Autumn Dreaming...

Hello all! I hope everyone has had a good and eventful July. Only one more month of Summer! I'm so thankful. Even though this summer has been incredibly mild, I'm definitely ready for fall. I know July isn't even over yet, but I've started to look at fall tags on Pintrest and Tumblr. I even went crazy and ordered two cute pairs of boots online today. I'm going to look so cute this fall.
I don't know why but I have good feelings about the upcoming season. Work is finally settling into some normalcy now that I finally found a replacement for my old position, we'll be going home in a little over a month, plus fall is just beautiful. I get as eager as a little kid on Christmas this time of year. It doesn't seem to last very long here though. It seems like one minute it's summer, the next the leaves have changed, a week later it's snowing. Which is depressing because I have always been so in love with East coast autumns. I think I may need to go to Connecticut or something to get a more substantial fall season. Sigh...
It hasn't been too eventful around here lately. We work, we come home, we go to work again... We still haven't been kayaking. It just never seems to pan out. We have made it to the pool at least. We spent the fourth at our friend's apartment, poolside with drinks in hand. It was nice and relaxing. I still can't believe I haven't been to the beach this summer though. It is a drive, but I mean, we're on the East Coast... Aren't you sort of required to go to the beach??
In other news.... I think I may actually be going back to school this fall. I applied and signed up for classes, but I was hesitating on the tuition. I knew we wouldn't get any aid and I was worried once I saw the total I'd freak out and bail. Luckily, it seems that it is going to cost half of what I thought and student loans should cover it! I was really concerned about having to take out a whole bunch of private loans that would just eat away at us. But student loans I can live with. I figure everyone has student loan debt they have to deal with and mine really won't be too bad once I'm finished. I could always save a little from each paycheck and have the amount basically ready to go when I finish. I'm excited and nervous about starting school up again. I've been out for awhile and I'm worried I'll be a little rusty or won't remember how certain things are supposed to go. I mean, I haven't written a research paper in over 4 years... I think I have to go in knowing I may not do as well initially as I'm  used to doing in school. Straight A's my first semester may not be realistic. I'm also a little apprehensive about the tole it will take scheduling wise. Working 40 hours plus school plus being married... it's going to be a lot to handle. I'm going to have to stop any and all time wasters and schedule out my days and follow accordingly.
I hope it works out though. It's well past time that I did it. Tyler will be out of the military sooner than we want and I want to be prepared for anything.
That's all for now! Have a good night!!
Chrissy

Fourth of July... Poolside.

Dinner??

Car selfies for life.

I am my own best date ever.

I may have went a little crazy at the used bookstore...

Enjoying cool weather...

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Lazy Days of Summer? Wishful Thinking...

Hello all!! Another month is drawing to a close. We're officially less than six months away from Christmas. How insane is that?! I swear I say this every year, but every year goes by more quickly than the last. Fourth of July is in a week. The next big holiday after that is Halloween! Crazy.
June has been a blur. I literally don't think I did anything but work. Nothing eventful or too exciting. How depressing is that? I am still only doing 40 hours a week, but doing the job of two people is exhausting leaving me no energy for anything exciting after work. I was hoping July would bring some relief, but it looks like I'm still on my own. I'm hoping we get my old position filled soon so my schedule can change a bit. Hopefully, I won't have to work as many weekends since my old position required me to work almost every Sunday. It'll be nice to, you know, actually hang out with my husband.
Speaking of my husband, we finally found him a truck! It was such a huge weight off of our shoulders to finally find one. It was more expensive than I was hoping for and overpriced, but it was exactly what he wanted so I didn't complain. Now if he would only take care of his two non-working motorcycles and get rid of the truck that no longer works....
Despite finally getting a truck, we haven't been kayaking yet this summer. I can't believe it either. But our schedules just haven't matched up. I'm way too tired after work to go for even a quick trip and he has classes on Saturday and I work Sundays. Sigh.. I'm hoping we get to go out for the Fourth since I managed to get the day off. I'm looking forward to getting on the water and spending some quality time together.
We've started to really plan our trip home in September for Ty's sister's wedding. I asked off for two weeks which my boss wasn't thrilled about. But I haven't taken any sort of vacation the entire year I've been there and I have plenty of PTO for it so he can deal with it. We've decided to drive too which is going to take away two of our days. It's just going to be easier than finding something to do with Pheobe and way cheaper. I'm looking forward to getting out of town and seeing the family. It'll be stressful having to drive all over the freaking Midwest to see everyone we need to see, but oh well. I can't believe it'll have been almost 2 years since we've been home. That's the longest we've ever gone without going home. All part of being the family members living a thousand miles away I suppose. I wonder if it'll feel strange at all. I know it will. Everything is different back home than when we were there. On my side of the family at least. My mother is married and in a different town with his kids. My dad is married and in his wife's hometown. My little sister is married and in a different city. Luckily, Ty's side is all pretty much in the same place. Sure, his sister is getting re-married, but she's been living with him for over a year, so no real change there. It's strange to think that my family have new families that I've never met. I've only met my mom's husband once when they came to visit before they got married. I've never met his kids or been to their house. I've spent a little time with my dad's wife before we moved out here, but I've never been to their new house or met her kids. I've never met my sister's husband (still too weird to say). Yet another drawback to living so far away.
As much as I feel a disconnect to my family now being so far away, I like that we have our own life out here. I like that we aren't stuck in the same towns we grew up in. I like that we don't have our families constantly looking over our shoulders or butting in. We've done it all on our own. Sink or swim, it's just the two of us. I definitely think that has helped our marriage. We figure out how to deal with things and each other on our own.
I'll stop my rambling there...
Hopefully everyone has an exciting Fourth of July! I'll spend my kayaking and then drinking and eating by the pool... sounds so nice right now. Can this week get over with already??? Until next time!

Birthday dinner outfit. I own this dress in three colors....

Did I mention I love to lift? If not, here's a douchey post-workout photo to show you

Rainy days and big mugs of coffee make for very unproductive days off..

5:30 am has it's perks..

I've started filling in my eyebrows (really random) and I think it's the best life choice I've ever made.

New hair!!

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Adventure is Out There!!

Hello everyone!!
I hope you are enjoying the last few weeks of summer... As for me, I've been ready for fall since about May so I'm done with summer. My house already has fall decorations and even though there are only a few, they make me all warm and happy inside.
Anywho... Life has been pretty much normal and uneventful the last few weeks. Work, work, work. It's a good thing that I like my job. Otherwise I would be miserable..
I do have some new family news to share: My mom got married the other day! She and her now husband decided to just go to the Justice of the Peace and get it done. It sort of took me by surprise since she had been discussing having at least a small wedding not a few weeks prior. Oh well.. I'm always an advocate of JP weddings. It's worked out for me. :)
So she got married and then next week my little sister ties the knot! This is craziness. Everyone's lives are moving onward and upward it seems. I'm still upset that I won't be there for her wedding, but I know it'll be lovely without me. It's so surreal having both of my parents remarried now and my little sister right behind.. Life is so crazy sometimes.
Besides that little bit of news.. we finally went kayaking! We've been trying to get out again for so long, but work schedules have been in the way. Over the long weekend, though, we were able to be out on the water for three of the four days. The first day we went to a new reservoir. It was really lovely out on the water. It definitely takes some getting used to for the paddling.. my shoulders were not having it that day. We didn't stay out long that night since I had worked all day, but it was still a nice little jaunt.
On the second day we went to the same reservoir but launched from a different point. The water seemed a lot murkier and stagnant for some reason. We decided to risk taking a couple of Blue Moon's with us to relax with. We found a little alcove where the hubs fished for awhile while we drank a bottle. It was so relaxing and we had such a good time together.
The last day we went on a river for the first time. I was a little nervous about paddling against a current, but luckily there was barely any force on this river. Unfortunately, that's because there hasn't been a lot of rain which means there were a lot of very shallow areas. We had to drag our kayaks over a few spots to get to deeper water. We did encounter some rough, rocky areas where the current was pretty strong. It got a little intense at one point when I was attempting to walk my kayak over a shallow but rough spot and almost lost my paddle and then my boat. I managed to hold on to them and not get swept away myself, but it was close. Getting over those rough and shallow parts was definitely an unintended workout. We got quite a ways up the river, but we were coming to a lot of shallow areas and didn't really want to drag our kayaks anymore so we decided to head back. The trip down was a blast. Coming back over those rocky and rough areas is a lot more exciting than going up. I felt like an extreme kayaker (even though it was probably the un-roughest "rough" area ever). It was an amazing day to say the least.
I managed to "finish" the summer on the water, got some sun on my skin to take into the fall, and beefed up my shoulder muscles... I think I bid farewell alright.
I hope you all did something fun over your Labor day weekend. Are you as ready for fall as I am, or still holding on to the heat??

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Working 9 to 5... Actually it's more like 8 to 5....

This whole full-time job thing is exhausting.. let me tell you. I've been in the position about a month now and my body is still not used to it. It's not even the hours necessarily, it's more just how on the go I am during them. I'm constantly moving and having to do something. It makes the time go by quickly, but wears me out. I'm pretty much useless the rest of the day. Needless to say, my workouts have been suffering. I've been skipping more than I need to. I need to get used to my new routine, but it's so difficult sometimes mustering the energy to after work and when I need to super early in the morning before work, I just can't get out of bed. I admire all of you who manage to do it though. My poor house only gets cleaned once a week and deep cleaned rarely...
I am enjoying my job, though, which is a relief. I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to handle it or the other managers, but I think I've been doing pretty well and the other managers are great, thankfully. I'm not looking forward to the next few months with the holidays. My job is going to be nothing short of insane. Life will be non existent....
Besides work, we really haven't been up to anything... With both of us working full time and me more often than not working on the weekends which are his only days off, us doing things doesn't usually happen.
We've been gradually working on getting things done around the house. We finally got rid of our old furniture and have accepted the fact that our new couch is staying on the first floor. So now we're planning what to do with the second floor space. We've pretty much decided to make it our entertaining/lounge area. Our bar is already there... We're going to do something along the lines of 4 upholstered chairs around a large coffee table. I think that will work nicely in the space. We also bought new end tables which just so happen to match our bar. And after 3 years we finally bought a dresser! It's being put together (by the lovely husband) as I type. I'm pretty excited about it. I can finally get my undergarments out of box lids which have been my drawers for the last 3 years. And my husband will now have no excuse to leave piles of folded clothes everywhere.
You'd think with how much I want our house "finished" that I'd have this done or farther along by now. But I've come to realize I'm really lazy at decorating. That and I'm really cheap.. I just don't know what I really want to buy when I'm out or I second guess myself or decide it's not worth the money. When we settle down after the military I might just hire a interior decorator. I mean, I know what I want, but when I'm shopping or pulling things together I don't quite get there. I have good taste just not good execution...
The heat has decided to come back this week which I'm not happy about. We had been getting a nice little preview of fall and I was loving it. A bunch of fall clothes are coming in at work and at our favorite clothing stores and I just want to buy everything... you can't have too many sweaters, right? I'm beyond ready for sweaters, boots, scarves, fires, changing leaves, pumpkins... sigh.
Oh, I don't think I mentioned in my last post, but my little sister is getting married! How crazy is that?? It came as quite a shock to me, I'll admit. She's been with her fiance' about 9 months and they've been living together for about two or three so I guess it shouldn't have been that surprising that they'd do things quickly, but still. I did not imagine her getting married for a very long time. She's just a very unique spirit and has a lot that she wants to do. But hey, they're happy and I got married at 20 too. I don't know if I'm going to make it home for the wedding, which I'll feel horrible about, but that's one of the givens with being the family member that lives far away...
I'm sorry that this post is a bit all over the place, but that's life, am I right? It's not always nice and neat and organized. It just happens and you have to take it as it comes and move forward with it.
Anyways...I hope you all enjoy the last few weeks of summer as I continue to count down until fall.. :)
I'll leave you with some pictures that I finally got developed from my film camera and a few other instagram randoms...

My mother-in-law (on their visit out to Cali last July)

Quality time

My husband is so sneaky...

I love this... 

We went searching for a place to kayak on this river for three hours with no luck.. but pretty scenery.

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Fall is in the air... If only for today...

The heat broke today thankfully with some lovely rain. That's one of things that I don't miss about Monterey. It never rained. I was surprised at how much I could actually miss something like precipitation, but I really did. I just love rainy days. They're a good time for coffee, movies, and reflection. And after it rains the world is so pretty and new. There's a cool breeze blowing which makes me anxious for fall...
Fourth of July came and went uneventfully. I worked early and we drank Pabst all day which of course meant that I was in bed by 8, missing the fireworks. Oh well...
We've been enjoying our new kayaks. We're anxiously looking for new places to explore. I'm loving it. Now I just need to invest in a waterproof bag for my camera so I can actually document it. It's so gorgeous out on the water, basically by ourselves surrounded by nature. I could stay out all day.
My mother came to visit at the beginning of this week. I'll admit that I really wasn't that anxious for her to come out this week. It's was my last few days at my old store and my first few days at my new one. Plus, our anniversary was Tuesday. There was just too much going on. But I'm glad she did. It was nice to see her. I forget what it's like to have another friend besides Ty. She's really my only friend. How sad. I met her boyfriend (which is weird to say). He seems nice and they seem really happy which is all that matters. We didn't do much while they were here, but did manage to make it to the beach. Not on the ocean, but the bay, which is good enough. I think they had a good time, despite Ty and I working.
Tuesday was our anniversary. 3 years... how crazy is that?? It's flown by but it seems like it's been he and I forever. It's been a great adventure. I can't even begin to imagine how different my life would be if I had said no to marrying him. I'll never regret following my heart and taking that leap. We were "too" young, hadn't known each other "long enough", it all happened so quickly... but I wouldn't have it any other way. Whatever it took to get us here, no regrets. I'll admit that sometimes I'm sad that I didn't get the big wedding of my girly dreams.. but I wouldn't trade our wedding for anything. It was about us. Being together. Being in love. Not about a party or other people. That being said, I'm urging Ty for a vow renewal for our five year anniversary.. my parents weren't at our wedding, and I'd like a nice dress. And a party would be fun too. Doing things differently is how we do it.
I started my new job the other day. I was nervous about it and really sad to leave my old store where I felt like a part of a family... but I made it through. It's a little stressful at the moment trying to figure out how they do things, how they want things, what they expect of me, and what my role entails. I sort of feel like I was just thrown into it and am learning along the way...which is sort of overwhelming. Hopefully I find a groove soon and the stress dies down.
I can't believe that we're past the halfway point for the year... I hate that the older you get, the faster time goes. I don't even want to think about how quickly it will move once we have kids. Before we know it, it'll be Christmas time. This is going to be our first year that we don't go home for Christmas. I'm a little sad about it, but I'm thinking it's for the best. Since my dad's remarried and in a different city and my  mom has moved to a different city with her boyfriend... it would be insane trying to go between 4 homes... I'm excited to have a Christmas to ourselves and start some of our own traditions. I secretly wish that we would've had a baby to share the experience with, but oh well... Just the two of us is more than alright with me. :)
How is the summer going for all of you lovelies?

Fourth of July outfit. So patriotic.

I fell pretty in polka dots...

Rainy day coffee...

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Summertime and the Living is Easy...

So summer has officially arrived. And I'm ready for it to leave. I hate the heat. HATE. I hate being sweaty and uncomfortable and feeling like you can't breathe.. Add to the fact that I haven't had a real summer in almost 3 years. Monterey rarely saw 80 let alone 93. Sigh... Is it fall yet???
In other news...
I got a promotion! After 4 years I'm finally moving up. Thank God. This means more money and more responsibilities but also more time away from the love and less freedom with my schedule. I'm excited to finally be in a leadership position and to finally be making a step forward. Plus the extra money is nice. But I'm reluctant to leave my current store where I already feel like family. I'm also not excited about working nights away from my husband and starting out at a new store (yet again). Luckily, I don't NEED the extra money so if it ends up making me miserable or compromises my relationship in any way, I'm not afraid to step away.
It's exciting for something to finally be changing and progressing for me. I've been stagnant for a long time. I've also been looking more and more into getting certified as a personal trainer and nutritionist. There's a grant I'm looking into for military spouses that may cover it and as soon as I find out whether it will or not, I'm signing up! I figure it could turn into something and even if it doesn't, I didn't waste my money. I've also been contemplating career choices. I was thinking about possibly becoming a nutritionist or dietitian, but I really don't enjoy chemistry or science and I don't necessarily want to use it in a hospital. I more am interested in nutrition as related to health and fitness. I have, however, been looking more into getting my bachelor's in psychology and  going on to either be a marriage and family counselor or a guidance counselor. I've been reluctant to major in Psych because I know you can't really do anything with it without a higher degree. I'm definitely not interested in a doctorate but to become a marriage and family counselor or guidance counselor you only need a masters and observed training. I'm still thinking about it because it will take a while to accomplish, but I'm definitely leaning that way. It's nice to finally be at least semi sure about a field. :)
I had my first physical in five years today. I suck at being an adult so I haven't done anything medical related in at least 3 years... After my eye exam trauma, I was a little nervous about the physical. It'd be my luck that something would come up. But it went really well. I didn't even freak out too much about getting my blood drawn. lol. On deck next is finally getting to the ophthalmologist, getting to the dentist, and getting to the gyno, which I've never been too (I know, horrible). I'm getting better at this stuff at least.
My husband ran his first sprint triathlon last weekend. He decided to do it about a month ago and barely trained (didn't have access to a pool) but he did amazing. Under 2 hours! I was really proud of him to do something like that completely on his own.
The park where the place was held had the most beautiful lake which made me finally break down and agree to buy kayaks for us. He's been wanting to for awhile but I didn't think it was practical and figured we'd never actually use them. But after his race I figured why not? It's something to do on the weekends and could be a great hobby. I was surprised by how excited I actually was when we got them. I'm so excited to try them out and spend hours on the water. I told him that I could see us becoming one of those "granola" couples who camp and hike and kayak every weekend. Doesn't sound so bad...
July is going to be a crazy month for me. I start my new job, our anniversary is the week after next, and my mother is coming to visit with her boyfriend. Is it bad to say that I'm not too excited for her visit? It's just that the week she's coming is the week I'm supposed to be starting the job, but I got it worked out to where I'm doing a training week so I'll have some actual time with her. Also it's going to be so awkward having her and her boyfriend that I've never met here. I guess I'm still getting used to the whole "my parents aren't together anymore and have other people" thing. I don't know what we're going to do while they're here considering Ty will be working all day and I haven't actually been anywhere. I hope they like to drink at home because that's all I have planned...
I hope you all are enjoying your summer so far. Less than 3 months until Autumn! :)

5 am is kind of pretty I guess...

Stud.

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