military love

I saw this on Facebook today and it touched my heart; I almost cried! The love I've seen between military men/women and their spouses is so strong. I am not saying that if you're not military your love isn't as great, trust me I know it is, but being a military spouse I just have such a huge place in my heart for the love I see between everyone in a military community while our men and women are going through a deployment. This post was just to sweet and real I had to post it.

I'm the girl who drags herself out of bed every morning so that he will be proud of her when he comes home. I'm the girl who lies in bed longing for him to be next to me. I'm the girl who sits quietly during class because all i can think about is the next moment when he will safely be in my arms again. You don't know. But I'm the girl with a million things to say, but none will come out without the thought of him. I'm the girl who checks my cell phone every 5 seconds Just to make sure i haven't missed his call. I'm the girl who stops and stares and wishes for him to return soon each and every time another man in uniform walks by. What you don't know Is that i know love on an entirely different level from most. I know the love that spans time and space; the love that most people are constantly searching for. I'm one of the girls who waits months for a single kiss; A kiss that will make the months apart worth every second. A kiss where everything in the world stops for what seem like an eternity. You can see it in that person's soul and know that without them life could never be the same. You tell me I'm too young to be so in love; I know that love has no age limit. You tell me i don't even understand what love is. I tell you i know more love in homecoming than most know in a life time. You don't know that every time he leaves a part of me goes with him and a part of him stays with me. You tell me that people change but i tell you, True love will always remain constant and steady. You tell me you know how i feel and understand what im going through you have no idea. What you don't realize is that i understand the true meaning of not only love but of longing and anticipation. You don't see But I'm one of the few who gets goose bumps as my little heart fills with pride every time the national anthem is played. I'm one of the girls who will stand tall and stay strong on the outside but I'm dying in the inside. I'm one of the girls who will make friends with complete strangers for only they can begin to understand what I'm going through. You don't understand That i picture his face everywhere i go and that he is with me in everything i do. You think i don't cry anymore, that i have gotten over it, What you don't know is that i just hide it better. You don't know The feeling the first time you hear the word deployment or the feeling of his hand as it slides out of yours for what could be the last time. You don't know What that last hugs or kiss means and how important that goodbye truly is. I'm the girl you see standing alone in the corner of the airport Watching quietly out the window with tears rolling down my cheeks. I'm the girl you see with a disheartened face Staring silently at the ground. What you don't know, Is that i know true love That no matter what obstacle we have to face, Our love will live forever (that only we know) You tell me that you support the troops; I tell you, I'm in love with one. I'm one of the silent, but outgoing; Weak, but strong; Scared, but grateful. What you don't see is that he needs me and i need him. I'm one of those girls: the girls who stand tall behind her soldier. Stand proud behind her Hero. Stands strong behind her man. Watching silently and patiently as he serves and defends our country.
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never goodbye, just i'll see you later.

This is going to be a very lonely next couple of months! I already miss my baby and he has been gone for about 10 hours. I've literally just slept the day away, but I promised myself I'm going to wake up and make my day as normal as possible. It's not going to do me any good to just sit around and wait for Richard to get home. Oh and Merry Christmas and Happy New Years! :) This picture is when Richard and I went out to dinner with some of our good friends here from Vicenza. It's great to have people I can rely on and trust here. It's also comforting to know my husband has a lot of good men around him while he's gone. Let's pray these next couple of months fly by!

fall obsessions.

Per the request of my sissy I am writing on my blog. I feel like I always have ideas for posts I want to write about but I never get around to writing about it! I am going to post about the styles I've been dying to create! One thing I love/hate about pinterest is that I always find cute new ideas for outfits and inspiration, but then that just makes me want to buy new clothes. haha I miss shopping with my sisters, they always give me the best advice! Online shopping is my best friend right now:) 

I am loving the leather jacket and big flare jeans! I think this style is so slimming:)

 Once again leather jacket!! I am loving gold and leopard. Also aviators..obsessed! 

 I love stripes and leopard is such a cute combo!

 Anything relaxed=amazing. Just ordered some boyfriend jeans..so stoked!

 Ahhh plaid:) enough said.

Chunky knits and booties plus plaid. its almost too much!

Gold arm candy.

 Sequins and pure black tights. I wear black tights under all my dresses, they keep me warm! 

I am in need of cute black booties like these! 

finishing up

so first off let me finish off my days of thankfulness...

day 19:
I am thankful for my job; even if its not my ideal job it still allows me to work and help out with bills. I was blessed with being able to find a job so quickly after moving to Italy. Hopefully I will find a job better suited for me but for now it will do.

day 20:
I am lucky for the people that always stick by me. This may sound cheesy, but I will never take those friendships for granted. I learned so much about what real friendships are over the past year and to say the least I know who my true friends really are.

day 21:
I am thankful more and more everyday to have married my best friend. Everyday he does so much for me. I will never understand how I got so lucky:)

day 22:
I am thankful that I can navigate through a kitchen! I love trying new dinner and dessert ideas out on my hubby and his friends. I can't wait for family dinners when we have kids of our own!

day 23:
I am so so thankful my mother taught me how to clean. I love a clean house, I mean who doesn't?! haha but I definitely wouldn't have as clean house as I do if it weren't for my momma.

day 24:
I am thankful for my ability to learn new things. I have such a hunger for information and I'm glad I have somewhere for it to go.

thankfulness catch up!

So clearly I haven't posted my weekly thankfulness post like I said I would, oops! Story of my life:) I forgot but I am posting it now!

day 4: I am so so so thankful for the Gospel in my life. I am grateful for the the guidance, comfort and stability it gives me in my life. I am a mess about 99% of the time and trusting in the Lord for what I need and praying about my decisions has always made such a huge difference in my life. I am grateful for the solid foundation of the church that I was raised on.

day 5: I am thankful for my aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins. No matter if they are great uncles or second cousins my family has always had a positive influence on me and my outlook on life. They are such amazing, motivating people who are always striving to be better and to do better. Love them!

day 6: I am thankful that I am working and that I am able to keep up with a demanding job! I am glad that I have been able to find not one, but two jobs so quickly. Luckily the second job is being a substitute teacher and I am able to be pick my schedule around my other job. I am very blessed.

day 7: Today I am so thankful that in three years time we will be returning to the states! Oh my; I have taken everything for granted over there...being close to family, being able to own a gun and even just having a Walmart near by! Living in Italy has made me love Idaho even more:)

day 8: On the other hand I am also very thankful for the opportunity we have to be living in Italy. I know and recognize that it is a once in a lifetime opportunity that a lot of people would love to have! It may take some getting used to, but I love that I am able to travel a little while we can!

day 9: I am thankful for the few friends that I have made in the short time that I have been here, along with my husbands buddies. I know that good friends are hard to come by and I have been blessed with a few already! It's also nice to know that while my husband is away from me there are other guys looking out for him...it eases my heartache a little bit! :)

day 10: I am thankful for the ability to read! oh my, how I love reading:) I am also thankful that my husband always buys new books to read, even if I do read them so quickly. haha

day 11: I am thankful for the ability to online shop! haha this may sound a little worldly, BUT holy cow there is absolutely NO WHERE to buy jeans over here! They only sell super skinny, suffocating pants and honestly I just want a pair of comfy jeans to wear for everyday. So I am thankful that I can just get onto buckle.com and order my lovely jeans. yay!

day 12: I am thankful for technology. We have the most amazing piece of technology; its called MagicJack Plus. We just plug it into the wall and connect to our internet and we now have an Idaho phone number! We can call home to the states as often as we like and anyone can call us and there is no long distance. It has definitely been a blessing to be able to talk to our family whenever we want or need to:)

day 13: I am thankful for the food we are able to put on our table and I am also thankful that I can cook, well at least a little;)

day 14: I am thankful for candles and flowers! haha I love love love them and have about a million all over my house. I love turning off all the lights and just lighting my candles, it makes our house so warm and cozy.

day 15: I am thankful that our Christmas tree actually made it over here and even though our ornaments and lights didn't my hubby went out and bought all new ornaments and lights for our tree and outside because he knows how much I love decorating for Christmas. He's just the sweetest; love him!

day 16: I am thankful that I have always had a little clue on how to do my hair and makeup in a way that best suits me. It's never been a challenge for me really and I am so thankful for that! I am obsessed with trying new hairstyles and make up techniques and I am glad I am able to do that. :)

day 17: I am thankful for people that aren't afraid to be good at things and be proud of it (I don't be cocky people). I love people who also have amazing talents and aren't afraid to share them!

day 18: Today I am thankful for a roof over my head and a warm place to lay down at night. After a long night at work all I want to do is come home and snuggle my bed and pass out. I know I am so blessed with all that I have.

warning: you will want to make this!

I was on Pinterest the other day, surprise surprise;), and I came across the cutest project! Well more like printing out already made subway art and putting it in a frame; but that's besides the point! I have been looking for something cute that I can easily change with the holidays and/or seasons. My mom always made cute wall signs at super Saturday's and I love how its something simple but its the perfect decoration. I found the wonderful subway art at this wonderful blog called eighteen25. They have the holidays like New Years, Valentines and all that good stuff, but they also have one that you can put up for birthdays, game days and even summer! They are just so dang adorable AND they also give you color options with almost every subway art. I think I am in love:) You can print them out as a 16x20 or whatever size you want. I can't wait to get this hung up! :)
Direct link to the subway art collection: Click Here!!

my sweet hubby:)

To go along with my day one of thankfulness I am writing a post about my sweet hubby. He does so many nice things for me. They are little things that just make my whole day. We have this white board on our fridge and I always have a sweet message waiting for me. Sometimes they are short and sweet and other times they are just plain hilarious. He has a habit of buying me flowers and candles (some of my favorite things), and the other day when I got home from work I had Magic Mike and a new Coach perfume waiting for me. Gahhhh, seriously I wonder how I got so lucky. Everyday I am thankful to wake up next to my hubby and coming home to him is the perfect end to my days. I can't wait til we're 80 and rocking on our front porch together. :) I am so glad he always knows exactly what to say to cheer me up and help me keep moving forward. xoxo always & forever.

30 days of thankfulness:)

I have seen everyone on Facebook doing the '30 days of thankfulness' and I wanted to join in. Except I am going to write down mine for every week and then do a weekly thankfulness post; I'm just not a big fan of posting a lot on Facebook and sometimes I think people just don't care! ha but since this is like a journal to me I will share it on the blog so I will have something to look back on. At this point in my life I feel like I am a mess 97% of the time. I feel so stressed, worried, anxious and the list goes on. Something that has always helped me counteract these feelings is counting my blessings! I know I am more than blessed and sometimes with everything going on I definitely forget that. I really dislike when I feel like I am acting ungrateful and spoiled, so this will help me keep in that thankful mindset. So lets begin, here are my first three days.

Day 1:
First and foremost I am thankful for my wonderful hubby! I can honestly say he is the best thing that has ever happened to me. He supports me and pushes me to be so much better. He's so funny and cutesy. He is my baby and I don't know what I would do without him. I am thankful that he is so willing to work hard everyday for our little family. I am so proud of him for all the accomplishments he has already achieved in the little time he has been in the Army. He is my best friend and I can't wait for whatever the future holds with him!

Day 2:
I am thankful for my family! Family is the most important thing to me and I love love love mine to pieces. We have so many funny memories and inside jokes. I miss them more everyday. I am thankful that my siblings have such fun and lively personalities; there is never a dull moment with us:) I miss spending time and hanging out with them! I can't wait for the day when we are finally reunited:)

Day 3:
I am thankful that I am blessed with a healthy and able body. I am able to do everything that I want and then some:) I am thankful that I know and am better able to learn how to fuel and take care of my body properly. I love that my body is strong and has endurance for all the crazy things I do to it. I may not always love the way my body looks, but with hard work and discipline I will be able to get my body exactly where I want it to be.

military life.

The military lifestyle definitely takes some getting used to. My dad has been active duty Air Force my entire life, but growing up with you dad in the military is a lot different than your hubby! After basic, AIT, and Airborne; & having Richard gone for 2 months before I got to Italy was a bit of a rough time for us--especially since it was our first year of being married! I can not explain how unstressed I have been since I have been able to be here and see him everyday. He is home to me and no place will ever feel better than being in his arms. But with the military/Army you must learn to be ready for anything. Deployments schedules often get moved up and it's something that no one likes; but I will stand behind my hubby and support him 100%. Luckily this one isn't quite as long, but it definitely snuck up on me. :( And yes I know a lot of wives are going through the same thing but my hubby is my baby and I am a huge baby when it comes it him leaving. 

Since he will be gone for just a short couple a months I have decided to use that time to really focus on me and some goals that I have been putting off. I am so very blessed to have been able to get a job so quickly so that will also keep me busy. I am hoping to get a second job here pretty soon but we will see. 

Some of my goals:
-Figure out what is going on with my student loans & start paying them off
-Start saving again!
-Get in better shape (lower body fat percentage and lose the weight I want)
-Eat clean! (this is usually easier when I am living by myself just because I don't even buy junk food)
-Work out 5-6 times a week:) (we already do this but I wanna keep it up!)
-Try to be an amazing support system for my honey and send him tons of cute care packages! :)

I miss my family so so much and especially have been missing my grandpa. It's almost been two years since he's passed. I feel so blessed to know that he is still with me and he is watching out for me. His wonderful advice always comes to mind when I need it most. Hopefully I will be seeing my family sooner rather than later:) I love each and everyone of them so much! Family is the most important thing. For now I will send every second that I can with my hubby! Hopefully he won't get too annoyed me with; lol just joking;) muah xoxo!!

Oktober-test:)

Last Friday I had the opportunity to volunteer for an event on post called Oktober-test. A bunch of four man teams raced through an obstacle course. They had to milk a cow (a fake one), do the wheel barrel race for a certain amount of distance, chug a 'beer' which was really sparkling apple juice and eat a whole pretzel and then they had to carry a log the width of the football field and back, go through a huge blow up obstacle course and lastly they had to find a flower in a huge foam pit. It was so much fun! I was originally supposed to work one of the stations where they complete one of the obstacles but they ended up asking me to be team judge. Basically I just ran with teams and made sure they were doing all the obstacles correctly and not cheating. I met a lot of funny, great people! Tasha (a spouse of one of Richard's friends) and I really did have a great time. It's always helpful to me to volunteer my time and not expect anything in return. Ohhh! I also met some crossfit gals; so I just might go to my first crossfit class this week. I'm not sure I am brave enough to go alone but you never know! After a long couple of hours it was finally time to pack up and go home! Such a fun day though:)

birthday present!!

So my birthday was on the 6th of September and I was having a really hard time deciding what I wanted for my birthday. I finally found this beauty and I just had to have it! I just got a new purse for Christmas last year so I really didn't want to buy a new one already. I put off buying this purse just to make sure I really wanted it, of course I felt it was a must. :) My hubby was sweet and told me to order it as soon as I decided I wanted it. I'm excited because its so neutral and will go will everything! All in all I am very happy with my birthday present and can't wait to use it! :) xoxo

home is where ever i'm with you♥

Sunday Sunday Sunday! Quite possibly my favorite day of the week. I found the cutest little park today when I went for a walk. Our apartment gets so stuffy and so I just walked around our little neighborhood and came across this park! And if you squint and kind of tilt your head a little you can pretend you are in Idaho. :) haha I finally got around to taking some pictures of our street and apartment complex. Nothing special but you know that's government housing for you! Why yes, I did slick my hair back today! Bringin' back 7th grade. ;)

I quite possibly am going to Florence this weekend with the high school volleyball team here. They need some help because one of their coaches just had to go back to the states for a family emergency. This should be fun! I miss volleyball:( They do have an adult rec team here that starts up in February so hopefully that will  be fun and not completely a bust. I'm also all signed up for an American Red Cross dental assisting program here. I need a career!! I suppose I should get up and go clean and all that fun stuff.

banner day:)

So this past Friday was family day/banner day. Basically the guys get up and do pt in the morning and then they go home and bring their families back to family day. It was set up in the softball field on post and there was some activities that the kids could do like face painting, a jumpy castle and being able to "shoot" some of the guns the boys use. You could also look through the hummers and jump off the jump tower like our boys. Unfortunately, I wore a dress so no jumping off the tower for me! haha It was a lot of fun for the kids we were with, but the guys and I mostly just hung out, talked and ate snow cones :) At the end of the day there was a tug of war competition between the company's that the guys are in. The hubbs and his company made it to the championship match but ended up coming in second!  It was a great day and it was nice to hang out with our friends all day. :) 

i miss...

goodies:)

Sad to say, but yes, I am home alone on a Friday night:( I miss my baby! After a long week of combative's he still got called in for CQ duty. So here I am blogging about all the random things I am thinking about on this lonely Friday night. Haha First things first, my birthday is six days away! :) No longer a teen, but finally the big 2-0!

--Gossip Girl is saving my Friday night from being completely lost
--I hate sleeping in our bed without my hubby; it's too empty.
--I really need to get a fill and my toenails repainted...asap!
--After looking at the Hair & Beauty board on Pinterest all I want to do is sit in front of my mirror and redo my makeup and hair in a million different ways.
--I love Leighton Meester (after watching Gossip Girl I watched every movie she was in and downloaded her songs, I know; Enough is enough!)
--I really need to grocery shop, our fridge, freezer and cupboards are empty.
--Obsessing over Toby Mac <3 downloading spree starts nowwww.
--I am so blessed to have such an amazing hubby & best friend. He is the best!

Last time I posted I talked about how we went to Aviano and drove go karts. Well last Saturday the 25th we went down to Jesolo to the beach! It was about an hour and a half drive but completely worth it! Ahh I will never get over the sand in my toes feeling. It was so fun just to enjoy some sunshine with my hubbs. We went paddling boarding for a little bit, and I say a little bit because that's exactly what it was. I wish I could say that everything went great and we had a ton of fun, while we did have a bunch of fun it didn't end so well. haha I can laugh about this now because it was a typical Richard Tanya fight that made the paddle boarding fiasco blow up. It was so windy that day and the water was very choppy, and I was having a hard time navigating this huge board. Richard was just trying to help to his defense, but me being the perfectionist that I am believes I can do it by myself perfectly. Anyways, I got frustrated because I was failing at paddle boarding and so I went back to shore. After the whole paddle boarding thing blew over, we sat on the beach and ate sandwiches and then body surfed forever. I wish I could capture the huge smile Richard had on his face when we were body surfing, it melted my heart. Then randomly he would pick me up and throw me over a wave to 'save me' which just ended up with me getting a mouth full of salt water. He is just so dang cute, and I can never get enough of the lovely dovey, carefree man that I married.

 My hottie hubby on the beach;) 

I might post a little later tonight because I am going to be that bored and I know I won't be able to sleep. Lovess!

hump day!

I feel like I have so much to post about! I keep on meaning to update the blog but something else always comes up. Life in Italy is the same to say the least. We drove up to Aviano two Saturday's ago so that we could look at the furniture that they have there--needless to say it was a total bomb. We found one set that we loved but it is one back order (go figure). So for now we will continue to use the Army temp furniture. We came home and decided to go out with some friends. We went out to dinner, well for pizza ha, and then we went to an indoor race track. So fun!! Percy, Dakota, Richard and I suited up and went for a run. It was great for about the first 10 minutes haha. That was only the qualifying round, we still had another 20 minutes! The hubbs took first place of course, and I took last. Needless to say I need to sharpen up my driving skills. I did get the fastest lap time of the day by some miracle;) whooo!

This week Richard is in a combat training class, meaning he gets beat up and beats up other guys ever day. It  doesn't sound appealing to me in any way, but it looks good that he's doing it. Which means a very sore, beat up husband every day after work. 

I finally got my degree in the mail! Well it's at my parents house so they have to mail it to me:) One down, two to go! I think I have officially decided that I want to get my Masters. We will see:) 

That's all for now! Lovesss:)