Aloha From Hawaii

We have gotten a couple of texts and one phone call from Ashley & Lance since leaving for their honeymoon. The phone call was because of questions Ashley needed answered while they were trying to finish up paperwork the Military needed done.

They said they are having a great time and wish they never had to leave. Since they are in Hawaii, I'd be concerned if I heard anything else. lol

Anyhow, Ashley has posted some pictures from their trip on her Facebook page, so any of you who are friends with her, go check 'em out!

For those of you who aren't friends with her, I thought I'd let you see a couple that I especially like:

This first one was taken on their wedding night, before they left for Hawaii. Now that's what a young couple in love looks like. :) How adorable are these two?



One evening they went to a Polynesian Luau. Anyone who was on their honeymoon or celebrating an anniversary was asked to come up on stage.



Ashley told me they played a traditional Polynesian love song and all the couples were asked to slow dance to it.



Again I ask.....How adorable are these two? lol




I'm so happy to know they are having so much fun, as this is time they greatly need together. Ashley will fly back here to Iowa on May 10th. On May 11th, Lance will fly with other Marines to Afghanistan to serve and fight for our Country.

Announcement

May I have your attention please! I have an announcement to make:

This Saturday I will become one of the most teased, picked on, loved, and in some cases, the most feared person on the planet. That's right, I will become a mother-in-law.

Ashley getting married!

I'll give you a minute to catch your breath and absorb that statement before I go on.


Ok, better now? Good. Here's how this has all come about....

Ashley has shown pigs at the state fair in FFA since she was in 9th grade. That first year she met a boy named Lance who was in 10th grade. He lived almost 2 hours away from where we live.

Innocent flirting went on over the next few years until he graduated and went into the military after high school.

When Lance came home for 6 weeks after his first year of serving, he and Ashley saw each other at a concert and started talking, and for the remainder of the 6 weeks, they were inseperable.

He is still in the Military and has been stationed in Okanowa Japan for the past several months, until he went to Hawaii recently for desert training. They have been training in the intense heat around a volcano (can you imagine???).

Lance and Ashley have maintained their relationship thanks to modern technology. They started out with IMing, then moved on to Facebook, and now also enjoy daily face to face interaction by way of Skype.

Ashley had told me that she and Lance have talked about getting married in 2011 when he is finished with overseas deployment. Then, about 3 weeks ago Ashley talked to us and said very causally "Um, well, you know how I said we were talking about getting married in 2011? Well, we've moved it up to the 24th of this month."

To say you could have heard a pin drop is a complete understatement.

Lance talked to us to explain why the rush. On May 11th, Lance will be deployed to Afghanistan and he'll be there until December. Lance is a Marine and his duty will be to uncover land mines. He (and others) will walk with metal detectors part of the time, and then there's other tools they use other times. It's obviously VERY dangerous work.

Lance has talked honestly and frankly with Ashley about the risks. He told us "I know you both love Ashley and take great care of her as needed, but I also love her very much and I want to have the opportunity to be married to her and to take care of her. If I marry her now and anything happens to me over there, I will be able to die knowing that she will receive military widow benefits, which means I'll still be able to take care of her. That gives me a lot of peace."

How do you argue with that?

He is only home for 10 days, and then he has to go back to Hawaii to finish his training and then he'll deploy from there.

Lance and Ashley will be getting married this Saturday, April 24th, 2010 in a small park nearby. Thankfully Lance planned ahead and reserved a shelter house, because unfortunately it sounds like there is a good possibility for rain. (boo! hiss!)

Afterwards they will go to a hotel for the night near the airport, and then will fly out early Sunday morning, because, as I said, Lance has to finish his training. Ashley is done with classes for the summer on this Friday, so she is going to fly to Hawaii with him and they will have time together in the evenings for a honeymoon.

On May 10th my daughter will fly back to Iowa, and the following morning my son-in-law will fly to Afghanistan.

It's A Rerun

It's that time of year again, so I thought I'd rerun a blog post I did last year:

Jay Is Leaving Me

We'll Be Busy With Family Tomorrow, So......

Happy 22nd Anniversary Jay.
I love you with all my heart.

July 11, 1987

Grow old along with me.
The best is yet to be.

How I Met My Mr. Right ~ Part 3

In late October, Jay came to pick me up to go to my parents home so they could meet him. I was so nervous! My dad hasn't ever been too fond of any guys I have dated, and since I really kind of liked this one, I didn't want my dad scaring him off.

I greeted Jay at the door when he arrived. There he is standing there in his old high school basketball warm-up pants. They are wide vertical stripes of maroon, black and white. AND he is wearing a BeeGees t-shirt. He looked very similar to the collage I put together over here on the right. I still shudder when I think of it. One thought came to my mind: My dad is going to eat you alive!

I rode back to his apartment with him and helped pick out something else for him to wear and off we went to my parents. I was still very nervous, but I'm totally serious when I say that within 30 minutes my dad and Jay were having a beer and talking golf and getting along great. I had nothing to have been nervous about...although, I was still glad I had made him change.

On Christmas Eve 1986, just 3 short months after we started dating, Jay got down on one knee in my living room and proposed to me. Without any hesitation I said yes. God had answered my prayer. I had met my Mr. Right. I remember looking up on Christmas night, just 24 hours later and saying "Thank you God, but whew....we cut it pretty close there. 1986 was almost over!"

This is a picture of Jay and I on the night we got engaged. Oh my goodness, we look SO young!

Wanna Come Out And Play?

The men in this house are trying to turn me into a man...a guy...a dude. It's partly my fault, but now I'm desperately treading water trying to not drown in all the testosterone around here.


I made the comment that I was feeling lonely. I'm home alone all day, and then on the few nights we do happen to be home, Jay & Austin are either out golfing together, or having a heated Wii tournament. They invited me to come along, but yea, well.....I used to golf with Jay in a couple's league a long time ago and when people we were playing with kept trying to correct my swing, I found myself trying to mathematically figure out how much alcohol my body would need to consume to get to where I didn't mind these people touching me, my clubs or my golf balls.


I found I couldn't count that high.


And it's not just golf, it's all sports. I'm not good at them. I never have been. They know this. Sports are out. The only sport I can kinda-sorta do is bowling. But only if you have those guards for the gutters. And even then I get beat by children, and I have young cousins telling me I really should practice more *oh snap*. When you are really, really bad at something, it tends to take the fun out of it. So I've tried to come up with other things that maybe we can do together.

I can't sing so karoke night is out, & I can't play an instrument, so joining a band is out too. I can't dance --which is ironic since I took 15+ yrs of dance lessons. Now I'm left looking like Steve Earkel from Family Matters.


I don't have a green thumb, so suggesting we do gardening, landscaping or anything like that together will cause plants around me to hurry up and die just so they can avoid the long term suffering.


The things that I honestly enjoy doing are things that would make Jay want to stab his eyes out to avoid doing them. Things like having a make-over, getting my nails done, shopping for clothes, shoes, purses. You know...girl stuff. Other than that, I don't really have any hobbies.


So. Here I sit trying to figure out something I can enjoy doing alone with my husband. Hey-hey, I don't mean that - let's keep this a family show!


So what are some things you and your husband enjoy doing together? Or things your whole family enjoys doing together.


Oh, and don't bother suggesting we read a book together. For those of you that know Jay, take a moment and imagine the look on Jays' face if I were to suggest "Honey, I think we should select a book and each evening we sit on the couch and read to each other." Yea...that's the look I'd get, and you know he'd ask if I had been sniffing laundry detergent or something.


For those of you who don't personally know Jay, this is a man who hasn't read an actual book since college. Sports Illustrated and Golf Digest are as close to books as he gets. So us reading together is definitely not going to happen.

Times Have Changed

One of my favorite things when I was growing up was listening to my Grandpa sing. He had a soft tenor voice and was always singing or humming a song (hhhmm....wonder where I get it from?). He sang a lot of the songs from his time, and I remember thinking how wonderful and romantic those songs were.

The other day I found myself singing one of them....

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true.
I'm half crazy, over the love of you.
It won't be a stylish marriage.
I can't afford a carriage.
But you'll look sweet, upon the seat,
Of a bicycle built for two.

Stop and read those words again....I'll hum the tune while I wait.

Done? Translated to a song from today and it would basically be:

Daisy, Daisy
You make me crazy with how much I love you.
I don't have barely any money,
I don't even have a car.
But, hop on my bike
and lets ride off into the sunset together.

Wouldn't that make you go weak in the knees to have your dream man singing those words to you? Shows what a simpler time that used to be. I can't imagine being a single girl and having my date show up with a 2-seater bicycle. Can you? LOL