One Year Down...19 More to Go!

Guess what?! Today marks Garin's one year anniversary in the Coast Guard! Can you believe it?! I can hardly believe its been a whole year already! The past year has been quite eventful to say the least. This time last year Garin headed off to Cape May, NJ to embark on his adventure in Boot Camp. After 8 weeks, he graduated May 16th and then we headed to our first duty station in Emerald Isle, NC a week later. A few weeks after we moved we found out that he would be going to Officer Candidate School (OCS) in early August. Thus, at the end of July I moved back to Charlotte and then August 6th Garin headed off to New London, CT for OCS. After four months in OCS he graduated December 3rd and we went back to Charlotte to pack up all our stuff to prepare for our move for flight school. Then on December 31st we pulled up into our rental house in Pensacola FL, where Garin has gone through the first phase of his flight training and is waiting to start the next phase. Whew, like I said, the year-end-review reveals quite a busy year for the two of us in response to the Coast Guard's calling. I can only imagine what the next 19 years will have in store for us...what an adventure!

Well tomorrow Garin and I will be loading up the truck and heading back to good ol' NC to visit family and friends. We will be gone for a week so that means there will probably be no blog updates (i guess its not like I update the block every week anyway, so you probably wouldn't even know we were gone). Hope everyone has a wonderful week and I'll be sure to blog about our adventures when we get back.

Oh, sad news, I think our camera is officially done for. I think I dropped it for the last time and now the lens won't come out (Garin got it for me for our wedding, so I guess its almost four years old...which is pretty old for gadgets these days). So I guess that means its time for a new camera. Anyone have any recommendations? We are looking for a pretty simple "point and shoot" that will take quality pictures...please post your thoughts to help us through the process :)

Weekend Fun

This past weekend Garin and I were quite the social butterflies. On Friday night we had our Small Group Bible Study over for burrito/taco bar. It was great to get together for some food and fellowship. After we ate our fill, we all played a round of Apples to Apples. For those of you that have never played this game, I must recommend it! We used to play it back in the good ol' days of college and I hadn't thought about it again until one of our friends brought it over the other night. Oh, the good ol' days....

The spread

The game

Then on Saturday I had my first opportunity to go to a Crawfish Boil! This a Louisianian thing for those of you that have never heard of it. Our friend Erin turned 30 and we celebrated with A LOT of crawfish and other yummy things. Crawfish are quite interesting looking creatures...they look nothing like a fish as their name would imply, but more like miniature lobsters (see below)!

The big ol pot of crawfish. They are boiled alive (they have to be so you don't ingest bad bacteria...sad, I know) so you can see some are trying to escape!!

Although the novelty of the crawfish boil was pretty cool, I can't say that I've become a crawfish lover. It just takes WAY too much work to get the meat out and then there is this disgusting yellow mushy gut stuff that I need to get over as well. My husband, on the other hand, demonstrated his true Louisiana roots and probably ate half of the crawfish that were cooked. I wish I had a taken a picture of him, he had guts and goo all over his shirt and hands....ahhh, that's my boy!

Choose Life

Well since I've still been unable to find a job (I must admit I'm not looking as hard these days as I was before), I decided that I needed to do something worthwhile with my time. I mean, sewing and scrapbooking and furniture repairing does have its value, but I'm wanting to do something that has a more eternal value. Soooo this week I decided I'd been putting it off long enough and I got my stuff together and headed over to the Pregnancy Resource Center in a our little hometown...and I'm so glad I did!

When I walked in the door and told them that I wanted to start volunteering there they embraced me with open arms and told me how they could put me right to work. So this past Thursday I spent most of my morning and afternoon helping set up for their annual fundraising banquet; then Garin and I got the opportunity to attend it that evening. So far I've met some of the most sweetest older ladies (I think I'm pretty much the youngest volunteer there...I guess most girls my age have jobs!) and I'm looking forward to learning from them and adopting a few moms and grandmoms!

So what is the Pregnancy Resource Center (PRC) you might ask? Well, it is a non-profit ministry that seeks to educate women (and anyone else that is willing to listen) about the risks of abortion and the alternatives that exist. This particular center provides free pregnancy tests (did you know that some abortion clinics provide pregnancy tests and then give false positives so that they can perform a "fake" abortion and collect the fees?), counseling, referrals, adoption information, maternity and parenting classes, Bible Studies, and a store stocked with maternity clothes, baby clothes and other useful baby items (mothers can earn "baby bucks" to use in this store by attending classes at the center), and much more! So in short, the PRC is a place where women can go to receive loving support in their time of need.

A statistic in my training manual states that after experiencing the compassion at the PRC and being lovingly confronted with truth and responsibility, that 80% to 85% of the women that come through the doors will turn from abortion to choose life! How exciting is that?! I'm very excited to have a chance to help out with a cause I believe in and I'm looking forward to the ways God is going to stretch me and grow me through this experience! I'll keep you posted :)

Catching Up!

Well its been a couple of weeks so I guess this is my catch up blog.

Two weekends ago we got the opportunity to go bowling with our new Small Group at the church we have been going to. I love to bowl but Garin isn't so cool with it...might I add that I won with a score of 151 (which really isn't that good, but I did get a Turkey!). Below is a picture of our cool small group!

After our fun weekend at the Alley, Garin's parents came down for a short visit on their way to a wedding in New Orleans (more on that later). They left and headed over to LA and then Garin's dad and his aunt came over to spend a night with us later on in the week. It was great to have visitors in the house! In order to keep from driving two cars over to the wedding (Garin had to fly in the morning), I decided to ride over to New Orleans with Garin's dad and aunt and spend some time down there.

The wedding I'm speaking of was for Garin's cousin, Kristina and her, now husband, Richard. It was a BEAUTIFUL wedding! You couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. The wedding was outside under a large live oak with hanging moss...sooo picturesque (see pictures below)! The food was also yummy and the cake was beautiful (Garin's aunt that made our cake also made her's).

After the wedding we spend some time in New Orleans with Garin's family. On Saturday we took our traditional trip to downtown to have some beignets at Cafe Du Monde and then walked around the French Quarter for a while.

This is Garin's brother, Shane, at Cafe Du Monde...he's on the market and available.... ;)

Fun picture downtown with Garin's family

This past weekend was absolutely beautiful down here, so on Sunday we decided to head out to the beach after church. Apparently it was the beginning of spring break for the college crowd so the beach was pretty busy. We biked around for a while and then did some basking in the sun to tan our white bods (well, mine's pretty white, Garin has a perma-tan that I'm jealous of).

And finally, we have some good news to share (no we are not pregnant...I know that's what some of you were thinking!). Garin has completed his first phase of flight training!!! On Monday he had his last solo and is now cleared to move onto the next phase (which won't start for a while). Praise God...it was truly by His graces that Garin can mark this accomplishment.

Sorry for the long entry...I think I'm caught up now :) Until next time...