Happy Halloween!

I hope you all have a safe and wonderful Halloween! I'm doing my best to stay away from all the candy we have to pass out haha.

Emma and Fishy wanted to wish you a Happy Halloween as well. 

Have a great one!

Wordless Wednesday

I had a wonderfully relaxing day yesterday which turned into an awesome night of baking. The mice have arrived just in time for Halloween! 

Happy Wednesday!

Time For Me!

Sunday marked the end of my first two classes with AMU. I never thought I would be 28 years old and finally going back to school to finish my degree. I am surprised at how naturally I have fallen back into the routine of it. I start 3 classes next week and if all goes well I should have my degree finished in 36 months, yay!

As much as I'm loving it I'm also exhausted. I not only have the responsibility of school but a company FRG to run, a Battalion FRG to keep organized and a household to take care of. I'm sure some of you are thinking "Well Jen the FRG is voluntary and you can quit at any time." That may be true but to leave these families with no one isn't an option. 

I decided that it was time to designate a day just for me. One day a week to stay in my pj's, watch tv and pamper myself. Today will be that day...in will consist of lots of tea, manicure/pedicure and a much needed bubble bath.

I know that I need it and I will feel so much better because of it.

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What do you do to relax and renew yourself?

Another Half and a Few Other Shenanigans

All I can say about this last weekend is thank you to Kyle's unit for giving them a 4 day weekend!

On Friday we headed out to Alamogordo, NM to visit a pistachio farm. I'm so glad we did this! This farm handles 2% of the US pistachio production (while the other 98% is in California) We were able to go on a tour of the whole facility. We saw where they get washed, sorted, roasted/salted, packaged and shipped. We even got to sample some that came right out of the roaster, yum! They also have a winery so we walked out of there with 2 bottles of wine and red chill/onion garlic pistachios.

Saturday was AMAZING! I completed my 2nd half marathon and got to cross the finish line with Kyle as he finished his 1st. I was beyond excited with my time of 2 hours and 36 minutes. I bested my 10 miler time by 6 minutes. The best part was the last mile of the race was done on the actual horse track of Sunland Park Casino. It was incredible...running with Kyle is one of my favorite things. He is such a great motivator.

Sunday was spent relaxing, we had breakfast at Cracker Barrel and enjoyed watching football and drag racing the rest of the day. 

Today I'm meeting up with Britt for coffee to go over our Thanksgiving menu and then to run a few errands. Hopefully Kyle will end up at the golf course for a little relaxation of his own. 

I hope you all had an amazing weekend!

The Great Pumpkin Swap

For the 2nd year in a row I participated in The Great Pumpkin Swap hosted by Kristin and Becky. This year definitely did not disappoint. I was paired with the awesome Nichole at Casa de Crews. She definitely did not disappoint with what she chose for me.

Skinny Cow Dreamy Clusters
Pumpkin Cheesecake candle
note pad
wine bag
awesome sparkly nail polish
organic peanut butter cups (yes I already ate them hence why there is no picture, don't judge haha)

 

We also both realized that we have a huge love of Target because the majority of the items we got each other came from there haha. 

Thank you, Nichole for being a wonderful swap partner!!! 

Give Thanks

Halloween hasn't even passed yet and I'm already getting excited for Thanksgiving! Last year we were able to go home for Thanksgiving but stayed home for Christmas because we had just moved into our house. This year it will be different, we will have our 1st Thanksgiving in our new home.

It won't just be us, we will be celebrating with our friends Britt and Shane. We have also opened the invitation to anyone in Kyle's company that have nowhere else to go.

I am excited to cook for more people this year. I am already making plans for 4 kinds of mini pies, they are much more fun to make and easier to eat. I will probably go all out and make a beautiful tablescape, as long as Kyle gets to watch football he could care less what I do haha.

I love these ideas!! :) 

Do you have any special plans for Thanksgiving this year?

4 Months..

I picked up my "In Training" shirt yesterday for the El Paso Marathon. This makes it very real and very scary haha. Training begins now, I should be ready in 4 months. :)

Happy Wednesday!

We Did It!

After almost 2 years of strict budgeting and careful planning Kyle and I are 100% debt free. Now this of course does not include our house but that is an investment and not a debt. 

We no longer have loans or credit card debt!

I've had a few people ask me how we did it, here are some tips that worked for us.

*Set up an automatic payment(s) of a specific amount that goes towards debt every month. No matter how big or small it makes a difference.

*Start couponing!!! All of the money I saved from using coupons was put towards debt. If I saved $10 it went towards debt.

*We had a certain dollar amount that we did not want to get under in our checking account (it was equivalent to zero), anything over that amount at the end of a pay period was put towards debt.

*Reduce any bills that you can; reduce your tv plan, reduce your cell phone plan, get rid of unnessecary expenditures.

*Cooking at home is the best way to save money, that goes for making lunches as well. If you do go out to eat, budget for it.

*Any extra money you get throw it towards debt. You may want to spend it randomly but think about how you will feel once the debt is paid off.

*If you can't pay cash for something then wait. Wait until you have the money in hand to buy what you want.

*When grocery shopping only buy what you really need. Meal planning helped me stop buying junk that we didn't need in return we saved money.

Now not all of these will work for everyone, it's just what worked for us.

Enjoy your day!

Oh What A Weekend!

This past weekend was awesome! I picked Kyle up Friday morning and it is so good to have him home. Emma and Fishy were very excited to see him (although Fishy just wanted to play with his bags). We spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying quality time together.

Saturday we headed off to the La Union Corn Maze/Pumpkin patch. We watched pig races, went through the corn maze (it took us about 2 hours, it would have taken longer if Kyle didn't have pretty awesome land nav skills haha), and then hopped the tractor to the pumpkin patch. We picked out 4 pumpkins and then headed home. The rest of the evening consisted of pumpkin carving, roasting pumpkin seeds, homemade hot chocolate and s'mores.

Yesterday we decided to finish putting up our Halloween decorations outside. We didn't put up everything we have because we will just be taking it down in a few weeks.

I hope you all had an amazing weekend!

Happy Friday!

It's starting to look a lot like Halloween in our house! I went ahead and decorated the inside and I'm loving it. Even though we won't have the decorations up for very long it still makes me happy.

Speaking of happy, I get my amazing husband back today. We finally get to enjoy all things fall including a trip to a corn maze/pumpkin patch tomorrow. :)

Here's to an amazing weekend!

The Perfect Setting

We are only 3 1/2 weeks away from having our pre-deployment photos taken. I am beyond excited that the amazing Jax from Jax Harmon Photography will be taking our photos. She has become a good friend of mine and I know it will be a great time. 

We weren't sure where we wanted to have them done but thanks to Jax's suggestion we will be taking them at the Hueco Tanks State Park:

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How gorgeous is this place?! One of the photos taken will be used for our Christmas card and I'm so excited!

Now to just figure out a wardrobe haha. 

Hope you all have an amazing day!

Some Happenings

Thank you to everyone for all the sweet words on my post yesterday! It means a lot.

I feel like I have been going nonstop lately. It hasn't been a bad thing but my body finally revolted and now I have a cold. The shots I got last month really took a toll on my immune system and now I'm paying the price. Let's just say I have a lovely deep raspy voice right now haha.

Besides the half marathon my weekend was awesome! Friday was our first spouses dinner for our unit. We had 8 spouses come and it was wonderful! Most of these spouses didn't know each other because they hadn't had much interaction with the FRG until now. Everyone had a great time and I'm already planning our dinner for next month.

Saturday was spent relaxing, I had plans to decorate for Halloween but I realized that even with the ladder I'm not tall enough to reach certain parts of the house. Kyle agreed that we will decorate when he gets home. :) It will be more fun that way too.

Speaking of him coming home they finally got their phones back and they will all be home soon. Me and a few wives spent yesterday packing the welcome home bags, so they will be ready as the company starts trickling back in:

I had no idea this picture was taken until Kyle sent it to me haha. One of the soldiers there helping us took it and sent it to him.

My main focus now is cleaning and grocery shopping, it will be nice to cook for more than one person again. :)

I hope you all have a great Tuesday!!

TransMountain Challenge Half Marathon

Yesterday was one of the most amazing and challenging days of my life. I completed the TransMountain Challenge Half Marathon. This course was indeed a challenge.

It started at 7am on the west side of town and we had to run OVER a mountain (there is a road that goes from the west side of the mountain to the east side of the mountain). After mile 2 it was ALL uphill until mile 8 and then it started to go down. I'm not going to lie to you and say that I ran the whole thing, there were 2 miles that I didn't run because it was brutal. Everyone at the finish line said they walked at some point during the uphill portion. I had no time goal, I just wanted to finish and I did. I'm thankful to Kyle for being an amazing motivation and support through text messages. He kept telling me I could do it and that he was proud of me. Seeing the finish line brought a huge sigh of relief.

When I crossed that finish line the emotions came. I was so proud that I did such a challenging half marathon for my first. I have overcome so much medically in the last month and to complete this is an amazing feeling.

Thank you everyone for all the encouragement and support! You have no idea how much it means to me. 

Here's to the next half in 2 weeks! :)

Have an amazing day everyone!

My Favorite Time Of Year!

It is finally my favorite time of year, every year we look forward to all the fun things that fall brings. We always make a pretty big deal out of Halloween, we don't dress up as often as we would like but we always decorate and dress up Emma and Fishy. 

When we got to NC and finally experienced a real fall we did everything from haunted hay rides, corn mazes and haunted trails. We had the best time, some of our favorite fall memories happened in NC. We are excited to take advantage of what El Paso has to offer, even if we don't have much time to do it.

This is also the perfect time of year for baking and let me tell you I always do a TON of baking. This year I have plans to make 8 different treats for Kyle's company and as usual these adorable mice will be one of them:

They are so fun to make and always a huge hit. 

Since Kyle won't be back until pretty close to Halloween, I have plans to get all of our decorations out this weekend and put them up. I'm excited to surprise him. I'm even pretty excited that our Halloween candy arrived yesterday. I don't buy it in the store because it's so expensive, so I order it from Oriental Trading and it's a much better value:

I hope we have enough haha.

Can't wait to share pictures of our decorations and Emma and Fishy's Halloween costumes.

Happy Fall Everyone!

I Can Do It!

This coming Sunday I will be running my very first half marathon. To say that I'm nervous is an understatement. The training for it hasn't gone quite as I had anticipated. Dealing with off and on pain from the ectopic pregnancy has been pretty hard. However, despite not being able to train the way that I wanted to I know I can do it! I have the confidence in myself and the drive to complete the race. I don't care about my time or anything like that, I just want to cross that finish line! 

Have a great day everyone!

Wordless Wednesday

I may not get to talk to Kyle but seeing him is the next best thing. :)

 

Happy Wednesday!

Recap

I'm not going to do a day by day recap of my trip because let's face it that would be boring haha. I'm going to share a few highlights.

*Went to the movie with my Dad; we saw The Family. If you haven't seen it yet, go! It's hysterical.

*Took Kylie on a special Aunt-Niece date. It included trips to the Halloween store, Starbucks, Hobby Lobby and Target so she could pick out a toy.

*Took Grayson on a Aunt-Nephew date. We went to toys r us and had lunch at Wendy's. Food is always a good occupier for a 2 year old.

*Went on countless shopping trips with my sister. A favorite trip was to Nordstrom Rack, where we both walked away with new TOMS and I also got these:

*Played endlessly with Kylie and Grayson, I love those two. They have the best imaginations.

*Went to my SIL's baby shower, we will have a new niece next month.

*Spent my last full day at a Pumpkin Patch. We went last year to the same one and this year it was even better!

As usual I had a great time being with family, it's always hard to leave but we will be back for Christmas. 

Enjoy your Day!

El Paso Bound

Emma and I have our shades on and we are headed back to El Paso! :) Hope you all have a great day.

33

33 years ago two people fell in love. 33 years ago today two people got married and created a family together. Those two people are my amazing parents.

I never saw two people more in love than them, they laughed together, cried together, fought together and enjoyed life together.

This was the last anniversary they celebrated together in 2010.

I am proud of my Dad for carrying on the way that he has since she passed. He is living his life the way he knows my Mom would have wanted. It breaks my heart that she isn't here to celebrate this special day but I know she is celebrating in Heaven.

All I can hope for is that my Dad is happy and healthy. He recently lost 73 pounds and took charge of his life.

 

I love you Mom and Dad, thank you for being the best parents anyone could ever hope for.

Happy Anniversary!

Wordless Wednesday

These bags will be filled with goodies for our soldiers returning from their month long deployment training.

Just because they aren't returning from a deployment (yet) doesn't mean we can't make them feel special.

 

Happy Wednesday Everyone!