memory of) Red Sox History:
Dave Roberts steals Second on Mariano Rivera in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS

Deployment Positive Thursday- Week 3

This morning I came into work (a few minutes early for once) to discover the door to the office locked. Seriously. LOCKED. There are only four of us who work there, but I am always the last one in since I work fewer hours than my bosses and co-worker. And I am the only one without a key. At first I checked my emails on my iPod (since I could still get the wifi signal even though I was outside of the door) to see if anyone had emailed me, but of course not. I was kind of miffed, but knew eventually everyone would be in. So I went to sit in the truck and wait for everyone to come in (yeah, I'm still driving Andrew's truck, have you seen all the snow we have in Central PA? No way do I feel like digging my car out from underneath all of it! Plus I feel a lot safer in "The Silver Bullet" as we call it).

As I was sitting there, just listening to some music, I thought about how nice it felt to just sit and think. Life has been out-of-control-busy lately--and believe me, I'm thankful for that--but it was the first time in a long time (definitely since deployment started) where I could just be alone with my thoughts. It was so liberating, in a weird way, to just sit there and know I didn't have a million things I needed to go and do right away, or be in a rush to get anywhere, or finish another project for work. None of that. Just me and my beautiful country music and my thoughts. I thought a lot about this deployment and how it is so much different than I ever expected a deployment to be, how lucky I have been to be able to talk to my wonderful fiance every day for the past week and a half, and how nice it is to have settled on a date, ceremony site, and reception location for our wedding. Nothing was pressing, and there was nothing I could do about the fact that I wasn't at work. It was a beautiful morning gift.

Eventually my bosses and coworker all came in (my bosses are a married couple and went to a late breakfast and my coworker had a dentist appointment) and I got right to work and had one of the most productive days I've had in a while. I had a task at hand and clearing my mind earlier in the truck really helped me to de-stress and just focus on my project.

My morning gift wasn't even the best part of my day, though! Two more little gifts were creeping my way, in the hours to come. The first, was a call from an unknown number around 2 this afternoon on my cell phone. I almost didn't pick it up, but boy, am I glad I did! You'll never guess who was on the other line; none other than a certain Ranger friend of mine: Andrew Dolan! I couldn't have been happier for our 3 minute phone call! And can I please say that this call was infinitely better than the last call I got from an unknown number with Andrew's voice on the other end. Bahhhhh I still get chills when I think of that bad time in Ranger School. But this was a happy call (once we got past the awkwardness of "who's this" "no, who is this" nonsense) and I am so thankful for it!

My third gift today came at dinner time! Andrew's parents and I went out to Shannon's house but before we ate, Mom and Shannon were acting kind of weird. They got the camera out and told the kids they had a surprise... for Aunt Tina (that's me!!)! Totally unexpected that I would be getting a surprise. They made me stand in the corner with my eyes closed while they brought down my early Valentines Day present. I literally screamed when I opened my eyes to see the face of my solider, right where it should be at just over 6 feet off the ground:

Just to be clear- this is just a cardboard cut-out! He is not actually home with us!

I honestly could not have asked for a better Valentines Day gift, or a more loving family! The kids and I were so excited, it was like actually having Andrew there eating dinner with us. They couldn't get enough of their new, fake Uncle AJ! I couldn't get enough of him! It was such a happy moment! I even asked Gavin while we were eating dinner, "Whose God-daddy is that?" and he said with all the pride, love and excitement an (almost) three-year-old could possibly have: "This is MY God-Daddy!"

Love these kids. Love this family. Love my soldier.

Dearly. 

The Army Calls it his "Final Destination"

After almost two full weeks of travel, Andrew finally made it to his final destination on Friday (28 Jan). I have been hating that term "final destination" these past few weeks, it always makes me think of those terrible horror movies, plus final sounds so... eternal. Nope. This isn't his final destination, he is at this FOB for the next year(ish). His temporary home, you might say.

For OPSEC (Operational Security) reasons, Andrew and I have decided (along with the Department of Defense and the United States Army) that it is best that I don't disclose which FOB he is at online. We do have his address though, so for any family or friends who are interested, please feel free to email me and I'll be happy to give it to you. Mom and I sent out our first two care packages yesterday filled with... wait a minute, I can't tell you whats in it! That would ruin the surprise for Andrew!

The best part about sending care packages to Afghanistan (or any APO for that matter) is that it is cheaper than sending a package almost anywhere in the United States. I spent a small fortune this summer sending care packages to Ranger School and household supplies to Louisville. It's definitely nice to know that I'll still be able to send some of the comforts of home without being worried about going completely broke!

Other than that big news, things around here have been pretty busy... and snowy. Not snowy like New Hampshire, but kind of worse because we get less snow but the roads are somehow worse. I'm getting lots of wedding planning done and after going back and forth on a million things this past week I think we have the major decisions made, which feels great. Hershey was lucky enough to host the AHL all-star game this year so this weekend was jam-packed with Hockey fun! All the mascots from the different teams were there and I was so excited to see Max- the Manchester Monarch (my hometown team). I told him I was from New Hampshire but he was less than pleased with my wardrobe choice:

We had a great weekend but definitely missed our soldier! Another full week down, though which feels amazing, plus it's the start of a brand new month which is always a welcomed happening when you're living through a deployment.