Today is a Gift

      The end of January and beginning of February has proven to be a little more relaxed than 2013 started out for our little family. As we had suspected, Sam got pulled off of Bravo alert and the crews deploying to aid the French in the Mali Crisis, because it was getting too close to his scheduled deployment in March.  Sam got the call last Friday that he was off Bravo alert…yay! Unfortunately, the crews left on Saturday…boo. We had a lazy Friday night, summing up our lazy week, where we watched a couple of movies. On Saturday we did things around the house and then had friends over for dinner on Saturday night. We broke out “The Game of Things” which is a fun group game that Hercules bought us for Christmas (such a thoughtful dog), unfortunately due to recent deployments and trainings we were missing some key members to our group, but we still had a good time. On Sunday we headed to church and Sam started teaching a middle school confirmation class, as he was asked to fill in for a Captain who headed back to good ole Altus, OK for more training. So far Sam is enjoying teaching this class, though I still don’t think he would know what to do if he was put in front of a real middle school class, perhaps in a Title One School, but teaching six military kids, with three teachers, at church, has been pretty easy, according to Sam. After church we had lunch and decided to take the dogs for a walk since it was a beautiful day outside so we headed to a nature reserve park about twenty minutes away.

The dogs were excited to be out of the house and onto a new adventure

At the nature reserve...the sunlight was too much for Hercules' eyes

Walking on the board walk...we didnt have our wellies so going on the nature path was off limits

We felt like we were in Kansas with all these fields of grass

Tired dogs after our walk and muddy too

     This past week was pretty busy, things had finally returned back to normal. We hosted Bible Study at our house on Wednesday night, so I spent the first part of the week doing household chores and cleaning. I have started a Bachelor watch party at our house every Thursday night, and it is awesome! I use to have Bachelor watch parties with girlfriends back home and then when Sam and I got married last year I tried to continue these watch parties, but unfortunately there weren’t any girls around to watch it with in Enid,  so I would watch it with Sam and two of his guy friends. I am so glad there is a big group of girls at this base who enjoy watching it, because it is something that I look forward to every week and I know when Sam is deployed I will look forward to Bachelor night even more, it will be something that can mark another passing week of him being gone, plus we always have delicious food. Sam flew on Friday night and I had a girl’s night watching the first Lord of the Rings movie, since I haven’t seen any of them (I know, I live under a rock). Sam and I had our usual Saturday lunch at LaHouge before heading to Framlingham to check out the castle there. The castle was pretty, but there wasn’t much other than the wall, I guess I was expecting more rooms and things to walk into, but we still enjoyed exploring. After the castle we headed to Holbrook (pronounced Halbrook in a British accent) to see what the town was all about. It was a pretty disappointing looking town, a bit on the “white trash” end of the spectrum but we had fun driving around and even battled a swan while we were there. We spent Saturday night at the cottage watching a few movies. Sunday was our normal routine of Church and then lounging a bit after lunch. Everyone who works on base got a late start work day beginning at noon today, except for Sam who had to fly, because of the super bowl. So I met up with friends, three of my girlfriends whose husbands are all gone right now, and we watched the second Lord of the Rings movie. I am so blessed to have these girls in my life and that they are still friends with me even when I say silly things like “Are the dots on these SOLO cups Braille? Spelling SOLO?” I should have more girls’ nights because I came home and Sam had vacuumed the entire house and cleaned the kitchen, I guess boredom makes him productive around the house!Oh and we could've watched the Super Bowl here, but it didn't start until 11pm and there were no commercials, so what is the point?

My friend Taryn and I checked out a real British tea room in Bury St. Edmunds. It is called Harriet's Tea House, the waitresses are even dressed up like you would see on Downton Abbey and the scones are delicious, we had a great time. Another perk of not having a job right here :)

From the Left: Taryn in her awesome hello kitty footy pjs, Jill holding an apple, me, Meleah the amazing photographer, and Lindsey, who I believe is holding chips. At one point we were all holding something random. Anyway, these girls are absolutely amazing. They are all strong, beautiful, fun and Godly women.And they are also Lord of the Rings fans, converting me one movie at a time. We had take out Zen Noodle and wore comfy clothes, it was a perfect girls night! (Photo curtesy of Taryn's facebook)

Framlingham

Castle Walls

More of the wall

Part of the moat...I cant wait to see a castle that has a real moat

The castle wall connected to the building they added where the souvenir shop is located

Castle Rock

Sam with the Castle

And Again

I was charging the castle...muhahahahaha

Me with the castle

Castle

Still a Castle

This water use to go up to the castle and you could see the castle reflection in the water. If your like my photography friend, Meleah, you can get stuck in some crazy mud for epic pictures.

Hi Sam!

View from the castle

This was some prison of the castle...dont remember exactly

Castle

More Castle

Walking on the castle wall

Front of the castle

Castle

     Sam and I were supposed to be heading on our anniversary trip to Barcelona tomorrow, but since he didn’t get his leave put in before the whole bravo fiasco he had to try and get it approved last week and too many people were already going to be on leave. So we have learned a few valuable lessons, one-always put in for leave early, it is better to have it revoked than to not get it approved and two- buy trip insurance (or don’t because in this case if we hadn’t bought trip insurance then we could’ve gone). We hope to get leave for him next week so we can take a small trip before he deploys, since we will be going to the states the week he gets back from deployment and won’t be able to take a trip then.

Our GPS lady pronounced it Halbrook

The local village store

Holbrook Village Hall

Church in Holbrook

Pretty Swan

Nice Swan coming to say hi

Evil Swan Stare Down

Tricking us to roll our window down

And swan attack

Showing teeth

Sam taunting said swan

The swan showing Sam whose boss

Scary swan, watch the video that follows

 

At least Holbrook had some delicious pear cider!

Sam got a beer at the castle and I bought a cool looking bottle of cider oh and a magnet

     There has been a recent tragedy from Aviano, Air Force Base in Italy. An F-16 pilot died after ejecting from his plane over the Adriatic Sea. He was participating in a normal training mission when this accident occurred. His wife is a few weeks away from giving birth to their first child. Though, Sam flies a plane that is a bit safer than a fighter jet, this story still hit close to home and I have found myself relating to the woman and having a heavy heart as the family lives this tragedy. I am told there is a fighter pilot from Lakenheath (which is the base I buy my groceries from) who died in a plane crash a few years ago. The best way I can describe the military family/community is like a body. Like the church is the Body of Christ, the military service men/women and their families are one strong body fighting for America. When you lose a part of the body the rest of the body hurts. When one part of the body suffers, the rest of the body suffers. Even though I never met Captain Gruenther, and I will probably never meet his wife or daughter, my heart broke for them and I have found myself thinking and praying for these complete strangers multiple times a day.  When someone from the AF dies in duty you may notice lots of status' on facebook or someone saying "A Toast" that is a way of honoring the fallen solider. I am not the best with words but one of my friends posted this blog and I thought the woman did an amazing job describing her feelings and she said it better than I ever could, so I invite you to read her beautifully written blog: A Toast. I ask that you remember this family in your prayers tonight and hug your spouse, children, sister, brother, friend or whomever a little tighter. I know I have hugged Sam a little tighter and longer since I first read of this story. This was a reminder to me that we are not promised tomorrow, we are only given today and the horrible reality is that any “normal” day can change your life forever. This is another reminder that we must not focus on the things of this world, but rather turn our eyes to Jesus and live each day as if it were our last. I challenge you, my reader, to view each day this week as if it were your last one on earth, I have taken this challenge myself and it is amazing how much of our time and energy is spent on things that really don’t matter.

I havent taken a "selfie" picture in a long time, but I took this one when I realized my skin is becoming pale white from the lack of sun around these parts...I am already three shades lighter from my "normal" winter make up....

I have to throw in a picture of my baby!

Sam's airplanes are old and they visit the "hospital", as I call it, a lot. Thank you maintenance for keeping my pilot and my friends safe by healing the sick airplanes :)

That’s all I got for now! Thanks for reading!

Love,

Amanda