In the Teens.

No, not the temperature. No, not age. Yep, the countdown! We are in the teens, and I can hardly believe it. Different than we had planned, I won't be at the Homecoming Ceremony for his chalk, which kind of stinks, but because we are sacrificing that special time together, we will get an additional seven days together, thanks to my Spring Break as a teacher. So we both know it's worth it. My schedule is absolutely nuts for the next three months. It looks something like this:

March 31st - April 14: Hawaii

April 15 - April 28: Virginia

April 28 - May 10: Hawaii

May 11 - June 1: Virginia

June 1: Back to Hawaii until Christmas

Yes, insanity. I'm never going to catch up to a time zone until like...July. When I was in Hawaii last winter and came back to Virginia, it took me a good two weeks to feel normal again. I had some serious jet lag, but I'm hoping now that I've experienced that 16 hour (sometimes a little more or less) flight, it won't hit me as hard. I've been doing all kinds of preparation for his homecoming. Have to get his phone service reinstated, electricity and internet turned on in our place, different things ordered, car keys and paperwork shipped, and so on.

This is essentially my last week teaching in my first placement. I have to finish this week, and then I have one last week. However, my final week at MMS will be SOL review and testing Monday through Wednesday and movie days on Thursday and Friday as a break for the brain-fried kids. So that will be an easy, effortless week. Then, I'm off to my next placement, which I'm quite honestly dreading. It's 12th grade, which I've done before. They are nightmares of students, especially in the Spring when they're burned out and the work they do has no purpose because they've already passed final exams and SOL's and everything else they need to do to graduate. And I can't exactly tell them that what they're doing at the end of their senior year is important--because nine times out of ten, it isn't. Especially this school--an urban one with one of the highest drop-out rates in the state. They're higher education rate is next to none, which means research papers are pointless, which about all seniors could do. The only thing that would be useful to them is career preparation: resumes, interviewing, career reflections, formal versus informal speech, writing, and dress, and so forth. So I'm thinking in the five weeks I am there, I'm going to do a unit on just that: "Real World Readiness." We'll see how it goes!

My graduation gown, hood, and medals are hanging up on my closet door, just waiting for May 12th to roll around. David and I were talking this morning, and we decided we aren't going to know what to do with ourselves when there's no more deployment and no more schooling. But then we realized the answer was pretty simple: HAVE FUN!

Oh, Valentine's Day.

I guess it would be blasphemous if I didn't make a post about Valentine's Day. Yet another Valentine's Day without my husband home.

First, I went to Michael's craft store and bought all kinds of pretty paper and stickers and ribbon to make the perfect Valentine's Day card. Then, I bought his favorite candies, including an R2D2 Pez dispenser (he's a Star Wards nerd). Two days later, my husband says they're starting to turn mail around to the sender because they're close to coming home. So great, I've bought all this cool stuff, and now I can't even give him anything on Valentine's Day...

On my way home today, on Valentine's Day, I had an epiphany! When my husband is home, I sing to him. Non-stop. Every day. Sometimes pop songs. Sometimes country songs. Sometimes Disney songs. When he's away, he likes for me to sing to him over Skype, send him videos, or send him music tracks (mp3's or what-have-you). I did so every now and then, but life kind of took over and I didn't have the time or patience to sit down with my guitar and record over and over. So, I think it's been about 8 months since I had sent him any of my music, and every other phone call, he made sure I remembered how much I was slacking. I decided on the way home, that the perfect impromptu Valentine's Day gift--that he'll love more than any card or candy or other gift--is a song. So I got home from work, grabbed my guitar and decided on Taylor Swift's "Ours" because he sent me the lyrics to that song a while back when I was having a rough time. Interestingly enough, the video is about a military wife/girlfriend living in a world where no one understands what it's like for her soldier to be gone. So, I recorded a video of me singing it and just posted it to his Facebook profile. It took me like 5 minutes to hit post because I don't like other people to hear me sing or even know that I do. He's currently sleeping, and likely snowed in, so I'm so excited for it to be the first thing he sees tomorrow morning when he gets up and makes his way to the MWR :) My video is below! I'm not great, but I just did it for him. I'm not too worried what others think about it.

And now on to my presents! This morning, well at 3AM this morning when I woke up in the middle of the night, I checked my Facebook and had this cute post from him:

And so I'm sailing through the sea, to an island where we'll meet. You'll hear the music fill the air, I'll put a flower in your hair.....I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend. lucky to have been where I have been, lucky to be coming home again. One last holiday missed love due to me being a BA in life but this is the last one, I promise. I love you so much. Happy Valentines Day Love. ♥ 

Yep, he's adorable. It made me cry. I know that sounds dumb, but when a husband is deployed, it's a lot harder for them to show their emotions. So, I don't get to hear stuff like this too often these days. Not because he loves me any less, but because he has to be persistent at keeping tough to survive there. He's still plenty sweet to me, but little messages and notes are a cherry on top.

Then, I got home to find flowers on my front porch. I wasn't expecting those at all, so they were a nice surprise! The lilies in them are so pretty! The card inside them was so cute. The whole "eat these chips" thing is an inside joke. When we first started dating, we stayed somewhere in a hotel, and the moron left a bag of chips on the nightstand and wrote a note to the cleaning lady and said something along the line of "These chips are perfectly fine and I didn't want them to go to waste. PFC Hirn." I laughed hysterically before telling him they would probably throw them away anyways.

Dragging On.

I'm sure this is typical of any military wife in the home-stretch of a deployment, but O-M-G, could time be moving any slower!? I'm having to look at the number of days, not the months/weeks. Even though my husband will be home before (so this is technically not a violation of OPSEC), there are FORTY EIGHT days until I see his handsome face for the first time since early September! It's just dragging out for both of us. His days there are relatively quiet now, which, while a good thing as far as getting rest goes, definitely makes the days go by slower too. You would think with teaching full time, my days would be flying, but I think I feel like they're flying, then I look at my calendar and it's been shorter than I thought, then that's just discouraging. David has decided not to look at the date on his phone anymore to help the days go by faster. I just wish I could do that, too!

I sent our car off to Hawaii this past Friday. The process was almost easy. Besides not getting very good directions on what paperwork to bring, we ran into a few roadblocks. I knew I had to have 1/4 tank of gas or less, so I only brought it up to 1/2 tank before we left for an hour and 45 min. trip to Portsmouth. My 80 minute commute to and from work each day uses about a 1/4 tank, so I figured I would be fine. I didn't consider that I'd be driving highway miles east (downhill) towards sea level. So, I got to Portsmouth and had to go to an auto shop to have my gas siphoned from my vehicle to my aunt's. That took 45 minutes. Then, I got to the POV shipment place and began my paperwork (the wait wasn't long at 10am). I'm half-way through when the woman goes to look for my registration in the stack of paperwork I brought her when she says, "I don't see your registration." And I'm like "Well, I know I brought it. It was attached to the insurance card copies (which I didn't need), which are right here. So it must have fallen out if it's not here." She double checks by flipping through all my paperwork to not find it again. So, then I'm driving 20 minutes to go to the nearest DMV when I decide to check my paperwork stack behind her. The lady stapled my registration to the back of our orders, so of course she passed over them! So then, we turned around and drove BACK to the POV shipment place, and I completed the process, including an inspection where I found out ON THE WAY THERE (because it wasn't there before), a rock hit my front bumper and chipped the paint! Thankfully, it's small--a little smaller than a dime. Then we went to Applebee's in Suffolk on the way home and had the worst service ever, but that's another story for another time.

As far as the deployment goes, my husband is featured in a 25 minute long documentary on Al Jazeera. It can be found here: The Winter War. It's a really intriguing video. It shows the 18-day mission my husband went on during Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day, it shows the OP taking incoming and then returning the favor--but I'd like to think a little more successfully! Here's a screen shot of him (front-right) in the video:

So handsome <3

This video is by the same filmmaker that made the 25 minute video, but this is of Checkpoint 2.5, where my husband has spent about half of his deployment in 3-4 day trips every week.

So that's about it. Other interesting tidbits: I have my first scrimmage in just six days. I'm nervous! Student-teaching is going great. My workout life is pretty excellent. I haven't lost any weight, but I'm looking much better. I really don't care about the number though. I can tell a huge difference in my muscle tone. I "deleted" Facebook in that I came to a compromise with my Mom and Aunt and kept Facebook, but deleted everyone who was not a blood relative. Their argument is that they want to see pictures and stuff from Hawaii, and that Facebook is easier than pulling up my blog. So now, my Facebook exists for the sole purpose of filling in my family on life in Hawaii. I really just wanted to delete it, but this way, everyone is happy--at least as close to it as possible. I'll be happy when we move back home and I delete the whole dang thing.

But anywho, off to watching Cupcake Wars and writing my reflection for last week's student-teaching!

The Turning Point

So as of this week, I think we are officially getting into the turning point of our time is a long-distance, deployment-smothered couple. Things are finally feeling like they're right around the corner, and we're having so many positive experiences that I can just feel it--it's just so close!!

I taught my first full day today, and it went really well! My supervising professor came and observed me, and afterwards the only things she had to say as far as improvement goes were (a) I messed with my bra strap--which was kind of weird to me, and (b) I need to walk around the room more--but we were watching a video clip for a good portion of the class, so I couldn't block their view. So, I think it went well and I did pretty good for my first day taking on all classes all by myself.

Also, a colleague (even though I'm not technically employed) of mine at school asked me if I played soccer, and I was like "Well, yeah!" and he invited me to play on his team in the adult co-ed league in the area. So, if you've been following my journey, you'll know how much this means to me. I'm so excited to play again. It's only a game a week with no practices, but that's enough for me. I want to help coach girls soccer at my student teaching school, too.

The other most awesome thing is that we are winding down the housing search! We've found a few different properties and have contacted the agents. It's just so scary because I have to put a lot of money into a place that we can't step foot into until it's already ours. I have a friend who agreed to checking out some places for us so that she can let us know if they're gross or not, and that will be a huge help to making me feel better about committing to a place. We have two favorite places that are in two different complexes, both in Mililani, which I consider to be a "suburban" area in Hawaii. Nice housing, nice schools, movie theatre, lots of restaurants and stores, but not quite a busy city area. The best part is that it's only like 5-10 minutes from base. My husband likes to come home for breakfast and lunch so that his dearest wife can cook for him and take off his boots (don't worry, I don't really take off his boots for him).

The first place has amazing floors and is over 700 sq. ft. with 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom, which means the bedroom will be a decent size. The second one is a little more expensive, but has AC (unlike the first) and two bedrooms, which will be nice for an office space and occasional family visits from Virginia. So we shall see!

I also am almost finished moving everything into our storage unit. The movers come this Friday, so I have one more day (plus a few hours Friday morning), and all I have to do is move about 4 more bins in to it--so like one more trip! Then, I send our vehicle off a week later. Back to the good 'ole '93 Jeep Cherokee for a few months!

We're almost there...