Staying Connected...CARE PACKAGES!!!!!

I love making Care Packages for my husband, but I can't send something simple. Since I began scrapbooking I realized I could incorporate that into my husbands packages and send a little bit extra love. But my first piece of advice is not to spend too much on decorations, they most likely will just be thrown away. Find a simple way to dress up a package. Being a scrapbooker I tend to have most of these things already lying around my house. Specifically papers and washi tapes. I get inspiration and ideas from Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook pages were memebers share their personal packages and ideas. I recently started painting the outside of the boxes, something I haven't seen other people doing but that I know my spouse appreciates. He says he always knows when there's a package for him because of the wild paintings all over the sides. The top box was a movie themed care package. I'd sent him a season of True Blood and other movies so I wanted to make the box to look interesting and entertaining. See if he could guess the contents by what was on the outside. The bottom box was for our anniversary. I kept that a little more simple and included some personal gifts that I knew he'd love. You can't send much because of their lack of space but if you really try you can figure it out. 

 This was the first package I sent for the deployment. He loved it and said everyone thought the tentacles were "sick" and it raised my street cred on the ship. The theme of the package was Cats and I just decorated the inside with pictures of cats and funny little comparisons of how being a cat is a lot like being on deployment. He appreciated the humor and that was the point so this one was successful. 

 This was MY birthday care package. Since my husband had to miss out I decided to create my birthday in a box for him. With decorations, pictures of all our nieces as the guests. And I wrote "happy birthday to Kayla, Happy Birthday to me!!" And I filled it with things I love, my favorite candy, my favorite drinks. I also included stuff for him but this package was designed in order to really make him laugh and it did.There was a princess hat inside for him to wear and lots of treats for him to enjoy. All in all I think he really liked them.

CARE PACKAGE TIPS

1. Timing is important, it's the difference between a package taking 2 weeks to 2 months to reach your spouse. I time mine accordingly and have never had a problem. If you wait until you spouse leaves a port and then you send a package you ensure that package going directly to their next port instead of being bounced around as it tries to catch up to their current location. 

2. Don't send a ton of drinks, send Mio's and water flavorings. Sailors especailly have VERY LITTLE space. So when you send them a ton of full size drinks in a package they don't have the room to store them all and according to my spouse often they're forced to chug them quickly, give them away or toss them. By sending Mio's and water flavorings they get a ton of options and can store them easily. 

3. Send tape. I found some mini posters to send my husband in order for him to personalize his rack and I included tape because that's not really something they have. But you can send pictures, kids art, and all kinds of things but withtout tape they can't really do anything with it. I like Washi tape so I sent him some fun ones to make the decorating even better.

4.  Fill out the forms at home, it's easier and saves time if you just bring the customs forms home and have everything filled out and taped up before you get to the post office. It makes the whole experience much fast. 

5.  Use them as a count down, I love count downs. The more you have the better in my opinion. If your husband is deploying for six month send him six carepackages. When you put so much work into the decorating, buying items and writing little notes to include when you finally send one you realize quite a large amount of time has gone by. And then when they recieve it that's another positive thing to celebrate and chunk of time that has passed. It's something both of you can look forward to.

6. If you're like me you want to see your spouse open his package. So ask him to have a friend take a picture of him opening it on his phone. One that's great for scrapbooking later and two you get to see his reaction after opening it. Also ask your spouse to email you right after opening it to tell you what he liked, this seems obvious but it really isn't. In our first deployment I'd get one sentence saying "thanks for the care package" and frankly after all the time and effort it wasn't enough. But after I let him know, he completely understood and always writes me after getting something to tell me his reaction and his thoughts on what he got. I really cherish those emails. 

7. TIDE PODS, on a ship there's government detergent but my husband loves having Tide Pods to throw in with his clothes. They smell better, feel cleaner, and are just a tiny aspect of home that you can give them while they're underway.

8. Don't over think it. You know your spouse. You know what they like and don't like and just think of things to get them according to that. 

UPDATE: This is my most recent and probably favorite care package to date. It was very simple to make, just some scrapbook paper, washi tape and envelopes from Micheal's but a little extra work really can make a care package mean so much more to a sailor. 

This is a link to an awesome Facebook pages where woman and men share their ideas and I love being apart of it. It is a private group so you have to request permission to be apart of the page but I highly recommend joining it. You will learn and can share ideas with people from all over the world. 

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/creativecarepackages/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Dishes??? Oh, I Don't Do Those!

Cleaning gives you cancer! That's not an arbitrary statement. My Biology professor told me himself. According to him handling cleaning products has a direct correlation to cancer and therefore I shall no longer clean.

I'm being a pain, I'm actually a terrible housewife. That's not an exaggeration. It's really bad, I'm terribly lazy. And I hate touching dishes. We have a long term joke in our house thanks to me because of my lack of ability to wash a dish. I tend to make soup often, therefore we go through quite a few bowls and more times than once we've discovered a beautiful modern art installation piece in our sink, my husband liked to call it "every bowl in the house" because quite often every single bowl in the house is sitting in the sink dirty. And the moment I realize dishes need to be done, I refuse to make eye contact with my spouse and find something else to clean. He knows, it's not secret. And honestly he's really cool about it, I don't mind vacuuming, laundry, heck I'd honestly rather clean the bathroom everyday including the toilet (toilets doesn't bother me) but dishes; I just CAN'T...ugh it's awful. 

I feel bad though, I really am the worst and I need to improve my horrible domestic skills. I'm just thankful that I have a spouse that loves me despite my laziness. Because he's really patient and kind and understands me. I know I get on his nerves but I need to pick up my slack. And give him an easier time. He really does treat me like a princess and I need to be sure to make him feel more appreciated beyond just cooking dinner maybe take the extra step....you know...do that thing......with the food particles and dinnerware. It matters, we have lovely dishes and I should just take the extra effort to...um do that thing that I hate to do. Deployment is a huge time for reflection on your relationship and this really is a problem that is completely my fault and that I need to proactively fix. So Charles if you're reading this feel free to pull up this specific blog post after deployment and remind me that I need to be a better spouse and treat you better. Because you deserve it and it's the least I can do for everything that you do for me. You are my world and I'm honestly going to try harder to help out around the house. 

Any Day But Today,

Kayla 

GO OUT, HAVE FUN, It'll be okay

Don't be afraid to go out and have fun on deployment. Don't be afraid to talk to people, and drink and laugh just because your spouse isn't there. Trust me they won't be mad. And when they get liberty they're going to go out and have fun because life doesn't stop because they're deployed and neither should yours. It's easy to feel guilty that you are having fun and your husband isn't around. Maybe you know he's having a crappy day or that he's been underway for months and is stir crazy honestly you going out and having a good time might cheer them up. Getting to live vicariously through the pictures and videos that you send to them. Today I had an awesome time with a friend, one of my sisters and a couple of my nieces. We had a blast. I went to an art fair and got an adorable little piece that I didn't need but it's cute and I think my husband will like it since it reminded me of him. 

 (me with the artist holding my new Cat-o-pus)

Then I had dinner with my friend Lily and we went and got Strange Donuts with my sister and nieces because it is Saturday and that means ONE MORE WEEK down. Just saying it's a pretty exciting event. I took some pictures and even used my fancy scrapbooking camera and collected little doo-dads to scrapbook my awesome day later on so my husband and enjoy it for himself when he gets home. 

My nieces are way cuter than any of your kids!!

I know my husband misses me and all this awesome stuff but heck there's things he gets to do and experience that I just don't get to be apart of. He went to Jerusalem and the tomb where Jesus had risen and had his wedding ring blessed. He's been to Pompeii, Greece, Italy, and so many amazing places that most likely I'll never get to go and I'm happy for him. He deserves it, and I deserve to go out and have a good time with the people I love. Even if he can't be there. Deployment is hard, but don't make it harder on yourself but feeling guilty for having a good time. 

See a movie even though you know they want to see it too, go to a resturant that you know they like but you like too, don't stop living just because they're gone. What could be worse than wasting 6 months of your life waiting for someone to find out all the amazing things they did and experienced, all while you sat on the couch eating McDonald's watching Housewives. Get out, Go do something and have some fun, I promise. It won't hurt.

Any day but today,

Kayla

Fighting on Deployment

I've read a ton of websites and blogs and support pages where wives tell other wives not to fight with their spouse on deployment. They talk about their mind having to be in the right place and all that jazz, well I don't agree with that. I also don't agree with the "no bad news" in general rule because life doesn't stop when my husband deploys and I'm not going to cut him out of my life in order to save his feelings. My marriage is completely open and honest, we tell the truth. The cold, hard truth and often it's hard to hear but needs to be said. We fought today for instance. This weekend was emotionally difficult on us both. My spouse had been underway for the past 60 days so our contact had been extremely limited. When he learned he'd be pulling into a port soon our hopes soared to getting to see each other again through one or two Skype dates. It's all we could talk about, seeing each other and laughing and him getting to see all his nieces, we were both just so very excited. And then the weekend started, he couldn't find a decent WiFi connection and the frustrations grew from there. We spoke for a few minutes one morning and even though he thought he'd find WiFi again he hadn't and I spent the rest of the day at home waiting to talk to him, hence last nights post. Then today it was the same thing, we finally talked for about an hour but we never got to see each other or hear each other's voices and I think the frustration just built into this big ugly fight. He was frustrated with me, I was defensive and agitated. We are communicating through email and text and somethings are being lost in translation and we aren't seeing the other ones side or how they felt it was UGLY. When it was all over I think I cried my weight in tears and I know he felt awful but time limitations forced the conversation to end because despite it only being 2pm for me he needed to go to sleep. So I had the rest of my day to feel like crap. But I only let myself wallow for a couple hours. Then I wrote him a clear concise email of my thoughts, how I felt and what I meant. I know his reasons for being so upset with me were valid and I honestly understood that when I saw where he was coming from and he understood that they weren't intentional. But despite the day feeling ruined we fixed a deeper problem we were having. And by writing my email I was able to get out what I needed to say and know that after the fact my side was also heard. 

This is incredibly difficult but you can't have an effective marriage without amazing communication. That means telling your spouse you're upset. And going into great detail, you WILL hurt their feelings but you need to because yours were hurt and honestly if a spouse realizes they were unintentionally hurting the one they love that's upsetting but they needed to know. In order to grow a plant must be pruned, this pruning hurts but creates a more beautiful flower in the end. I hate fighting with my husband, I really hate it during a deployment because you never get that moment to hold each other when it's over. (and you don't get make up sex) but I know that when we communicate effectively and when we work through these problems, seeing the other persons side and understanding what they truly meant we grow and we build a stronger marriage. I don't think you can do that by hiding your feelings and pretending that they weren't there. I don't think bottling up anything and pushing it deep inside yourself will result well. What if what they're doing that bothers you just continues, you then have a major fight after deployment about something you'd been harboring for months and hiding from them. That would be much worse than working through it in a matter of hours. My husband woke up early to tell me he loved me and to see how I was feeling, he didn't go to bed angry and now I don't have to go to bed wondering where we stand. Is it the best way to work through fights in your marriage, NO but deployment doesn't offer much and this is just something you have to do. Communication is key, if you are open and honest with your spouse and they are open and honest with you, you'll find a silver lining to your deployment and that's a strength in your bond that you never knew was there. He'll return and you'll be an even stronger couple for having gone through all this apart and working through your problems through nothing but communication. 

Any Day But Today,

Kayla

Our marriage is stronger than anything a deployment can throw at us

Waiting for the call that doesn't come

Waiting all day for a Skype invite the never comes. It happens, and you can't really be mad at anyone. Today it happened to me. I know I was too excited, and put too much importance on it. So maybe I should blame myself for jinxing my own outcome but what am I supposed to do when I find out I might see my husband's face, hear his voice, his laugh after it had been over a month since I'd seen him. Am I supposed to just remain apathetic. He did Facebook me this morning telling my he was having a difficult time finding wifi so I can't blame him, he did try but it just kind of sucks. Now I'm sure he's in bed and feeling just as awful as I am and there was nothing we could have done.

This is one of those deployment things people just don't really tell you about. The fact that it is inevitable to get your hopes up and to be let down. They can't always Skype, the internet on the ship goes down and they can't always email and you are just stuck there, wondering when it will work again. When you will see them again, I did get a few pictures though. I really do have a pretty awesome husband. He was sure to take pictures the last couple of days and send them to me on Facebook so that even if I can't see his face I can have some pictures of him to keep and eventually to scrapbook. I'll talk about that more, but that's a BIG way I get through deployment. Without my scrapbooks I honestly think I'd lose my mind.  I have high hopes that I'll get to see my husband's face tomorrow but who knows,  I can't predict the future and I can only hope that he will find Wifi before his ship leaves again they're back to see. Oh well, that's just one more sucky part of being a Navy Wife, it's not all bad but days like this certainly aren't my favorite. Waiting by a phone or tablet, tied to Wifi. You can't leave or go anywhere because if they call while you were gone that's the worst feeling imaginable so instead you wait for that message that never comes. I can't wait until my husband is home and things go back to our version of normal.

all dolled up and no one to talk to

my hunky BM2 underway

Staying Connected (Annotated Books)

I know this will be written in parts because there is simply no way to cover all the ways to stay connected with your spouse in one blog post but I'll start with the one I've been working on all deployment. One that I know my husband loves and I enjoy myself. 

We are both avid readers, now often we don't read the same things. He loves fantasy fiction and I'm more of a classical fiction, American Literature kind of girl and I mix in some female based young adult fiction here and there. He also reads young adult fiction but mainly male protragonist series. We both read and enjoyed the Hunger Games but we both enjoy dysentopia novels so that's a genre we know we are going to love despite the sex of the main character, similar to the Giver. Which is coming out in theaters soon and I'm really looking forward to seeing when he come home. Despite all the rumors of things that they've changed. But because my husband reads so much on deployment I came up with the idea of annotating books that he might not necessarily pick for himself but that I thought he would enjoy to read first and fill with my own thoughts, comments and ideas and then give to him to read while we is gone. And he loves it, we read often together at home and share what it is we read and what we enjoyed so this is just my way of continuing that together. 

this is literally how we read in bed, side by side, books almost touching. Something about reading together is just so romantic to me. 

here's an example of one of my books filled with notes for my sailor to read underway, every few pages he can read my opinion, my insights and it's a way of sharing someting so special to our relationship still instead of just letting it be taken away. 

MY husband made a valiant effort to annotate some books for me but he ran into a few problems, he doesn't have as much time on his hands, he doesn't read as fast as I do, and he doesn't really like to annotate books. So for him it was quiet a challenge and I don't really have books filled with notes for myself but I've even solved that problem. My husband is a devote fan of the Orson Scott Card series Ender. And I decided that reading those books would bring my closer to him. We saw the movie Ender's Game when it came out and since then I'd wanted to read the book I just wanted to wait for deployment because I had a feeling it would make me feel closer to my husband. And it did, I even annotated that entire book so that I could include it in his care package and he could read my immediate reactions to what I though about his most favorite books. Now that he did for me on his first deployment. He read the Great Gastby and took notes, mostly silly but some incitful and thought provoking and it was such a terrific gift to have. This isn't something for everybody, obviously you and your husband must both be readers to begin with, but you can always find ways to stay connected to your spouse, so long as you put forth the effort you can figure something out. Because trust me once their gone, they're gone and there's nothing you can do about it. 

Social Media During a Deployment

There's a lot that goes into social media during a deployment. For starters you have to follow the rules of OPSEC. Essentially that  basically means not ever saying when or where when it relates to your spouse. Don't say they'll be home in X many months, don't say there currently docked in X port. When in doubt don't say it. Lol

But here are some more tips to using social media as a spouse while your husband is on deployment. 

1. Facebook is not your personal journal- we get it your miss your spouse, heck I wake up every single day and miss mine but you'll be damned if you see me post "poor me" my husband is gone statuses all the time, they tend to be attention seeking and the more you do it the less people care. That just kind of how it works, there are specific pages for military wives to find other wive to support each other through this time, but an arbitrary status about how you miss you husband for the eighth time today get's redundant.

2. When you have other military friends watch what you say- you are not the first person in the world to go through a deployment. It's rough, yes we all know but let's remember that some deployments are longer than others, some spouses have more contact with their SO's than others and when you over share you are throwing your life in someone else's face. I know spouses that get to Skype their husbands every day, where as I haven't heard my husbands voice in over a month so hearing them complain gets to be difficult. Or reading status's about how depressed a wife is that her husband is on an underway is rough when it's been 3 months since you've held your sailor in your arms and they saw theirs last week and he'll be home in a matter or days. A good rule, with most relationships is to just keep your business off the internet. It's okay to miss them but remember someone always has it worse than you and if you're really having a difficult time post to a private support page, otherwise it looks like you're just seeking attention. 

3. Support pages are for support- you'd be surprised the amount of people that post questions that could have easily be answered by google. It get's rather obnoxious when there are people that are really having problems but their post gets pushed down because someone wants anniversary present ideas. Now one, no one knows you or your spouse so how would they help you pick a gift but two that's something you can google or look up on Pinterest, I'll admit that's not my best example but join some of these pages and you'll see what I'm talking about right away. 

Facebook and Instagram can be a great way of keeping up to date with you SO, they can post pics in port and you can use these sites to share pictures and communicate, but just be responsible. The last thing you want is a deployment getting pushed back because you shared secret information and put the lives of all the sailors on the ship in danger because someone asked when or where he's coming home and you didn't think it would hurt to tell them over the internet. Like I said before, when in doubt, just don't. And if you really want to know you can always GOOGLE Opsec and you'll find tons of information. Happy Tweeting,

Kayla

Here are a few extra links to check out if you're still a little confused about the rules of OPSEC, please look at theses if you're unsure because this really is important. 

http://www.dodea.edu/offices/safety/opsec.cfm

http://spousebuzz.com/blog/2012/07/6-surprise-opsec-donts.html

This is a course to help you if you're still a little foggy about the rules. I think it's the easiest way to learn these guidelines and solidify them in your mind. 

http://cdsetrain.dtic.mil/opsec/

Counting Down Deployment

Here's a delicious chicken sweet and sour donut

This is the empanada stranger, I was obsessed with the beef! YUM

How can you say no to all this goodness!

Insomnia

Oh wow what's something they don't tell you about a deployment? For starters that you won't sleep. I'm sure some people might be able to but I find that without my husband quietly breathing beside me it's impossible for me to sleep. I miss the warmth beside me in the bed and in the first few weeks of deployment, especially, I find myself awake at 2 and 3am,finally falling asleep at 4am but waking up so tired at the most random times that I then spend most of my next day in bed. It's a vicious cycle. Sleeping in until 1 and 2 in the afternoon results in me not being to fall asleep at a normal time and being in bed all day creates this emotional slump that is hard to get out of, I don't like to throw around clinical terms like depression because that's a serious emotional and psychological disease that sufferers have no control over where as me missing my husband and sleeping more than usual is something I can proactively rectify without needing to seek professional help. People say it's about staying busy and it is, for more than one reason, you stay busy to make the days go by quickly but people that have been through the insomnia of deployment know that sleeping all day works to make days pass it's just not healthy, but you should also stay busy because it will exhaust you. And you want to be tired, when it's 9pm you want to feel tired and be ready for bed. I'm the kind of person that can't read in bed to fall asleep because it'll be 4am before I know it and I'm just as wired as if I would have been watching a movie or playing on my tablet. For me I have to just lay in bed, quiet and still until I fall asleep. I know that sounds boring but it's worth it for a normal sleep schedule. Going to school also helps my sleep schedule because I have a mandatory schedule. A place I have to be and a time I have to be there. I love that, because my body responds well to schedules. I have an internal clock that knows when to sleep and wake up and stick to that and I love it. Having class, homework and people to intelligently converse with and learn with makes me happy. Deployment sucks, it really does and missing out on sleep is rough. But it gets better, you just have to force yourself through it. My husband was really supportive when my sleep was at it's worst. He'd tell me that if I was still awake at 4 to stay awake the whole next day so that by 9pm the next day I would be so exhausted I wouldn't have to worry about falling asleep. It was hard but if you are having trouble that does help and I'm so grateful for his advice because on the ship he was having problems sleeping also. So he had sound advice to give. Deployment is rough and there are things you just won't know about until you are going through it. I will try and share as much as I can, and be as open and honest as possible because that's what people need. No one needs the sugar coated, you'll be fine, it'll be over fast crap because you won't always be fine and if you really love your husband it definitely won't be over "fast" but just stick with it. And try to get good sleep.

Any Day But Today,

Kayla C. 

Capstone

I'm taking a course to finish up my associates degree and it's called a capstone. Essentially the purpose of this course is to show what I've learned through my general education at the community college that I'm currently going to. The assignment for this entire class is a project. And that's basically it. Most people, including myself were confused by the excessively vague directions. There is no rubric, no common goal other than to show what we've learned through out our college careers and use those skills to develop and entire project. At first I was completely lost, how on Earth am I ever going to pick a topic when the possibilities are endless. But I talked to my mom, she understands the way that I think and when I told her about the assignment she knew I was completely lost with such a broad range of potential but she came up with an awesome idea. "Surviving Deployment." This isn't my first deployment and it probably won't be my last but each has it's own difficulties, it's own struggles and set backs. And I immediately began coming up with ideas. I knew what I could do, the options and where I could take this assignment was really fascinating and I was excited. I would write a blog. I'd already had a few written from when I'd originally gotten my tablet and downloaded the Blogger app but I was too intimidated to post any of them. Hence why some of them are from back in February or March but have Updates that I've written. They aren't much, the grammar is lacking and since the Blogger app doesn't really show spelling mistakes that's definitely apparent throughout the earlier posts but instead from now on I'm going to type them in pages and then paste them into Blogger and add pictures and or videos from there. This is exciting for me, and I don't plan on stopping just because my course ends. I have a lot to say and sometimes decent advice, especially for those going through their very first deployment. This is my second and although I face many of the same challenges I can see the light at the end of the rainbow more clearly and I know more about what to expect and how to handle certain situations. No one is perfect though, especially not me. I'm hard headed, I don't make friends very well, I talk A LOT (too much for some peoples liking) and I'm very opinionated. But if you'd like honestly, someone that won't sugar coat this, someone that won't tell you that it's easy and you'll get through it and be strong every day and that they'll "be home before you know it" then I encourage you to read this, write comments, ask questions because honestly most of those military support pages won't tell you the truth, they'll feed you best wishes and a whole bunch of opinions but they don't want you to know that crying yourself to sleep in a bed alone, clutching their pillow after 2 months wishing something in your house still smelled like them is normal and to expect it. They won't tell you that you have to put your big girl panties on and get out of the house the FIRST day in order to keep yourself from falling into a depression and staying in bed eating butterfingers and drinking Dr. Pepper all day while watching marathons of Netflix shows, mine was Grey's Anatomy. It's okay, but it's easy to go from okay to not answering your phone and not coming out of your room. Essentially refusing to face the world. But one thing I remind myself in the worst of times is that deployments always end. No matter what it will end, your SO will come home and you can return to your strange lives together. I won't say "life as normal" because heck what's normal anyways, well I look forward to this project and hopefully learning more about myself in the process. 

Any Day But Today,

Kayla

Packing Sucks

It starts, boxing up my books, taking apart furniture, removing paintings for the wall. I hate this part. I hate taking apart my home and turning it back into a blank slate. It's so depressing, the more we pack away the closer we get to living apart. The closer I get to living in a tiny ass bedroom and Dylan gets to living in a small bunk with little more than books and some letters that I'd written him to his name. Depressing, just plain depressing. We are into this new show, Game of Thrones. Dylans been reading the books so we decided to go ahead and get the DVDs so I could appreciate it too. We also ended up getting an Xbox ONE since the 360 died recently. It sucks, we didn't really want to but after the trade-in it really wasn't that bad.  

But here we are, selling off furniture for cheap so we don't have to hold onto it anymore and we can start fresh with new things. It's not too bad, we do this every move. Start fresh and build a new home and this time we will get to pick everything out of a store instead of off websites and having to pick up and haul it ourselves. I hate moving shit. I definitely don't want to live on the third floor of a building anymore cause that shit just blows. Goodbye my beautiful red couch, goodbye my sturdy wood table. 

**UPDATE**

The furniture is mostly gone, looking around I see boxes stacked ceiling high. It's so depressing, It's impossible for the house not to look dirty and it's driving Dylan insane. I think I'm eating my saddness, that's a first usually I starve myself but this time I notice the amount of snacks and sweets I eat to feel better. It's not good and I know that but what else should I do. When I cry it upsets Dylan because he wants me to be stronger but how can someone be strong living like this, their entire life in boxes and nothing they can do about it. The count down to being apart from the person that you love most almost at it's end and there's nothing you can do about that either, you just have to sit and wait. That's all you can do, a lot of sitting and a lot of waiting. I guess I could try to be more active but how, we have to save money to move back to STL and then keeping ourselves busy the entire month that we'll have together their. Ugh I don't know what else to say, this just sucks, netflix and the recliner that's all I have right now. My books are gone, and the only thing to do is fold laundry over and over again. It's the never ending story.

I've got Blisters on my Blisters

Wow what a weekend. Dylan and I truly went H.A.M. The military comes with a bunch of benefits, and when you live in Florida you can partake in those benefits more readily. For starters, we drove down to Legoland from Jacksonville, about a 3 hour drive but well worth it. Dylan go in for free simply by showing his military ID at the front desk and I had purchased a discount ticket in advance from ITT on the Mayport Naval Base, well worth it too since I got my ticket at nearly half price. The park was awesome, EVERYTHING is AWESOME! We rode a few roller coasters, Dylan tends to hate coasters but since these were small it wasn't much of a problem getting him to ride them with me. We saw a water show which was really neat and the displays everywhere of legos were just awesome in general. The master builders there truly have talent. Dylan wants to start building awesome lego displays now that he saw how cool their displays were and what it's possible to actually build. It's amazing, I want to design and build a lego book. I think that'd be the coolest thing, they had one at Legoland and I was amazed by it. 

After 3-4 ours we had enough fun and headed out from Kissimee, Florida over to Tampa, Florida for a nights stay and then another eventful day spent at Busch Gardens. Well the hotel was AWFUL. I mean terrible. I would never suggest it to my worst enemy. The TVs were from the 90's the cable was out in the room we were staying in so we went to the front desk to switch rooms, and by front desk I mean Chinese Reasturant attached to a side room they used at the front desk for this place, mind you this was a NAME BRAND hotel, not some random shack, or so I thought. Well they switched our room and the nest one was almost worse. The tub wouldn't drain after I took a bath, and during my husbands shower that morning we were greeted by another guest, the resident roach also staying in our room. It was disgusting but we were too excited about Busch Gardens to let it bother us, well I was excited Dylan was kind of scared. The roller coasters at Busch Gardens are rather epic. We got to the park 15 minutes before it opened so we could park, get tickets and get to the gate right when they opened. I was so excited, we had no clue what sort of day was in store for us. We first went to Walkabout Way where we found an animal encounter where we were given the opportunity to feed kangaroos, and well, who could possibly turn down and opportunity like that. Next we walked around from place to place looking at sights, like baby animals, riding the train through the safari and just getting a feel of the place. We picked a coaster we thought wouldn't be too intense, well let's just say that wasn't true. After waiting in a line for 30 minutes we boarded the Cheetah Hunt and were blasted across a track for 3 minutes, twisting, turning, going upside-down and plummeting steep hills. I had a blast, I must admit there were scary points but over all I was glad I did it, Dylan on the other hand, not so much. He was terrified and had no desire to ride anything more that day. Well excide the Fly Over gondelas. Which of course I wasn't excited about. Rollercoasters are scary, but they only last a few moments, gondelas however take forever. I'm just hanging there on a wire high above the ground. But I'm glad we did it, we saw elephants in a new upclose way and I loved it. And it was really beautiful but that was it for rides. After all that we were ready to eat, especially since we skipped breakfast to get there early. Dylan found this AMAZING BBQ place that served the most amazing brisket sandwich of my life. I can't tell you how delicious this all was. We walked around a little more but were pretty exhausted we'd been there about 4 hours when we decided it would be a good time to start the drive home. And to end the trip our GPS wound up taking us the scenic route. It was beautiful, seeing the Florida countyside. There were moo-cows and little baby moo-cows. Horses and ponies, little mom and pop shops and fresh fruit and vegetables being sold on the side of the road and Dylan and I just talked for hours, sharing laughs and truly enjoying each other's company. Our weekend was marvelous and with Dylan deploying so soon it was much needed.

Making Friends

There's two ways of making friends as a Navy Wife, you have the option of just kind of being acquaintances with many people you meet or you can find one maybe two people that you actually make a connection with and be real besties. I of course chose the second, not that I don't have a few friends on the ship but I have two really awesome friends that I prefer to spend all my time with. Having dinners, just hanging out with each other and doing everything with each other the best way. Ally is my literary soul mate, we can spend hours in the best bookstore in Jacksonville, finding the most amazing books and just enjoying every last moment with them. Then there's Maddie, ugh what can I say, when you have someone like her that's there for you no matter what. Someone that you can always depend on, it's just the craziest feeling in the world. I can't believe how lucky I am to have friends as good as them. 

There are some crazies out there, some friendships that I've made that weren't really worth my time and things that happen that then change us but in the end there two girls have been real. I can't believe how much they accept me, I've crazy, a loud mouthed know-it-all and I tend to be overbearing but they don't care. We can hang out and do anything. From scrapbooking to board games. We can go shopping or just hang out at the beach. The best are the adventure though, driving around Jacksonville looking for new fun things to do together. It's not always easy being an Navy Wife but having friends like this make it a whole lot better. 

I Made Plans

Well today I realised I broke a tried and true rule, Don't Make Plans. My husbands schedule has been the same all month and his duty rotation was decent enough that every few weeks he'd have one duty free. We decided that on the next duty free weekend we were going to take a day trip down to Legoland and then swing over to Busch Gardens on the next day to take advantage of the free tickets they offer to military families. Well we booked the hotel room and even made plans for this Saturday to go to a Mardi Gras pub crawl. Turns out this morning the duty sections changed. Now my husband has duty Saturday so our pub crawl tickets are useless and he'll have duty next Friday which was when we were supposed to leave for Legoland. I'm dissappointed but this is just one of those negative aspects to the Navy, you simply can not make plans that you can't change. Luckily we booked a refunable night at this hotel so we can cancel and get our money back, and I'm not too distraught aboutt the Mardi Gras tickets, it sucks don't get me wrong, but I'm far more dissappointed in the Legoland plans. Hopefully my husband will come home with better news, since this is just wife here-say and I'm sure he'll try to switch his duty day or do anything else he can to get out of this so we can still go on our mini vacation, even if we just have to move it back a little bit. 

Ugh somtimes the Navy really urks me, doing things with little to no consideratio for dependents and family, I know this is the military but when you are in port you could at least consider things like that. I'm sure if the CO had duty days and his wife had something planned he wouldn't change the duty rotation until after his wifes plans, well maybe if something isn't broke you just shouldn't fix it. One more day in a duty rotation is a retarded change, it's one thing to go from 5 days to 10 or 6 days to 3. But 5 days to 6, that's just dumb. You didn't really change that much and you aren't really helping anyone out, everyone that has a family that's been making plans and finding fun things to do around town before they change commands, move across country and start new lives somewhere else are all know thrown out of wack because who knows when you'll decide to change things again. I know this is a bitchy post, I don't really care though. This crap happens a lot. And I accept it but I also have the right to complain, and you have the right to read or not read my complaints. That's up to you but for now I've got the keyboard so I have the say LOL. It's not all bad, I have a really cool husband whom I'm sure will come in the door with a plan, Mardi Gras will certainly be off but he'll know what to do about the rest of the stuff. And then he'll make it all better as soon as he wraps those big hunky arms around me. 

UPDATE: Well he came home, the big lug, with the saddest look on his face. He wasn't able to change anything and the person that set it up was just trying to do something nice; he fucked it up, but he was just trying to do something nice so it's hard to stay mad. So we just moved somethings around  and we can still go to Legoland but we had to just scrap the bar crawl. I'm okay with that but well he's a sailor and he's being told he can't go on a bar crawl that he already paid for so that's kind of a sore subject. But all in all lesson learned. We were able to rebook the hotel and the silver lining is after that weekend he won't have anymore weekend duty days in that section. So there's something good.