Celebrate good times

This just in.

Marriage is great.

I should know. I am now a seasoned expert on the matter, seeing as I have been married for exactly 1 year and 2 days. And they said it would never last... Boy are we showing them!

Anywho. We spent the weekend in San Antonio, enjoying each other and being in civilization. I just wanted to spend the whole time eating. I have missed my favorite restaurants so much, and I wanted to stay in San Antonio for a month so I could eat at them all. Seriously, we would go get lunch and I would just be waiting and waiting until I was hungry again so we could go eat again. I was so ticked off when we went out to dinner, and I got too full to go to my fav fro yo place. Oh, cruel world.

Also, we got a new GPS! Our previous GPS was nearing it's 7th birthday and it was really causing some serious marital discord. For some reason, I felt extremely devoted to my little GPS, and even though it was very rarely correct about what street we were on and where we need to be going, I always wanted to follow its directions, which made Cary very angry. I was very loyal to my lil' Garmin. But last month, the dumb thing could not figure out where the discount parking lot I was going to park at near the airport was, and it got me so dang lost that I had to sell my kidney on the black market to pay to park at the airport parking lot, and I decided that it was time to let it go. It was a difficult decision, but I am moving on and I'm already feeling very loyal to our new GPS. It's a TomTom, so we decided to name it Tom. It has a girl voice, so its full name is Tomantha. It can do voice commands and we told it to "Drive to the nearest Chipotle" (pronounced Chi-poat-lay, of course) which the GPS repeated as "Do you mean, drive to the nearest Chip-oh-till?" We thought it was hilarious. I guess you had to be there.

Moving right along. We left for San Antone right after Cary got out. We rolled in around 9:00 and I was so hungry I ate almost an entire thing of tic-tacs on the drive up. So we decided to grab some burritos at Freebirds. Oh. My Goodness. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. And I'm pretty sure I set a world record for the fastest burrito ever consumed. Then we got to the hotel and we were both exhausted, because we woke up at 5 that morning. We made our reservations on Priceline and somehow they managed to royally screw them up, so we spent 2 just wonderful hours trying to call Priceline and sort things out in the hotel lobby. I was so exhausted and so grumpy. But we eventually got into our room and promptly passed out for about 12 hours.

The next day we went to Sea World! FO FREE! Woohoo military discounts! Also, when we were at the Shamu show, they asked all of the military personnel to stand up and be recognized, which happened to make me a bit teary on this occasion. And this little girl behind us was like, "Mommy, why is that lady going to cry?" To which her mother replied, "I think she knows that guy that's standing up." I wanted to tell them that I was married to him and it's my anniversary and I can cry if I want to. I love our military. Especially the one I'm married to.

 Here we are, loving the dolphin show. I really loved Sea World! It was so fun. We decided not to get lunch at the park, because we were going to this Brazilian Steakhouse afterward, and we wanted to be good and starving so that we could consume the maximum amount of meat possible. But I was about to die from it being a million and two degrees so I made Cary buy us ice cream cones, and they were really among the highlights of the day. I'm not sure if it was because I was so dang hot or if they really were that good, but the fact remains.

Yay SeaWorld! I was too shy to ask someone to take our picture, slash I wasn't confident that anyone in the vicinity spoke English, so we just took some cheesy pics in the front and called it good.


After a day of enjoying marine life, we headed to this AMAZING restaurant called Chama Gaucha. Anyone in the vicinity of San Antonio needs to eat there. Words can not describe. I love steak. And it was plentiful. Here is a picture of a happy Cary with a belly full of steak.

 And here is a self-timer picture we took at the hotel. Cary loves it when I make him take pictures.

 We spent Sunday hanging out in the hotel and watching cable TV, which is a luxury. I had no idea I was missing so much! Cary took a nap and I watched several edifying shows, including Cupcake Wars, Extreme Couponer, and My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. It was very educational. I learned that I really want cable, and I really should not have it. I also learned that one should never buy a big bag of peanut butter M&Ms and eat them straight from the bag while watching said television. Nothing good can come of that. Why do I write about these things? How many times have I mentioned food in this post? I really need to find a new hobby.

And today we went shopping for several things that Del Rio does not offer and went to lunch at the Alamo Cafe. I am so full. I may never be hungry again.

Ha ha! Good joke.

To sum up: It was a fantastic weekend. I am one seriously lucky duck.

Post Script

I went to Wal-Mart yesterday right after work, still in my polo and khakis. No later than 30 seconds after I walked in the door, someone asked me if I worked there. I am not making this up!

Welcome to Wal-Mart

Greetings, sports fans! I am currently writing this from behind my desk, where I have been gainfully employed for nigh unto an entire week now. It is obviously an extremely demanding profession, and I really don't have time to be writing this. It has been almost an hour since I wandered around the gym aimlessly, and you know that the wall doesn't stare at itself. That's what they pay me for. As many of you are aware, the Air Force processes paperwork like a machine; that is, a machine in which several parts are missing, incompetent, and/or hate people. My paperwork is being actively ignored as we speak. I brought in my own computer and connected to the coffee shop's wireless, so that at least I can entertain myself all day.But sometime in the next week or month, I should finally have access to my computer and be able to begin the actual job they are paying me for: Playing solitaire and facebook stalking. Jokes! But really. I don't know how in the world they justify this as a full-time job. We have 1 or 2 events a month, each of which take about 3-4 hours to organize and create a list of who I am going to boss around and when, and I am to the spend the rest of my time looking productive.

Loving the free pebbled ice that I enjoy (one of the main perks of the job) and rocking the ever flattering AF polo.

 And also looking like a Wal-Mart greeter. I presented a compelling argument to my boss about allowing me to purchase my own khakis (to be read: whined and stomped my feet) and I won the battle handily (to be read: my boss didn't care). But it's still not really an outfit I'm planning on wearing on a date anytime soon.

Speaking of dates! May is making its way to becoming my most favorite month ever. The last 3 Mays of my life have been positively delightful. 2 years ago, on May 10th, I got a call from a cute boy I'd met at church a few times, asking me to go to this big dance with him at the Air Force Academy, I said yes, and asked how tall he was so I would know how high of heels I could wear. When he said he was 5'8'' I immediately mentally categorized him right into the friend zone and bought some flats for the dance. He asked me out for the next Wednesday and I also said yes, because I love free food.

And now for a note from Amy's soapbox. When it is a Sunday, and a person says "next" Wednesday, it should be assumed that they mean the Wednesday that is a week and a half away. Because the Wednesday in 4 days would be called "this" Wednesday. See: Figure 1.

Figure 1

 Am I right, or am I right?

This has a point. When "THIS" Wednesday rolled around, I went for a nice afternoon run. After my run, I met my friends Deelinda and Kara at Chipotle, because the logical thing to do after running 5 miles is to eat a 1,000 calorie burrito. It should be mentioned that I decided against showering, and just went all sweaty, because I am disgusting. It should also be noted that during my summers home from college, I never brought my cell phone anywhere or wore makeup, because I really loved spending the whole summer enjoying the dating practices of a nun. For reals though, I truly looked forward to 4 whole months without having to worry about flirting or giving phone numbers or shaving my legs regularly.

That is beside the point. The point is, there I was, blissfully pounding down my burrito, when Deelinda gets a text from my brother, telling her to tell me to call home ASAP. I call home, and my mom informs me that Cary has called my phone twice and called the house, looking for me to make sure we were still on for our date tonight. Whaaaa?? I told her that she needed to tell him that I can't go, because I just ate a massive burrito and I am in no condition to put on pants that require a zipper and button. But Cary was only in town for a day before he had to head back and wouldn't be back again until Ring Dance. And my mother, being much afeared that I would never be asked a date again in my life, forced me to come home, shower, shove myself into my jeans, and go on the date. Despite my major bloating from the burrito and awkwardness from being me, I thought the date was great. We went go-carting, and the temperatures got a little chilly towards the end, and Cary offered me his jacket over and over. And even though I was freezing, I kept saying no because I was honestly afraid that it would be too small, and that would really be depressing. The date ended with an awkward side hug, as most of my first dates tend to, but I had way more fun than I was anticipating. He was so much fun to talk to. And he was pretty dang cute for an Air Force nerd.

Anywho. This is really long. I apologize. But stay tuned, because a hilarious story is coming!

So. The next week and a half go by, we text and talk a little, and it's ring dance time! I did my hair 3 different times and mentally rehearsed possible conversations starters for our hour and a half drive down to the Academy. He came to pick me up, we took some highly original and not awkward pictures by the stairs and such, and we were on our way. I didn't even have to delve into my conversation starter topics at all and we talked and talked the whole drive there. Horrendous traffic and rain turned our hour and a half drive into 3 hours, but conversation flowed perfectly. And guess what? He talked back! Anyone who has ever met me knows that I could easily fill 3 hours with nonsensical babble without breaking a sweat, but we both contributed to the conversation, and that alone caused me reconsider his placement in the friend zone.

Ring dance started with a dinner and presentation of the class rings to the new Air Force Academy seniors. Right before they started handing out the rings, Cary leaned over and whispered, "There's something I should probably tell you." In my head, I was preparing myself for several possible confessions. I have food in my teeth? I spilled on myself? He's gay? He fumbled with his napkins and soldiered on: "They have a tradition here... For christening the rings." He looked really nervous and uncomfortable and I feared that the christening involved sacrificing a goat or your date or something. I stared at him in anticipation. "See... The date usually takes the ring and drops it into her champagne (sparkling cider) glass. And when she drinks it, she's supposed to catch the ring in her teeth and give it to the cadet... Through a kiss. But you don't have to if you don't want to.... I mean, if you want to... we can... But, um... yeah." All I could respond with was, "Oh!" I was so relieved that no goats or dates would be sacrificed that the reality of this situation didn't really sink in. Our first kiss was going to be around approximately a billion people, and giant metal ring was going to be involved. It really wasn't quite how I pictured it going down. But I still wasn't too concerned. Cary was still fairly solidly planted in the friend zone, and I thought it would just be a cute little story and another tally for the "Boys I've Kissed" list.

The ring, in the bottom of the glass. Cary cracks me up in this picture.

I dropped the ring into my glass and suddenly my hands were sweating and my heart was pounding. What the heck? Why was I nervous about kissing this guy? I was terrified. For several reasons:
1. What if I choke on the ring? I am really not all that coordinated and that would be horrible way to die.
2. What if I kiss him... and it's more than just a funny kiss for tradition? That would really ruin my summer plans of not shaving or showering with regularity.
3. I hate sparkling cider. I have to drink a whole glass? Ugh.

So I drank the sparkling cider, miraculously caught the ring in my teeth, and leaned in to give it to Cary with a kiss. It was awkward, staged, metal-y, and perfect. We laughed and blushed and I immediately knew that this boy was going to be more than a tally.

 It's been 2 years since I kissed that boy, and I never want to stop.

Dos cosas para compartir

I have 2 thoughts to share.

1. When I was flying to Utah for graduation, I went to the li-berry to get some books to entertain me on all of the flights. I came home and showed Cary the books I picked out, and he was absolutely appalled that I was planning on taking library books with me on my trip. With his eyes nearly bugging out of his head and his eyebrows deeply furrowed in concern for my future, he asked, "What will you do if you accidentally leave them in the airplane?? Or forget about them at your parent's house?? You can't take library books out of the state! You will get in huge trouble!" I told him that if something happened to the books, I would probably pay a fee or buy the library a new book. For some reason this was not an acceptable solution to him, and he was convinced that I would need to flee to the border in order to save myself from certain imprisonment. He was absolutely baffled at my nonchalant attitude towards the library's precious books. I told him that either way, I would be just fine. The border is only 4 miles away, after all. What can I say, I have an extreme propensity for living dangerously. Why, just this morning I ate a yogurt that was TWO DAYS past its expiration date. It was wild. For some reason, Cary's distress about my possible future as a fugitive of the state amused me to no end.

2. The amount of hoops I am required to jump through in order to start my job just makes no sense to me. Why on earth would I have to prove that I can lift 100 pounds, so that I can begin my job, where I will sit behind a desk all day? I don't understand the relevance. Today I finally finished the insane background investigation that I'm required to complete. It took me forever to round up my 2nd grade teacher's dog's veterinarian's name and all the other nonsense that I needed. After all of this, I will hopefully be qualified and deemed trustworthy enough to be in charge of the 5k races on base. Because heaven knows that if that kind of power ended up in the wrong hands, absolute chaos would ensue.

And thus concludes my two cents.

High fives all around

I would like to take this time to shamelessly brag about my husband's recent successes, of which there are numerous. I am so proud of that guy. So now all ya'll can be proud of him too.

1. Homebody is kicking some pilot training booty right now. He did great on his big check rides and he's been a pretty happy camper lately. He starts formation flying tomorrow, which might throw him quite a curveball, but for now, he is doing well and loving life. Even when he is not doing so hot, he still has such a great attitude and work ethic. And even with all of his business, he always finds time to beat me at all Wii games (except Mario) and take the trash out. :)


2. Look at my herb garden! 

The herb garden that we Cary planted all by himself is growing beautifully! We have sooo much basil and cilantro. It is heavenly. The other herbs are also slowly coming around, but not with quite as much vigor as these two. I'm going to whip up some pesto this week and it's going to be super delicious up in here.

3. Look at this dinner he made me yesterday!

It was so insanely delicious. Sweet and spicy grilled pork chops, caramelized grilled pineapple, and grilled asparagus and zucchini. It was amazing. Having a grill master for a husband is really great.

I am a lucky duck.


Also. It is worse than I feared. I can't even pick out my own khakis for my new job. I have to wear the assigned ones they give me. I may die.

Important Items of Business

I have a number of important news bulletins to share.

1. First and foremost, my short sojourn as a stay-at-home-Amy has come to end. I got me a grown-up job. After the world's shortest and weirdest interview, I got the job as the Program Director at the Fitness Center here on base. Basically this means I will spend all of my days organizing events on base, making class schedules, making marketing materials, and bossing people around. I applied last week, they called me in this morning for an interview, and an hour later, I had the job. I am still absorbing the situation and I have very mixed feelings about this new development. I think I will make a list within this list of the pros and cons of my new gig.

Pros:
1. I will get paid. This would be the principle reason why I have agreed to take the job.
2. I will have a cool title, even though my job isn't really all that fancy.
3. I will be a contributing member of society and have things to talk about at the dinner table.
4. It'll look good on the ol' resume. It's about time I had a job to list besides being a lifeguard in high school.
5. This job is actually relevant to my major and all of that knowledge I stuffed into my head for the last 4 years won't just rot and turn my brain into pudding.

Cons:
1.

Khakis. You have no idea how high this is ranked on the "cons" list. I am extremely depressed about this. It's going to be all vienna sausage legs, all the time. I have to wear khakis and an Air Force polo everyday. It is going to be Frumpytown USA. I went shopping today in search of less offensive khakis, but with very limited success. And so I resign myself to looking like an overstuffed sausage for 40 hours a week.
2. I wanted to spend the summer playing with my friend's kids at the pool. And several people have asked me to teach piano lessons, but I'm not sure I'll be able to juggle all that.
3. Now I will never get to finish watching 24. Or Rugrats. Or Hey Arnold. My Netflix will be so lonely.
4. On the same note, my Abigail will be so lonely. She's my main homedog and I love that pooch. In order to maintain our current running schedule, I'll have to wake up at what I like to call "the butt crack of dawn" and I am not sure how that'll work out.
5. I am lazy and working is hard.

Overall, I am really really lucky to have this job. It's in my major, pays pretty well, and it sure beats working at Blockbuster.

Moving on.

2. I have a huge girl crush on Adele. Man, I love her. I listen to all of her songs over and over again, and my "Adele" station on Pandora keeps the great tunes coming. I want to be Adele when I grow up.
                                                                 
3. My other current obsession? Pretzels dipped in Nutella. Have mercy. Today I ran 6 miles, came home, and proceeded to inhale a truly obscene amount of pretzels dipped in Nutella. I purchased the pretzels and sweet nectar of the Gods on Monday, and it is already about half gone. I love it so much I am considering taking out adoption papers and making Nutella a member of our family.

I didn't take this picture, but this is a fairly accurate representation of what's been going down over here lately.

4. I have been trying to eat all of the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables each day for the last 3 months. I'm so sick of the baby carrots that I eat at lunch every day. So yesterday I decided to count the pickles on my sandwich as a vegetable. Don't judge me. I pondered counting Sour Patch Kids as a fruit, but decided that was crossing the line.

5. My diet coke addiction is back. And how. The good news is that I have remained strong and don't buy the cans and keep them in the house. The bad news is that Sonic is only 10 minutes away, and a Vanilla Diet Coke with pebbled ice is constantly calling my name and I must answer the call. I will probably die from fake sugar related cancer, but what a delicious way to die.

Reason #469 that I adore my husband

These are his slippers.

And he wears them on a regular basis.

On the rare nights where Cary gets home before I do and happens to have some free time, I often come home to find him lounging on the couch in his robe and slippers, reading Calvin and Hobbes. Seeing that focused and driven husband of mine dressed in such a fashion just amuses me to no end.

It is adorable overload. 

Also, he would probably not be extremely pleased that I announced that little tidbit to the world wide web, but the chances of him ever perusing this blog are very slim, so I'm going to go ahead and take my chances.

I'm feeling all nostalgic about that cute husband of mine. A few days ago marked 2 years since he asked me on our first date, and Friday is the 2 year anniversary of our first date. We don't actually celebrate these little anniversaries, but it's still been fun to remember those nervous butterflies, never-ending phone calls, and late nights talking on the hammock. I'm sure I'll torture you all with an insanely sappy love post when our 1st wedding anniversary comes up at the end of the month, so I'll just wrap this before it gets too mushy.

My husband is the best.

The saga of our front yard

I thought I would be loving my role as full-time stay-at-home Amy, but it's not quite as wonderful as I imagined. I need things to talk about at dinner with my husband besides the hilarious episode of "Rugrats" that I watched on Netflix. Yeah, so I watch Rugrats sometimes on Netflix, what's it to you? Anywho. So after I loafed around and collected dust on Monday, I decided to be a worthwhile and contributing member of the household for the rest of the week. On Tuesday I did some shopping, wrote thank-you notes, did some laundry, went running, and checked off various items on the ol' to-do list. I was very productive and enjoyed a nice pat on the back from myself. Today's itinerary only included 1 thing:

1. Make our yard less ugly. This is our yard when we moved in:

Not the greatest picture, but basically it was not exactly a beautiful oasis. The flower bed by our front door had knee-high weeds all over, the lovely bushes that the housing place planted were all dying and wilted, there were dead spots all over... it was just a mess. But I didn't really care. I am not a fan of yard work. There is entirely too much bending involved. Besides, I had classes to do, an internship to go to, and cookies to bake. But now that I am done with school and super bored, I decided that I would give our yard a makeover.

60 bucks at Home Depot, 6 hours in the yard, several fire ant bites, a wicked sunburn, and several four letter words later, our yard now looks... like somebody tried just real hard to make it look nice. The woman at Home Depot convinced me into getting these click-in border things to go around our flower beds and trees. They were supposed to be easy to install. This is a lie. From the street, the yard looks pretty decent. But please don't look closely. And please don't kneel in the grass because you will get fire ant bites and this just in: They hurt like the dickens. And you might run around your yard slapping and swatting at yourself and screaming like a lunatic. No wonder the neighbors have never come over to say hi. After my unfortunate incident with lots of fire ants, I decided to do the remainder of my yard work in a squatting position. Consequently, my buns and thighs are no longer functioning in their usual manner, and sitting down is significantly more difficult than I recall it being. Between the insane sunburn on my back and my enormous ant bites, I felt like I was burning alive last night. The conclusion of this lovely story is that my thumb is distinctly not green and I still don't like yard work. Anywho, here is what it looks like now:

 I mulched and put a border around the bushes and around the tree; dug a hole and filled it with rocks underneath the spigot so it would stop flooding our sidewalk.

Pretend there are beautiful purple flowers in that middle plot. They are now residing in Abby's belly and probably not very beautiful anymore.

I put a border around the flowers that Cary planted for me. They are supposed to grow and cover all of the dirt, so I didn't mulch it, and also I ran out of mulch. I let Abby sit outside with me while I did all of this, and for the first hour, she did great! Just chilling the shade and keeping me company. But then apparently those flowers were looking mighty appetizing and she decided to have a little snack and ate a bunch of the middle flowers. And then she decided that since I was already angry at her for snarfing down my flowers, it would be a good time to get some exercise and run down the street. That booger. Good thing she is cute/ no one I know wants a free dog. Just kidding. I wuv my widdle puppy. Well, she's not that little. She's really pretty tubby, actually. Probably because she keeps eating my plants.

In happier news, if there is one thing I am good at, it is making and consuming treats. A friend and I decided to embark upon The Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls and hot dang, those were some good eats. I omitted the coffee in the icing because coffee is grodee, but besides that, I followed the recipe exactly, and they were knock-your-pants-off delicious. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have a heart attack and/or find some insulin.

Funky town USA

Let me 'splain.

There is too much. Let me sum up.

The last few weeks have been capital C CA-RAZY. I keep thinking I will write many detailed and humorous blog posts to regale my loyal readers with the exciting tales, but something about all those happenings has made me very unmotivated and tired. I am in somewhat of a "I'm-graduated-but-have-no-job-prospects-ever-and-I-miss-my-fambly-and-my-husband-has-a-scary-job-and-I-don't-want-him-to-get-deployed-slash-die-and-I-am-a-major-chubby-neurotic-wimp-and-what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life-and-why-is-my-face-breaking-out-like-a-14-year-old" funk. I decided to give myself a day to sit around and indulge my inner sloth, with a quick break to go to the gym in order to not be so full of self-loathing. And then I ate a lot of Easter candy. Tomorrow I resolve to put on make up and leave the house and not behave like a whiny little girl. So until I snap out of my little pity party, here comes the super reader's digest version of the last 2 weeks of my life. I swear I will write a more thorough and witty report at a later date when I am not a big grumpy pants.

1. I flew to Utah. We went to the Nickel-Arcade and I earned several prizes, not the least of which would be a 3 pack of fashionable and realistic mustaches.
2. My widdle brudder Ryan opened his mission call, to Los Angeles, California, spanish speaking! This is super duper exciting, except that he is my little brother and he needs to stay home and not grow up. Everyone is growing up and I am just not okay with this.
3. My seester announced the most exciting news ever! I am a major spiller of the beans, and I'm pretty sure you can guess what her announcement is!!
4. I graduated. It was super long and boring. But it's done and I got the pictures to prove it. Whew.
5. I drove home to Colorado with my family. I was the car DJ and we had some sweet tunes pumping. Backstreet is, in fact, Back.
6. I got to celebrate Easter with my fam bam and the Easter bunny even brought me a basket! And I made sweet tie dye eggs.
7. I spent a week in Colorado playing with my puppy, celebrating Yanr's birfday, going to a freezing Rockies' game in the snow, eating, buying summer clothes so that I won't melt in Del Rio, fruitlessly shopping for a swimsuit and eating my feelings about it, bowling and barely breaking 50, getting paid by my mother to sing karaoke in the bowling alley, skype-ing with my lonely husband, and letting my mommy take care of me. It was absolutely delightful.
8. I flew back to San Antonio, and drove home to Del Rio to my cute husband and doggie standing at the door waiting for me :) While I was gone, my amazing husband transformed our yard into a beautiful oasis of green grass, flourishing herbs, and flowers by our front door! He also cleaned our house from top to bottom and made me a welcome home meal of burgers, potato salad, and ice cream. I am the luckiest girl in the world. I sure love that husband of mine.

Well after reminiscing about my awesome last two weeks, I now I feel silly after complaining about my stinky mood.

My life is pretty dang good.