"Sweet and Simple" - Journey (Week in Da UP)

This is my most favorite beach in the whole wide world.  I stood there 4 years ago in August and told my best friend I was his and he was mine forever and ever and ever :)  Just driving by the place and remembering that day brings so much joy to my heart.

We had a great rest of our drive through the UP (aside from the heavy rain) after we crossed the bridge.  All the non-adults in the car seemed to behave themselves and tolerate being stuck in the car.  I was worried that our smooth 19 hour drive from Louisiana was a fluke and all hell would break loose getting in the car for this trip.   


We had a very low key week in Negaunee with Chad's Dad and Step Mom.  I seemed to require an afternoon nap everyday.  I discovered after two days that me sleeping at the same time as Bug was a good example for the toddler who seemed to want to chase the cat around the room more than lay down and sleep...go figure.  Chad was pretty set on catching a fish or two while we were in the UP, so a few mornings he got up super early to hit the lake with his Dad.  Those days we all took an afternoon nap.  Those days Marvin would join in.   :)

We got to spend some time with my Seestor-in-law and her family.  We took all the kiddos to the Children's Museum and had the whole place to ourselves :)

Bug got to touch her first snake.  She kept saying she wanted to hold it, and then backed out at the last minute. 

The turtles on the other hand, we couldn't keep her hands out of the tank...

Most evenings consisted of some kind of card game.  We tried to use it as a way to teach Caitlin her numbers.  We weren't very successful.  She would request, "sit with you?" then crawl into your lap and browse through your cards and rattle off a bunch of random numbers.  No one ever really knew if she was accurate, I'm sure that will change soon... 

We spent the last day playing at the park with Seester Sabrina and family.  It was one of two maybe three really nice sunny days we had.   

More thanks and love to all the family that spent time with us, fed us and put a roof over our head :)

"We Are Family" - Sister Sledge (Week in Traverse City)

Traverse City, MI. We discovered that Grandma Amy and Grandpa Rich's house is a wonderland for a 2 year old here's why:

Amy has a chicken coop.  With chickens that Cate could chase and I believe by the end of the week she had actually caught one...

Aunt Chelle found turtles...

...and helped teach gentle handling procedure (thank you!)

So much fun!

We (Caitlin and myself actually) had our first canoeing experience.  I'm not saying this was my first time in a canoe (it was for Caitlin), it was my first time getting to paddle!  Way more fun when you get to drive.  Well, I didn't get to drive, I was told when to paddle and to what extent-that was for the best.



Caitlin learning what crisp cold water feels like:

...and then needing to embrace the coldness.  Over and over and over and over...

We couldn't have had a more beautiful day.

Or more wonderful smiles :)

And sometimes when we reach our limit, you just have to give in and let the boat take you along the current.


We ended the week with some much needed rain (according to the locals).  And of course, a two year old can find fun in anything.  Especially if it's something that requires extra loads of laundry for Mom...

We had a great time with our Traverse City family.  Thank you so much for sharing your space, time, and company with us! :)

"Vacation" - Vitamin C {Our week in Lansing}

We had a really great week in Lansing.  It actually felt like a vacation for once.  I'm flattered that I had friends who drove 1-3 hours one way just to come chat for an hour or two :)  It did seem there were a lot more people this time around that I didn't get to see, though.  I'll take the blame for that, I didn't feel very prepared for this trip to MI.  It didn't sneak up on me, but same as when the movers knocked on the front door, once the event was in my face it was obvious to me all of the things I had overlooked and not done.  The trade off of not seeing so many people is maybe why our time in Lansing for once felt relaxing and not hectic.  You can't have your cake and eat it too...even if you are pregnant.

I like the idea of snap shots.  I snap pictures that make me smile, and obviously things that make me smile are safely correlated to things that bring me joy - go figure :). 

A morning with my Grandma for Mothers Day seemed appropriate.  The Hubby woke up feeling just as crummy as Caitlin did on the drive up to Lansing, so he stayed at the house and got some extra rest.  As toddlers are so unpredictable, snagging a 4 generation photo took more than a few minutes, but it was worth it!

Monday was a guys afternoon out.  Chad got a game of golf in with Na and Matthew.  And for an even bigger bonus, I guess it was a good game of golf for all three of them, something about all of them getting a valid par on the same hole.  We spent the evening at the new Rivet household.  It's a bummer to know that M&M and Addy aren't going to be the next door neighbors they were down in Louisiana.  We really enjoyed seeing them every other weekend!

On Wednesday we drove out to Lowell to see Chad's Grandma and Grandpa.  They found Caitlin a small toad.  She was surprisingly gentle with it.  I didn't have to wipe toad guts off her hands and she will never know how grateful I am for that!

And what's better than toads?

ICE CREAM!!

A couple years ago Chad and I "bought" 10 acres in Muskegon a couple miles from Lake Michigan.  That's not really an accurate statement.  My parents paid for and own the land, it just happens to be the Hubby and I's name on the deed.  Long story.  Anyway, this property has become a pretty amazing getaway oasis for my Mom and Dad.  We spent two nights escaping the hustle and bustle or the real world.  It very nicely added to the vacation feel we were searching for during our visit up to MI.

We bought Grandpa a horseshoe set for Christmas and Caitlin helped set up the stakes.  If you can imagine, she was exceptionally helpful...

A trip to the property isn't complete without a day at the beach.  Growing up it seemed that every camp ground we camped at was on a rocky beach where walking out into the water was almost impossible without shoes.  I guess all those years of sacrifice paid off and the beach that is 2 miles from the property is a beautiful pristine sandy beach :)

We wrapped the Lansing visit up with a visit from two college friends on Saturday and a big Draminski family get together on Sunday.

I can't say thank you enough to everyone that made an effort to see us before we head North.  A super big thank you to Mom and Dad for putting the three of us up for a week and listening to the toddler temper tantrums that were so new then we had no idea how to deal with them!  And to M&M for watching Marvin for the week, I think my Dad appreciates that the most! :)

"Tu Compania" - Keith Urban

I'm going to describe to you one of the best moments in life that one can have.

It's a Saturday morning (days of the week really don't mean much to us since we've been on vacation), you get up to pee super early - around 5am.  You crawl back into bed not because you're really tired, but because it's just warm and cozy.  You get an hour or two to lazily fall in and out of sleep and cuddle with the best body pillow in the world.  Once you've soaked in all the lazy possible, you hear the little voice of your 2 year old babbling in the next room.  With one invite she is bounding across the room and jumping into bed with her blanket and paci.  Squirming under the covers she uses her blanket to tuck in Dad and snuggles her head on Mom's pillow.  She closes her eyes and fake sleeps.  Then it's just giggles and tickles and hide and seek in the blankets for 10-15 min until everyone realizes how hungry they are.

You'd have to be a heartless ogre to not see the Joy in moments like those.  I'm so glad I'm not a heartless ogre! :)   

"Road Trippin'" - Red Hot Chili Peppers

The total trip from Louisiana to Fairbanks will take us somewhere between 5,300 to 5,967 miles.  The variation comes from Chad doing the calculation one way (claiming the ferry voucher lists the distance we cover on the water), and my calculation of what it would take to drive instead of taking the ferry.  Either way, our first stretch of drive to Lansing was 1,181 miles.  And depending on who you ask, that is 19.8%-25% of our total trip.
Here is a snap shot of what the first 22.4% of the trip looked like:

Friday 7:30am
2 miles on the highway, we hear a loud 'thwump'.
Me: did we hit something?
Chad: no, it was something with the hood. Is it unlatched???
Marvin: MEEERRROOOWWW
Caitlin: hack, hack, sneeze, gag, cough.

Lesson #1, make sure your car hood is fully latched before driving 1,000+ miles.

7:40am
We discover that TomTom is unresponsive, and the atlas is most likely on its way to Alaska without us...ugh that packing company...

8:20am
The atlas was where it was supposed to be. Right next to the pregnant lady...I swear it was incognito!

Lesson #2, verify your maps are in the car and your GPS unit is fully functional and up to date.

9:35am
TomTom decided to join us just north of Texarkana. He required some odd combination of unplugging and resetting...

10:30am
The pathetically sick kid in the backseat finally falls asleep. She continues to cough in her sleep and snore rather loudly. It breaks Mama's heart :(

2:00pm-ish
We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a grocery store parking lot just north of Memphis. Caitlin ate a cold hot dog (just about the only thing she has had more than 2 bites of in the last two days). Marvin still hates us, but is keeping his opinion, rather nicely, to himself.

5:00pm-ish 
Dinner (aka peanut butter sandwiches again) in a McDonald's parking lot.

10:45pm 
Marvin looses his cool.   And he's making it very known.

Lesson #3, don't forget to feed your cat!! He is not likely to forgive you even if you feed him 5 hours later. He will hold that grudge...

Saturday 4:45am 
Arrival at our destination at last. Sweet dreams world!

"Easy Living" - Miranda Lambert

I remember one of those cold winter evenings in Michigan, I was walking out of a department store on Christmas Eve with my brother and my Dad.  The wind was blowing a thousand miles an hour, the damp air felt like icicles on my eye balls, and I couldn't get to the car fast enough.  I ran to the car only to watch my Dad slowly saunter towards us - in no hurry to unlock it, with his coat open and flapping in the wind.

PSYCHO!

The next sentence out of his mouth stuck with me for some reason, even though at the time, it made him even more psycho in my eyes.  He said: "You just have to embrace the cold!" while holding his arms up in the air.

It wasn't until years later after my many trials of high school, my many struggles of living in the "real world" post college, and the roller coaster world of the Army did that sentence start to make sense.  I realized on "recovery days" during the deployment (ones spent pulling myself out of the deep end as a result of the day before) if I hadn't had cared so much about what my house looked like or if my daughter took a bath, I wouldn't have stressed myself out, I wouldn't have cried myself to sleep, and I wouldn't be dragging myself out of bed trying to muster the strength to try again.  If I had just embraced the fact that houses get messy and realized I'm human and given myself a little more allowance to be the tired spouse of a deployed soldier, I maybe would have gone to bed feeling, tired-and proud to be a spouse of a deployed soldier, not stressed and frustrated.  My point - don't let the cold get to you.  Yes, it gets cold.  There is nothing I can do about the weather, there is nothing I can do about the way someone drives their car in front of me, there is nothing I can do about the fire ants that live in the southern half of the United States.  I've heard this a lot: "If you don't like something that you can't change, change your attitude about the said thing". 

So, the night before the movers come to load our boxes on the truck, Caitlin gets a temperature of 103.  She's never had a fever more than about 100.  I assume all of our medicine is packed, and without looking at the linen closet, I open one of the boxes that I think should contain the tylenol-no medicine.  I am now irritated.  1, because the box I just opened is not marked adequately for my taste now that I know what was in it and 2, because I still don't have tylenol.  Hubby suggest that I look in the closet.  I do.  It's FULL.  All of my medicine, pills, liquids, lotions, creams, all still there.  Not a single thing packed.  Really?  I can't move to Alaska with ANY of my cold medicines or baby orajel, I can't even take chapstick!  Now I'm really irritated.  Chad walked out of the room after saying 3 words: "I'm over it."

Embrace the cold.

It is what it is.  Yes, it may be crap.  But I can't change crap into gold.  I can control how I see crap though.  At that moment when you really do let it go and "get over it", the weight lifts off your shoulders, the knots in your stomach loosen, and your vision clears.  We'll just be more picky about what we buy when we are in Alaska so we don't run into this issue on such a large scale.  Simple enough for me.

Things are much easier to stomach when you embrace the ugly.  When the movers still had not loaded a single box on the truck after being in the house for over two hours, I was easily able to say "these guys are nincompoops, at least they aren't in charge of something irreplaceable like my daughter" I was happy to then leave and get coffee without stressing about not being there to watch their every move.  I was able to focus on other things, like getting Caitlin out of the house to do something she wanted to do for once in the last 3 days, and coffee.  All weekend without my coffee maker was kind of cruel.

Anyway, my point.  (I try to always have one).  You don't have to like everything that happens to your life.  But you do have to acknowledge that it's there.  I promise you, acknowledgement is 90% of the battle.  Sometimes the other 10% is the acceptance that there is no way around the pain or discomfort or irritation and that will be the hardest to swallow, but it only gets easier once you start doing it.  And the freedom you will find in the whole situation is pretty awesome.

Living is easy  and joyful when you take the pressure off yourself to do it perfectly.  Then you can enjoy lunches on the floor with your husband that look like this and not feel guilty or weird! :)    

"Keep On Moving" - Five

I first apologize for the lack of blogging.  I got all excited back in January when we found out we would be PCSing and then over the last 4 months all we had to do was pretty much hurry up and wait (what else do you do in the Army?).  The last few weeks everyone has been asking if I've been getting things ready for the big PCS, but honestly, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing.  Until the movers showed up...it all seemed so clear at that moment...

I was having a hard time really grasping what I could do ahead of time to ease the "stress" or alleviate any "mistakes" that the packers/movers could make.  But once the ladies showed up the morning of the 4th, all of a sudden it was blatantly obvious and I wanted them to go away for maybe 4 more hours so I could organize things into better piles.  Nope, they actually rang the doorbell 40 min earlier than expected and we had just woken up Bug and had just started breakfast, so I had dirty dishes and a slightly grouchy kid, and was feeling REALLY overwhelmed.

I had this perfect image of each room having a "necessity box" that contained just the very essential items that we would need for the week we were still at Fort Polk and the time we were in Alaska waiting for our household goods.  These would be neatly organized and easily packed in the car.  I tell you, the image I had in my mind was spotless and pristine and would have thousands of "repins" on Pinterest if I had posted the concept complete with "packing lists".  But alas, Friday came and it was NOTHING near to what I had envisioned, I felt like I had only half accomplished all of my packing and organizing goals-which is almost more frustrating than not doing anything at all...

But the day came and went and there isn't anything I can do about it now.  The whole point of this blog isn't to complain, it's to find Joy.  So here it is:

Saturday was the first morning I had to be creative. The packing lady who did the kitchen was a bit zealous. She snagged my chef knife, citrus peeler, and cheese grater before I even knew what happened (all things I had specific plans for in the necessity boxes). She even managed to sneak our salt and pepper-open, mind you-into a box. Really, lady.

Anyway, I hate plain unseasoned eggs, but I had bacon, and a frying pan, a spatula, eggs and leftover steak that no one liked when we first grilled it. I cooked it all in one pan. Scrambled eggs, Bacon, steak bites (cut painstakingly with a butter knife), all on the stovetop. Since we finished off the bread the day before, and saw we had hot dog buns to use, I cut them in half, buttered them and toasted a couple up as "toast sticks". I'm kind of impressed with myself :)

After breakfast we decided to make use of the billions of boxes in the house.  Mainly, we just needed them out of the main walk ways.  Not to complain again, but they left really heavy boxes in the most inopportune places around the house.  And I have a 6 month pregnant belly I'm trying to navigate with... Anyway, we found a decent use for all the boxes.  I'm sure Bug would have agreed :)