Life After Deployment

A little over a month ago, My Love come home after an almost 8 month deployment. It has been one of the greatest months of my life.

Homecoming day was so much fun! It was pretty awesome to be a small part of history, watching the USS Enterprise come home for the last time.  I got to base super early, around 6 AM, just so I could get a parking spot. There were thousands and thousands of people there, it was a good thing I got there early.  I waited in the freezing cold, and sometimes rain, but it was all worth it to see that first glimpse of the Enterprise's super structure coming around the corner into port. Most people say I'm crazy, but I love being at the Pier on homecoming days.  I love watching the reunions of the sailor's and their families, the first time dads walking of the Pier holding their little newborn baby's.  And the greatest part, finally being reunited with my love as well! It may have been one of my most favorite days ever!

Later that week, we went home, first making a stop at the Pilot Knob Bed and Breakfast.  We stayed in the cabin that we stayed in on our wedding night.  We spent 2 wonderful days, just us, the first driving to NC, talking the whole time, catching up on 8 months of being apart and the 2nd was spent as a whole date day, walking around in the woods around the cabins, spending time at The Living Room on main street Pilot Mtn and going out to eat that night.  It was the most perfect day. It was wonderful to be back with my love. 

Since we got home from leave, life has slowly adjusted back to "normal". We've both gone back to work, although I'm working less, so I can spend every minute possible with Isaac when he's  home. Duty days have started back, which are not as bad as I remember.  After Isaac being away for 8 months, one night away every few days is nothing. We've gotten to spend time at church together, worshipping our Saviour together, we've gotten to go to care group together, I'm so thankful for how our whole care group has opened their arms to Isaac.

In a few weeks, we will go on leave again, this time to Colorado to see Isaac's family and friends. It's been almost a year since we've seen everyone and we're both incredibly excited!

Here's a few pictures from our first few days home.

This is one of my favorite places. I hope we get to visit often, it's such a great reminder of where we started.

The mountain was on fire just a little at this point.  We woke up and all everyone could talk about was the fire. It got worse, but you can see a little of the smoke behind the mountain.

I'm so glad we got home in time to see some of the pretty fall leaves!

We got to watch the helicopter fill up the water buckets to take back to the fire.  These pictures were courtesy of Isaac, he was so excited that we got to watch this.

Lucy in the Sky's First Birthday

A few weeks ago, Isaac and I got to help celebrate this cute little girl's first birthday.  She quite possibly may be one of the cutest little girl's I've ever seen! We had so much fun at the Beatle's themed party and it was wonderful to get to catch up with some of my favorite people. Here's a few pictures from that fun day :)

This may have been the longest she ever kept that headband on, cause most of the time she was having fun taking it off

Lucy enjoyed her first tricycle ride

Grandma got to join in on the festivities

Lily had fun with her favorite person!

I think Brenna was excited about cake time

Juan really rocked the puff head band :)

unPlanned:True Story of a former Planned Parenthood Director

I don't usually do book reviews or anything other than share about our life here in Va Beach, but as my passion for unborn life and seeing the genocide of abortion stopped increases, that may change some. 

Many of you know, I volunteer at the Keim Center in Virginia Beach, one of the crisis pregnancy centers here in Tidewater.  Before I began volunteering, I knew abortion was wrong.  I knew it was a horrible thing, I knew it should be illegal, but I didn't know how to talk about it, I didn't know facts about it or any specifics other than a baby was killed in the process.  Since I've learned about it, since I've taken classes, since I've learned how to counsel women, pray for women, and love women through the decision of whether to abort or choose life, my understanding of this war is much greater and my desire to see victory in this war is much greater.

When I look at abortion facts, the thousands and thousands of abortions performed every year, and the greatest reason for abortion being that having a baby would dramatically change their lives (74% in 2004 taken from the guttmacher website), definitely not rape or incest(1.5% taken from the same website) it saddens my heart to see that we as a culture are so blind when companies like Planned Parenthood say things like their goal is to make abortion safe and rare and that they really exist to help women and to love women. 

This book, Unplanned is a book that both pro-life and pro-choice people should read.  It's the memoir of a woman, Abby Johnson, who was the Director of Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas. Johnson was deceived, like many Americans, into thinking that Planned Parenthood existed to help women have safe and affordable health care, and to make abortion a rare thing in this country.  In this book, she recounts her journey to learning the truth about the company that she gave 8 years of her life to.  She starts off with the event that God used to show her the truth, assisting with an ultrasound guided abortion.  For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a procedure that is "suppose" to make abortion safer and have less complications.  Most abortion facilities do not use this method as it is very costly to do any ultrasound.  She describes in great detail what she sees on the ultrasound screen as the suction cannula moves towards the baby.  The baby jerks and trys to get away.  She describes what it looks like to see every piece of the baby sucked away into a tube and she describes how her eyes were open for the first time that day. 

Later on in the book, she describes how her eyes were open to the fact that the only thing Planned Parenthood was really concerned about was the bottom line. As there numbers creeped more and more toward the red, their goal became one thing: to increase their money maker procedure.  The only true revenue Planned Parenthood has is in abortions. Maybe when the company started out, their goal was for good, for women to have affordable health care, but that is not the case today.  Not when every day of the week except Sunday, a woman can get an abortion for any reason, even the reason being that the couple doesn't want a girl.  Their purpose is not to make abortion rare, not when the Planned Parenthood in Va Beach just built a 13000 sq ft building with 2 surgical suites in hopes that one day they can do late-term abortions.  They don't care about women when they are not adequately counselling them on the procedure that is about to change their lives.  So many women come to us having no clue as to what has happened to their bodies during the previous abortions they have had. Planned Parenthood is not for the good of women, and keeping abortion on demand is not for the good of women.

I know there are many differing opinions on this subject.  From it should be illegal, to only for rape/incest/life of the mother, only 1st trimester to any woman should be able to have an abortion from week one to week 40.  But listen to me, don't discount this book just because you are pro-choice.  Remember that part of being pro-choice is that 2 of the choices women have are to parent and to adopt.  I highly recommend this book no matter where you fall on the spectrum, if for no other reason, than just to learn a little more about Planned Parenthood and what they stand for. 

Over the next few months, I'm going to try and do a series of posts on abortion among my normal posts. Again, if you are pro-choice, I invite you to read and share your opinion if you feel so inclined, but don't discount this as just another pro-life rant. Read with an open opinion before judging what I write, that's all I ask.

 

Anniversary Trip to Italy

After 220 days, roughly 7 months and some change away from my husband, God blessed us with being able to meet in Sorrento, Italy a day after our one year anniversary.  The whole trip was such a wonderful adventure and I'm so thankful most of that adventure was experienced with my Love.  After about 24hrs of travel, running through London Heathrow Airport to catch my plane and Roma Termini to catch my train, not seeing Isaac in Naples and figuring out through a language barrier how to get myself to Sorrento, I finally arrive to my hotel where the staff were quite possibly the most kind hotel staff I have ever dealt with.  About 8 hrs later around 3AM, I recieved a call(I was dead asleep after almost 2 days with no sleep) and it was Isaac asking me to let him in.  I had not expected him till late that morning so it was the greatest surprise ever!! I was able to see Isaac for the first time, I can't even explain how happy my heart was to have him back with me, even if just for a few days. 

The next few days flew by in a whirlwind.  We slept in Wed morning, and again, the kind hotel staff served us breakfast long after breakfast was finished being served. We took a shuttle into Sorrento and walked around for a few hrs.  The city was so beautiful, exactly what I imagined Italy to be with old, colorful buildings, outside cafes, beautiful views of the ocean, I absolutely loved it.  Thur was spent doing the same thing, although we did make it up in time for breakfast that morning.  Thur night, we went to quite possibly one of the best restraunts I've ever eaten at.  It was a family style restraunt, where Grandma did all the cooking.  Fri, we took a boat tour of the island of Capri.  It was beautiful.  We visited the Blue Gratto, this little cavern where the water is naturally neon blue, so beautiful.  It left me in awe of how much of an artist God is, creating such a place like that.  Sadly, there are no good pictures as the cavern was pitch black except for the water. 

The trip was quick, and many people thought I was absolutely crazy to spend so much money travelling to Italy just for 4 days, but let me tell you, it was worth every penny.  I can't explain how much I have missed my Love these past 7 months, and yes, I don't have much longer till he's home for good, but those few days we spent together were enough to give me resolve to finish this race. It was defnintely a gift from God to have a change to go, a gift that I will forever be grateful for.  I witnessed His kindess and grace through every step of the trip: delaying my flight in London so I could make it, getting me to the train station in Rome just in perfect time to make my train, giving Isaac the good sense to make a plan with me just in case he was not at the train station in Naples, our wonderful and unexpected reunion at 3AM, a 3 days together, making them perfect in every way, putting me in a group of Americans in London who all were staying over night at the airport so I wouldn't be alone.  So many things could have gone wrong but God perfectly orchestrated every event to make the trip perfect.  It will be a trip I talk about for years to come.

Here a few pictures from the trip:

This was our wonderful hotel, I would defninitly recommend it: Hotel Prestige

The next few pictures are from our first day walking around Sorrento

I was so excited when we discovered this site!

And so excited to discover this road! It was beautiful!

View of Sorrento from the Solarium at our hotel

The fun pathyway we found walking around the hotel

These are pictures from our 2nd day walking around Sorrento

All the cafes and restraunts had outside seating like this, I loved being able to eat lunch and gelatto out side with Isaac :)

 This was from our 3rd day, when we road a boat to Capri

The Harbor in Capri

The Love arch or something like that, it's suppose to be good luck to kiss while going under the arch

 We're getting ready to go into the Blue gratto, in a very tiny little boat

 Isaac allowed me to take 1 picture of him, this is what I got.  The gelatto was wonderful!

 Still in capri, we explored a neighborhood, all uphill.  I was exhausted by the time we got back down to the water.

 The next few pictures are from these ruins in the town of Sorrento.  We were fascniated with them.  Every time we walked by we just stopped and stared and of course, I took plenty of pictures.  They were beautiful, we both really wanted to go down and look at them, at one point, you could tell people did cause there was a stairway and walkways at the bottom, but no one was down there and it looked like it hadn't been toured for a while.

Happy Anniversary, My Love

A year ago today, I promised forever to my very best friend.  This year has been a crazy year of ups and downs with underways and deployment, but it has been the best year of my life. Isaac, you are such a blessing from God and I thank Him every day for putting you in my life.  I am so proud of you, and love you so very, very much! I can't wait to be celebrating with you so very soon, which is just another evidence of God's grace in our marriage, allowing us to celebrate our first anniversary together.  I love you, babe, forever and always!

Happy Anniversary!

Birthday Weekend Blessings

Baby Reegan falling asleeping in my arms. Taylor helping me take Peaches out for a walk. Dinner with the family. Grandma holing Reegan. Long talks with Mom and Dad.  Sleeping till 0930.  No sounds of cars or sirens outside.  Afternoon reading time on the porch. Shopping trips with mom.  Lunch at Soppers. Starbucks with Mom. Babysitting Reegan and Taylor. Taylor praying for our food. Grandma spending the night. Seeing my brother ordained as a deacon.  Playing memory with Taylor. Driving Grandma home. Long walks down country roads with Peaches. Seeing the mountain from our road. Sunday afternoon phone date:) Movie time with Mom and Dad. Sweet birthday voicemails from church friends. Surprise birthday call on my way home from my Love.

And my most favorite blessing this weekend: The last long, 5 hr drive I will have to take without Isaac for a long, long time :)