We ARE Alive.

Some of you have witnessed (visually) that we are alive.

Others, however, might be wondering "hey, is she alive? Did they get lost somewhere out there in the fields of Kansas?" And my response to that is "No! No silly! Matthew has Kansan genes, you can't get lost in a field when you've got the genes!"

And so, we made it to Utah. This comes a solid week and a half late because we actually arrived here (a day early might I add- talk about marathon driving, and by marathon I mean more than 2,000 miles in just 2.5 long days) on 4/13/08. We'll be departing on 4/29/08.

Instead of giving you a lengthy update with fabulous pictures of Matthew in his sexy dress blues, a few pictures of our last hurrahs in MD, and some precious moments from our second cross-country bound, I'm giving you a list of the essentials, and from there you can anticipate a lovely and extensive post once we obtain internet in KY.

1- WE HAVE A HOUSE! We have been assigned a house on Fort Campbell and are thrilled! We'll move in May 5th.

2- The drive from Utah to Fort Campbell, KY (we think) will take us 3 days (a much more leisurely pace than our previous sprint, mind you) and we anticipate arriving there on 5/2.

3- Our belongings are slowly but surely working their weighty way across the US. On Monday pretty much everything we own but a few pairs of clothes, a guitar, and some books were packaged, boxed, rolled, papered, and loaded by some friendly chaps, paid for by the ol' Mil. They are scheduled to arrive in KY on 5/5.

4- We are scheduled to check in and move in to our house on the fort on 5/5 as well- we will be thrilled if the timing of our stuff actually does coincide.

5- Matthew has been working. If you haven't seen us, or especially him, its because he's been working in order to avoid taking too much leave. It looks like he'll have a few days off now to enjoy Utah, make sure we have everything packed up, and then head out a week from today.

6- We got our wedding albums! Woo! Fun to relive some of those moments!

7- Kamie (my good friend from high school) had her baby! I got to visit her today and it was great to see her and meet her baby Madeline. Congrats Kamie and Nate!

8- I still have no idea what I'm doing- neither in life, here, or in the coming months. While there is a seeping feeling of dread regarding this plague of unknown, I also feel excited. Both a sense of trepidation and a sense of freedom seem to have taken root in me. I do feel a sense of longing to arrive in Kentucky and begin to belong somewhere for the first time in a while, to end SOME of the transition and quell this wave of change, at least. Even while those thoughts swirl, I am ultimately happy, and overall joyful.

9- Utah is just beautiful. It is growing, and I love the people. I love the air. I love the view, the sky, the sunset. I love the peaks, I love the valleys. Again, I love the people. I'm surprised to say it, but this might be where we end up.

10- "Ending up" might take longer than we thought :)

And so, a quick over view. We are happy. We are loving being married, loving the Army experience as we've had it so far, and enjoying this short break before life resumes. I'll keep you posted, but probably not for a few weeks- we're going to soak up the mountain air, family, and friends, then get back on the horse and see if we can't get the Civic to cross the 105,000 mile mark!

Hope YOU all are well. We'd love to hear from you, and if you're in Utah, we'd love to see you!

On the Road. Yet again.

Hi all,

Thanks for all your road music suggestions. We've purchased a few new albums thanks to you guys and are looking forward to getting acquainted with some new musicians!

Yesterday Matthew got all dressed up in his dress blue uniform to be inducted into the Ordnance Corps officially. I felt so proud! Pictures to come, most likely post cross-country tip #2.

And on that note, today we are packing it up! We will be packed and ready to go before 9:30 am when Matthew will graduate, change clothes, and off we'll go! We've got lots going on today to prepare for the trip- oil changes, weighing the car, checking out, etc etc etc.

We checked the weather and at this point it looks like we'll be driving through rain, snow, sleet, and possibly tornados, so we'd REALLy appreciate your prayers for safe travel! If all goes to plan we'll leave tomorrow, spend three nights on the road, and land in Utah sometime on Monday!

We'd love to hear how you're doing via text- it's a long trip! Have a great weekend and some of you we'll see VERY soon!

Road Music.

Word up.

Well we've made it to the last week! We had a great weekend together- time together, time with friends, time at church, time out on the town, time eating, time sleeping, time relaxing, time watching Kansas BEAT UNC! TAKE THAT! I'll admit I haven't always been an avid Kansas Fan, but I've ALWAYS disliked UNC, so double hooray! Here's to taking down Memphis tonight!

Anyway, on to the point: We need music!

38 hours in the car coming up starting this Friday when we leave Maryland and head for the hills (er, Mountains) of Utah! We've pretty much exhausted all new music we had when we came here so we're looking for suggestions. We're singer/songwriter-ey type folks. We like laid back, and ideally we'd have a bunch of albums we can listen to straight through. Sadly we've discovered that books on tape don't do it for us :)

So... what are you listening to these days? Good new discoveries? People you've been hearing about? Old faves? Let us know! We'll take any suggestions you're willing to give!

Two Lines- All it Took.

So this week Matthew is out in the field. They aren't supposed to have phones so he left his so I have known for certain I wouldn't be hearing from him.

Then, just now, I got a quick e-mail from him. All it said was that it has been a long week but he's doing alright, he'll see me friday, and he loves me.

Of course, after the short but silent absence, this small little token of contact made me burst in to tears of joy.

All that is to say . . . I love my husband. I'm looking forward to Friday.

DC and Dinner.

On Sunday after a great breakfast with our new friends the Cragwalls, and a good service at church, we headed South to DC!

Our top priority was to see Arlington National Cemetery and then head to Kitty and Doug's (Gavin's in-laws) for Sunday dinner!

While we barely touched the surface of DC we knew we had to see Arlington. A bonus of our trip was that all the cherry blossoms were in bloom throughout the city! Beautiful!

Below this is Matthew's Battalion (or some other grouping, forgive the fact that without him here I don't know the correct word) within the 101st Airborne Division. We saw the monument to the 101st as we were walking in and Matthew was so excited!

The Monument. The Eagle you see is named Old Abe :)

You may recognize this symbol- it is the Airborne Wings
and it signifies that you know how to jump out of airplanes!

The cemetery is so beautiful in a surprising way. Also very... impressive.

A view from the Lee Mansion.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

A monument for the 3rd Infantry Division. This is the Division where Matthew's friend Mark is (he is currently on his 3rd deployment I think), and our friend
Wes will be heading there when BOLC III ends.

I thought this was beautiful.

This is the most recent Medal of Honor winner who was awarded the medal posthumously a year or so ago. Matt was very excited that we happened by it.

Kitty and Doug live in Arlington so they came and picked us up. We had dinner with Doug's kids and it was a great evening. To top it off there was another KU fan there so we were able to have the game on and see Kansas (barely) win! Here we come final four!

After dinner Kitty took us back to the subway and drove us by all the monuments and blossoming trees at night. It was beautiful!

Of course the shots didn't come out too well from the car, but it made us look forward to a time when we can plan a trip and stay in DC and enjoy it at night too!

It was a great end to the weekend!

Hot Mess.

No literally.

It's a hot mess around here.


And by it, I mean.... ME.

Had a great workout at the gym today, but it is SO humid that I literally (sorry, gross, but true) had pools of sweat! Ah! I've NEVER had that much. And so, see below yours truly defining "hot mess:"

(note: my face is BRIGHT red- you can't tell because of the lighting)

Also, they STILL have the heat pumping on full-blast even though it is barely getting down to the 50s at night. It is usually 85 degrees in the room, no exaggeration because I have a thermometer in there. Yipes! I'm hoping that maybe today (because its April, bien sur) they will decide it is Spring enough to STOP THE HEAT!

Anyway, that was a whiney post. Mostly, I'm just impressed about the humidity.