There's Nothing Like Going Home For Christmas

When we got up here to MA we didn't think that we were going to be able to make it home for Christmas because Garin had to work on Christmas day (partly because he is the new guy and partly because he is just a nice guy). However, when we got Garin's December scheduled we realized he had about a week right before Christmas where he didn't have to work. One day Garin told me he had a plan, so we called up his sister and brother and found out that his plan might actually work out!

So, on December 17 we hopped on a plane to Charlotte; Garin's sister Meghan and her husband, Eli (who had just arrived the week before from spending a year in Iraq), drove up from Savannah, GA; and Garin's brother Shane and his wife Rebekah (who is expecting the first Kirkpatrick baby) drove in from Apex, NC; all to surprise Garin's mom with a family Christmas! We ended up surprising her at a restaurant...I wish I had my camera in action to catch her face when she walked in a realized that we were all there. There were tears, of course!

We had a wonderful weekend hanging out with the whole family (it was the first time we'd all been together since Meghan and Shane got married) playing games, shooting clay pigeons, and stuffing ourselves with delicious food (as is customary at all Kirkpatrick gatherings!). I WISH I had some pictures to show of the whole gang, but all of them were taken with another camera...hopefully someone will send them our way so that I can post them (Hint, Hint)!

Kids picture (thanks for the pics Mrs. K!)

Kirkpatrick Girls

After Shane and Rebekah, and Meghan and Eli left to go back home, we crossed the "tracks" (i.e. Hwy 74) and spent some time celebrating Christmas and my Birthday with my (Lauren's) family. I did happen to get some pictures of my adorable nephew, Mason! He is 21 months old now and just a gibber jabbering...he hasn't quite perfected "Aunt Lauren" yet (but he can identify me in a line up!), however, he has mastered "tractor", "ball", "dog", "taco", and quite a few more useful words.

This is Mason's version of dancing and an exhibition of his destructive nature ;)

Going out with Granddaddy (the things mom makes you wear to stay warm!)
Up close shot (really he is trying to get to my camera, that is why he is so close...every time he sees me take it out he wants to play with it, so with the delay, I come out with a lot of pictures like this!)
We could only get a picture with Santa if we distracted him with candy...

He's got all of the necessities...a tractor, a book (the tractor one at that!), and his "nack" (aka: snack)

Farewell picture with Aunt Lauren and Uncle G.

After 5 days at home it was time to come back to MA :( The Cape got about 10" of snow while we were gone, so it was neat to come back "home" to a winter wonderland. I'll post more pictures of the snow and our first Christmas day away from home....

It Starting to Look a Little Like Christmas...

This year it looks like we will be spending Christmas in our little rental cottage by the sea (which we are not complaining about!). However, unfortunately, every one of the 6 huge Rubbermaid containers of Christmas decorations is packed at the back of our storage unit; thus, no Christmas decorations for us this year :(

So, when I heard about the opportunity to learn how to make a Christmas Wreath at church, I jumped all over it! It was a really neat event, and I don't think I'll ever pay for a wreath again because they are so easy to make!

Here's the result (eat your heart out Martha!):

And it smells good too!!

One of my new friends here, Franky, also did the class with me!

MoVember

When we arrived here in Cape Cod we found out that the guys at the Airstation were participating in Movember. Garin figured that a couple of weeks of not shaving would be a great idea. However, Coast Guard regulations only allow for facial hair above the upper lip...ugh. Thus, even though a week behind the other guys, Garin started cultivating his mustache. It got rather creepy I must say. So bad that we would go on a walk down the road and mothers would call their children inside (j/k, but I might would have if I were a parent!). After 3 weeks of hard work, here is the scary result:

Ugh...fortunately he shaved it off right after the Airstation mustache competition (he did not bring home any prizes for his...but the others DID have a whole week of hair growth on him). Lucky for me, he didn't really care for the hairy upper lip either...whew!

P.S. Meggsie, thought I'd post this one for you ;)

Thanksgiving Apple Pie

The Cottage

TADA! Well quite a few inquiring minds have asked us where we are staying while we are waiting for our house to close. Well, we are pretty much roughing it. Life in the Coast Guard is tough ;) It kind of stinks to be moving up here to the North just in time for the cold winter, but there are some perks. One perk being that we can rent an ocean front cottage for a month for the price it rents for a week in the summer! So this is our temp house that we are renting until (Lord willing!) our house closes in mid December.

The view out our front door...I could do without the big sand dune in front, but they didn't ask me, hehe.

View from behind the house looking out to the ocean.

As you can tell from the first picture, the house is rather small. I'd say its about 600 sqft (but I'm a bad guesser). It has two tiny bedrooms, 1 bath, living room and what they call a kitchen.

This is the "kitchen" area. I mean I can't really complain...but I need a bit more space than that to whip up some meals! The house came furnished which was great since all of our furniture is in storage...however, we still came with a lot of baggage (I mean, a girl HAS to have her OWN kitchen stuff to cook, right?!! And all of her clothes...and shoes....). So please excuse the mess, we pretty much have to put stuff where it will be out of the main walkway! To cook anything I pretty much just have to keep shuffling things around to make room where I need it. Anytime I get frustrated I just turn around and gaze directly at my unobstructed (except for that dune!) view of the ocean and all is well :)

I just liked this picture :)

Picture of the beach in front of our cottage

The beaches up here aren't really like the beaches we are used to in NC and FL...there are a bunch of round stones mixed in with the sand. I can't imagine it is very comfortable to walk the beaches barefoot in the summer not to mention laying out to catch some rays. None the less, it is still quite beautiful!!!

So that is that! Farewell for now!

We Made It!

Just a quick pictureless post to let everyone know that we have now made it up to Cape Cod, MA! We left Florida on Friday Oct. 29th and drove up to Charlotte to spend some time with family before we headed even further north. While in Charlotte we got to attend the 35th annual Killough Family Farm hayride (a hayride we have on our farm every year for my family's church). It was a bit chilly, but a blast none-the-less! We also got to spend some time with friends and family throughout our time there (and of course, lots of Mason time for me!!).

Then on Thursday, Nov 4th, we hooked up all of the cars and started our trek. The first day we drove about 10 hours and made it to Scranton, PA (can't help but think of The Office when I say that)...it was pretty nasty weather the whole way. Then on Friday we got up and made the second leg of the trip. We arrived in Cape Cod at about 5PM on Friday...just in time for rush hour traffic over the bridge. Just as we went around a curve and saw the sign that said "Welcome to Cape Cod" we also saw about a mile or two of brake lights. From what I hear, that was an authentic Cape Cod welcome.

To top off our welcome to Cape Cod, yesterday we woke up to a nice fresh dusting of snow and sleet. My realtor told me that it was the earliest she can remember getting snow...looks like we are in for a fun winter!

As for a our housing situation, things are going along nicely. When we came up to look for houses a couple of weeks ago we found a house we were interested in and put an offer in on it. The house was a short sale so we were told it could take quite a while for the bank to get back with us. We really felt like God was "in" this, so we decided to trust Him to work it out and get us into the house in a timely manner, despite the rumors we were hearing. Well, lo and behold, we got a call on Weds before we left CLT to come up here saying that the bank had accepted our offer and wanted to move things as quickly as possible! God is so good!! So, right now we are in the midst of getting all the paper work together and doing all the fun stuff that comes with buying a house!

Our closing date for the house isn't until December 14th, so right now we are staying in temporary quarters on base (which is a fairly nice townhouse). They allow us to stay here for free for 10 days and then we will have to find another temporary house for about a month and hope that everything works out in a timely manner. No life like the military life! haha.

So in the midst of all of this chaos I can say, life is good and God is "gooder" :) Farewell for now!

Meet the Coast Guard's 4,294 Winged Aviator

After almost 2 years of Flight School, Garin finally completed all of his training and received his Wings of Gold on October 8th!!! He is now the 4, 294 Coast Guard winged aviator :) I'm so proud of my husband, he has worked extremely hard and has excelled in all of his training. God has been so good over the past 2 years and has blessed us beyond measure! Here's some pictures from the events.

On Thursday before the Winging, Garin got to take us (me, his parents, and his sister) on a tour of the base. We got to go to a Helicopter Simulator, T-34 Simulator, a tour of the control tower, and a really cool overview of Night Vision Goggles!

This moon lander looking thing is actually a Helicopter Simulator...it moves and jiggles and everything like a real helo! We all got a chance to try our hand and flying...gotta a lot of respect for my husband and his skills! However, I must say that I used to feel bad for how much Garin had to work...don't feel too sorry for him anymore, looks like he has a lot of fun!

G and I in the Helo Sim

We got to do this really cool sim on Night Vision Goggles (the things we are holding up to our eyes). It was super cool to see how they work...Garin actually uses them when he flies at night. The terrain in front of us is place where they train the students on how different types of land look different using the NVGs. Oh and those goggles are $10,000 a pop!

On Thursday night they have what is called a "soft patch" ceremony. In this ceremony each student's Instructor tells a story about the student and then gives them their winged "soft patch" to wear on their flight suit. You can see Garin's soft patch with wings above.

This is Garin's instructor putting on his patch

Garin checking out his wings (the first time he's worn them)

The Fam (Thanks for coming in to celebrate with us!! It was all the more special having ya'll there to share in the celebration!)

Winging Day! The students have to get dressed up in their formal wear...which is dress whites for the Coast Guard (and Navy for that matter).

Before the actual Winging, they have a "Blessing of the Wings" ceremony put on by the Chaplain at the base. It was kind of neat to have the wings prayed over before they were pinned...(sorry couldn't figure out how to turn this picture on here...guess I needed to do it before I uploaded, oops!) This is the best close up I had of the all so important "Wings of Gold" (they aren't really made of gold anymore...I think they cost like $8 at the exchange...2 years of hard work for $8 wings, if I'd known that I could have saved him those 2 years....haha!)

This is Moi pinning on Garin's wings, yeah, they let me do that, pretty cool huh?! I managed to do it without dropping them and without poking anyone! Wahoooo!

My winged husband. Oh so proud of him!

Somthing besides cooking

I know, I know, I need to update my blog. We've been doing SO much lately that I'd love to share about...we been to a family reunion, both of our 10 year high school reunions, and did I mention that Garin got his WINGS last Friday?! Lots of exciting things going on right now, but not enough time to sit down and compose a blog on them that will do justice.

We are currently in Cape Cod, looking for our next house that we will make our home for the next 4 years!!!! Pray that we will have the wisdom to make the right decision :)

Hopefully I'll be able to update soon!

Cooking

Well, lately I've been trying this cooking thing. I've never really been a good cook, mainly because I just don't have the patience for it (or great multi-tasking abilities...Lauren Gainor you can laugh here). But after five years of being married, I figured one of us had to step up and take the dominant role in this area. And since Garin wasn't making any substantial advances, I figured I'd be the one to take the hit. A good friend of mine down here in FL (who will also be moving with us to Cape Cod, whoop whoop!), has taken me under her proverbial culinary wing; setting me up with a great cook book (America's Taste Kitchen Family Cookbook...highly recommend it!), and helping me out on a couple of dishes to give me some confidence. Thus, I have embarked on a new chapter in my adult life. Here are some pictures of some of my "creations":
My first try at homemade sushi...it came out pretty great! Super Easy to do once you figure out the rice part.

Sushi Experience Package: Veggie sushi, with made from scratch ginger dressing salad (love that stuff!) and egg drop soup. Felt like we were in a restaurant...except I just show up to a restaurant, and I had to work on this ALL DAY!

Meggsie, this one if for you!! hehe. This is my first attempt at a double crusted apple pie (and that ain't no frozen pie crust ya'll...that's made from scratch!!). It came out pretty well...the apples just cooked down more than I was expecting. There was a big open hold between the crust and the apples. My tummy didn't know the difference though :)

Than then this was my first attempt at the lattice peach pie. I think this one turned out better than the apple pie. So, I think I'm gonna have to go with it as being my favorite.

Wow, so I thought I had more pictures...but I guess I don't. Anyway, this new culinary leaf that I'm turning over has gone pretty well for me. I feel like it takes a bit more time and a BUNCH more planning, but I can see that after i get some more practice things might go a little more quickly and efficiently. If you have any recipes you think I should try, send them my way. I'm more than willing to experiment!!

Visit from Mr. and Mrs. K

Okay, back to the catch up game. Now we are going to rewind to July 4th when Garin's parents came to visit us! They came in on Saturday, just in time to help us celebrate the 4th! We grilled out and then watched an AMAZING fireworks show off of our back deck. We had some people in the neighborhood that had to have spend a thousand dollars on fireworks, no lie. And since our house sits on a hill it was absolutely prime location for viewing everything. And we didn't have to fight traffic to boot!

While they were here, our coffee maker stopped working :( So, Mr. K decided that he would take a shot at "fixing" it. Well, 500 pieces later he determined that it was unfixable ;) hehe. But it was great fun to see what all is involved in a coffee maker!!



Garin's mom went to visit her sister's in New Orleans during the week while Garin's dad went to a work conference in Alabama. And then on Saturday it was Blue Angels weekend at Pensacola Beach and we experienced it first hand right on the beach with the other 10,000 people there. It was pretty cool...well it was hot as all get out, but a cool experience ;) I'm glad that Mr. and Mrs. K got to see it, because it really is a neat air show.

Mr. and Mrs. K enjoying the Air Show (we may or may not have been sitting on a sand dune...shhhh)

Thanks for coming to visit us Mr. and Mrs. K, we LOVED having you here!!

Next stop...Cape Cod

Well, Garin and I just recently got the news that we will be spending our next 4 years in Cape Cod, MA!!! We were VERY excited, as this was our second choice on our "dream" sheet (our first was Elizabeth City, NC...but I had kinda convinced myself against that, so the Cape had become my real first choice). This also means that Garin will be flying the HH-60...which is what he wanted.

Garin's training is going well. He is currently scheduled to Wing October 22nd (in non military speak that basically means graduate flight school...at that point he gets to wear the gold wings). So that means that we will probably be moving at the beginning of November...just in time for winter. Its the whole cold winter thing that I'm not really looking forward to...but I've heard that the Summer and Fall totally make up for it. And after living for the past 2 years on the Gulf coast, it might be time for a change.


So, here are a couple of pictures so you have any idea of our future:

The Coast Guard base is on the "Upper Cape", which is the part that is connected to the mainland (Its in between Sandwich, Barnstable, and Falmouth on the map). We will be about an hour away from Boston, which I'm very excited about! We are thinking about living a little closer to the Plymouth area so that we would be closer to the city and closer to any jobs that I might find (there isn't too much other than tourism going on on the Cape).

Oh, so beautiful!!!

One of the lighthouses on the Cape. Garin and I actually went and visited this one while we were up there for his OCS Graduation (so yes, we have "been" to Cape Cod...but it was only a short day trip, so we don't remember too much). My dream Cape Cod house...except in my dream it is on the beach...

This is what I'm not looking forward to. But it is beautiful!

Well, get your snow gear ready...we are looking forward to visitors!! Oh and if you by any chance have any info about the Cape Cod info...particularly housing, please let me know!!

FIVE Years!

This past weekend (July 23rd), Garin and I celebrated our FIVE year anniversary! It's hard to believe that it has actually been five years. Time flies! Well to celebrate this milestone we decided to take a quick trip. We were somewhat limited by Garin's flight schedule and travel restrictions (he can only go so far from the area), so we decided on a weekend trip to Panama City Beach, FL. We left on Friday after Garin got done with his flights and then came back on Sunday so Garin could dive back into flight studies. However, in between we had a blast hanging out with each other and enjoying some away time.

Self portrait

Garin playing around with his anniversary gift...an ocean kayak (made to "surf" the waves). I actually pulled off a surprise on this one too. I was so excited that he was surprised!

He might need a little more practice ;)

I tried out the kayak too, and LOVED it...I'm wondering why we waited until now to get one, I'm seeing lots of fun beach ventures in the future!

Sunset view of the PCB strip (f0r those of you from NC, think Myrtle Beach strip) from our room

And finally...not sure if you can see this in the picture...the lighting was bad. BUT if you can make it out, will see a tarp in the back of a pick up truck filled with water and a few folks hanging out in the "swimming pool". Garin and I thought this was a VERY apt appearance on our anniversary! For those of you that were not at our wedding, this was how Garin's groomsmen "decorated" his truck. By far the best car decorating I've seen at any wedding (wish I still had a picture of it on my computer so I could show the similarity...I've had to move all those pictures onto a disk). This sighting TOTALLY completed a great day of celebration :)

Here's to Five wonderful, amazing, great, awesome years! Love ya Hubs!

Mason comes to see me! (Oh yeah, and MW and Alex too :)

Well I know you can't believe it, but I have more pictures of my nephew Mason :) He and his parents came to visit Garin and I the week after Memorial Day (see, I told you I was WAY behind!). Of course he was adorable as usual. At that point he was just barely starting to take a couple of steps on his own...now he is running around like a wild man. We had a blast and I miss him terribly (oh and I miss MW and Alex too :)!

Hanging with Uncle Garin in "his" helo.

Aunt Heaven

Mason really did enjoy the water. At first he was a little timid, but then he really got into it.

Same thing with the sand. At first he wasn't so sure about the texture, but it didn't take long for him to dig in.

Mason's wheels. Before he was walking this was how he got everywhere. You should have seen that kid whip that thing around my house strutting his stuff! It was so hilarious!

Look at that face!! HAHA! Don't think he was very excited to be hanging with Uncle G

I was amazed at his ability to eat a WHOLE apple...what a health nut!

My protege

I taught him how to smoke a pipe...don't tell his mom.

Love my adorable muffin!