An Update of Sorts

My last major update was kind of a downer. I promise we are still having lots of fun in life and are not letting silly things like the Diabeetus get us down.

For example: A recount of some of our time in California!

Taylor's parent's came to see us in California and while they were there, we rented an airplane and Taylor flew us around the San Francisco Bay and Napa Valley. Both are just as magnificent from the air as they are on land. One of my Top 5 life moments for sure!

Also while they were in town, we got to attend the release party for our very favorite wine. I only have this one picture from that but you'll have to forgive me because I chose to hold a glass of wine and a snack instead of a camera because PRIORITIES. 

Our last adventure before we left was to San Francisco. I loved visiting such an iconic city! Also, all of my dreams came true because I got to visit the Painted Ladies. AKA the Full House row of houses. SPOILER ALERT: they aren't the actual set of Full House. Or Mrs. Doubtfire. I don't know where I heard that and I was kind of devastated when I found out the truth. They were still pretty sweet though!

We also drove down Lombard street which was pretty neat, except that you couldn't really take any of it in because we were herded through like cattle. Did you know that people actually live on that street? I kept wondering if police stopped traffic so that they could back out of their garages. Even though the signs say not to tour the street on foot, many people did and some even snuck into back yards to take pictures! It was kind of a chaotic, creepy scene. I would NOT want to live there.

After walking around the city all day, we made our way to one of the piers to wait for our ride to Alcatraz. (P.S. Over the summer, I re-read all of the Harry Potter books, and so every time I talked about our trip to Alcatraz, I referred to it as Azkaban. Doh.)

We decided to take the night tour and boy are we glad because it was Ah-mazing! It was a walking tour where you listen to a recording as you wander around. I think the most interesting tales were from escape attempts gone wrong.

Sidenote: We had to make a last minute run to Wal-Mart the night before our trip to San Fran for sweatshirts because the temperatures got down into the 40's! We were freezing on the boat ride to and from the Alcatraz island. We didn't bring any jackets to California because it was of course summer, but also since all of our winter stuff had been packed by the movers in Del Rio and was sitting in a warehouse somewhere in New Jersey!

I am a bad U.S. citizen because I knew next to nothing about the prison. (I'm noticing a trend here...Coca-Cola, Jelly Belly, Alcatraz...I am clueless!) The tour was definitely for people like me. As we were leaving the island, I snapped a few pictures of the building and as creepy as taking pictures of an old prison is, I love them and think they are beautiful.

We booked our tickets for Alcatraz the second weekend in June and the first available date was the one we went to. It's a popular tour that most people only find out about when they show up to book a day tour (always available). Some local Californians have never been on or even heard about the tour so that basically makes us better than the locals.

After driving back to Travis that night, we packed up all of our things over the next few days and flew home! We had such a fun time in California and got to hang out with some of our best friends from Del Rio the entire time! Since it's February in New Jersey, we are reminiscing about our summer full of fun in the sun!

2012 in Review

So, 2012.

WHAT A YEAR.

January through May felt like it's own year because of all the life events we jam packed into those months. I naively thought life would slow down once we moved. HA! June through December felt like another entire year.

January: We drove to College Station for our annual MLK weekend celebration with the Seidels. It was and still is one of our very favorite traditions. We just bought our tickets to the next one in a couple of weeks!

February: We drove one weekend to Lubbock and the next to Frost for wedding showers. So many miles, so little sleep.

March: The best and busiest month of our year. I went to College Station for my bachelorette party one weekend, I turned 23 the next, Taylor got his first choice aircraft, and the last weekend we got married.

April: Taylor graduated from Pilot training and we enjoyed the next three weeks of marriage living in a bedroom of a friend's house. (Once we were married, Taylor no longer qualified for single officer housing and had to move out of his house. Since we would be moving soon though, the base wouldn't give us our own.) I finished up work and Taylor left for a month of training. (A month of training that would forever change our life plans.)

May: I spent the month moving our stuff into storage (during the one and only torrential downpour in Del Rio, Texas), and also traveling to see family that we would soon be far away from.

June: We moved! The day before we pulled into our new home, we got a phone call letting us know that we would be moving a week later to California for the next three months. Our new home proved to be mucho fun and adventurous. Not so fun was the lack of a kitchen. We ate approximately 80 sandwiches between the two of us during June.

July: More of the same as June. Also, more sandwiches.

August: The lowest and craziest month of our year. Taylor was diagnosed with diabetes and we learned that flying planes was no longer in his future. We were pretty bummed but glad that Taylor was finally healthy again. (Remember the month long trip in May? That's when it all started!)

September: We moved back to Jersey and began assembling our first home together. (We had never lived together in anything but a single bedroom or a hotel room.) Taylor's mom and sister were our very first visitors!

October: This is the one month that I don't remember. We had a trip to Texas for a wedding, our first East Coast fall, and a few Ikea adventures. Taylor also started working on building our bed! Oh, and a hurricane.

November:  The hurricane was followed by four days of no power and sinking temperatures. Just as our lights (and heat!) came back on, we found ourselves in the middle of a Nor'easter. The next day, temperatures were back up into the 60's and the snow was gone along with all the pretty leaves. We spent Thanksgiving in DC with Taylor's sister and then welcomed our second visitors the week after!

December: Taylor turned 25 and we hung out with Katie and Kirsten in The Big Apple. I spent a week in Texas with my family and then it was time to head to Lubbock for Christmas. We just got back and are getting ready to spend our first New Year's Eve all by ourselves. (Sidenote: Today is NINE months of marriage!)

So like I said...the year was absolutely insane. I don't know how we made it out alive, but here we are, preparing for another one.  I hope I'm ready for whatever crazy 2013 decides to bring. (But no babies, please.)

So much to say...

I tried over and over again to write an update on our lives for a while, but every time I started a new post, I felt too vulnerable writing about how we were actually doing. I didn't want to be upbeat and jokey when in reality, I wanted to completely erase the month of August. So, I took a break from blogging for a few months. I felt like I didn't have anything to write about, which isn't true because a lot has happened in a very short time. I have a lot of adventures to recap, but they just don't seem all that fun to talk about anymore. Looking back at all of those pictures is kind of a sucky reminder of a not so fun month.

When Taylor was diagnosed with Diabetes, it really threw me for a loop. (I feel really lame for saying that because clearly, the world does not revolve around me.) At first, I worried constantly about Taylor and his health. I asked what every blood sugar was, I went to every appointment, and I even panicked every time he rolled over in bed.

I think it was a control thing for me. I couldn't control what was happening to his body, so I worried instead. Slowly, (and I do mean s-l-o-w-l-y) I began to let some of those worries go. If Taylor's sugar is low, I've got life savers in my purse. I don't ask him every twenty minutes if he needs them anymore. If he wants to eat a snack, I don't ask if he adjusted his insulin for it. When he goes to the doctor, I ask if he wants me to come and if not, I ask how it went afterwards. I had to realize that Taylor is a very logical and competent big boy. He knows what he is feeling and how to adjust if something is off. I had to learn to be supportive of his treatment and not police his habits.

I'm not saying that I don't worry anymore. But it's not the same paralyzing fear that at any moment something could go terribly wrong. I trust Taylor to communicate with me when he isn't feeling well and for me, that's a big step.

Our life has taken a much different path than we could have ever dreamed of. Sometimes it hurts to think back even just a few months to when we were so unaware of what lay ahead. As dramatic as it sounds, the plans we made for our future fell like a stack of cards in August.  With the diagnosis not only came a lifestyle change, but also a career change for Taylor. My heart breaks every time I think about his dream of being a pilot being taken away. I can't express how grateful I am to still have Taylor with me, much less a more healthy version of himself, but as humans we always want that cherry on top. If we lived in a perfect world, the rules would be changed tomorrow and life would get back to our old normal by the weekend.

A week after we got back from California, my friend Jocelyn invited me to see Beth Moore live in Pennsylvania. For the past month, my heart had been running on empty. I was sick with worry and stress, I couldn't sleep, and was one wrong turn from an emotional breakdown. The conference was exactly what I needed to refill my tank and keep me going. Every word was the exact one I needed to hear. I left the arena that day still sad, stressed, and worried, but ready to face those emotions with a renewed energy. One of her speaking points that day was "Faith trusts that every call to forsake is a call to also take." It stuck with me and when I am feeling especially sorry for myself and our situation, I am reminded that even though our plan for our life was forsaken, we have taken a new life to live. Being sad about the old path doesn't let me enjoy our new one!

Once we got accustomed to our new life on the East Coast and the new routines involved, we were able to finally relax. We have explored our surroundings a bit, spent time with people we love, and gotten involved in our neighborhood. Sometimes things seem a little unfair, but overall we are having a blast.

Just so this post isn't all doom and gloom, I've decided to include some of our highlights from the past few months.

• Taylor has started woodworking and we should hopefully be sleeping in a handmade bed in a couple of days! Up next for him is a dining room table to replace the card table currently occupying our home. 
• We survived Hurricane Sandy with a shingle as the only casualty. The 4 day power outage was painful, but we were thankful to have a place to sleep and shower. (Even if both were less than ideal temperatures.)
• During the hurricane, I started reading the Janet Evanovich series and throughout the month of November, I caught up on all NINETEEN of the books. Once I returned the last book to the library, I had a moment of not knowing what to do with my free time anymore. I'm currently searching for a new book to read!
• We've traveled to DC and NYC a couple of times. Our first trip to NYC was days after hurricane Sandy and it was quite an experience. Half the city was still without power and under water. By the time we got back up there, everything was pretty much back to normal. However, choosing to go the weekend that the Rockefeller tree was lit was not our best idea. 
• We put up our first Christmas tree! Taylor was hesitant at first since we won't be in town for Christmas, but I eventually talked him into it. A tree definitely makes our house a little more homey during the holidays as well as making me feel like a real adult. 

I know those aren't all of our big events, but the rest will have to wait because I just can't remember them. I try hard to stay positive on my blog and even though this post was mostly down in the dumps, I really needed to write it. I enjoy writing and I'm hoping that I'll be able to stay more up to date on our happenings. Who knows, maybe next time, I'll be back with another LBMM story.

Going to the Chapel...

Tomorrow we leave for TEXAS to attend the wedding of two of our favorite people!

Here are some fun facts and reasons why we love Charley and Ana!

-Charley is my cousin and it was at his sister's wedding that Taylor and I met!

-Ana and I were both in Aggie Sisters for Christ back in college and never met.

-Charley and Taylor share a birthday one year apart. 

-The night Taylor and I met, he thought I was Charley's girlfriend! (ACK---FAMILY)

-Lately when I've been talking about going to the wedding, I refer to Ana as "The Girl Who Started the Party" at our wedding. Instant recognition from our other friends. Ha!

-Ana and Charley folded every single one of the paper airplanes we used for our exit at the wedding. (Have I mentioned my own wedding enough? They made it really special for us!)

Congratulations you guys, we can't wait to see you!

In case you haven't heard...

Yesterday was the last day of September which marked six months of marriage for Taylor and me! Taylor says 6 months doesn't count as a real anniversary so let it be known that I am "noting" six months of marriage instead of "celebrating". It's all about compromise!

I want to get back to regular documentation of our adventures, but I didn't really know how to just skip over our recent happenings. I think I've tried to write this post six or seven times only to erase everything and close the computer.

For those of you who don't know, while we were in California, Taylor was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

I didn't know how to write about this without A: making it all about me, or B: over-sharing. We don't mind talking about it and answering questions in real life, but putting everything on the interwebs forever just doesn't feel right. Like I said though, I felt so weird just skipping over everything and continuing to blog without even addressing it.

Right now, we are just focusing on keeping Taylor healthy and figuring out what the future holds for us. And in case there was any doubt, rest assured that Taylor is dominating this diagnosis like he does everything else. I am so proud of his attitude and his faith throughout all of this. I of course have been doing enough worrying for the both of us.

It's hard to see God's plan right now, but we (especially me) are doing our best to trust and let go of the worry that comes with so many uncertainties. I can't tell you enough how much we appreciate the calls, texts, prayers, etc that our friends have provided. We knew we had great friends, but HOLY COW, you guys. It's times like this when I want to gather all of our loved ones up in one place and give them all hugs. I know we just did that at our wedding, but I'm going to need it at least twice a year from now on.

Besides the obvious figuring out our new path in life, we have also been pretty busy getting settled into our new home on the East Coast!

(We absolutely love it here and everyone has been so amazing and welcoming to us. We are so thankful that God put us exactly where we needed to be in a time like this.)

We have unpacked pretty much everything, but are still missing a few essentials. Like a dining room table and a bed. (No big deal, right?) Taylor is building both of those though so we should be good to go shortly! The important thing is that we have our TiVo and Big Carl set up. Priorities, people.

The List of Craig has become our new BFF over the past month. I got the sweetest piece of furniture ever and I'm not even really sure what it's purpose is. Once I clear the boxes out of the office, I will show it off. I'm now on the hunt for the exact same buffet that my mom has in her house. If I could figure out how to sneak it out of the house and onto a plane, I totally would. I'll just have to settle petting it until I get my own, though.

I think I'll leave the rest of the updates for another post. Feel free to call us if you want to know more about Taylor! We love you all more than words can express!

All Things June and July-ish

I have found that if I don't post about a trip the minute after it's over, I forget all the things that happen and/or just never get around to posting about it. It's a terrible habit because I really do want to remember all of the fun adventures that we get to go on. If I can't remember them long enough to write them down, how in the world am I going to remember them when I am old?

But anyways, here is what we have been up to lately:

We drove up to Sonoma for an afternoon of wine tasting and sight seeing. Sonoma might be my favorite town ever. The square is adorable, everyone is so nice, and hello: more wine than I know what to do with!

Our first stop was a store that had tastings of all different brands of wines sort of like a co-op wine store. It was a great way to start our season of wine tastings!

Then we found the book of all wineries and made our way to the ones that sounded familiar and had cheap-ish tastings.

Sebastiani was our first stop! We got a really neat tour of their facilities and learned quite a bit about the wine making process.

Barrel Room at Sebastiani

Entrance to Sebastiani Winery

Our last stop of the day was the Gundlach Bundschu Winery. I posted a picture to Facebook while we were there because it was so gorgeous and it just so happened to have been a stop on Vic and Sarah's honeymoon almost 5 years ago. They had an exact copy of the picture that I took! I love when things like that happen!

The next weekend (I think) we visited the aerospace museum in Sacramento and part of the historic downtown area. There were of course lots and lots of airplanes. I took pictures of every single one in case we wanted to review them at some point. I don't know what I'm going to do with them all, but they might come in handy one day! We really enjoyed talking to the volunteers who were so full of information. I loved how much they loved what they were doing! One of them practically flew all of the planes at the museum and was so kind to show us around most of the day. 

After our museum tour, we decided to check out the historic downtown. We probably could have skipped this part of the day. There just wasn't that much to see besides a candy store that handed out free samples. We did get some excellent sources of hardened arteries though. I want to hug the person who put together ice cream, strawberries, and funnel cake. Seriously. Taylor enjoyed diving into french fries covered in garlic. It smelled amazing, but was a little too strong for me. 

We also made it out to the California State Fair. It was like most state fairs in that there was plenty of fried food varieties, strange people, and fun exhibits. One interesting part of the fair grounds was the water park which led to people wandering around in less clothing than one should be wearing in public. 

Our first and favorite exhibit of the day was the Texas Tour. I'm not really sure why the picture says "Bluebonnets" at the bottom when clearly we are posing with a disproportionate longhorn. Whatever. We dropped some serious Texas knowledge on them. 

There were also lots of fun animal babies to look at! Especially two day old piglets. I wanted to smuggle one home, but I guess hotel living is for people and not pigs. These are hard life lessons that we all must learn.

Our day at the fair ended when I lost my cell phone. I still don't really know if I dropped it or left it on the table we stopped at, but I soon noticed it wasn't in my bag. Thank goodness for the find my iPhone app and kind hearted people. 

We also took part in the 7-11 free Slurpee day. We discovered the magical limited time only lemon-creme flavor. Do yourself a favor and pay full price for one of those. 

We are having a blast exploring our surroundings and all that California has to offer. Taylor is making his way through his training program and I am plowing through our base library's book selection. We love it out here but are starting to count down the days until we make it back to the East Coast!

Calling myself out

Does anyone remember when I talked about getting a personal trainer? I had been trying on my own (unsuccessfully) to whip a few areas into shape before our wedding and I just couldn't stay motivated on my own. I felt awkward walking around the weight machines that I didn't know anything about and the only "workouts" I could come up with involved an elliptical and some ab work. Pa-Thetic, I know.

I cannot rave enough about how helpful getting a trainer was. Not only did Caitlin become a great friend, but she also helped me get over my fear of the gym and working out on my own. I still prefer a buddy, but that's mainly just so I don't get so bored counting to myself. (It's kind of sad that I can't focus long enough to count through 10 reps.)

During the time that I was working with a trainer, I was also drinking large amounts of water, drinking ZERO sodas, eating better, and just overall taking care of myself. I had way more energy than usual, and I was seeing the results that I wanted. I think once I got a good routine down, it wasn't very hard to stay motivated.

Eventually we had to move away from Laughlin and that of course meant that I had to figure out a way to keep myself in the gym. Before I left, Caitlin gave me a crash course in planning workouts and targeting different muscles. It really helped and now I'm able to pick out exercises and create my own workouts! I am just as indecisive about which exercises I want for the day as I am about everything else though, so it still can be quite an ordeal planning a workout.

I have to admit though, it hasn't been easy to stay on the same track that I was before. When we moved at the beginning of June, we drove all day and slept all night for a week. Then we lived in a hotel for a week and ate out all the time. It's so much easier to talk yourself into a workout when you don't feel bloated from a fast food dinner. I think I went to the gym twice during the month of June and I started drinking sodas again. Obviously, not a great month for me. I could definitely tell that something was missing.

We are still in a hotel until we move back to Jersey, but now we have a George Foreman grill and a crock pot so we have drastically cut back on the dining out thing. Also, the gym on base is within walking distance so I really have no excuse not to get back into a great routine!

Side note: I miss the Laughlin fitness center more than words can express. I got so spoiled with all of the new machines and easily accessible workout equipment. Both the base we're at now and the one we'll be moving back to are severely lacking in space and available equipment. Waah!


All of that brings me to my original intent of writing this post! I'm hoping once again that by putting all of this out there for the world to see, that it will give me some sort of accountability. I'm thinking about creating a workout journal/fitness goals, etc.

Here's to hoping I don't embarrass myself!