Holidays are coming...

We cannot believe it's NOVEMBER!! Fall is just rushing by. Alight lets get to it what's new on the DAB homefront? Well in August we moved into a HOUSE!! About time! And we will never go back to apartment living again. Its a little home. But we've done our time in apartments what 7 years. Yeah, the time has come. It's a cute little brick home. 3 bed 1 bath. And it has a nice big back yard for Bentley to run and have fun in. He loves it and it gives him freedom.

Bentley has been with us for over a year now. Seems like the year went fast. He's hitting his teen stage. Getting bratty and testing us to see what he can and can't do. Oh joy!! ;) Loves to play in the yard. At night there's a bunny that come into the yard and just seems to wait for Bentley's last potty trip. Then the little bunny just runs from him. But just slow enough that Bentley gets close then he will slip through the fence. What a stinker. ;) Let's see Bentley loves walking with A they walk about 4.5 miles a day. He can't really go more than that or he limps the next day. Learned that the hard way.. oops.

D.. He's working. Staying busy up in the office. And gets a lot of stuff piled on him. You know the well you're low in rank and I don't want to do this even though I can type of thing. Super annoying. But with the holidays coming up things should be lighter and less silly. He has started up a "diet". Not really the well yet. He's pretty much just eating better than before and when he can he'll catch a walk with A and Bentley. He's more excited about his birthday this year. For those of you that know. He doesn't really talk about it much. But this year he's been talking about it before A's birthday. That's super fun. He's really search for stuff he wants to do as a hobby. Hopefully he finds something he really enjoys.

A.. Has just been hanging out. Walking as stated before and swimming a few days a week. Making sure to be in the best shape possible for the biggest workout of her life. Still taking lots pictures of people. She's more excited when there will be a network of people instead. She has been doing a lot of crocheting this season. Always fun to do. That's all that's really going on.

Everyone is doing well feeling great and happy. Our gummy is really moving and because you can't tell there is a gummy. The movements are huge. Gummybear is healthy and strong. All is well on the B home front.

OH YEAH... Our new life goal. It is take a family photo every month. Even if it's just a silly picture. Just because we always want there to be a recent photo of our lives. There's more to this story... but I don't feel like typing that much more haha. :D
Love,
DAB

Summer Time!!

We are from what we've been hearing. Smack in the middle of summer. Were as some of you summer is coming to an end. Summer doesn't end here until October. That makes me SUPER happy. What's new with us?? We moved into our first house. And we are so excited about that :D It has a pretty big back yard. And our little pup is loving that. We do have a fire ant problem and those over here understand that one. But we bought some killer. So BEWARE fire ants BEWARE ;) One thing that's becoming a peeve for us over here. That just needs to be posted so everyone can make the movement of change. If it's dark outside and you're walking along side the road. DON'T WEAR BLACK CLOTHES. Especially if you have a darker skin tone. The driver can't see you very well. Just a friendly FYI for those to like to walk along a road with no street lights!!! GRRR!!

 This picture A took during a thunder storm. Mr. Frog looked so desperate ;)

Haha, Anyways. We are loving life and just living it up. D is working hard and pulling long days. Like normal. We decided that if his job paid hourly. He wouldn't have such long days ;) hehe. A's photography is really picking up. That's been a great experience. She has also discovered a site called Swagbucks. And it's pretty sweet and legit. You basically get free money for playing online. Tested it out eared 500 swag bucks. And that give you $5 at store they have listed. So we tested the gift card at target. And it WORKED. So that's been a fun discovery. Free is always good ;).

Our 3rd anniversary is coming up. That's exciting. We don't really have plans yet. But we have time ;) Our dear Bentley will be turning one here soon. ONE, wow! Haha. We are hoping to have a little birthday party for him at the dog park and we are going to make pupcakes. Peanut Butter style, his favorite. Or we might just give him cake and call it good. I mean he is a dog after all ;) We shall see.

Not a lot new going on. But it has been a month of Sundays since we've posted. We love you all and hope you're doing well.
Love,
DAB

P.S DAB was for both our first names and then our last name. But now it can be our pup included. Just discovered that haha. :)
P.S.S These blogs are not edited for grammar and spelling. So I (A) do apologize for that. I know there are people who can't do it. D included ;)

Summer is coming....

Summer is slowing approaching. Though I don't think it ever really left. Over the winter there was a total of 16 cold days (maybe more. I mean who really counts) :D. Personally I (A) loved it. Since we've moved here the weather has done nothing but treat me really well. Zero stomach acts = Amazingness! D will come in the house and if it's not 75 he will turn the heat on. WHAT!?! Now that makes me smile. And now that it's getting warmer. If the AC  makes it below 70 HE thinks its cold. HAHA. I've waited what feels like forever for him to adjust to warmer weather. Ladies and Gentlemen it has happened! :D Woohoo!!

An update on how we are. We are doing pretty stinking good. D is enjoying his job. A is building up her photography business. And Bentley is working on not being terrified of other dogs. We could still use a good set of friends that hold the same morals. That's VERY difficult to find when it comes to the military. So a little prayer for that would be wonderful. 

We love an miss you all. And hope to blog a little more often. Enjoy the May flowers!!

Fall in North Carolina

We've lived in North Carolina for 2 months now. At times it's almost difficult to describe what it's like here. So many things are the same as the Northwest. But at the same time they are so different. It's very green here just like back home. The difference being the type of trees. They don't have cider, fir or hemlocks. But trees are everywhere, same with green lawns. But the grass is different. The soil is sandy and the grass isn't as soft here. The grocery stores are similar just different names. Some food is different and priced differently. They don't have our favorite Chili here :( Nalley's brand is a northwest thing. LAME!! And Nalley's happens to be my favorite brand of pickles as well. POOP! Those are a couple items we miss from back home. They almost had D's favorite chocolate bar here. But it only comes in dark chocolate. :/ ( they don't have it back home anymore either). The only thing I had to cave on was the potatoes. Back home they are 2 or 3 dollars a bag. Here they are 5 or 6 bucks for a small bag. I held out on buying them for a month. I just refused to pay that much for potatoes. I mean really!! But I had to do it. ;) Other than that they food's pretty similar. They grocery stores here are called Food Lion and Harries Teeter. Food Lion is a lot like Albertsons and Harries Teeter is like Safeway. Hm, what else is different...... O,h the drivers here are REALLY bad. I thought Oregon drivers were bad. But here they cut you off like crazy. Randomly step on their breaks (when nothings in front of them). And they run red lights. They are bad about running red's here. You have to actually count to 5 before you go on green or you just might get hit. It's crazy, the cops don't really worry about traffic violations here. That's pretty similar to Portland. Another big difference here is customer services. Let me just inform you guys  you have it made other there. Here it doesn't matter how long it takes to get you seated, take your order or serve you. Some places are polite and take care of you, but most don't care and it's the norm here. Not so much for us. So they don't get major tips ;). Overall, we are really enjoying it here. I for one LOVE the weather. It hardly rains here. It's getting colder here now. But the sun is still shining. Another weird thing here is the rain. When it rains in the northwest its light, consistent and lasts longer. But here it rains so hard. You pretty much need a faster setting for the wipers to keep up. :) It will just dump down hard and then five minutes later be nice and sunny for the rest of the week. I mean we know rain. But not rain like this. We've never seen it rain this hard back home. Granted it doesn't last long here at all. And I LOVE that :D!
Despite all the differences here. We really love it. It's fun to experience different things. Like making Thanksgiving dinner just us this year. That was fun and different. Though we love spending holidays with our families it's still fun to have new experiences together. I'm looking forward to being able to go to the beach when it gets warmer here. I love this ocean. D can't wait to go to six flags. It's only a couple hours from where we live. So that's going to be a lot of fun.

Our newest addition is growing strong :) he's now 2.3lbs :D GO BENTLEY GO! ;) Teething like crazy right now. He's almost got all his baby teeth in. He's potty trained now and sleeps through the night :) However, he doesn't let me sleep in past 7:30am. He has to get up and get some breakfast. But shortly after that he takes a nap. Little stinker ;P. My mom just keeps saying he's preparing me. :D HAHA,  Yeah. Well, that's a LONG update. As you can see D and I are doing well. And loving our newest adventure. Bentley is adjusting to his new life as well. I can't wait to bring him to the northwest. He's going to LOVE the grass over there :D. Love you all!
Prayer Requests:
1. Bentley will get rid of those stinking parasites.
2. Find a church we enjoy
3. A's health to keep going UP UP ;)
4. Continue having happy holidays, for being away from families for the first time.
Love, DAB

Airborne...... DONE!!

Airbone News.........

D has completed the Airborne portion of his training and has earned his wings :D He had 5 jumps to complete one was suppose to be at night. But they ended up just having them jump all of them in the daytime. He didn’t break anything so that’s a MAJOR plus :D He said you kind of get sucked out of the plan. From how he makes it sound it’s nothing like skydiving. He didn’t have much time to enjoy himself  in the air. Your parachute just opens up right away. But he did say it was enjoyable and that he still really wants to go skydiving :D So we’ll have to make that happen.  The other potions of his training have just been zip lines and a lot of practicing how to fall correctly. He hasn’t mentioned any prayer requests. 

So just the same ones:

1. Safety

2. Our marriage to continue to grow

Thank you for all of your prayers. We are off to our next stage.  :)

Love DAB

OSUT.....DONE!

Why Hello Everyone :D

Lets start off this update with talking about the heat down in Georgia. The good news is the heat hasn’t been bad for D. The hottest it has been down there is 103. And that day they did stuff in the bay. So he didn’t even see the heat of the day. So not to worry the heat isn’t affecting him. :D. That’s some good news. He says the worst thing right now is all the Georgia bugs, snakes and spiders. He’s got bug bits from who knows what kind of bug. And he said there are bugs he’s never even seen before. That it’s almost like Avatar. :D I thought that was pretty good. He has been doing ops and ambushes on roads. Or a raid in a mock village. He spent a week doing FTX. Basically like actual war. He would set up camps and move. They did this against other platoons. So they would kidnap each other and their stuff. His platoon did the best and didn’t get anything stolen. So that’s pretty sweet :D He said he was really smelly and dirty. But in the end his platoon didn’t get overall best score :/ oh well :).  Starting Honor Hill. They started at 1am carrying water cans, ammo cans, rolling massive tires, massive logs and people on litters, (medic stretchers). They did that for about 9 miles got to the checkpoint and dropped all of it off. Then finished the last mile and a half on foot. He said it wasn’t the hardest thing in OSUT at all. So that’s pretty sweet. Once they got to the top of Honor Hill they received their blood rifles. There was a big bon-fire and a blood red sunrise behind them. He felt so much pride and accomplishment it was really awesome. As he should that is an amazing accomplishment :D Then they has a couple weeks of recovery which it wasn’t recovery from what he’s said to me. They didn’t get much sleep at all. LAME!! But on the bright side he is DONE with OSUT. He has earned his blue cord for an Infantrymen. And was able to graduate at the top of his class :D YAY!! Though he didn’t get to graduate with Honors. He was right up there. YAY, D!!!

Let see our prayer requests are.

1. Our Marriage to keep growing strong.

2. His knees. On the note with his knees they are NOT in bad shape. They are just  sore. He said everyone has something that’s sore. We just want prayer so they are not more than sore :)

That’s pretty much it for prayer. Everything is going well and moving along. And moving ON-TIME :D That’s awesome!

Love,

DAB

Black Phase

We’re in Black phase now. It only gets harder and busier for D from here. He took his APFT 5 the other day and passed. Not only that but he scored high enough that he still has his Ranger contract. There are a lot of men in his unit going to Ranger and Special Forces. And 5 of the guys lost their contracts that day :/ But NOT D, YAY!!! So, the only utensil that D is allowed to use at this time (and the last several months) is a spoon. He tells me you’d be amazed at what a spoon can do. You can cut, spread and scoop bigger bits with it. It’s very handy. :P  I really enjoyed his story about the spoon so I wanted to share. With D being in Black Phase now that means he’s training as an Infantry Men. So if he did some other MOS in the Military he would have graduated by now. That’s why things are harder from this point on. He’s biggest prayer request at this point is, his knees. They are really hurting him. With these next few weeks only getting more intense he really needs the prayer. A little idea of how intense the next couple weeks are going to be. After it’s over they give them a week to recover from it. Lets see…D is an expert shooter  :D he’s ranked 3^rd in the whole company. That’s a little over 200 men. And he was disappointed by that because he said if he just relaxed he wouldn’t have missed that shot. :P I think he should still be proud. But I’m a girl so, yeah. They also do stuff were they “fight” each other and he’s ranks 3^rd in his unit of 45 men. So that’s pretty awesome too.  He’s done a lot as a late. BTT (Buddy Tactic Techniques) That’s pretty much where you and another guy go through a course with barriers and cars and stuff for cover while providing cover fire for your buddy. Lots of shooting different guns,  Foot Marches 8 and 10 miles. The 12 miles is coming up. Hand Grenade Training, and Nigh Courses. What we want now is for D to make it to the Top of Honor Hill!! Please pray for that! As you can see D has been doing very well. 

Only a few prayer requests this time.

1    1. His knees

2    2. He makes it to the top of honor hill

3    3.  Our marriage keeps growing stronger (we both of said we can see how much it already has, PTL)

So far the Lord has been doing some amazing work. I see a lot of answered prayer on both of our ends. He is so faithful and amazing!! Thank you for all your prayers and support. We can feel it. :D

Love,

DAB

P.S Yes the photo here IS D enjoy!