Deployment Positive Monday- Weeks 12 and 13

Life. Is. Busy.

And absolutely awesome, to be quite honest with you! I don't even know where to start with this post because so much has been going on in the last two weeks. I guess the first thing I should touch on is the fact that I just got back from four magical days in Disney World! A friend and I decided to drive down and had a great time at all the parks, and we even saw SeaWorld and Universal Studios for my first time as well!

I met Mickey Mouse and lots of other characters at The Magic Kingdom, went on a safari at Animal Kingdom, had drinks from around the world at Epcot, spent some time petting and playing with real-life penguins at SeaWorld, and-oh yeah- went to Hogwarts!!!

It has been a crazy week since I've been home from Florida as well. It's hard to believe that we are approaching the 90-day-13-week-3-month-mark, but boy does it feel good to have such a substantial portion of this deployment behind us. 

We are also approaching my absolute favorite time of year. Growing up in a small New England town, having a love for the fall is almost a given. Autumn in Kentucky can't really hold a candle to the crisp feelings of Septembers in New Hampshire, but it's not as much about the weather as it is about baseball AND football season finally converging and being played at the same time! Words cannot describe how excited I was to watch the Red Sox [stomp on the Tigers] in high definition on ESPN, while I drafted my fantasy football team. Plus, it doesn't hurt that my birthday is less than a week away... I'm just kinda a happy girl these days. 

... And whenever that handsome soldier of mine decides it is time to come home and join in on all the fall time fun, I'm more than ready to welcome him with open arms (and probably a patriots tshirt). 

Deployment Positive Monday- Week 11

This past weekend was I think the first weekend of this entire deployment that I wan't traveling somewhere or didn't have anyone come down to visit me. I'll be honest, I tried really hard to make sure a weekend like that didn't happen while Andrew was gone, but gosh darn it, was it nice! I got so much accomplished, our entire apartment has been cleaned and organized and honestly, it felt pretty good to just have nothing to do for an entire day.

I'm not saying I would want every weekend to be like that, but it was so nice to just focus on me for a little while. While Andrew is gone, it is so easy to look forward to what is to come and get caught up in future plans, but this weekend I just got to live in the moment. The biggest bummer of the weekend was that I seem to have hurt my back during a workout... I feel like such an old lady, I can barely stand without moaning and groaning. The worst part of the whole thing is that all I can think about is going to  visit Mickey Mouse next week and not being able to ride on Space Mountain.

I guess it's crazy that just as I'm saying how great it is to enjoy life as-is and in the moment, I'm simultaneously looking forward to my biggest trip of the summer: DISNEY WORLD! I told Andrew this is officially a tradition that I go down to Disney while he is deployed, since his mom and I went for a visit last time he was gone. My friend and I are driving down this Saturday and only staying for a couple of days, but we are both really looking forward to the little get-away. I don't think anything (other than running into my husband's arms in a crowded airport after a long separation) could make me happier than spending a couple of days on the most magical place on earth!

Deployment Positive Monday- Week 10

Wow... Double digits for weeks already. As hard as it is to believe that we have reached this little benchmark, sometimes I look back at X-day and think "really?! Has it only been two months?!" Deployments totally mess with me that way, I guess. It's been so nice to have been keeping busy, but sheesh, this seems like the longest summer ever, er... Um I guess since the last time Andrew was deployed, and if we're really being picky, the summer before that wasn't exactly a walk in the park either. 

Lately our days (or nights, depending on which one of us you are talking to) have been spent planning for the glorious month we get to spend together between Andrews homecoming and SFAS. And let me tell you- if you thought I packed a lot of fun into this summer, wait til you see what we have got planned for that little snippet of time. We're still relatively unsure about when that will be (plus I can't tell you anyways because of OPSEC... Do we all remember OPSEC?) but it's just been exciting to look forward to it! 

This past week I was lucky enough to have an extended period of time off of work, so I went up to visit family in Pennsylvania! It was a great trip! As many people know, I'll take any excuse possible to visit loved ones! This trip was brought to you by the Dirty Girl Mud Run that I did on Saturday with Andrews sister and cousins! It was a blast! We ran 5k though all sorts of muddy obstacles and I couldn't stop smiling throughout the entire course. My army husband would have been so proud of me (loudly) encouraging ladies on other teams to get their bottoms down during the low crawl exercises... Mainly because that just meant they would get muddier, and wasn't that the whole point! 

At the end of the day, this was a fun thing to do for a great cause. They raise money to support breast cancer research and we even finished right behind a team with a breast cancer survivor who ran the race! Definitely a feel-good moment to watch her as she crossed the finish line with her 20+ teammates all cheering her name. 

Deployment Positive Monday- Week 9

Well for a girl who just spent her first wedding anniversary with her husband fighting a war halfway around the world, I must say, I am in an excellent mood! I had absolutely, hands-down the best weekend possible, given the circumstances. 

Andrew and I have known that we would spend our first anniversary apart since we set the date for our wedding, so there was never really a part of me that spent my time dreaming about a super romantic weekend reminiscing in the awesomeness of our wedding and our marriage (does anyone actually do that?) but that didn't make it any easier to spend such a big milestone without him. What did make it a whole lot easier (and fun) was the fact that my college roommate/maid of honor/best friend came down to spend the weekend with me here in Louisville. I still can't believe how lucky I am that she flew all the way down here just to make sure I wasn't lonely this weekend. That is truly the definition of an amazing friend.

I won't bore you with all of the details of the weekend, but in short: I got my breakfast comp'd at Wild Eggs because she told the waitress the situation, we went downtown for dinner and saw 7483728 bachelorette parties and the Louisville Slugger Factory, drank bottles and bottles of wine and stayed up way too late chatting and laughing, drove 35 minutes to the coolest dunkin donuts, got our nails done, laid out at the pool, made an epic wedding video, facetimed my amazing husband TWICE, and went to Buffalo Wild Wings for my anniversary dinner for junk food, beers, bug buck hunter and watched (preseason) football. Basically everything was perfect. 

I think my favorite part of the weekend was looking back through the hours of video footage that she had captured from our wedding. Watching it made it feel like it was just yesterday, and I love all the little candid moments she caught that the professionals simply couldn't. If you have ten minutes to spare, I highly recommend watching the following link, Amy did an amazing job and really somehow managed to show the essence of our relationship... Just goofy, head over heels love 

http://youtu.be/KwCqd1eAzNU

Deployment Positive Monday- Weeks 7 and 8

Yep, well now I've just skipped an entire week. I've been petty disappointed in myself for my lack of blogging this deployment, but for some reason, I just can't get myself to keep at it. I really don't understand it because I can't even put a price on how much my book of the first deployment's blog posts means to me, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. It kills me to think that I just won't have the same experience with this deployment. 

Maybe it's because I have been approaching this deployment with a completely different mindset. Part of it still doesn't seam real to me for some reason.  Obviously I know Andrew is away and at war, but everything from our communication to my living situation to his job is different. There hasn't been a single day since Andrew left 53 days ago that we haven't had some sort of communication (hopefully I'm not jinxing it by posting about it). I am working a job that I absolutely love and coming home each night to a home that a share with my husband (and the hardest part of this is that I still haven't adjusted to the idea of cooking for 1- I made about 4 times too many servings of dinner tonight... Hello leftovers!). Andrews job is allowing for us to communicate more, and giving him a lot more down time. Lately one of our favorite activities has been to do the same crossfit workout (same workout for both of us, but he completes it with more weight) and compare times. I kinda love it and can't wait to have him home to workout side by side again! Another favorite pastime has been planning for homecoming and all the things we want to do and trips we want to take before we are onto our next duty station. It's a little weird to think that chances are we won't be living in Kentucky at this time next year, but exciting weird. We'll be on to bigger and better things and we are both so excited to move and explore a new duty station together for the first time. Depending on where we are sent maybe we will even become first time homeowners! The future is an exciting time for us Dolans!

But, not to get ahead of myself too much, I'm still doing my best to keep busy and travel as much as possible while Andrew is gone. Last week I had a great trip to the Jersey Shore with my amazing inlaws then had a friend visit from Nashville over the weekend. It was great to have a girls night and we even went to a wine and paint bar and painted ourselves some "funky trees". It was a blast! 

That soldier husband of mine has been keeping busy too. He has been getting care packages in an average of under two weeks which is great and even received his anniversary care package this morning. It's still pretty hard to believe that this time last year we were in last minute wedding mode finalizing each and every detail. Hopefully this time next year we will be curled up on the couch together watching American Ninja Warrior and loving life in a brand new state. I can't think of anything better than spending our second anniversary together. 

Andrew has been getting lots of time in with his SFAAT team and his Battalion Commander even posted this picture of them on Facebook earlier this week. Can you spot my handsome soldier?