1 Year Ago Today

1 year ago today was the most devastating day of my life. I lost my beautiful mom, Kathy, to cancer. I never thought that I would be in my mid-twenties and not have a mom. She was the most amazing wife, mother, grandma and friend. She did everything for others and always put herself last. She never did anything to get something in return she genuinely loved helping and providing for others. Over the last year I have missed everything about her. I can't believe it has been 365 days since I last heard her voice. 

I know that she is no longer suffering and I am very thankful for that but it does not ease the pain that I or my family feels. We would give anything to have her back here with us. I think the hardest part for me is that she will never see my children. She wanted so much for us to have an easy time having children and it breaks my heart that my kids will never know their amazing grandma. I will do the best that I can to tell them all the wonderful things about her. 

Although she was cremated and will not be buried until my Dad passes away (so they can be buried together) we had a tree planted in a local park for her with a plaque underneath. I had flowers sent to my sister to place at her tree tomorrow morning since I cannot be there to do it myself. 

I was trying to think to think of something to do today to honor her. Kyle and I decided that we wanted to go to the NC Zoo. She was a big kid at heart and absolutely loved going to the zoo. It will be something fun for us and it will bring back wonderful memories of time I spent with her. 

I love you, Mom! I miss you each and every day. You were taken from us way too soon and I wish you were still here. I hope that I can be as amazing of a mother to my children and you were to us. I will never forget you and each day I will honor you!!! 

I love you my beautiful guardian Angel!!!

Good News, Finally!

For the last two weeks I have been on my Follistim shots to prepare for IUI. It seemed like setback after setback when I would go in for an ultrasound and blood-draw. We finally got good news this morning and I will trigger on Sunday night and have IUI done on Tuesday morning! We are so excited and praying that this works. I am staying positive and optimistic. I will keep you all posted!!

A friend of mine posted this and it made me smile. 

Goals and Other Happenings

A few posts ago I talked about my journey to lose 15 pounds. I have been going to the gym for 1 hour everyday and also using the myfitnesspal app on my phone. I woke up this morning to weigh myself and was so excited to find out I have lost 10 pounds in 1 month!!!!! I am happy, relieved and feeling great. I just need to get these last 5 pesky pounds off! 

I am even more relieved about losing weight because I have been on my follistim shots to prepare for our upcoming IUI procedure. I have a tendency to be bloated and gain weight while I am on these shots. I will go into tomorrow morning for a follicle check and see how everything is progressing. We are hoping for the IUI procedure to happen early next week. If this round doesn't work we will have one more chance before we PCS. Keeping our fingers crossed and praying for a miracle! We are coming up on the 3 year anniversary of our first miscarriage and we are so ready for a sweet baby of our own.

We are also in full swing of preparations for our PCS to Fort Huachuca. I submitted all of our documentation for housing yesterday and I am hoping it goes smoothly. I will go to our moving brief on Tuesday to get the movers scheduled. Once I do that it will be become so real!! Finally, after 4 years we will be leaving Fort Bragg.

I will try and have a scheduled post for this Saturday. It is the 1 year anniversary of my beautiful Moms passing. I can't believe it has been a year already. It still hurts as much now as it did then. 

I hope you all are having a wonderful week and have a great weekend!!

FRG Fundraisers

The last few weeks we have been trying to get some fundraising ideas going to pay for our Battery Organizational Day in April. Last week we had our first big fundraising event.

We figured a great way to make money and get soldiers to have a good time was have a Modern Warfare 3 tournament. It was a $20 buy in and we did a tournament style bracket on a Saturday morning. The FRG sold donuts, muffins, coffee and orange juice in the morning and hotdogs, chips and sodas in the afternoon. We were surprised at the turnout and for not a lot of effort we made almost $500! 

We then decided to have a pie in the face fundraiser today. This event far exceeded our expectations! We held it after final formation this afternoon, we had senior NCO's and Officers volunteer to get pied in the face. Soldiers were able to bid on the person they wanted to pie in the face. My awesome hubby was one of them:

Haha, he was a good sport!

After it was all said and done we raised over $2,000 for the FRG! We were floored and thankful to our soldiers for participating. Our organizational day is going to be awesome!!

We have a few more planned: silent auction of gift baskets and crockpot chili sales at the range. As the time goes by I am starting to realize that we only have 2 1/2 months left here at Bragg. Our move will be here before we know it! Crazy!!

I hope you all have a great weekend!!! 

weight loss adventure

A few weeks ago as I was getting dressed I realized that I was just not happy with my current weight. It was time to do something about it. I started going to one of the gyms on post and instantly felt better. After reading reviews on a few different tracker apps for my phone I chose this one:

MyFitnessPal

I absolutely love this app!!!!! I can track all of my workouts and the foods I am eating. It has helped me so much and it keeps me accountable everyday. 

Going to the gym has never been hard for me but now I have a friend to go with me and that is even better! We go 2-3 days a week and do an hour on the elliptical and 30 minutes on the stationary bike. One the days we don't go to the gym I also use the Wii Fit at home. 

I weighed myself today and was so happy to see that I have lost 5lbs!!!! I know it doesn't seem like a lot but for me it's a huge deal. I just need to lost 10 more and I will be happy.

I hope everyone is having a great day!!!

Marriage Retreat and Other Fun Trips

This past weekend, Kyle and I went up to Great Wolf Lodge for a marriage retreat. We went to one back in 2010 and had a great time. We were hoping for the same this time and it definitely did not disappoint. The main focus was communication, effective ways to communicate and how to communicate without getting angry. We were able to talk about so much and do it in a way that we both felt accomplished afterwards. 

We went out Saturday night (our free night) and had dinner at Quaker Steak and Lube (for those who have never been it's delicious, look it up) and had some drinks. It was a great night and we ended the night playing cards with some good friends at the hotel. 

It feels like the next few months are going to be very busy, my calendar keeps filling up and I am ok with that. Two big trip we have planned in April are:

Myrtle Beach, Easter Weekend!!!! We are leaving on Friday morning and will stay until Monday. We are so looking forward to this. We just want to relax on the beach and soak up the sun. This will be our view of the weekend:

Yay!!

The following weekend we will be watching this at Zmax Dragway:

Our brother-in-law, Chris, works on one of the teams so it is always great to hang out with him and the guys. Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE racing! Can't wait!!! It will be a blast. 

I am just amazed that it is February 29th. At the end of March we can already apply for housing in Fort Huachuca and that is roughly 3 months we will be on the road headed out of Bragg. I am excited for new changes and new adventures. 

I hope everyone is having a great day!

volunteering

Since I quit working a year and a half ago I have tried to find things to fill my days. Of course I became heavily involved with my FRG and I have loved it. I recently decided that it was time to expand my volunteering to outside the FRG (I am still a key caller and treasurer, and that won't change until we move).   Around Thanksgiving I was given information for an organization called Operation Homefront. They do many events for military families. I first volunteered with them during their "Thanks for Giving" event. I was instantly impressed and wanted to work more with them. Check them out and see if there are any volunteer opportunities in your area!

Thankfully, I am signed up with them for 2 upcoming events. A family readiness fair for another brigade and also the Vietnam Veterans Homecoming celebration at Charlotte Motor Speedway. I can't wait to continue my work with them and maybe it will turn into something more permanent. I also have signed to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity in March. I have never been the type of person who can sit at home and do nothing, so volunteering truly fulfills me. 

We have so much coming in the next few months within our FRG. We have a ton of fundraisers we will be doing: pie in the face (haha this will involved all of our senior leadership), MW3 tournament, Silent Auction, camo hand towels, and selling chili (it is amazing how well this does when the guys are at the range all day). We are also planning an organizational day (basically a family fun day) for soldiers and families. The event I am looking forward to the most is our battalion formal in May. This will be our last formal in division and it is bittersweet for us. 

I have already found an amazing dress and shoes for this formal:

Love!!!!

Ahhh! I can't wait to wear them!!

Well enough blogging for today, I have some housework to get finished. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!!