The Perfect Month

     February is the perfect month and not just because it holds valentines day and my birthday, though those dates are an added bonus to the perfectness that is February. Anyway, four weeks makes up a month and seven days makes up a traditional week. Thus 4 weeks times 7 days = 28 days. Therefore, since Feburary contains exactly 28 days (except during leap year) it is the only perfect month, containing exactly four weeks. My friend Stephanie and I spent a lot of time discussing this one boring day back in high school, we concluded that February is the only real month and I concluded that its the perfect month. However, this blog shall focus on the end of February, the only real part of the month that matters, my birthday. I was due in March, I believe around March 5th which is my moms birthday, but, much like my personality, I was eager to meet the world and start meeting new people and 24 years ago, on February 27th, I did just that. Who knew that I would be celebrating my 24th year of life married and in ENGLAND!!!

England at its finest!

     The celebrations kicked off the weekend before my birthday. On Friday, February 22^nd, Sam and I met our friends, Luke and Meleah, for dinner in Cambridge. Luke and Meleah were the very first people, from the squadron, to have us over for dinner when we first moved here and were still living in a Temporary Lodging Facility and we hit it off with them from the very beginning. Anyway, I found an Indian restaurant in Cambridge and we had a double date night. It was our first experience eating Indian food and we loved it. The restaurant turned out to be very nice, the waiter was funny, and the company was incredible. Plus, it was close to the train station, which was handy since Sam’s sister and brother-in-law, Rachel and Josh, who live in London, were coming in on the train to visit. After they got here the six of us left the restaurant and headed right next door to a pub called The White Swan.  We had another friend, Mike, who came and joined us for drinks. It was a super fun night and kick off to the weekend, yay for double date nights!

Indian food...YUM!

      I felt bad because Sam and I had tried to come up with things to do around here with Rachel and Josh, but it all seemed like a far drive and we were feeling lazy after our trip, so we ended up having a low key weekend, which I hope really was okay with Rachel and Josh. We slept in on Saturday and headed to La Hogue for lunch. In our local park, Chippenham Park, there was a snowdrop display every Saturday and Sunday in February and since this was the last weekend in February we wanted to see it. We took the dogs and walked over to the park, even though it was really cold. They had the snowdrops, which are pretty white flowers that bloom in the winter, on the property of the estate house. It was really beautiful to see all the land, which is usually private property, of the big estate house in Chippenham and they had ponds as well as lots of forest area and flowers. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera, but come visit me in February for my birthday and I will show you in person! After our walk we took Rachel and Josh to the Commissary for them to stock up on their American food and get supplies to make dinner. Sam made a delicious steak dinner with his famous baked potatoes and corn on the cob…yum! Rachel made me a yummy peanut butter chocolate cake and after dinner we played my new game, scrabble…fun!

Steak dinner

Thanks Sam...it was amazing

My teapot from Rachel and Josh! I love it

Rachel's delicious cake

I even bought doggy ice cream for the dogs...they loved it for about five minutes then I think they were frustrated with trying to get it out of the carton.

Scrabble and cake!

      After church on Sunday we had coffee and tea at Starbucks. Then we ate lunch at Taco Bell, since Josh hadn’t had that in a year, and we came home to take naps. We also walked to our local pub in Chippenham, The Tharp Arms. It was a relaxing weekend and I am so glad Rachel and Josh came to visit! While Sam took them back to Cambridge to catch a train and meet one of his friends from pilot training for dinner, I went to meet a precious new member of our Bible Study, Eleanor Rose. I got to hold her, until after about thirty minutes my arms were tired and I gave her back to her mom, and I may or may not have gotten a low grade dose of baby fever, but that only lasted until the next weekend when we got to sleep in :). 

Nap time in Chippenham

"bottoms up" at The Tharp Arms Pub

Eleanor Rose Born February 23, 2013

Sweet baby and her mama Angela from our Bible Study!

      My actual birthday was on Wednesday, which Sam had to fly and he was gone all day….as well as on Thursday and Friday too…so I barely saw him on birthday week! The AF has to make all birthdays and anniversary memorable one way or another, on Sam’s birthday he went into Bravo Alert, on our anniversary he was going through a deployment line, and on my birthday (and subsequent days) he was gone flying.  Despite Sam not being around I still had an amazing birthday! I met the beautiful girls from Bible Study for lunch at La Hogue and they spoiled me with gifts. Then Taryn and I attempted to make red velvet cupcakes and blog. It actually turned out to be a hysterical time, we made a lot of substitutions…like splenda for sugar, egg whites for an egg, some gluten free flour mixed with real flour, and blue/green food coloring substituted for red food coloring….the cupcakes turned out green and uneven, a very interesting concoction for sure, but the icing was yummy and our Bible Study friends humored us by eating a few. Luckily, Erin brought real, yummy cupcakes! Since Wednesday night is normally Bible Study night and we just finished Part 1 of our Roman’s study we decided to go bowling! It was so much fun and by some magical birthday power I actually broke 100 in the second game! I had an amazing first birthday abroad, thank you to all who made it extra special! 

Alayna...we just went to her first birthday party last night

Taryn, Erin and Baby Emily from Bible Study

Darla and Alayna...sweet girls!

Alayna was great help with opening presents

I got some many goodies!

All the girls at lunch!

The Bible Study girls (minus Angela and Chary) at the bowling alley

Cute baby girl Emily

Those two are daddies little girls! The guy with blonde hair is Mark and his baby is Emily...Mark is deploying with Sam

This is Shawn and his daughter Alayna from Bible Study...he has a great voice for when he is pretending to talk like her!

We passed her around a lot while bowling!

See...I broke 100!!

We are so blessed to have found this group of people! From the left: Mark, Erin and Baby Emily; Shawn, Darla and Alayna; Sam and I; and Steve and Taryn. We are missing Doug, Angela and Baby Eleanor and Carsten and Chary! Fun night of bowling. (Picture courtesy of Taryn's Facebook...thank you Taryn)

     Though my husband was busy during the day he still managed to spoil me with presents on my birthday! He got me all of my favorite things! He purchased his first purse….a Coach purse no less….when a few years ago he vowed to never buy me a purse and never buy a sister for the Coach purse I got from Meg Wampler and the Text Bucks crew as a going away present. I was very impressed by the purse he picked out, it is perfect! He also got me a new wallet and the new Janet Evanovich book and m&ms ....oh and two of the same card because he lost the first one. All of this was more than enough, but when I opened my card it had RASCAL FLATTS TICKETS INSIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He definitely got the best husband award….coach purse, tickets to see one of my favorite groups in London this summer, plus a steak dinner…yup I am blessed! 

My new Coach purse!

I cant wait!!!!!!!!!!!!

He just looks so cute and he climbed in there all by himself...haha no that's a lie

      This past weekend was Sam and I’s last weekend together before his deployment so we wanted to do something fun! The plan was to see two castles on Saturday…unfortunately all the flying took a toll on my husband and he slept in pretty late. After an English breakfast at La Hogue we headed to Bodiam Castle, which is about 2 hours away. It is a beautiful castle that was built in the 1100’s. This castle has a real moat around it…something I have always wanted to see. Sam and I enjoyed exploring the castle and had a nice afternoon tea before heading home to eat a frozen pizza and watch a movie. It was the perfect day! Now to follow this paragraph...an obscene amount of pictures of Bodiam Castle for which I am not feeling up to making captions for each individual one...I know this may sadden some of my readers as my captions are normally pretty witty...but it is now passed midnight here and there is only so much you can say about one castle...enjoy looking at the castle, the view from the castle, and the amazing English country side...thank you for your time.

Sam thinks it is hilarious to take a picture of me charging every castle we go to

Taking in the view....

Hi guys...Im on top of a castle...(said in the voice of the narwhall on the movie Elf)

Look at how windy and narrow the stair case is!

We...Love...Castles

      Sam officially leaves for his deployment on Thursday morning. He will be gone for 67 days…but hey who’s counting??!! The possibility for Sam to deploy has been there since December, but no amount of time will ever fully prepare you for separation, but I am ready to start counting down the days until he comes home and get it over with, but not ready to say goodbye. I am glad that he will finally be able to put all his training into action, but sometimes I freak out when I realize I will be living in a foreign country by myself…it is one thing to hold the home front down in the states…but it’s a whole other ball game to hold it down while living abroad! 

I love exploring castles with him

We are very happily married!

Love him!

     I have already been a hot mess this week. I have cried over the littlest thing or something that normally wouldn’t bother me has made me very angry…I am not sure if that is a small glimpse into a pregnant ladies life, but it has not been very fun. However, 67 days is nothing compared to my fellow military wives who have gone through a six, nine or twelve month deployment…now that is a lot of strain on a marriage, and those women are the strongest you will ever meet. Think about it…for those of my readers who are married (aside from fellow military spouses) what is the longest amount of time you have ever gone without your spouse? How did you feel during that time? I know have been guilty of quickly forgetting, when Sam and I are together, what it was like to be apart and not lifting those fellow brothers and sisters in Christ up in prayer, but it is not normal to be apart from your spouse, “in the real world”, for longer than a week or two at a time. I feel very blessed by my fellow military wives. I have received multiple Facebook messages filled with Bible verses and encouraging words from friends all over the world and I really appreciate them. Since there are two deployment locations right now over half of the squadron is deployed…which means I have fellow spouses in the same boat as me…and that always helps. Misery loves company! I hear that the key is to stay busy and though I wish that one of the dozen applications I filled out would’ve landed me a job by now, I know that I will find things to keep me busy. There are always projects that need work around the house, friends to meet for tea, hobbies to start, places to explore and the gym to hit up! 

We are so blessed to live in England and to have each other

So happy together!

One of the many things that will get me through this deployment...Bachelor Watch Parties/Girls night every Thursday at my house! Look at all our food! Anywhere from 8 to 14 girls come every week and I look forward to this time so much...I think all the wives whose husbands are gone will find this time to be very special! Plus it marks off another week that passes...which is one week closer to them being home.

      So now I am calling on all of my readers who are prayer warriors…here are some specific prayer requests.

•   Pray for Sam and his crew. Pray that they will have safe travels and for every mission that they fly and of course a safe return home. 
•   Pray for Mark, Sam’s Air Craft Commander in his crew, this isn’t his first deployment but he is leaving behind his wife and four...almost five month old daughter, Emily. Pray for Erin (his wife) and Emily as they are heading back to the states for six weeks, that they will have safe travel.
• Pray for strength for me on Thursday as Sam and I say goodbye. 
•  Pray for all of the spouses left behind during the current deployments, some have only been here for a few months and are still settling while their husbands are deployed, pray that we will feel God’s loving arms wrap around us at night when we go to bed alone and that we will rely on him for strength during the lonely times. 
•  Pray that everything on the home front runs smoothly while Sam is away. I hear that something is bound to break or go wrong while he is away, but pray that it won’t be anything big that happens and that the right resources will be available when needed. 

      Thank you for lifting Sam and I up in prayer as we continue our newlywed journey with our first deployment. I am sure we will be old hats at deployments at some point in Sam’s military career, , but since this one is our first deployment it makes it that much harder. We appreciate all your prayers, love and support!

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Amanda