A Year with the Burley's

Smilebox Card from Mom B

Merry Christmas from the Burley's!  My mom made this card through a Hallmark site, so I thought I would share it with everyone.  I think I might make one too!

Family Day on the USS Makin Island

Growing up as a Navy Brat, I have experienced many family day cruises, and have pretty much gotten sea sick on all of them, with or without Dramamine.  But, when I was in college, my dad was on the USS Kearsarge, another amphibious assault ship, and I had the opportunity to go on a tiger cruise with him.  A tiger cruise is an overnight cruise, whereas a family cruise is just for the day.  It seemed as though everyone but me was getting sick on the Kearsarge’s tiger cruise, so I felt pretty confident that I would be okay this year on the Makin Island’s family day cruise. (The Makin Island and the Kearsarge are the same type of ship, so I thought I would be fine.)  I took some Dramamine and was excited to embark on a day cruise with James and my Dad to enjoy the beautiful San Diego skyline and Pacific Ocean.  The day began with an amazing sunrise over Cowles Mountain to the East, and an intriguing sail under the Coronado Bridge. It really did seem like we weren’t going to make it under the bridge, but of course it is just an optical illusion.  We were outside enjoying the warm San Diego sun, the salty air, the seals, and the downtown sky line, and I was feeling fabulous.  We had barely passed the cliffs of Point Loma when I started to feel horrible.  Even on those big decks, you really feel the waves and the movement, and I wanted nothing more but to lay down and for the rocking to stop.  Thankfully James has a state room with just one roommate, so I was able to spend a lot of time in his rack asleep.  Even though I was sick, it was still a lot of fun, and I enjoyed not having to go to work for a day.  My dad had been on the ship all week, since he went on the tiger cruise with James, and I think he enjoyed being on a ship without actually having to do any work.  And he was given his own stateroom, so I’m sure he enjoyed the entire cruise!  The activities for the day included fly bys of helicopters, navy security patrols, and LCACs.  There were other demonstrations, but I missed them due to my lack of sea legs.  It was interesting being in James’ workspace though, because it seems like a movie with the blue lights.  It seems so secretive and mysterious, especially when everyone in his division was playing video games on the computers.  In their defense, they couldn’t do any real work when the workspace wasn’t secure, but it was entertaining nonetheless. To see more pictures of my Dad and my epic sea cruise on the Makin Island, check out our flickr site by clicking on the photos to the left.

Shoes you can't resist!

Almost enough reason to have kids! :) I am completely in love with these shoes!!

Adorable VT Shoes

Pumpkin Lovin

Pumpkins remind me of the fall leaves in Blacksburg.  I was never much of a pumpkin eater until I went to college, and now I can’t get enough of it.  When I found this amazing pumpkin muffin pan at Crate and Barrel, I had to buy it.  This pan makes 3-D pumpkins that you put together with frosting (cream cheese of course!) And to make the pumpkins even better, we found pumpkin muffin mix at Trader Joes.  Mmmm….the taste of fall has never been cuter!

I love FALL!

Fall is my favorite time of year. I love watching the leaves change, feeling the air turn crisp, and ordering pumpkin spiced lattes at Starbucks. Unfortunately, San Diego doesn’t get that fall feeling, though I do feel the San Diego fall in the air. Last year, I couldn’t tell the difference, but I’ve been here long enough to feel the difference this year. It’s subtle…but there. To enjoy fall, James and I drove to the beautiful mountains of Julian, where us Southern Californians drive to experience fall. At only an hour away, Julian gives you the crisper fall air, slight leave changes, amazing apple pies, and a cute small town feel. Every year they host the Apple Festival, where you can pick your own apples, enjoy homemade cider, apple wine, apple butter, and apple pies. My personal favorite was the pumpkin apple pie. That piece of pie alone was worth the drive! We actually made two trips to experience fall, one that included some wine tasting and enjoying the cute old mining town of Julian, and one that included apple picking and the pumpkin patch. It was a bad year for apples in southern California, so there wasn’t much picking to be done. It was still beautiful though, and we enjoyed walking through the orchards. We spotted a pumpkin patch on the drive in, so we left the orchard and went to pick out our pumpkins. It was also a bad year for pumpkins, but we were able to find a few cute ones for the apartment. At the pumpkin patch, James and I reminisced about the pumpkin patch in Christiansburg. It really is a hard one to beat, with the beautiful mountains surrounding the farm, the tractors to climb on, the rolling hills of pumpkins, the petting zoo, and of course the home made cider and kettle corn. I could almost taste the homemade cider and feel the crisp air on my cheeks. I miss Blacksburg in the Fall! Check out our new site: http://wanderinghokies.com/

I love FALL!

Fall is my favorite time of year. I love watching the leaves change, feeling the air turn crisp, and ordering pumpkin spiced lattes at Starbucks. Unfortunately, San Diego doesn’t get that fall feeling, though I do feel the San Diego fall in the air. Last year, I couldn’t tell the difference, but I’ve been here long enough to feel the difference this year. It’s subtle…but there. To enjoy fall, James and I drove to the beautiful mountains of Julian, where us Southern Californians drive to experience fall. At only an hour away, Julian gives you the crisper fall air, slight leave changes, amazing apple pies, and a cute small town feel. Every year they host the Apple Festival, where you can pick your own apples, enjoy homemade cider, apple wine, apple butter, and apple pies. My personal favorite was the pumpkin apple pie. That piece of pie alone was worth the drive! We actually made two trips to experience fall, one that included some wine tasting and enjoying the cute old mining town of Julian, and one that included apple picking and the pumpkin patch. It was a bad year for apples in southern California, so there wasn’t much picking to be done. It was still beautiful though, and we enjoyed walking through the orchards. We spotted a pumpkin patch on the drive in, so we left the orchard and went to pick out our pumpkins. It was also a bad year for pumpkins, but we were able to find a few cute ones for the apartment. At the pumpkin patch, James and I reminisced about the pumpkin patch in Christiansburg. It really is a hard one to beat, with the beautiful mountains surrounding the farm, the tractors to climb on, the rolling hills of pumpkins, the petting zoo, and of course the home made cider and kettle corn. I could almost taste the homemade cider and feel the crisp air on my cheeks. I miss Blacksburg in the Fall!

The Julian Bakery... Built in 1882...     Burned in 1957...     Restored in 1978

The Internets (according to Steven Colbert)

When we were freshmen in college, having the internet in our rooms was awesome.  I mean, I had the internet at home for many years, but this was my internet connection.  Our computers were plugged into it all the time, 24 hours with our AIM status telling everyone what we were up to or saying something witty or cute.  "VTAngel06: Is at Deet’s getting ice cream with her awesome roommate! Come meet us at Deet’s and be awesome too!!" And we would spend hours on sites like Homestarrunner.com Even though we spent a lot of time on the internet, it was the pre-Facebook age, so it was different.  It was before blogging and twitter.  And even a bit before digital cameras.  A few of our friends had them, but they were on the cutting edge.  Cathy and I (my freshman roommate) were still using film cameras, with only 24 photos a roll.  It was a time when we didn’t want to share everything we were doing with the entire population.  When Facebook came to Virginia Tech, I resisted.  If you remember, only a few colleges were invited to join Facebook at a time, and slowly, almost every college was on the site.  It was only later that they opened it up to everyone, and it became an international phenomenon complete with a ton of advertisements.  I joined Facebook my senior year of college for a class called “Communication, Internet, and Society,” where I was supposed to observe internet interactions and relationships.  At the time, it was novel for me, and academic in nature.  Now, it is completely social for me, and I get on it multiple times a day to "stalk people". In fact, I’m not sure what I would do without Facebook!  I love stalking people and seeing what everyone is doing with their lives.  I love looking at people’s pictures, and looking to see why their relationship status changed. It’s a way of life for me now.  And I love reading people’s blogs to see what they are up to.  I guess it’s really a staple for us, because we live so far away from our friends and family.  This comic made me laugh and saddened me at the same time.  It is so true how attached we have become to the internet.  Just the other day, we were hiking along the beautiful coast of San Diego, and I thought to myself, this is going to make a great blog.  How sad!  So, this is just a small version of my daily thoughts on the internet.  Hope you all enjoy the comic! :) It is from http://xkcd.com/, “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”

Link to Original Comic

Penguins

Heading south into winter from Brazil the temperatures quickly dipped.  As the days grew short, I managed to grab an awesome picture of the sunset off the Argentine Coast. I had regained much energy by the time we entered the Strait of Magellan, the highlight of the trip for me.  It took us two days to cross the Strait, though it took Magellan over two weeks.  Entering from the Atlantic we saw a vast flat empty land, with some ice but mainly brown reminding me of pictures from Greenland.  This was cold and boring until we reached Punta Arenas for an overnight anchorage.  The current strong and we dragged anchor, but I enjoyed looking at a large city in a desolate countryside through binoculars.  I really wished we had made a port call to walk around, but we had to continue.  The next day was one to remember, with dramatic views of mountains, ice, glaciers, penguins, and the circle of life. We entered a narrow channel with freezing mist, but got to see the southern most point of South American mainland, with only patagonia and the Drake Passage on our left to separate ourselves from Antarctica.  We are also able to see tiny Magellenic Penguins enjoying their penguin lives.  After hours of majestic beauty, we literally could take a picture anywhere and see something good, we were joined by a pod of Orcas.  It was cute at first with thoughts of Free Willy in our head, but then we saw them hunting seals, a truly terrific sight.  Seals were trying to escape, but couldn’t make it... it was just like the Planet Earth series on the port side of the ship.  After a frozen day we looked forward to my favorite port stop in Valparaiso, Chile.

Obrigado! (Thank You)

Pulling into Rio de Janeiro (January River), Brazil afforded a great view of among the most unique topography I’ve ever come across. The main city was founded within a large natural harbor with a narrow opening to the ocean. Both the French and Portuguese attempted to settle the area, with the Portuguese easily fortifying the opening to the bay. The Portuguese empire moved its headquarters to Rio after Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula, affording Old World riches and architecture to litter the city. Today, Rio is famous for its beaches which we saw riding in, particularly Copacabana and Ipanema neighborhoods. On a mountain top overlooking the city is a 40 foot statue of Jesus, Christo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) that we could actually see riding in. However, Rio is in the grip of rapid, massive urbanization as the population continues to move in from the countryside into cities looking for jobs. Without housing construction to meet population, shanty towns have gone up everywhere, called favelas. There are miles and miles of favelas and are areas of high crime. We pulled in at a commercial pier downtown. I was immediately struck by the high amount of grafitti, EVERYWHERE. There was literally nothing NOT tagged by rather colorful and artful spray paint, including churches and gravestones. Once liberty call went down I went out with a few junior officers and explored Copacabana beach in their winter. We enjoyed drinks and a sunset on top of a hotel, then headed to a few bars and restaurants, running into American and European tourists. I was surprised by the open prostitution and drugs around, but brothels are legal in Brazil... Portuguese as a language is interesting but not too difficult to communicate with others if you are polite. We tried hard not to be ignorant Americans, but did have to point to pictures at times when ordering. Also, the local Brazilian beer was not that good. The next day Tim, my roommate, and I woke up early to take a white water rafting tour out in the countryside. It was an hours ride, but saw many favelas on the way out. The rafting tour was neat, as the rapids were mildly tough but fun. The guides were nice and liked to splash us. After rafting by old coffee farms, we went through a jungle area and saw actual monkeys in the wild, pretty crazy. That night we had a required Wardroom function at a high class brazilian steakhouse. The servers kept bringing mounds of different cuts of meat, as much as we could eat. Hanging out with 80 officers got lame, and we took a cab back to the ship to pass out. The next day we got to play real tourist and visit Jesus. A group of four took a cab up Corcovado Mountain to see the famous Cristo Redento (Christ the Redeemer) statue overlooking Rio. Pulling into the city I was able to make out the statue on the peak. Unfortunately for us the clouds were low that day and hung right around the mountain peak, but we got to see Jesus up close, which is not one large chiseled rock, rather a mosaic pieced over a frame. In search of food, we made it down the mountain to Ipanema beach, an area much nicer than Copacabana. At a nice micro-brew pup we ate some fried cheese dish, then had coffee in the local style, instant... not all that good considering they grow the beans everywhere. Maybe Americans are the only ones obsessed with drip coffee. After walking the boardwalk we headed back to the ship for an evening reception for Brazilian Naval officials. While preparing to aide the captain with the evening handing out gifts, I suddenly and violently became ill. Then sick. Something I had out in town had hit me, and my last day in Brazil was spent with the toilet. Eventually I crawled down to medical, who gave me two IV’s to hydrate me and stop my stomach from discharging everything. I was not the only one on the ship to get food poisoning, and we suffered together, though I thought my insides were trying to come out. I was weak for two weeks after that blow.

The Sail Around South America

James has begun to chronicle the story of his trip around South America...and you can find that on our new website at: www.wanderinghokies.com Also, you will be able to see all of his pictures from the trip on our flickr site. All you have to do is click on our flickr stream on the left page of the new site, and it will take you to see all of our pictures.

Enjoy! Let us know what you think of the new page!

P-Goula to Rio

After several months of toil and hard work in humid, sticky Pascagoula, Mississippi the USS MAKIN ISLAND finally got underway.  She was only two years overdue and overbudget at 2.5 Billion taxdollars, but in reality she is a pretty cool ship. I am on a hybrid ship that saves a bunch of gas.  So, we headed south into the Gulf of Mexico and finally into the Caribbean.



The water turned a cobalt blue and was very nice, but I was rarely outside. The ship offered a deal where you could pay to not shave. I tried my hand at facial hair and surprised myself with a decent beard. A few officers even shaved theirs into a fu man shu... eventually we transited the entire Caribbean, passed through the windward islands and entered the Atlantic.

We turned south along Brazil’s Atlantic coast and saw the opening of the Amazon River (not really, but the captain was excited to tell us somewhere to our right was the largest river basin in the world).

The other highlight was a traditional crossing the line ceremony where King Neptune and Davy Jones embarked the ship when we passed the equator to allow us to enter their domain.   Other than that, our daily routine settled down and we rarely saw the sun. Three short weeks found us in the southern hemisphere in the middle of winter outside of Guanabara Bay, Brazil.

Welcoming the Makin Island Home

After seven long months of being apart, the day was at last approaching when James, along with 1000 other sailors, would be sailing into San Diego to finally be reunited with their families (and most importantly, me!).  I spent homecoming eve at the beach with another Navy wife, enjoying the sun and sharing our excitement that our husbands were coming home!  The bond between Navy wives is a special one, since most married couples don’t know what it’s like to be away from each other for so long.  Without a few of my amazing Navy wife friends, I would have never made it through those long months alone.  I couldn’t sleep the night before homecoming, and I decided to go into work for a little while, just to keep me from going crazy.  As I was driving over the Coronado Bridge, I saw on the distant horizon the outline of the Makin Island, and all the emotions that have been buried inside of me over the last seven months exploded.  I was overjoyed and tears started to swell in my eyes.  I was swept up in emotions, and had to quickly remind myself that I was driving on a bridge 200 feet about the water.  This was just the first of many emotional breakdowns of the day. As Ashley and I stood on the pier watching the tip of the ship break into view, we both broke into tears.  As the tears poured down our faces, we just held each other and watched the massive gray shipped lined with white uniforms creep towards us.  I was so happy to have her there with me that day, as the waiting was unbearable, and the few hours we had to wait felt like lifetimes.  Despite everyone kind of looking the same in uniform, I was quickly able to spot James.  It has been amazing to have him home, and I am so thankful that he is now here most of the time.  He still has to leave for a week or two now and then, and has to be on duty once a week, but it’s much better than months!  Now we are just enjoying being together in Southern California, and taking advantage of our evenings and weekends together.

Drum Roll.....

www.wanderinghokies.com Check out our new site and let us know what you think! It is clearly a work in progress, but we didn't want people to think we were done blogging. Stories from South America will be coming soon, so get excited! :)

Welcome to the Wandering Hokies!

Greetings and welcome to our new blog!  We felt like it was time to give ourselves a new look, and the more we learned about wordpress, the more we liked it.  As you can see, this new blog has multiple pages devoted to specific topics, which we will update regularly.  However, this page will be our main blog, where you will see our every day updates.  We hope you like it, and we look forward to your feedback!

♥ Angela, James, and AJ

Life Changes

You may have noticed that we haven't really been updating the blog that much recently. Our lives have been changing so much that we thought it was time for a blog change. Keep checking this site, as we will unveil the new blog very soon!

Only one more week!

April Showers bring May Flowers….and Wine Weekends!

There is nothing quite as sweet as enjoying amazing wine with amazing friends! In April, after visiting Blacksburg for the memorials, I hit the road with two great friends to enjoy the North Carolina vines and hospitality, on our third annual girls wine weekend. Hitting the third is a big deal, and I feel like we are official now! In 2007, we embarked on our first trip to the Yadkin Valley in North Carolina, one of America’s fastest growing wine industries. It was a great way to get my mind off of James being in OCS, and me being in Blacksburg by myself. Then in 2008, we spent an awesome weekend in the heart of Virginia, living up Thomas Jefferson’s alcoholic dreams in the Charlottesville area. Without TJ, where would this country be? And because we had only been able to visit a handful of wineries in 2007, we decided to go back to the Yadkin valley in 2009. After all, it’s going to take us quite some time to visit all of the wineries in North Carolina. Map of NC Wineries I think we have about 76 more to go, but we’ve already visited 11 or 12! I like going to wineries, because each one is very unique and has its own story. We like to mainly visit the smaller, family run wineries, as their wines tend to be very interesting, the people tend to be friendly, and you learn so much. The larger wineries are fun because they are always really nice, but in terms of what you get for what you pay, you are paying for the expensive environment, not the wine or the friendliness of the staff. And I feel like I never learn anything at the big expensive wineries. I’m going to start with my absolute favorite winery of the trip…Hutton Winery. It was actually the second winery we visited, but we had to take a break afterwards, since Heidi, the owner, was a VERY generous pourer! It is a brand new winery, and she was so excited that we were there. If you are anywhere near this little place, please go and visit it! They are so sweet, and we really want them to stay open! Usually at a tasting, you get a small sip of wine, but with Heidi, we had half a glass of wine for each tasting. You can imagine what that did to us, and resulted in us playing on a tractor for a while until we were ready to get some lunch. Stony Knoll was also a cute family winery, but we didn’t spend much time there, as they were planning for a 50th anniversary party later that night. Flint Hill was adorable, and I wish we had been able to spend more time there. It was in a beautifully restored Farm House, and had a restaurant that looked fabulous. Unfortunately, we had just eaten lunch when we got there, but the food looked amazing. It was also family run, and we spent some time enjoying the rocking chairs on the front porch. And RagApple Lassie… where do I even begin? We visited Rag Apple Lassie on our first wine trip, and we loved it enough that we had to make a second trip to it. They have the most uniquely shaped wine bottles, and great wines. Their theme is cows, so everything has a cow printed on it, and we are always reminded that southern girls wear pearls. We tried to make a fifth winery that Saturday, but we got there right as it was closing. Wineries tend to close pretty early, somewhere between 5 to 6. But we weren’t too discouraged, as we found an awesome BBQ place, which I had been craving since moving to the west coast! I love pulled pork BBQ, especially Carolina BBQ. I still say that the best BBQ I’ve ever had was in Chapel Hill my junior year. Those were the best sweet potato fries I had ever had! After an awesome pulled pork dinner, we went back to the hotel an enjoyed some homemade wine from Stanburn Vineyards. It never fails that no matter how much awesome wine we’ve tasted that day, the wine made by Tab’s husband and father-in-law always surpasses the best that we tried. And Tab should be getting paid for the awesome mixes she makes with the wine! Fabulous! The next day, we toured Mt. Airy, NC, the birthplace of Tabatha, and the home of Andy Griffith. It’s a beautiful little community, with an old fashioned downtown, complete with the Old North State Winery and Opie’s Candy Shop. Opie is James’ Tuba nickname, so it was a must stop for us! And the Old North State Winery was actually one of my favorite stops, as it was in a restored main street building, which the pourer told us is haunted. I always love hearing people’s first hand accounts of a building being haunted. North Carolina grows a great deal of Muscadine grapes, the grapes used by Welch’s for their white grape juice. It’s very sweet, and the Old North State Winery had a very good Muscadine wine that would be perfect for a warm summer day picnic. If I hadn’t been flying, I would have bought a whole case of it. Darn those checked baggage fees! Our wine racks at home were getting pretty low, too, and I usually use these wine trips to restock. It was getting late, and I had to catch a flight, but we were still able to fit one more winery in on the way to the airport. Childress was our glamorous winery of the trip. They are always fun to visit, and great for first time winery visitors. The vineyards were beautiful, and the winery lavish, but we didn’t get to try very many wines, but had to pay a lot to taste the wines we were offered. If I had known that I was going to miss my connection in Chicago, I would have stayed longer in North Carolina, but off to the airport we went. My flight was delayed leaving, causing me to miss my flight by about five minutes in Chicago. I ran all the way there, only to find out that it was the last flight to San Diego, and they couldn’t get me out until the next day. It was my first experience sleeping in an airport, but thankfully Chicago had a huge USO, and I was given a cot to sleep on. I still didn’t get much sleep, since I was in front of a large screen tv, and I felt like everyone was watching me, even if they weren’t. I am definitely looking forward to our fourth annual wine trip, place to be determined, year 2010!

April 16th, 2009 - we still remember

It’s been almost two and a half years since the shootings, yet it still feels like yesterday that our lives were changed forever. Being so far away from anyone who understood about everything we’d gone through, I needed to be back in Blacksburg for the anniversary this year. It was such a refreshing trip, and exactly what I needed since James had just left, and I was about to be alone for a very long time. It’s hard being so far away from a place that is so important to you, especially a place as special as Blacksburg. Though we may not be there often, Blacksburg is definitely where our hearts are! I was so very thankful that Tab and David picked me up at midnight in North Carolina, and drove the two hours back to Blacksburg! We stayed at their friends football condo, and after four hours of sleep, woke up to run 3.2 miles for our beloved 32, especially for Stack. It’s funny how every time I’m in Blacksburg, I feel like I never left. Sure, there are always some new buildings, and I have an apartment 3,000 miles away, but I always run into people I know, and I just feel an overwhelming sense of well being. I ran into so many people that morning, and did the run with my co-workers. We were in the very back of the race, due to our lack of sleep, and we ended up walking most of the way. We started lined up by Squires, then went under Torg bridge, past the chapel, past Burruss and the memorial, and half way around the drill field. Then we looped up in front of hillcrest and by the duck pond, then back to the drill field, which we looped three times. I definitely miss running in Blacksburg, especially on the Huckleberry. My mind was so clear after a few hours out on the trail, and it was clear again after just a few hours in the Burg. I spent the day visiting friends who are still at Tech, visited professors, and wandered around campus taking pictures and enjoying the peace. I didn’t really plan for my trip to Blacksburg. I just kind of bought a plane ticket and flew there. I didn’t even have a place to stay or anything, but I wasn’t worried. Things in Blacksburg just seem to work out, and I ended up staying with Jen for the night. Before I crashed at Jens, I reunited with two of my favorite people, Laura and Stacey, and had dinner at Sharkey’s, a place we visited often in undergrad. It was just a great reminder of our time in college, sharing stories and memories of trips, football games, and of course, Sharkey’s. I think my favorite story is always the one when we missed the West Virginia game because we had to go on a band tour in Northern Virginia. Amazing memories and amazing friends! After dinner, Jen and I went to the vigil. It was weird this year, and as we sat there, it just felt really different than it did last year. This year, half of the students weren’t even here when everything happened, and you could just tell that as time moves on, so does how we feel about it. It was great having Jen there with me to help with the range of emotions I felt. I can’t quite describe what Blacksburg does to me, but it moves me on the inside. It did before the shootings, and now, even more so. We still remember...and we still believe. The countdown to Blacksburg has begun…only 27 more days!

The Bottom of the World

And finally on his way back home to me! :)

March - the first month!

Only one more month until James is home! I can’t believe that we have gotten through the last five months….and are less than 30 days away from seeing each other. For those of you who are on Facebook, you know that James has had some incredible experiences in south America so far, including white water rafting in Brazil, food poisoning in Brazil, and watching an Orca eat a seal. I can’t imagine how cool that must have been! And he has promised to bring me home lots of wine from Chile, so I am definitely looking forward to that. I think the months have gone by so quickly because I had the opportunity to visit James four times. I figured I might as well take advantage of him being on American soil! In March, I flew down to see James while he was still living in his two bedroom apartment that was twice as big as our apartment here! That first trip to Mississippi really made me realize that I’m a southern girl. While I absolutely love southern California, it is not the south, and I want to be a southern belle, not a bikini blonde in SoCal. (Where I come from….it’s corn bread and chicken!) But, I’m definitely enjoying Cali! I mean, what’s not to love about a beautiful place, perfect weather, and more things to do than I have time for! Now If only I had a husband to enjoy it with! James’ apartment in Mississippi was really adorable. When I got there, he was staying in a hotel still, and I was there for less than 5 minutes when we packed to check out. I’m positive that it was full of mold, since I couldn’t breathe the moment we walked in! And it’s my second time making James check out of a hotel I wouldn’t stay in, so I think he’s getting used to it. I realized I’m actually pretty picky about where I sleep…if I can’t breathe, I can’t stay! And the apartment was so much better, although hard for James because he didn’t have a car. Thankfully, there were lots of guys from the ship who lived there, and he could catch rides to work until he moved onto the ship. At first I was devastated about the apartment, because it made it seem like we were really living away from each other. And either way we were, but while he was living in the hotel it seemed less permanent. But an apartment? That was pretty permanent. But when I showed up and saw where he had been staying for a week, I knew the apartment was a must! Even though James had only been gone for a week at this point, it seemed like forever since we had seen each other, and it was such a refreshing weekend. I am seriously not good at this whole being alone Navy wife type of life. James and I do love to experience places and travel, and we have enjoyed so many places we otherwise might not have ever visited, like Rhode Island and Mississippi, so I am thankful for that. And who knew that Mississippi has beautiful beaches? It was quite eye opening to me, and made me realize how judgmental I can be. I guess I just didn’t associate southern Mississippi with resort casinos and miles of beautiful gulf coast beaches. It is sad to see the amount of devastation that Hurricane Katrina caused almost four years ago. Four years have passed, and there are still buildings shattered, hundreds of empty foundations, closed restaurants and businesses, and empty fishing boats washed up on the shore. It’s eerie and makes me sad that so many people’s lives changed so abruptly. It reminded me about the importance of giving to those who have lost all that they have, for the Lord has blessed us so that we may give to others. I am desperately wanting to find an opportunity for another relief trip, as an entire year has gone by since I have done anything. Working makes it so difficult, but it is not an excuse to not volunteer and help others. I just need to find an opportunity out here. Despite all of the devastation though, life is coming back to the Gulf Coast. A few Casino’s have come back, and thanks to the help of the Smithsonian, the Jefferson Davis Presidential Home, Beauvoir, has been restored. It was severely damaged by the storm, as it sits right on the gulf coast, but they have been able to secure funding to preserve American history. In fact, they had just received restored paintings that same week we were there. I think my favorite part was sitting on the balcony rocking in awesome rocking chairs overlooking the gulf. They had amazing plaques on them reading: “For your rocking pleasure.” I definitely think that James and I are going to be old one day sitting in rocking chairs overlooking the water (or mountains) just enjoying every day. If it weren’t for real life like bills and work, we could be enjoying that right now! The funny thing about the Beauvoir is that we didn’t even know it was there. James and I have become non-planners, which is so unlike us. But since we’ve gotten married, we’ve just kind of enjoyed ourselves and stumbled upon places and opportunities. We were just driving and taking in the scenery when we saw the sign for the Jefferson Davis home, and we thought…why not? We also watched a speed boat race on the beach, drove for miles to find amazing seafood, and made late night Wal*Mart runs for Blue Bell ice cream. All it took was one trip to the gulf, and I was hooked. There was no way I wasn’t coming back to visit! And I did…in June and July!