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!