Lindsey and Casey's wedding!

Oh man almost forget June 6 Lindsey got married!!!! I was so happy for them. I flew down Thursday night and stayed til Sunday and had a great time. The wedding was beautiful of course. I got to see some old friends from college. It's great hearing how everyone is doing now! Yes I was a little sad during it....ok maybe a lot sad...but I miss Aaron. During the "first" dance of the bride and groom I was sitting at my table crying my eyes out and Casey said to Lindsey "ummm I think you should go check on your bridesmaid, she is crying and cried during the whole wedding!" Sorry about that. But I don't think anyone noticed, well except Casey but it's ok. Lindsey looked beautiful well you can see for yourself in the pics. Can't wait to see them again soon....

Me & Kaye

See I told you!

Madri Gras

Aaron & I learned our leason last year! Madri Gras in New Orleans was too crazy for us to go to a second year. So this year we decided to go to Galveston TX. There is an ok beach there and several things to do! We headed out early Saturday morning with Gary, Maribel and Brian. We got there in time for all four day parades but decided to go out to the beach and some of the shops and small fair. We did get rained on a little but we decided to make the most of it and stuck it out. Later that night we headed out for the Madri Gras parade which was fun. My favortie part was all the high school bands playing. Of course the floats are nice too and watching people fight over cheap beads.

I never really knew what Madri Gras was or how it got started. So I asked people here at work that are from Louisiana and got the same story from them all. So here it goes, a little FYI: Basically back in the day people (Catholic) fasted for 40 days also known as Lint. Obviously they didn't have a lot of money so all the food they had grown and raised could not go to waste so the weekend before they would eat and drink everything. Also known as gloutney which is a sin. I guess that's also where they got the name Fat Tuesday!?!?! Fat Tuesday was the last day before the start of lint. I'm not sure on all the facts I guess I should Google it! But thats where it got started and like most holidays has lost it's true meaning. I'm not sure where the beads, parades and drunks came in but they did. Some people just say it's a time to get out all your sins before you give up something for Lint, I'm not sure about that though!

So back to Galveston. After the parade we went out for a very nice dinner (something we don't get often being in Leesville). The next day we got up and headed to Rain Forest Cafe which was a lot of fun. We even went on the little boat ride and Maribel got scared by the snake that jumps out at you! Haha that was fun to watch! After that we went our seperate ways. Aaron and I went back to the beach and walked around and looked at everything. I think I mentioned in an earlier post Hurricane Ike, well that's the one that hit Galveston! It was crazy seeing everything. The little town we went through before getting on the Ferry was completly gone! There had previously been beautiful houses all along the coast and they were all gone! But there were tons of people out working cleaning up and ready to celebrate Madri Gras. Once we crossed over the Ferry you could hardly tell a hurricane had hit. Until we started looking for some of the shops we liked and realized they were gone too. But I would say the place was up and going very fast seeing how the storm was just a few months ago! Maybe because it was in Texas and Bush only likes Texas so he helped them! HAHA I'm joking! You can tell when people really care and aren't lazy, they actually get up and clean and build back themselves! They don't wait on others to do everything for them (New Orleans)! Man I like Texas more everyday! After exploring the beach we headed over to Moody Gardens and checked out the aquarium. It was fun. After that we started back to Fort Polk. And was refreshed and ready to go back to work....ok not really. Next week we are off to Ohio...

This is where the houses were!

On The Ferry

The Rain Forest Cafe

Moody Gardens ^

Well

I don't even know what to title this one. There has been a lot going on here. Aaron just recently got back from GA for a TDY. I was so glad to have him back here. I stayed busy every night hanging out with friends, and yes even going to the gym!

We decided to go to Toledo Bend last Saturday and spend the day with friends. I'll get pictures up here asap. 17 of us went and had a great time! The little girls spent most of the time playing with John Wayne (Bartles new puppy) and I attempted to help watch them. I think I did ok considering I only lost Zoey once and she only ate a little sand ( the other girls made a "birthday cake" for Emma) and did I mention she squeezed one of the little fish?!?! Sorry Jennie. I think everyone else did some fishing. Gary was the first to catch one. I threw out the line maybe 5 times before I gave up. We also packed a picnic and played some frisbee. Overall it was a very good trip. We are planning to go to Sea World next month and I can't wait.

Saturday night when I got home it finally hit me that Aaron was actually leaving next month. I just got our tickets to go to Ohio at the end of the month and I guess I really haven't taken the time to stop and think about it all. It was a very long week when he was gone on TDY, but 6 months? How am I going to do that? It's easy to say "oh six months is no time, it will go by fast." But to actually be gone that long, am not too sure. I know I can do it, I just know it's not going to be easy. I'm sure there will be lots of lonely, sad nights that I will call our families crying. And you can bet that I will be making lots of trips to see them. So what will it really be like when Aaron deploys??? I guess I will find out...

hmmm Leaving!?!?

Being in the military has its ups and downs. Moving to new places, seeing things you would never have before, meeting new people and making great friends. Those are the things I love about it. Although I haven't been all over the world yet and seen a lot, I have made some great friends. Monique and Adam! Adam just got out of the Air Force in December and is moving on to much better things! They moved to Idaho where he will be going to a school to fly helicopters and Monique will be getting a job with her degree somewhere amazing I'm sure. We had a lot of fun times here. Going on a cruise would be on the top of the list. We had so much fun and made so many great memories! Then there's the parties, 4th of July (yay both of our cars made it out ok :>) shopping, RockBand (at the tacp house of course) game nights which will be really sad not having Adam and Monique there enforcing all the rules! I will never play Taboo and not think of them. And the CrAzY trip to Lafayette---helicopter, train, hookah bars... We had so many fun times and I'm sure we will be seeing them, maybe on a cruise! I'm sad they moved away but I'm so happy for them!

Cruise to Mexico! Going away party...Adam did the Buffalo

Wild Wings Challenge Blazin...

This is the "real" Adam & Monique hair twirling and all!

Christmas Party!

This year the Christmas party was at Tunks in Alexandria. We had a lot of fun hanging out with friends and playing dirty santa. We got a movie and some kind of tool. It was "supposed" to be formal I guess you could say. Everyone looked very nice in there dresses/skirts and suits. Umm well some of the guys didn't have any so they made a trip to the store and got some fancy outfits!

Bartle, Collins, Lake & Cisco

Bellydancing...WhAt?!?!?

OK SO I have been wanting to do some sort of exercise but I'm not sure what yet. One of the other Air Force wives, Laura asked me to go to a bellydancing class with her. Doesn't sound too bad, right? Of course I agreed. So I talked Jennie into going with me. We arrived at the gym a little early only to hear people inside screaming like they were in the worst kind of pain. Come to find out it was a lady I know who's boyfriend is a TACP at the other Air Force office on post teaching the class. She had invited me before but I didn't know if I could handle it. It looked very intense, but maybe I will give it a try. Should know it would be it's called Bootcamp! It was finally 6:00 and time for class to start and we had no idea what to expect. The first 45 minutes we got through fine, with only a few giggles. We did a warm up and started different dance moves, simple enough. It's when the running, jumping and spinning started that we decided maybe we should sneak out the back. But we decided to give it another chance. Half way through the class they took a break and the teacher told us that the class had been going on for a month and they were doing a show. And that we were more then welcome to stay and "dance along" but it might get a little more challenging for us. We gave it a shot and left after the first dance. It was like something you see in the movies. We were running, skipping, jumping, shaking things, it was crazy! AND the teacher gave us some of her skirts with jingles on them to wear! I was laughing so hard I could barely stand much less dance! Needless to say I think we are going to wait until the next one starts and go back at the beginning! Maybe we should stick with Salsa lessons!

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. Sometimes it seems to get overlooked. This year we decided last minute to go to Missouri to visit my family. AND we took along some friends! Tim & Jennie and the girls were planning on staying here but the holidays are times to be with family, friends AND go shopping haha. So the Tuesday night we called them up and the next day we were on our way to Missouri! It was such a good time! We left out around 3:00 Wednesday and got there a little late. Only running into what could have been a major accident. Some idiot lost his homemade looking trailor with beds on it! This is not a joke. It was 3 lanes of traffic going one way and Tim was driving all of a sudden we see metal and beds flying all over the road. Thank God no one was hurt and nothing was wrong with the car. We did pull over to check it and help another guy get a bed out from under his truck! So Thanksgiving day we had a HUGE meal of course. We hung out that night by the fire and played games. And of course the next day all the girls (me, Jennie, Mom, Christina, Leslie and B.) went shopping! YAY for after Thanksgiving Day sales. We had so much fun! Even if we almost got ran over trying to fix Jennies phone. And standing in line at Kohl's that wrapped all the way around the store. All that aside I had a wonderful time! I'm so glad my friends and family were all together. I think I take forgranted sometimes ok more then that, family. They are the most important thing to me, and when it's all over they are always going to be there for me. Thanks for letting us all come and stay Dad, Mom, Christina and Micah! Can't wait til Christmas!

Micah, Kailey, Alexis, Megan & Zoey

Zoey....being good as always!

Me & Jennie went for a ride...I think she was a little nervous!

Nothing like a nice campfire!

It was a little cold that night!

Riding the golfcart

My Parents back yard. I miss that place!!!

Where did Thanksgiving go?

The month of October flew by. And thank God the election is over. I don't want to talk about it right now. I do want to talk about Aaron's birthday. We didn't do anything too exciting, we both worked that day. I invited some of our friends over for dinner and of course cake! Thanks to Jennie for the delicious jello cake. And we played some games. I couldn't pull off a surprise like he did for me but I think he enjoyed it! I would like to know what happened to Thanksgiving. Do people not celebrate that anymore? I just went to Wal-Mart and there was Christmas stuff everywhere! It seems like people forget about it or something. Maybe they're just not thankful anymore. Sad. Aaron and I are going to my home next week to visit both our families. I can't wait! It's funny that Missouri is almost exactly halfway between here and Ohio. Which makes for a great meeting place. We will be celebrating birthdays and Thanksgiving! See you guys soon! Bye for now...