Smelling the flowers....

Two days before we found out Mike's deployment was cancelled, Mike sold his car to a guy that I work with. Meaning we were down to one car. Since I am pulling 12-15 hour days at work, and we were living over an hour from work, we decided to move to Maryland to resolve a lot of that! I am now 7 miles from work, which allows Mike to take me to work and pick me up when I get off so that he can have the car during the day. Right now he is applying for jobs....trying to get anything he can find but right now he isn't having much luck. If we can just make it to January we will be fine! (We will be fine no matter what.) In January he is going to go back to George Mason to finish up his last semester and hopefully start his packet to commission as an officer in the Army. In February he goes to California for a month for two different Army schools, which will be good because it's a month's worth of income, and it helps him get closer to his E-7 advancement. He's been in contact with some active duty recruiters too so hopefully something will come through in the near future.

So about those 12-15 hour days at work....not for much longer!!! :) Our schedule just changed to 10am-10pm (or 10pm-10am if you work nights) BUT I am on the day shift until the end of November and then will be switching shops (departments, essentially) to become part of the briefing team that briefs the Commanding Officer in the mornings. That schedule is going to ROCK. 10am-6pm M-F...I am so excited!! I still have to work Thanksgiving and Christmas since the schedule was already made but I am excited to go work a different schedule with some different people. :)

As far as wedding plans go, well, we have none. Since the deployment got cancelled our funding pretty much went out the window. I continue to look at venues and ideas, but it's all talk right now since we can't take action. We are still hoping to have a June or September 2013 wedding. I'd like to have a barn/farm wedding but it's so hard finding a farm in Northern Virginia that doesn't charge $12,000 just to take pictures with their damn fence! Anyway, we'll figure it out eventually.

When Mike proposed at the orchard we also picked out a pumpkin so we carved it together. Cowboys themed, of course! I had to work the Saturday before Halloween which is when everyone did their partying but I was off on the 31st, which was a Monday, but we decided to go out anyway. We knew we'd be alone is our costumes but we got dressed up in our long-planned costumes and when out to National Harbor for a drink and an appetizer and then just went home. Pretty uneventful but it was fun :)

 Osama bin Ladin and SEAL Team 6 :)

Our Dallas Cowboys Pumpkin :)

Mike's birthday was Sunday and I had to work so he stayed home and watched the Cowboys game. We celebrated on Friday night at Old Glory in Georgetown and had a great time. A bunch of Mike's friends showed up, and some of mine did too. It was a great time, had by all. I even saw my Dad's name up on the wall for the Bourbon club! That was pretty neat :)

 Us at Old Glory

Dad's name and year that he tried all the different bourbons at Old Glory



Our lives are kind of all over the place right now and it feels kind of chaotic but right now we are both really happy and just "smelling the flowers" and enjoying what we've got and what will come. My commute is better, my schedule is getting better, and most of all, we just love living by ourselves. Living with roommates was getting to be so frustrating and we were just ready to have a place of our own. :)