5 years today

Today is our 5 year anniversary. I can't believe. The last 5 years have absolutely flown by. Every day I am struck by what an amazing man I am married to. To share my life with someone who loves the Lord, loves me and loves life...nothing better! We have so much fun. When your are married to your best friend every day is an adventure. There is no one else I would rather walk the journey of life with. So with this short but sweet post I want to tell everyone how thankful I am that God brought the two of us together as husband and wife 5 short years ago. I look forward to the next five, I know they will be amazing!

Presents already???

I actually opened one of my Christmas presents yesterday! I know, super early right? We have had a ton of snow these days and Micah and I wanted to get out and enjoy it yesterday. Since he had been gone for a few days he had missed it all until yesterday. Anyways, we wanted to go for a walk but I told him I couldn't go for very long because I didn't have the right kind of shoes....you know boots of some sort. I have been wanting a pair of wellies (rubber boots) for a while now but have not bought them because I know that it was a possible Christmas present. So as I was telling Micah I couldn't go for a walk with him he decided it was time for me to open a present. So lucky me, I did! And guess what?? Wellies!! Super cute white and black wellies. In the states rubber boots are not that popular, but here they are super popular. I have been wanting them for soooo long. Bless Micah's heart:). So I opened a present early and now I can enjoy it in the snow. I will not be opening ANY more until Christmas day.

Christmas is in the air

I don't know about you guys but this holiday season has been busy! I am off to my second cookie exchange this week tonight. Fortunately this is a cookie exchange that includes husbands so Micah is coming. Micah has been gone the last few days and wasn't able to come home because of a winter storm that came in. It is nice to have him back home with me. I am making peanut butter balls today for the exchange because I can't make cookies to save my life and Micah really likes them. Who doesn't? It's chocolate and peanut butter. Two of the greatest things on earth.

With that, how are you all doing? Are you enjoying the holiday season? We are. My number one goal this December is to take it day by day. Every December comes and goes and I end up thinking, "where did it go?" This year will not be that way. I am determined to take every day and enjoy it for whatever it brings. Hopefully all of you will also take time to enjoy this wonderful time of year.

Goodbye November, I will miss you!

Can you believe November is almost over?? I feel like it just got here!! November is by far my favorite month because it marks the start of the holidays. In these parts no one celebrates Thanksgiving so we go right from Halloween to Christmas. So November really feels like the holidays around here.

This has been a fairly busy week for us. One amazing thing that happened is that I finally started working again!! I substitute taught 2 days this week. I thought that was pretty good considering kids only went to school 3 days. I taught a 3rd grade class and a kindergarten class. A lot of you know how I feel about kindergarten....it's not my favorite. In fact, it scares me a bit. But it went really well. They were the best group of kindergartners I have ever seen. Another reason it has been a busy week is that Micah had Thursday and Friday off. I love it when he has weekdays off of work. We had such a nice time together. I was reminded so many times on Thanksgiving of how thankful I am for him. He is so amazing and we just get along so well. We had a great couple of days. They were filled with Christmas movies, Christmas music and Christmas decorating! We did manage to find a Christmas tree. Who knew it would be so expensive!! But oh well, it was worth every penny. We went with a red and silver theme for the tree this year which is kind of new. I normally do a green and gold theme for our Christmas tree. I think this could be my most favorite tree that Micah and I have ever had together. Last year Micah was deployed over Christmas so I went to Washington and we never put a tree up in this house.

Other than that I don't have all that much to blog about actually. I just didn't want November to end with me just blogging once the entire month! I really need to go, we are off to church for the evening. I just wanted to do this before November said goodbye!

As I sit and blog this morning I am so reminded of the wonderful Washington weather that I love. One great thing about living in the UK is that the weather is so similar to that of the Pacific Northwest. No matter where the Air Force takes us my heart with always be in Northwest Washington. Where we live in the UK is actually the driest part of the region. I was a bit disappointed when I found that out. Everyone said that it rains in England every day. Well that is just a fat lie. Even in the fall we can go a good strong week and never see a drop of rain. It is just wrong. Most of you know that I am a fall fanatic. But what I love most about the fall is the rain! I am such a rain junky and whenever I hear the sound of rain and wind beating on my windows it just fills my heart with happiness. I don't necessarily mind the sun, but only when it is appropriate. Like in June and July. I don't know why it bothers to come out in November!! November is for leaves falling and wind blowing and bundling up because it is so super cold. Yesterday it was so sunny and bright it just kind of put me in a bad mood. But this morning is a totally different day. I totally have a smile on my face this morning. The wind is blowing and the rain is coming down. It is still kind of dark out and it will most likely stay dark all day. I know most of you think I am crazy because I would rather have the dark wet weather than silly old sun....but I know a few of you that are kindred spirits and today is a day for us. I wish I could bottle today and keep it with me all year so I could console myself through the summer months. Today is a day for cleaning house, baking and split pea soup! So that is on my agenda today, and most likely in that order. Micah isn't a huge fan of soup for dinner but you can't deny it when you have an amazing day like this one.

A Little Homesick

Well, as you can see from the title of this blog today I am feeling a bit homesick. But not in the usual way. I was just in Washington a couple months ago, I don't miss it that much yet. What has brought on my homesickness today is that fact that my hair is growing like crazy and it is time for me to get a haircut! I have yet to get my haircut in England. In fact, in the almost 5 years we have been married I have had my hair cut one time by someone other than a Lynden person. I am quite frugal and don't like to spend the money on haircuts so I usually just get it cut like once maybe twice a year. But my latest hair style is such that I need to keep up on it or else it just goes frumpy. Unfortunately, I have found the most amazing stylist in the entire world and she is in Lynden. I know right? I live right outside of London but I wish I could be in podunk L-town to get a haircut. But you don't understand how wonderful Mandi is...she cuts my hair perfectly. And by the way, if any of you are between stylists, I would strongly recommend her, she is at Northwest hair in Lynden. But anyways, it is hard finding a new girl to cut your hair. You never know what you are going to get. Especially when you have a mix of fine and thick hair like mine, it can go frumpy VERY fast. So I am sitting here trying to figure out who to have cut my hair in the next few weeks but really just wishing I could be back in Lynden for just a day to have Mandi cut my hair.

So that is my blog for today. Not the the norm, right? But I am discouraged and thought I would share with you all because Micah doesn't really want to listen to me complain about my hair and I had to get it out.

Haunted Punting

So last night we went haunted punting. We had such a good time! Unfortunately it was very dark out so we didn't really get too many pictures. I wish I could have though because we went all through Cambridge by boat and to see all the colleges lit up at night, it was so pretty. So here are the pictures that we did get. We punted with our good friends the Harrisons. So the other guy in these pictures is our friend Michael. One super awesome highlight of the night was when we went to the pub called the Anchor. While we were on our Cambridge tour the guide told us about this pub and how they have a special pilot room in the back. It is a part of the bar with a ton of squadron stickers all over it. This is where the RAF and American pilots hung out during the war. While we were there last night we saw a Red Falcon sticker, which the squadron we were in while in Kansas. This will always be a special place for us because it was our first squadron and we met some amazing people there. So we had to take a picture of the Red Falcon at the bar. For those of you in Lynden, if you ever look at the back of my dad's (Steve) truck you will see this sticker also, just a side note. Anyways, these are the pictures from last night. We had a blast.

Oh, we are so very, very boring!! I'm so sorry for you all that check this blog only to be disappointed. But Micah and I have just been up to a whole lot of nothing. I am now taking my second class in pursuit of my masters. It seems to be going pretty well. It does take up a bit of time though. I still am not subbing but I sure would like to be. I am hoping to start working come November. Micah has been getting back into the swing of things at work. It seems like even though he isn't flying very much they still manage to keep him very busy.

I'm trying to think of some fun stuff we have been up to lately but it has been kind of bland around here. We are going punting tonight in Cambridge. Punting is kind of like taking a gondola ride through Cambridge on the river. We are going with a bunch of people and in the spirit of Halloween it will be "haunted"...scary! I think since Cambridge has so much history we will probably just tour the place famous people have lived and died at but we will have to see.

We are still enjoying the motorcycle. I think it is about time to put it away for the year. We don't want to ride it in the rain and these days you just never know if you will see rain. So that is that. Punting tonight and hopefully trick-or-treaters tomorrow night!! Do you know that this will be the first Halloween since we have been married that we will be in our home, both of us in the same place, for Halloween!! Now don't get me wrong. I could care less about the day, but I do love to see all those cute kids dressed up!! So I think that will be the highlight of our weekend for me. Micah is on call this weekend anyways so we can't do all that much. Maybe if we have some super cute trick-or-treaters I will post some pics!

We're Back Folks!!

Well, we are finally back in England. It has been a long time, 5 weeks to be exact. But it is so good to be back together. I know that five weeks may seem like a long time, but we are just thankfull it wasn't 8 weeks:). Anyways, I left the house at 4:30 this morning to go pick Micah up from the airport. He was pretty tired and slept most of the day. When he finally decided to get up we had a lot of fun! We spent the evening carving pumpkins, making chili and watching football. Really, I don't think it could have been any more fun! Here are a few pictures of the pumpkins we carved.

This is the pumpkin I carved with our friends Danell and Michael earlier this week. It is looking a little sorry.

This is the pumpkin I carved tonight. The cat was supposed to have a longer tail, but let's just say there was an accident.

And here is Micah's awesome carving! Doesn't it look good?? I think it is great.

Now don't think we are super creative and crafty. We used some stencils from the store to do these. But we are super okay with that becuase even though we cheated a bit was had a great time!

We finally got the bike this weekend. I have been asking Micah to post some pictures but he doesn't like any of the pictures we take. He is always in a reflective vest because the AF requires to him to wear one while he rides. But I don't have to so here is a picture of me on the bike:).

Micah had the day off Monday so we made our way over to Dover. Micah had never seen the White Cliffs before or the castle so it was about time. We also have not seen much of England yet so a day trip of exploring was just what we needed. The weather cooperated and the sun shone on us. It was such a nice day.