Could Life Get Any Better?

Jeff has come home and Christmas has passed so I suppose I am due for another blog post. Jeff got home 13 days ago and it was such a happy day!! I didn't think I would be nervous, but when I walked into the airport, the reality of it all hit me. My husband was coming home. For good. I was nervous. I didn't bawl my eyes out like I had expected, but I definitely did get teary eyed. That night we went out to eat together then back to Rexburg.

Here are some pictures:

Oh, that was such a good day! We are just having the best time being together again doing whatever whenever. We had a really great Christmas and are so happy that we could be together for that. Here is a picture of us on Christmas morning:

Next week we are off on a mini vacation to Salt Lake. We are really excited! Hope you had a great Christmas!

TWO WEEKS!!

It's official, well kind of. The army is really bad at leaving you in suspense and not telling you things very quickly, so we are still unsure when Jeff is getting home, but our guess is December 13th sometime. As far as my schoolwork and finals go, I think all of my teachers got together behind my back and said "hey, let's be really super nice to Whitley and not make her have to show up to the scheduled final time. Let's just have a paper due the week before or the test the week before." But literally. This couldn't have worked out any better. If I was required to attend my scheduled final times, I would have to be at a final until 7pm the day Jeff comes home and one at 7am the next morning...I am a really lucky girl, but not just for that reason. I am so lucky to have married such a stud. It's pretty tough to have Jeff gone for so long, but he has always wanted to serve his country and I know that we made the right decision. We have been blessed in so many ways because of it. I didn't marry Jeff knowing that he would join, it's a decision we made together and a choice I wouldn't change even if I could. The picture above isn't a random picture I decided to throw up there (like normal) . This was taken on August 8th, when Jeff left. I can't wait to take a "welcome home" picture in 14 days!!!

Welp!

 I just wanted to write a little bit and share my fun time as I visited my sweet husband three weeks ago :) It was so great to see him! After 10 weeks of not seeing my husband, I was quite ready. When I saw him and got to him, I lost it and bawled like a baby and that would explain this picture:

 My Favorite Picture of US:

We had so much fun being together again. I can't wait to have him back home next month. 5 1/2 Weeks :)

Here are some other pictures from the trip:

One of the Drill Sergeants

One of his buddies Beghun

Men from Idaho

All of us!

It was great while it lasted....I'll  be looking forward to ya December! :)

Oh and one last thing....oh hi Halloween costume! :)

Six more days!

 

I can officially say that I will see my husband in less than a week! I really can't believe that it has been 9 weeks already, it's gone by surprisingly fast and I am doing a lot better with this than I thought I would. I try not to think about the fact that he is going to be gone 7 more weeks after I see him, but hey, that's 3 less than 10 :) It's hard to be too excited for him to actually get home when I have to think about school and all the things I have to do for that before Jeff gets back including a state test that I have to pass in order to get my teaching degree. Don't get me wrong I am SOOO excited, but it feels like forever because sometimes it feels like a semester takes 100 years from start and end.We don't know the exact day he will be back yet, but it is estimated sometime in the middle of December although I would be totally fine if they decided to let him go a couple days early! Some things that I have learned about myself while he has been gone:

1. I am addicted to The Price is Right and one day I will be one the show winning a car or two, you just wait
2. It's almost impossible for me to go to bed before midnight unless I am not feeling well
3. I like to be lazy and not make meals when Jeff isn't here. It's salads, frozen pizza, and PB&J's for me folks.
4. I will NOT answer the door after 8:30 unless I know who it is. And if there's a knock at the door, you can bet the gun is sitting next to me in a JIFF!
5. I LOVE watching T.V. in bed....it's the greatest invention EVER!

Can I brag a little? I got a couple of letters from Jeff last week and in one of them he told me that he ran the 2 mile with all the people in his group (200 people) and he finished 2nd! And then he told me that we are going to be training buddies when he gets back.....guess we will see how that's going to work out...


I am all ready to go see my Jeff. I have a couple new shirts, some new earrings, and some new perfume! It's an exciting time!! :)

Even though I won't even get to see Jeff for 24 hours, it will the best 21 hours of the semester and I am just excited to get away from school and work for a week. Of course, this weekend will be non-stop homework and ordering in Jimmy John's, but it will all be worth it in the end. :)

The Good and The Bad

This last week was sure a roller coaster ride in many ways. One because I am always missing/thinking/crying about Jeff and two, well keep reading. 3 more weeks until I get to see him! I am scared. I am scared because I know that when I see him, I am not going to want to say goodbye for another 7 weeks. I know everything will work out alright and so far, this semester has been going by pretty quickly. Changing subjects....Monday night my computer hard drive decided to fail and Jeff's computer decided not to connect to the internet. By Thursday, I found out that my computer is toast and I can't even get any files off of it. Good thing, I don't need much, if anything off of it. So, because of that I was out of internet access for almost 24 hours which put me a tad behind on my homework (good thing I was 2 days ahead of schedule when this happened). And then came the lovely weekend! This weekend was a lot more fun than most around here and that's because my awesome cousin spent the weekend with me! I love her to death and I was so tickled that she would hang out with me. We did a lot of eating (pizza & pasta) at all hours of the night and of the day. We did some homework. We talked about her kind-of man and my man :) We watched 4+movies from The Wedding Planner to What to Expect When You're Expecting to Abduction. That was fun. I have decided that I am a movie person. Here is a picture Sheri insisted on taking to document our fun!

We HAD fun :) I also did a ton of homework, more than one should have to do in one weekend. I had to make a clay bowl and make a few posters for my art class. I also had to do some reading and another project for my Lit 1 class. Today I got a call from Jeff and it was so great. We talked about a lot of things. He told me that his most fun day since he has been there was just the other day when he got to shoot an M240 (900 rounds) for 6 hours straight! 24 Days and counting!! WOOHOOO :)

My Jeff :)

There is a Facebook page for the battalion that Jeff is in that is operated by a command sergeant on base. He adds pictures of the platoons every week and daily updates of what they are doing which makes it so nice. I can ask Jeff about the things I know he is doing and I get to see him in action. So, here are some pictures of Jeff :)

Jeff is the one looking at the camera--this is when he went into the gas chamber!

Jeff leaving the gas chamber--he is in the back left with his mask in his hand

Jeff is in there more towards the right of the picture, you can see his head poking up.

Jeff getting pinned during defense training

Our New Apartment!

I promised pictures from our new apartment a while back, so here they are!

Our Bedroom Closet! I love having it!

Our bedroom

Bathroom

Hallway from the bedroom

Kitchen

Kitchen

Our very full spare bedroom

Washer & Dryer

Kitchen Table

Sorry, the picture of the living room won't upload for some reason...maybe later. Have a great day!

1 Year!

Happy One Year Anniversary to my husband who isn't with me right now. I did however get to talk to him today for 16 minutes (which is the longest conversation  at one time since he left almost 3 weeks ago). It's kind of crazy that he has already been gone for almost 3 weeks now. I am glad though because it has gone by pretty quickly, I just hope it keeps going fast! I celebrated my anniversary today with my family in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with cake and everything. It was fun, but it will be more fun next year with my husband actually being with me :) In a little over a week from now, I will be boarding a plane to head back to Idaho and begin yet another semester of school. I am now a junior, how crazy is that!?! I really cannot believe how fast it has gone by. I love my husband and I am so glad he is doing well. Until next time :)

Welp. It's happened.

Welp, it's happened. Jeff has left until December. Surprisingly, I have been alright so far. Of course I've cried a little here and there, but who wouldn't? I am in Ohio now, so my brother Ian and sister Sydney have kept me really busy. We like to jump on the trampoline, watch tangled a million times, and snack throughout the whole entire day. It's pretty much "the life" if you ask me! It's a lot easier to not cry when I am surrounded by my family 24/7, but when I get back to Idaho, that will be a different story, but that is when I am going to start getting my craft on! I even have a craft blog where I will keep track of my craftiness. So, if you want, go ahead and follow it! It's official, in 10 days, Jeff and I will have been married for one year! I cannot believe that it has already been a year! Time has flown by so fast! I remember our wedding day like it was just yesterday and now we are one year later! I sure love my husband! :)

Who says there's such thing as too much fun?!

Many things have been going on over here lately. Jeff and I decided that we wanted to get a car before he left so I would have something a little more reliable to drive. We decided that we really liked Mazda 3's so we started to look at those and realized that they are really hard to come by. So we tried to branch out a little bit, but we didn't really find anything that met our budget or our expectations. One day I was browsing  ksl.com not thinking anything would come of it because I had just looked there about 2 days earlier and there wasn't anything too promising, but I just so happened to find a MAZDA 3 2007!! In BLACKFOOT! So I told Jeff that we needed to go look at it, so we did and long story short....we got it and we LOVE it. It's such a great little car! Here is a picture of it:

The only downside is that it is a manual transmission, so I have been brushing up on my driving. I'd say I am pretty decent for the amount of time and experience I have had with a stick shift (which is next to nothing). Oh Rexburg hills, here I come!!

For our early 1 year anniversary, we went to a themed hotel in Pocatello, Red Lobster, and mountain biking (a couple days ago). Here are some pictures of all that!

Us at Red Lobster, they have great food for a great price if you use the coupon on their website, we highly recommend it!

The tub with the water coming out of this guy's mouth

Waterfall right next to the bed (it had 2 fish in it!)

Our wall art

Leopard Print Bedding

Shower in a fake tree trunk :)

Us after our bike ride :)

And then on our way home....the Jimmy broke down (6 days after we got our new car)...and this was the view as we waited to be rescued...

 

We are glad we got a new car :) We also moved into our new apartment, but I haven't taken any pictures yet...I will get on that and post them. We love our new apartment. It's so spacious compared to our other apartment!

Many many things happening around the Dahl House..

I will start with last weekend. Last weekend was full of mud, water, and ice cream. Last Saturday morning we woke up early and got our running clothes on. We ran the Hurdle for Hope 3k. There is a 3k and a 5k and next year we will definitely be signing up for the competitive 5k! This is not your typical race though, it was a giant obstacle course complete with rain!  It included a river, vertical wall, bails of hay, a mud pit, and a fire pit. Which obstacle scared me the worst? The fire pit. As I was approaching it, the scene that kept running through my head was me tripping and falling right into it. Not to worry though, I didn't. :)  Here are some pictures from the race:

Jeff and I beforehand

Before

After

After the race we went back home and washed all the GUNK off of us and then headed to Idaho Falls. When we got there we ate at the taco wagon and then went to Scoop Jam. Scoop Jam is this festival that happens every year. You buy a wristband and get all the ice cream you can eat! Jeff and I had ice cream the night before with friends so we weren't planning on buying a wristband, but we met up with Jamie and Ryan who told us that they were just handed 4 wristbands from some random lady! Free Ice cream!! Here is a picture of us at the Scoop Jam in our race shirts!

After we had our fill of Ice Cream, Jeff and I made a trip to Lowe's and ordered our first washer and dryer!! We are so excited to have our own washer and dryer soon! This is the set we got :)

 We are moving next week and I am excited for our new place, just not so excited for packing everything. Jeff is gone this weekend at drill so I have began the packing process. I accidentally packed my camera....so I can't take a picture of all the boxes in the living room, but believe me, it's a little messy in here!

Lately...

Lately, we have been very busy people. Two weekends ago, Jeff and I decided to go camping! It was our first time since we have been married and it sure was a blast. We were driving along this long path and I asked him when we would get to our campsite and he said "pick a spot"...We finally found our spot. It was pretty secluded since only one car drove past it the whole time we were there. We went on a couple bike rides, played with Jeff's Trail Honcho, and ate some YUMMY food :) Here are some pictures from that trip:

Us in front of the meadow that was next to our tent.

No, Jeff is not flexing, he is just examining a wound.

Our cute little tent :)

Me showing off that nice Birthday Present.

Jeff's 23rd Birthday :) (July 4th)
(That's a cheesecake, in case you wanted to know. Jeff doesn't like cake very much.)

This past weekend, we went with the whole Dahl family to Utah and went to Lagoon (amusement park) and a Real Salt Lake Game (Soccer) and it was so much fun. It was really nice to get out of Rexburg again for a little bit. Here are some pictures:

City Creek Center

City Creek Center

Soccer Game