*special note*

                                                                    
Everyone please notice and applaud my mom, mama Rhonda- to the left of this post she is now listed as a follower of this blog!  yay maaam!  She was even tech savvy enough to load a pretty picture of herself onto her profile!  And doesn't she look pretty :)

Now don't get to excited- she hasn't started her own blog yet, you can't follow her, but at least now she has overcome her frustration of not being able to comment on our blog and can contribute her fun-loving opinions and exclamations :)

hooray for the weekend!

B and I haven't been this excited for a weekend to come in a long time.  Its not because work is bad or life is hectic.  Its just busy.  We have been living at such a slower pace recently (minus all the moving around) that having our first week of training and "real life"  so to speak was exhausting- especially for B.

So its a Saturday morning and I finally crawled out of bed around 8, but my sweet hubby is still in bed, trying to catch up on all those Zzz's.  

Another thing I wanted to mention again, is that we have found a church body!  When we were hopping around the country for 12 weeks, we were unable to really connect with a body, and the one really great church we knew of in Pensacola was really far away from us.  We attended it for a while, but when we tried to get involved, they really didn't have anything they needed help with at the time- and we started to feel like the Lord was calling us to visit other churches closer to our area.

B and I both have very similar hearts for the church and really want to be a part of one that is not only doctrinally sound, but is meeting together more than once a week- to really foster community, and one that is serving locally beyond the church walls.  There aren't many churches near our area, so it has been a concern of ours for a while- whether or not we would find one in our area.

But, praise the Lord-  He provides for us so well!  We found a church called Emerald Coast Community Church, by surfing the internet one day- and love it.  There are old people, young people, children, youth, middle aged people- all in this relatively small body of believers!  On our first Sunday, sooo many people came up to us to introduce themselves, but not only that- they really wanted to get to know us!  We felt so loved by this genuine body!  We even helped out with a meet the church event they were holding after church at the walmart right across the street from our apartments!  It was so cool to get together with many churches in the area to share the love of Christ to our literal neighbors!

We have visited the church twice now and have really felt the peace of the Lord in it.  The pastor and his wife came over the other night and shared with us everything about the church-  we spent like 3 hours with them- it was really fun and encouraging!

They have small groups starting up soon that we are hoping to get involved with, and we have even met some young military couples there who we have gotten to spend some good time with already!

All that to say, the Lord is definitely doing good things in that area!  He is working.  There are still a couple of difficult things we are praying through- I don't really want to post them, but if you want to know better how to pray for us still in that area- call or email me and I will gladly fill you in!

Enjoy this Saturday and Rest!

photography genius

We took Esther to our beach one day when she was here, and of course brought the camera a long to document this exciting event.  

Somehow ended up being the photographer and with my lack of knowledge in this area, managed to set the camera to some really funky setting.  I thought that I broke the camera and couldn't figure out why everything was purple-- 

Although, I was later able to restore it, our documentation of the beach with Esther is very purple.  enjoy.  

                                                          b has fun glasses :)

                                                         admiring the view

                                                         esther and b

                                                         esther and ashley!

Sew Fun

I mentioned a few posts back that I just started taking sewing lessons.  It has been really fun so far, and very helpful.  B got me a brand new sewing machine for Christmas (pictured above, with me furiously pretending to study the instructions).

The wonderful thing is that he also got me sewing lessons!!  I didn't even have to look at the instructions.  I took my sewing machine into this cute little boutique where a trendy little lady gives private lessons and she showed me every little thing about it and more!

That was sewing lesson number one.  The most trouble I ever have sewing is with the machine, more specifically the bobbin.  And while the bobbin and I still aren't friends, at least I am learning to manage him better.  I have to get a little bit angry sometimes first before he takes me seriously :)

lessons 2-6 are going to involve reading a pattern and working it all out, from start to finish.  My end product will be a lovely little skirt (apparently my pattern is from project runway, i hope rebekah is proud of me)

I picked out my pattern at this drug /pharmacy/fabric/martigras/windchime store that a bunch of cute old ladies work at.  Its quite an odd store but has some really cheap patterns and great fabric.  I even found a really cute amy butler design to make the skirt from! 

I am going on lesson 4 of 6 so hopefully soon I will have the finished product up on the page...and if all goes well I might even be wearing it.  I am so thankful for this time that my husband is allowing me to invest in so many of my random passions and likings :)

.........................................................................................................................................................................

In other news:  B is starting his first 6 weeks of training in Pensacola!  His first day was Friday- it was an orientation and he learned a lot about good study habits and sleeping.  This phase is mostly academic, and is very rigorous.  He plans to be studying a lot and will have about 2 tests a week.  This section of training also covers water safety and survival.  He has to learn how to survive in water- so out to the pool he will go to swim laps.  I think he might even get dragged by a helicopter thru water at some point.  I'm a little fuzzy on the details though.  We are excited for him to get started, but are also anticipating a pretty heavy workload and a very different schedule than what we are used to.

and more exciting news:  we believe we have found a church!  I hope to write more of this in detail soon, but we are really excited about having community here finally!

I'm so spoiled

B and I have another guest in our house this week!  Esther, one of my sweet friends from college, just graduated and decided to pay us a visit in Pensacola.  We are so blessed with wonderful family and friends coming to visit us!  I am not going to know what to do w/ myself once they end.

I picked her up at the airport this morning, we ran errands, toured the base, cooked yummy food, went out for coffee and watched the inauguration.  I am so thankful she is here :)

A Military Day

 I get to go up to base this morning with B- yay! we are carpooling to work :)

He has work at 10 and I have a meeting at 10 on base w/ some other spouses.  

B is in what is called a "stash" job, where they just put you in a random office for an unknown period of time to do random assortments of jobs.  He will be there until his training starts next Friday (a week from today, actually!)

I recently was given the opportunity to be the student spouse coordinator for all of the wives (or husbands too, I suppose) of students in training.  I will basically just try to maintain good contact with the wives in the program and plan a monthly event for us.  I am meeting with some awesome ladies today whose husbands have been in the military quite a bit longer than B and I to talk about new ideas for the new year.  B and I are both really excited about it- it seems like the Lord has really ordained it.  We have both always pictured me ministering to and fellowshipping with other wives in the military, but didn't really know how that would happen.  ( i hadn't met very many wives here until recently).

Anyway, so that is what I am going to do this morning... I only write about it because B and I are both really looking forward to how the Lord might want to use this as a ministry tool, and it was soo neat to see how the Lord really ordained me getting to do this.  I was not involved at all in that plan, and I love when that happens!  

home and fellowship

This is our new cabinet!  We have been very slowly accumulating furniture, based on whether we can find it cheap, cheap or not.  

One of our favorite treasures here in Pensacola is Jennifer's antique flea market.  It is owned by a sweet country couple, I think they actually live on the store's grounds, who have 3 big old barn-like areas you can search through for fun items.  

Our first find was actually the goblets that are in the cabinet.  B and my mom found them while hunting for birthday gifts for me.  He got a random assortment of old antique goblets in several fun colors!  They are probably my favorite part of hosting (minus the people of course :)

We also found a dining room table and chairs, that we repainted and a coffee table there for a steal!

Our most recent find was this cabinet.  It was missing a few knobs (good thing I happen to hoard knobs in my free time)  and needed a new back and some painting (it was a light tan color before).  But it was only $17.50!!  So needless to say, we bought it.

B, being the handy man that he is, put a new backing on it and Kyndall and I, during her visit, shopped around for colors to paint it.  We found our paint at walmart! - our every need store, and started painting.  We finally put it all together yesterday and the pictures above are of our final product!

I was so excited to have something to display the goblets that B got me, and its just a fun piece of furniture.

*special thanks to Jacki, Rebekah and Linden for their fun anthropologie home accent gifts that I get to display on it.  :)*

On another note, yesterday evening our friend Jarrod (who is in B's training)  came over and cooked a pork loin for us!  we invited some other friends, James and another couple, Tobin and Erin over to eat with us.  We had quite a southern feast with mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans.  Afterwards we played cards and ate some sweetie pies apple pie, it was a fun night.  We are enjoying getting to know some of B's flight mates and it was great to have another wife there for company and to balance out the girls and the boys :)  

One Year*edited edition*

A few days ago on January 10th, B and I celebrated our one year of dating anniversary! Of course, we never made it to one year of dating and had to go off and get married before that could happen, but we figured we should celebrate it anyway!

On Jan 10th of last year I was having lunch with two of my friends, Kyndall and Amanda in College Station, when they handed me a letter. It was from B, asking me to follow him in a relationship that he felt the Lord was leading us into. He told me to meet him at the critical care cafe on A&M's west campus (where we had first had lunch together several months back) if I chose to follow him. And as the Lord would have it, my attraction toward him was the same and I gladly met him that evening for our first date. *I would have never made it however without the help of my faithful friend Laura.  She drove me all the way up to campus in her white Ford focus and helped calm the nerves that were forming in my tummy.  If it hadn't have been for Laura, I might not have made it that night.  Indeed, she is the hero of this story.* He took me to cafe capri for dinner and we drank casi cielo coffee from starbuck's afterwards with Kyndall at the Northgate Starbucks.

So one year later, married and in Pensacola w/ the military, sweet B took me to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in downtown Pensacola, the Global Grill and then out to coffee for some casi cielo blend :) mmm mmm. soo good.

What a sweet husband and what a fun anniversary. We'll take any excuse we get to celebrate :)

and we're back!

Technically, we have been back in Florida for a little over a week now, but we have still been on vacation here. We are finally getting back into the swing of things this week and so I also will get back to posting on this much neglected blog :)

I guess we really haven't ever had a routine life here. Every week has been different and we have been away from Pensacola as much as or more than we have actually been here. So really we aren't even just "getting back into the swing of things", we are finally getting to the swing of things and discovering what daily life looks like for us in Pensacola.

We spent about 11 days in Texas for Christmas. It was really fun to be with family and friends, and hard not to be able to see everyone that we know and love there. But for those of you who we didn't get to see, maybe thats a sign that you should come vacation in Florida with us for a little while :)

Kyndall gave us a great Christmas present and hitched a ride over to Pensacola with us (we literally picked her up off the side of the road) and spent almost a week with us! We cooked together, shopped around Pensacola and Alabama, kyaked, and ate at a vegan restaurant together. B didn't have any work the week that she was here, as he was still waiting on training to start, so he got to spend the whole week with us too! However, he did pass on the vegan food-- he's too much of a carnivore for that :)

So, we felt like we got an extra week of vacation with Kyndall visiting and were so spoiled by her helping hands.

B is back to work today...he got a temporary job until he starts training on Jan 23. Basically he and a few others are helping to clear out an office building for rennovation. While he is at work I get to go to sewing lessons that B, my mom and mama carter got me for Christmas! What an awesome gift!

Hooray!

Kyndall's here!! She endured the long drive from Texas to Pensacola with us and is visiting for the next few days!!


What a blessing!! :)

We are so excited to have her here with us....more to come soon of our adventures of the past few weeks.