I've been a stranger

I should apologize to all of you who have, in the last 2 months, come here to check for ... well anything...a blog...update...anything. I haven’t been doing to well with that lately. I guess you could say that I have been distracted or busy oror most likely just plain lazy.
The truth is that there has been many times that I have sat staring at the screne waiting for that something...anything to appear. There just hasn’t been a time when I felt my thoughts were worth your time to read. On the other hand I can think of many times I would have given anything to express my thoughts, but somehow was found with out the tools to jot it down. Don’t you hate it when that happens? I also have a bad memory, so when it comes time that I am at home again with the computer at hand I always forget what it was I wanted to say.

Sometimes I think that wondering whether or not you as readers are actually enjoying what I am writing distracts me from why I started a blog in the first place. Which was just to write about anything and about myself. I hope that I can always be truthful and honest with you and with myself in my blogs. And with that said I think I will be writing alot more, about even the things I thought you may not be interested in. Who knows? Maybe you’ll even get to know me better.

Settling in...

This is Port Angeles, and on the end of that "spit" is where the Coast gaurd station is that Joel works now.

This is a closer look at what it has to offer...



I have been meaning to do this for a long time now, and don't know why I have been putting it off...and then the move came, and so...Update

Joel and I are doing well. I'm not sure if you guys have been keeping track but our first year Anniversary is coming up on the 5th of Febuary. Ahh!!! Crazy huh!? I can't believe how fast the time goes sometimes. And also Jan 1st is the anniversary of our official courtship/dating too. So we are going on three years of seeing eachother now. Where does the time go.
But I guess I should talk about how our year has been. Lord knows that we have been repeatedly blessed throughout this year. It has been a wonderful, growing, changing, loving time in both our lives.
I can't even begin to tell you what life brings to you in your first year of marriage. I mean life brings you new things every year regardless, but I have never learned so much about myself than I have in the past year. It is all scary and wonderful at the same time. Joel always tellss me how being married has brought him closer to understanding the great love of God, and I know he is right.
For the past 10 months Joel and I have been From over stressed, to over joyed, to overwhelmed and back again, with this whole Coast Guard life. Having things never be clear, never knowing exactly what we are doing where we are going, and when it is all going to happen is a world we both have had to get used to. It can be really hard, but God has shown and proven himself to be watching over us again and again. This life we are living can make it hard to trust Him, and we have both struggled along the way, but at the same time it is impossible not to.
Personally it has been hard for me because of the constant uncertainty of it all. I have always been able to map my life around something that I know is for sure. And in this case there is no for sure, and so I am unable to map anything...and in which case I have mapped almost nothing for myself in this last year except to be with my husband, and to try and get this immigrations situation worked out, which has been a complete disaster from day one. I have to be honest and say that the moving around, and further from all of you has got me into a bit of a loneliness slum the past few weeks. I realize that until I am able to stay in one spot for a longer period than the Coast Guard has allowed me so far, it is extremely hard to make friends. I also reealize how much I desire to have people such as yourselves around me. I feel I am in dyer need of finding someone here that I my form (even to a small degree) a spiritual acountability/sisterhood with. Trusting in God with everything else, and seeing the results has brought me some incouragment on this as well. However I feel I need prayer on not letting myself get to discouraged, and to push myself to make friends where ever I can and not to just wait around for them to come to my doorstep, which is what I fear I do a lot of.

Aside from that and terribly missing my family I am perfectly happy. My husband is such a wonderful man, who loves me way more than I deserve and makes me feel gorgeous everyday. And I of course love him more than words can express, and I am so thankful that we have each other. Although I have been missing the closeness of your friendships, I have to also say that Joel has become my ultimate best friend in the world, from which I can hide nothing from and trust everything with.

Oh yes, and Port Angeles is beautiful. I love living among the mountains. They are incredible. It is so quaint and small townish here, it so reminds me of living in Huntsville. What great memories I am reminded of. I think I'll like it here...

Reconnected...

It has finally come!! We have gotten our internet back and running and are able to fill in all you guys on our very different but lovely Holidays this year.
As you know Joel and I have been moving to Port Angeles, WA over the Chrismas Holidays. Well we have officially settled in to our new beautiful apartment and actually have been since Christmas Eve. Thats right! We were able to spent Christams not in a hotel but in our very quaint Appartment that had a tre up and decorated just in time. It ended up being a very relaxing day that was shared with just eachother. I have to say that we both missed our families very much and spent all day calling them and talking to them an speaker phone...but there is something wonderful and lovely about spending Christmas just with eachother for the very first time thinking only about how lucky we are to be together at all for the Holiday. (since Joel was supposed to be leaving in the Coast Gaurd boat). So it was great, and we are still celabrating giving and recieving since we are just now recieving our christmas gifts through the mail from our families.
As ffor the new year, it was pretty much the same, except we added a Summit 8 tradition of turning up our music and having a little dance party to our selves, which I have to say was halarious and to much fun.

Well I just wanted to let you all know how we are doing and fill you in on why I havent been writing much lately. Well. I plan to do better in that department. Turns out I still have a lot of time to write, so Thats what I plan on doing more of. Joel is absolutely loving his new job and position in the Coast Gaurd. He is a little worried about the physical and mental level of strength needed to complete his trianing to become a rescue swimmer, but I'm confident he will make it through okay. I will tell you more as it comes, but for now this was just a short update.

p.s. Joel and I realized over the holidays how lucky we are to have the family anf friends we have and how very much we miss them. I hope you all now how much we love and miss you. We hope you had a wonderful holidays.