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!

White Phase

Hello Everyone :D

We are 6 weeks into our new journey and things are going well. D is out of Red Phase (the hardest phase in basic)! And he PASSED his Red Phase Test!! :D  He said that gas chamber wasn’t pleasant and that he didn’t vomit. That’s pretty big deal from what I understand most people do. He also passed his APFT 2. WOOT!! He still has 3,4 and 5 to pass and the other phases. So lets pray for that. As of right now he’s in good standing :D and that is awesome!! Love hearing that. The road marches are getting easier for him. For the most part his cold is gone. He’s still got a little cough left. He’s been able to fire a few different guns. And that of course makes him VERY happy  :D. He clearly passed that section with flying colors. Well they haven’t taken the test yet. But he would like to be marked as expert ;P of course hehe. He says that his days are slow and that they kind of blur together. But I think once he’s out he’ll see how fast they went for him. He did the Eagle Towers and thats basically a confidence things for them. He said he wished things were higher. But it was still fun. For the most part he said there's a lot of sitting around for a short amount of fun. But that is the Army's motto "Hurry up and Wait!" So I guess they are keeping their word ;P Um, lets see we've both decided that our marriage is already stronger now! It's amazing how much you love someone. So, that's some major good that's come out of this so far. I guess the biggest update is that he’s doing well. He has not been injured in anyway, PTL! He just asks for prayer.  

1. To continue to pass all of his tests the first try and to get high scores on them.

2. To ditch the last bit of his cold (however it’s not holding him back like it was)

3. Time would pass quickly. And personal time to pass slowly :)

I can't really think of much else. Thank you all for your prayers. We appreciate them A LOT!!

Love DAB

The Journey Begins

Hello, everyone :)

I only have a little update for you guys. D is doing well. He is in the Charlie Company and said that a couple of guys are making it harder on them all. So that's his biggest prayer request. Pray that they stop making stupid mistakes and start taking it serious. He's also had a cold since he got out of reception and it it getting worse. Making running and other psychical activities harder on him. He did an obstacle course this last week. The gas chamber is coming up. Over all he is doing well.

I will do my very best to update you guys through this blog site around the 15th of every month. I say around, because I'm not good at remembering to blog let alone on the same day every month.

D and I talk about it being the 15th because I won't really have a lot to update you guys with. Because the lack of communication.

So Prayer requests 1. the guys in his unit get their stuff together. 2. that we continue to grow closer with our time apart. 3. pray that when he gets sleep that it feels like he's slept a long time 4. That he is able to shake this cold of his really soon. So things aren't harder for him than they need to be.

Blessings to you all. Please feel free to tell me fun stories you would like to share. And it will help me do/feel better as well. Thank you all for you thoughts and prayers. :D

Love,

DAB

A short time left

D and I only have a month and a half left before our split to go on this next adventure of ours. It has been a strange feeling. It feels so far away and at the same time so very close. We are trying our best to spend every moment together these last few weeks. However, when you think about being apart for a possible eight months it seems like there isn't enough time. The first few months of this adventure are going to be hard. Especially since the longest we've been apart our entire relationship has been 5 days.D says the hardest part about leaving is being apart from me. But he is SO EXCITED!! As, he is finally going after a dream of his.

The hardest part for me is being apart from him as well. But I think in addition to that would be others seeing it as a death sentence. That makes it even harder for me. I'm really not sure why some people think the military equals death. Yes, I know and understand it's a possibility. But it would be even if he wasn't in the military. The Lord has numbered our days. So no matter what we are doing when our day arrives, it arrives. Even if we are "safe" at home.

We can really use your prayers for us being apart. That will be very hard for us for sure. But we are both so excited. Really we wish we can fast forward to the part where we are back together and moving to our new home ;) But I've heard this time actually goes by faster than you think. Lets pray it does.

And you all should be so excited that I blogged as we can tell..... I'm not that good at it. But I will be for sure once D is in. So, you can know how he's doing.

We love you all, Blessings

DAB