Chalk board paint!

All of the rooms in the house were painted beautifully when we moved in.....the kitchen had a little too much mint green though. I didn't mind it for the most part, but the big wall across from the stove and such was a little much. I was trying to think of how to make it not so..blah?

 

Then it hit me....Chalk board paint!

 

Minty green before!

Right after I painted it....now to wait 3 days!

Curing it!

The start of my tree! My husband came home for lunch, I had the music blasting, doors all open and I was standing on a step ladder free handing a tree. Lol. He so kindly reminded me that I'm nuts.

Finished!

I'm so excited to change the tree for every season! I think this is the perfect cure to me wanting to redecorate all the time!

Deployment weekly recap: Week 1.

Here we go again....it's been a while.

Week #1.

Emotional: Tired. It was a long few weeks leading up to them leaving. We were counting on 3 weeks once they got home from being gone...but it changed to 3 days. We had so many things planned that we couldn't do. I'm sad.

Physical: I'm getting over a wicked sinus infection. Ha. Besides that, I'm sore from mowing the lawn(first time all by myself!)

Communication: Nothing yet....but that's to be expected.

What's something fun you did this week: Little and I stayed home all weekend. We built a fort outside, got yard work done and ate junk for breakfast! It was great!

What are you looking forward to next week: Oct is bonus time! Shopping takes my mind off of anything!

What made you happy this week: Knowing I have a GREAT support system.

What made you sad/mad this week: People who don't know what 'backoff' means.

What do you miss this week: Nothing yet....I'm used to him being gone for a few days. It will take a bit for it to sink in.

How's Landon this week: He's fine. He's used to Daddy being gone...which almost makes it harder.

Favorite song/show/movie of the moment: (song)Sad by Maroon 5

Pictures from this week:

Adventures in house buying......

When Little got his acceptance letter(what a crazy phrase for a 7 year old!) into the amazing Science based Magnet school here, J and I talked about buying a house. We knew we wanted to stay put for Little to finish school there since you never really know how a school system is going to be in a new state, why chance it?! We'd been putting sooo much money into base housing for so many years and while we liked it, it wasn't worth what we were paying.

 

I started looking online and what type of homes were for sale out there....and fell in love with two.

 

Fast forward a month. I'm waiting at the pier for J's boat to pull in, when he gets topside I inform him that I had been going to look at houses, we now had a real estate agent and we would be looking at houses that weekend. He about flipped. Haha. After a little talking, he agreed to LOOK.

 

I had fallen head over heels in love with a blue house a town over. It was beautiful! It had an amazing pool.....but it had super close neighbors on each side, was a 20 min drive for J to get to work, had funky layouts in a few rooms and would need some work.....and it was above what we wanted to spend. We then went and looked at two other houses. One was an INSTANT no! The other was one I had seen and fallen in love with online, but it went under contract. It had come out of contract 3 days ago and was back on the market! So off we went to go see it!

 

We fell in love! It was a 100 year old home, out in the 'woods' without neighbors on top of us(but close enough to feel safe), original hard wood floors, 4 bedrooms & 2 bathrooms, BUILT-ins! and close to J's work that he could still come by for lunch if he got the time!

 

We went home and seriously talked about it, called our agent and asked if we could look at the last house one last time. We went the next morning and really looked around at everything. We were sold. We left the house and went straight to the office to put an offer in. They countered, we countered and they accepted! All within a 5 hours time frame!

 

A little over a month later(in July) we moved in! We couldn't be happier! I'm so in love with this house! Now we have plans to do an addition in about a year to add a library(Yep! A Library!!!) with our master suite above it! The addition will make this house our dream home! We got a pretty good deal on it to! With the market being so low, we should make it all back if we decide to sell later down the road.

 

Here are a few pictures. I will add more as I get it all done. I don't let J unpack at all(He never puts things where they need to go and has this nasty habit of trying to throw everything away).  The main floor is almost done, so I should get those up soon!

 

 

The front! It's set up above everything and its sooo nice!

Our steep driveway that everyone hates. Haha.

Our big side yard! We have about an acre of land!

Landon's 'Pirate Ship'. It's an old pool deck with playscape toys attached to it! He loves it! It has stairs and a gate on the other side. He spends a lot of time up there with the pets.

My lime green front door! It's soooo me! I love this porch. I've spent many nights out there with tea talking to friends, reading or listening to the rain.

One of the built ins that I fell in love with! This one is in the dinning room!

Upstairs hall way! It's amazing! I touch it every time I walk by it!

Deployment number three.....

I'm sorry for the picture dump! But, this is the short version of our day. Haha.

 

J had duty the day before they left(which means he's not aloud to come home, he has to sleep on the boat). Little and I went down to have dinner with him(which was amazing as always) and spent a few hours talking and eating before saying goodnight.

 

The next day the boat did a picnic on the pier for all of the families. We got there at about 11 and ate with J, took a few pictures then had to say our final goodbyes....

 

My little family.

I take a picture of them like this every deployment

(you can see them over to the left on the side!)

Me & my love!

The boat all tugged up and ready to go. These birds were EVERYWHERE it was crazy and so beautiful!

Watching my man work(far right).

He always knows when I'm taking pictures of him...even when I'm trying to be sneaky. haha

Tugs starting to pull them out

(this was around the time my husband informed me VIA text that he forgot his passport at the house....oye)

The most amazing thing about where we live is that we are able to chase the boat down the river. Once they leave the base, a stream of cars take off and beat them to a number of lookout points. Under the bridge is one of our favorites since they can hear us yelling and cheering for them.

This is them coming up on spot #2 that we stop at.

Our final spot is right where the river opens to the ocean. It's so beautiful and they always know we are going to be standing there(many, MANY wives and kids) so they always honk.

Landon with the boat as it gets smaller and smaller as it heads to sea.

Last looks......

 

Little and I then came home and took a LONG nap together. It's been a long few weeks emotionally getting ready for this.

 

Would you believe me if I said I was back?

Life has been so crazy. I always say how I want to blog again, but I never really do it. I post here and there, but not enough to really be called a blogger anymore. Once we moved into our 'new' house last year, I was happy....or so I thought. But, looking back, I was in a funk. I hated going back and using the computer in the office. I felt like I was in a hole and hated being back there alone. J was 'home' but never really home. Work had him so stressed out that at times I didn't know if we were going to make it through this part of his career and not want to poke each other in the eye.(but we made it! Thank goodness!) Now, after a year and a half of being 'blog absent', I want to honestly pick it up again! Our lives have changed a bit since then and I want to get it all down so I can look back on it all! We've gone on some amazing vacations, bought a house! and got a puppy! Little started at an amazing science based school that he just loves and I'm at home making my house our own! Ohhhh...and that little thing called Deployment has reared it's ugly head again....be on the lookout for weekly updates.

But, we are good! It's been a long, hard year. But, we made it and we are stronger than ever!