Thanksgiving Thankfuls

As I read other blogs about Thanksgiving and all that everyone is thankful for, I try to search in my own life what I am thankful for. These past few months have been very trying for me (and Jared, but I don't want to speak for him) and it has been hard to see the rays of sunshine, let alone be thankful for anything. I know these thoughts and feelings shall pass, but I don't know when. Everywhere around me I see reminders of what could have been and I think even more so that life just isn't fair. I know these things take time, time is just moving by so slowly. I try to just get through each day thinking that each day will get better, trying to enjoy the happy times, and the times that make me laugh or smile. I try to feel better every day and try to be thankful for at least something. Because this is the time for Thanksgiving, or we just passed Thanksgiving and it is a time to be thankful for all that has been good in your life, here are the only things I could think of:

First and foremost, my Jared. How strong and brave he is to keep me standing when my whole world is wobbly. Second, my family (both J's family and my family family). Knowing they are there if we need them at the drop of a hat. Friends. Without friends to think good thoughts and lend a tissue, I would be standing in a puddle. Nowadays when people ask "how are you?" my response is, "I'm alive." So I am thankful I am alive.

I do hope that everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you have found more things to be thankful for in your lives. Keep sending those happy thoughts and know that I miss the company of each and every one of you... like old times in P'cola.

m

College Football

Oh and one more thing, COLLEGE FOOTBALL season is back! Who else is excited? GO HOKIES!

Vegas Vacation!

Jared and I have been very busy these last few months. [I can't remember if I blogged about these happenings previously, so bare with me if I have.] We have completed numerous projects around the house, such as: putting together a mail center to fill an empty space in the kitchen and completed the roll out trays for the kitchen island. We spent time apart when Jared went to Japan for a few weeks and then we had our long, overdue vacation!

Jared and I decided to head to Vegas because the travel time was short and enabled us to spend more time doing and seeing instead of having a long travel time if we decided to go to Hawaii. We stayed at the Encore (sister hotel to the Wynn) and had a great view of the strip from our hotel room. We were able to see the fireworks from the Treasure Island show at night and watch the happenings of the hotel pool down below. Although we only had 5 days, we wanted to do at least one thing everyday and not pack too much in. As we were walking through the hotel on the first day there we saw Larry King which was pretty exciting. I spotted him first and Jared soon recognized the tall, lanky old man. Some of the activities we planned for ourselves included seeing Peepshow, Blue Man Group, laying by the pool, walking the strip and visiting the different casinos, and playing the slots! Most of the time I am the lucky one, however I was on a losing streak and Jared was hitting in big in Vegas. Because he was winning the money and I was losing the money he won, it was just our luck that we were also banking lots of points while playing the slots. Unbeknownst (spell check says that isn't a word, is it? hmm?) to us, we were winning points that got us "free" comps! Oh how I love free stuff! We earned a free water bottle! Yay! 2 free breakfast buffet tickets! Yay! and BEST OF ALL... 2 free dinners at an awesome hotel restaurant. We were planning to have a nice dinner out at some point, but hadn't planned which day or where (and that dinner money kind of went down the drain earlier in the vacation). We took the opportunity to make the best of our "free" meal and were more than pleasantly surprised. Jared and I felt like the girl in Willy Wonka that ate the full meal bubble gum and blew up like a purple balloon, we were that full. This vacation was a long time coming and I think it was well deserved by both of us. We needed this vacation to just take a time out from the real world and just enjoy each other again. Jared was such a trooper with my vacation nagging, I am sure he is glad it has stopped!

After our vacation it was back to business as usually. Jared headed back to work and has been studying for his PPC board, when he isn't flying or hanging out in a sim. I have officially started school. The webinar I signed myself up for is 5 weeks for each course and I will finish my two courses by the end of November. I have been told it is best to take the exam soon after each course so the material is fresh in your mind. I am planning to take my first exam at the end of September or beginning of October, now I just have to find a proctor. The second exam I will hopefully take at the beginning of December. It seems as though all I do is study, but I know there are many more people who has been in school for way longer than I will be. If they can do it, then I can do it too! I will start my practicum hours in January, as long as I pass both exams. I am planning to volunteer my time with Fleet and Family in the Financial Services Department. Jared has been really awesome and has been eager to make dinner when he knows I have class or have a lot to study.

Jared is headed out again for a few weeks and I will definitely miss him while he is gone. Of course I get full control of the remote when he is gone, but I would rather have him here instead of watching my dumb shows when they originally air (that's why we have a DVR)! That's about all we have been up to lately. I am looking forward to the fall season and all of the fun things there are to do around Whidbey in the fall. Anyone interested in coming out for a visit?

Just some thoughts...

Sorry to stray from the normal, what's up with my life posts. I have some things swirling in my mind that I need to get out in the open. ( I am not meaning to hurt anyones feelings and if I do I apologize in advance.)

For those of you that know me well you can probably tell I don't have sooo many friends. I would rather have a handful of close friends than to have hundreds of people I call "friends." That's just the way I have always been. The people that I am truly friends with mean a great deal to me. They are close friends of mine for a reason and have supported when in one way or another when I needed the support. I don't mind having aquaintances and there are tons of terrific people out there that I do know, but I am not that close with them. They know me, I know them, we may chat, but I would call them a casual friend or an aquaintance. I think I am this way because I like my friends to feel like my family and I like to have that bond with them. Because I don't have hundreds of friends like many other people do, I have a tendency to think too much about what people think of me. I worry about what people think about me, how people think about me, what I am invited to, what I am not invited to and why, and that is how I think about myself. I try to not let it bother me or get me down, but to be honest I worry most about what other people think of me. There are a lot of people I don't like and I doubt it ruins their day, but knowing that someone doesn't like me ruins mine. (If I don't like them and they don't like me, no problem .... see, it's odd!) I need to figure out a way to worry less about what people think of me and worry more about how I think of me. I need to find that "I don't care" button and turn it on because the more I think about what people think about me the more sad I become about it. I need to stop worrying so much about what other people think, but how do I do that?

Around Town in Pictures

May Happenings

Jared and I have been very busy these last couple of months. Well, we may not have been THAT busy, but it sure has felt like that to us.

Jared has been flying on a regular basis (if the plane isn't broken!) and has been out of town quite frequently since I last posted. I have been busy with work and bowling on Thursday's with my awesome bowling league Pin Pals. My parent's were able to come out for a quick visit in April and Jared and I were able to show them just what small town living is like in Oak Harbor. We hiked down by the Deception Pass bridge, drove past the tulip fields during the Tulip Festival, and walked around downtown Seattle. It was nice to have family come visit and see where we are now, but man... they sure did wear us out with all that walking! :)

As we head into the months with warmer weather and much later sunsets, this is the season for Dining Out, Change of Command, and all the festivities that go along with the changing of the tides in VP-40. Last weekend Jared and I attended Dining Out at the Tulalip Resort and Casino about an hour south of Oak Harbor. The hotel is amazing and quite luxurious for being practically in the middle of nowhere! It was nice getting all fancied up and seeing Jared in his dress blacks? (I am pretty sure that isn't what you call them). We had a lot of fun at the casino after the formal dinner ended, but to be brutally honest... I HATE Dining Outs all together! What fun is it to be all dressed up, eating food that isn't all the great (Okay, maybe it was great for other people but not this grown up with the taste buds of a really sheltered 5 year old!), and listening to jokes that aren't all the funny. It is also not very fun to see tons of guys get trashed and having to ask Jared every 5 minutes, why is this part of the night funny? Here is some advice for next year, leave your inside jokes and your stupid antics at home! I will now step off my pedestal :)

My next grand adventure will be heading to Virginia for an awesome AWESOME person's wedding. My college friend SUSAN is getting married and I cannot be happier for her! I am so excited for the wedding and am honored to be able to attend. The best part is, JARED GETS TO COME TO THE WEDDING WITH ME! The other best part is that I get to wear my watermelon colored dress WITH POCKETS again!!!! YAYAYAYAYA! I really am excited about this dress if you can't tell. Jared and I are on different flights into Virginia and will get a few hours sleep before heading to NOVA to get the wedding festivities started. I haven't seen my college friends in YEARS and cannot wait to catch up on everyone's lives. I guess I will just listen to all their big time jobs because I like to hop from job to job about every year, I can't help it... it's in my blood :) I am also excited because I get to see my nephew who will be 2 in June and he gets to open his birthday present early since I won't be there for the party. Jared and I got him a Balance Bike and it is the cutest thing ever!

Jared and I have been married for almost 4 years. In those 4 years we have acknowledged that we do not work well on projects together and haven't really completed anything together, much yet using power tools, ever... until a few weeks ago. I truly believe that Jared and I have reached a milestone in our marriage. The project that we completed involved power tools, hammers, nails, measuring, remeasuring, and only took us a few hours. We removed the large platform that you stood on at the top of our patio steps and made it a smaller platform so the steps don't take up half the patio anymore. (Everyone have that visual? Made a large area small.) We worked very well together! We shared ideas, we gave constructive criticism, we helped, we handed, we COMPLETED THE PROJECT TOGETHER! Maybe you don't see this as something terrific, but I do. It was amazing! I was and still am very proud of ourselves and what we not only accomplished on the patio, but in our marriage. (We then went out and spent some money and bought a firepit and patio chairs to kind of congratulate ourselves on a job well done, now that we can use the larger patio area!)

The weather is starting to get warm and the days are getting longer. Everyone is welcome to stop by anytime to enjoy the wonderful Whidbey summer! Let me know when you are coming, our guest bed is waiting for you!

Quality Time

Jared has been pretty busy with his Squadron lately and it only gets worse from here. Because of how hectic things are going to be, we have been trying to take advantage of the time we have together by making it QUALITY TIME.

Let me start out by saying that Jared and I have different definitions of quality time. His definition of quality time is being in the same zip code and my definition of quality time is being snuggled up on the couch so intertwined that we are like pretzels (okay, not that bad... but you get my point). We have found a happy medium by getting out of town on the weekends and just being with each other.

Jared was in San Diego for a week to attend "credit card school." He was actually going to CMEO school, but because of a misunderstanding (me not really listening I suppose) I thought he was going to credit card school. That is also what I told everyone when they asked where Jared was. This led to a very confusing conversion when Jared told me about his first day and my response was "how does this relate to credit cards???!" Oops. Because Jared was going to San Diego and his flight was out of Seattle we decided to spend the weekend together in downtown Seattle. We made out way casually to Seattle and stopped in Lynnwood (closest, decent mall) to shop and have some lunch. We walked around Pike's Place Market, people watched, bought some souvenirs, and just enjoyed being tourists. The next morning, the morning of Jared's flight, we got up early to get ourselves ready and headed out to Lowell's for breakfast (thanks Amy for introducing me to this awesome restaurant). We took our time and soaked in our last few hours.

::We now interrupt this program for a brief Megan story that occurred during the car ride home from SeaTac Airport::
I am driving Jared's car home from the airport and having a hard enough time finding 6th gear as it is, that I was just hoping to make it home and still have his car in one piece. Since my car is now the gas guzzler, we opted to take Jared's pimp mobile on our weekend away. While driving North on I-5 I was in the far right lane. This does not happen often and really surprised me too since I love riding in that left lane! So I was in the far right lane when I see this white, late 90's model Chevy Cavalier Convertible (license plate KME-143) speeding up the interstate in the far left lane. This car then moves quickly into the middle lane and then dashes for my lane almost side swiping Jared's car! Oh Heck NO! Now at this time ask yourself, what would Megan do? You are probably thinking correctly if you say, "She is going to lay on her horn, slam on the brakes, downshift that car, and show that lady the middle finger!" Wow, you guys really know me! That's exactly what I did. This crazy woman got my blood boiling!! Once she switched back over to the far left lane I saw my opportunity to get back at her and I boxed her in with an F-150 and a mac truck. :) I bet she learned her lesson!

::Back to the regularly thought out blog post::
Jared arrived home Friday evening, exhausted and hungry. We headed out for a quick dinner at Applebee's and then called it a night. I had been thinking that it would be awesome to go see the Olympic venues since they are only 2 hours and a border crossing away. It was a last minute planned out trip, but Saturday morning we got up early and headed for OH! CANADA! Our great friends and neighbors, Chris and Nicole, came with as well as their friends Bryce, Kim, and Chip. We drove into the city of Richmond and road the Skytrain into Vancouver. The stores were packed, the souvenirs were slim pickens, and I really had no idea what most of the people were saying. But we braved the cold, wet weather and made the best of our day. We searched high and low for the AUTHENTIC Canada mittens, but had no success. There were plenty of knockoffs, but we wanted the real thing. We saw the Olympic torch and the different venues where the events were taking place. We headed to Metro... something to continue our search for mittens thanks to a tip from a real Canadian! Instead of mittens we got sweatshirts and scarves and t-shirts because all of Canada is out of mittens. Who would have thought mittens would be the most coveted souvenir? We ate, we drank, we walked around, we crammed into the Skytrain, and just enjoyed the day! By the end of our time in Canada, we were pooped. After getting home from our big adventure we crashed for the night and slept like rocks.

I will once again be apart from Jared as he spends more time down in San Diego to fly around with his crew. It has been great getting to spend quality time with him on the weekends and reconnect with each other. I will not be entirely alone because I definitely have the support from my wife-friends whose husbands will also be away. Some of us are thinking of going to San Diego for a few days to enjoy some sun and warm weather with our hubs in the next few weeks once they are down there and settled in a little. You only live once and only have so many opportunities to just be with each other, I am going to snatch up every moment I can to spend quality time with him curled up like pretzels. (okay, maybe that is too close sometimes... I will work on it!)