Saturday, May 1, 2010

Tulip Festival - Part Two

Here's some of the tulips and there official names.
You can visit the Tulip Festival's website if you would like to learn more!

Orange Juice

Freeman
(these looked almost like Peonies)



Keizerskroom


These ones were a "trial variety" and didn't have a name yet...


Graffiti


Ninjas!

I just realized...I'm going to need a part three or this blog entry is going to go on for days!  I might throw something different into the mix next...Before I finish up the flowers!

I wanted to also mention that I spoke with my husband and he's been feeling much better, and he was in great spirits.  I could definitely tell he has gotten his rest in!

And...I am absolutely ecstatic...it's MAY!!!!!!! We are getting so close.

Enjoy your weekend...I'm working the craziness today...Mother's Day is coming and people gotta get their jewelry!



Friday, April 30, 2010

Friday Follow & Blog Hop

Thanks to Riding the Roller Coaster for the
Blog Hop
idea!

My name is Marissa,
my husband's name is Jesse,
and he is an Infantryman in the
United States Army.
We have two fur children,
Stryker and
Spuz.

We are stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington
(also known as JBLM - Joint Base Lewis McChord).

Also, if you are new to following me, drop me a line...And I will follow you.

Tomorrow I will do The Tulip Festival - Part Two.

See you tomorrow!

Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Tulip Festival - Part One

Here is the first of a few things we did on leave...Starting with the Tulip Festival.

Here is:

Jesse eating an elephant ear at the street festival...


Rows and rows of tulips, these ones were purple and white.


Red ones....

Me










Jesse - Who was pretty ticked in this photo, I'm not going to lie.
That and I believe his words were "I'm not taking a flower picture."
But....I'm spoiled, so....


and.... Pink ones.


I realized that I have too many pictures, so I'll have to do a part two.

So again today I am avoiding my house.  I can't manage to look around my house at everything still, so much so that I feel that it's suffocating me.  I have loads of laundry, vacuuming, dishes, and dusting to do.  I'm sure I will get sick of everything eventually and clean.  I start working again tomorrow, Stryker will be going to doggie daycare, and I will be attending an FRG meeting tomorrow evening.

Hopefully all of the distractions will be good for me...Even though I am not looking forward to anything at the moment.

I will try to post more soon....Have a great weekend!

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Sigh.

So my husband is on a plane somewhere.  Lord only knows where.

It's really interesting because I'm experiencing a lot of anxiety that I felt before he even left for his deployment.  I really felt it last week, on our last day of our mini-vaca in Leavenworth (side note, this is a city in Washington that is a Bavarian town.  Just in case you were wondering).  Anyway, I woke up in the middle of the night, not feeling good and feeling a wave of anxiety about him leaving again.  Then I realized I couldn't breathe -- something that I felt often in the beginning weeks of deployment.  I realize at this point that I definitely could be on the verge of having a panic attack and start to calm myself down.  I go into the bathroom, shutting the door to block the light from filling the room with my sleeping husband, and get a drink of water at the sink.  As I turn around, there is a large wolf spider hanging from the vent in the B&B we were staying at.  HOLY CRAP.  Seriously, I almost screamed.

Getting back on track....I realized at that time that the next few days were going to be rough.  It's a really strange feeling because I'm one of those people who try to be positive but keep realistic.  It's really hard to try and enjoy those last few days when you know the inevitable is coming.  It's painful.  I was happy, sad, anxious, nervous, scared, and sick...  Making my entire body feel....  Pained.  I know it sounds strange, but hurts.

Having him leave once was hard.  Having him leave a second time was hard...  Even though I have to say it wasn't harder. I don't want to do this again, any of it, which is a total joke in the fact my husband wants to retire doing this.  There isn't and end of the wars on the horizon.  This is going to be a long journey.

I have also mentioned it before, but Jesse has a new address.  You can probably draw the conclusion that he is going back to a new location.  I am going to be honest, he had been in a "safe" area before (as much as I believe "safe" and words like "Iraq" and "Afghanistan" shouldn't be used in the same sentence) and now he is going to be in a little more of a dangerous area.  Communication is going to be sparse.  Likely much more so than it had been before.

An upside on it all though, we only have a few more months left.  It could be much worse.  We could be doing six more months.  But yet I have a very hard time being at home and looking at the pillow he slept on, the half drank bottle of water he left behind, and the laundry that still has his lingering scent.  I don't know if I am going to be able to get past that yet.

So in the coming blogs I am going to be concentrating on sharing with you the photos and stories from our time together.  I am also going to attempt to keep more optimistic, but we'll see how that goes.  I don't feel like that now.

I go back to work on friday, and I have a feeling that before long we're going to have a change up in that department.  That's all I really want to say about that though -- for now.

More to come.....later.  Have a great rest of the week!

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Address

I want to let everyone know that Jesse has a new mailing address oversesas.  Please e-mail me if you did not get the e-mail I sent out earlier concerning this information.

He also has a cut off date for mail, and if you don't have that information I can also let you know that.

As for some happy stuff....


pink!
♥

Have a great week,

Saturday, April 24, 2010

My First Blog Award!

Sorry this took so long...

A while ago I was awarded my first blog award, The Sunshine Award, and by two people on the same day!  Kristen at Requires Heavy Lifting and Laura at Diamonds and Dogtags both gave me the award.  The rules of this award are:


  1. To put the logo on your blog or within your post.
  2. Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.
  3. Let the nominees know they have received the award by commenting on their blog.
  4. Share the love and link the person who gave you the award.
I'm trying my best to mix it up a little...So many of the blogs I follow have gotten this award!  So I'm trying to show love to those who haven't gotten it quite yet.  The 12 bloggers I choose are:

  1. Katie at The Provenchers Adventures.
  2. Chantal at Chantal's Blog.
  3. Heather at Becoming.
  4. Kelly at Meet the Robinsons.
  5. Amber at An Army Wife's Thoughts.
  6. Valeria at Food & Stuff.
  7. Nikki at A Day in the Life.
  8. Sarah at Little Miss Collegiate.
  9. Kellee at You+Me=Wii.
  10. Katie at The Life of an Army Wife.
  11. Beth at An Expeditionary Family.
  12. Tiffinie at My Domestic Niche.
I love reading all of your blogs....Including all the ones I didn't mention :)

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Isn't He Handsome?

You thought I was talking about my husband,
weren't you?

As much as I do love my husband to death, I also love my crazy cute doggie, Stryker.

I don't know how anyone can get through a deployment without an adorable dog to keep them company!

Monday, April 19, 2010

Just A Taste....

Of what we've been up to...

The Tulip Festival
Mount Vernon, WA
2010


Labeling

100 Day Photo Challenge 30 Days 30 Days of Thankfulness 5K AMERICA Anniversaries April 2010 Photos Around the Skagit Atlanta Baking BBQin' Birthday Celebrations Black Friday Blog Awards Blog Hop BMW's Breakfast Food Breast Cancer Awareness Care Package Stuff Christmas Christmas Cards for Our Soldiers Color of the Day Cookies Courtesy of the Red White and Blue Crazy Internet Stuff Cupcakes December 2009 Photos December 2010 Dinner Recipes DIY Do the Puyallup Easter Eastern Washington Fall Family Stuff Fishing For the Love of Animals FRG Friday Fill In Friday Follow Friends Ft. Benning Ft. Lewis Georgia Getting Crafty Getting to Know Me Good Reads Halloween Happy New Year Hawaii Healthy Food Heartbreaking Homecomings House in Washington I love Starbucks Independence Day Instagram January 2011 Jesse Jesse Updates Jesse's Army Marriage Retreat May 2010 Photos Military Spouse Awesomeness Military Spouse Round-Up Misc. Food Info Moving Right Along My Job My Parent's House Navy Stuff New House News Stories of Note Nostalgia November 2009 Photos November 2010 Ocean Shores October 2010 Oktoberfest Orange Other FRG's Photo a Day May 2012 Photo Booth Photogenic Photos from February 2010 Photos from October 2009 Photos of January 2010 Pity Parties Pool Time Post-it Note Tuesday Quote of the Day Road Trippin' Run to Remember Seahawks Seattle shelter dogs Shopping Southwestern Washington Coast Spring Spuz the Cat St. Patrick's Day Stryker the Dog Superbowl Thank a Veteran Thanksgiving The 365 Project of 2011 Thursday Five Us Time Valentine's Day Veteran's Day Visit these LInks What I'm doing these 9 months Why I LOVE the Pacific NW Wine Wednesday Winter Wordless Wednesday Yakima Wine Country