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!
Monday, November 2, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
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 w
as 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.
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.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
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! :)
Thursday, October 8, 2009
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
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
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! 
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)