Countless miles

This is our first long separation. We have spent summers apart doing school and camp as well as observing our brief, summer, military obligations. But this will last for twenty-seven months, and in case you haven't been staying up-to-date on these posts, that's how long Evan and I have been together.

This will not be easy for either of us. Nor will it be easy for either of our families. We do have a few strategies which we will try out while we are apart. One of which is sending emails to each other as frequently as we can. And we each have cameras and memory cards where we will video a message and mail it to the other so that we may see and hear each other. This should work fairly well up until one gets lost in the mail or goes overboard and finds Nemo.

I will have many more hours of free time, so I have come up with goals and things I want to do this semester. One big one is to train for a half-marathon. I will write more about these goals later as well as updates. So, check back later this week for more on that.

27 months

About three weeks ago was mine and Evan's one month wedding anniversary. Not long after, he got his orders to report to his first duty station to the USS Essex in Sasebo, Japan.

Tomorrow is his 23rd birthday. And we are both glad that we will be together for that. But what we realized as we talked about his orders to stay in Sasebo for 27 months is that we've been together since November 2008. And if you do that math, that's 27 months.

When he is done with his time in Sasebo, we would have spent half of our relationship (somewhat) geographically close (with the exception of holidays and summers) and half in two different countries.

This does not make either of us happy. In fact, it's really sad. Evan leaves sometime next week and then his ship goes on patrol not long after he arrives. Don't worry, he'll have fun playing in The Outback.

Almost one month!

Hey all! Almost a month ago Evan and I tied the knot in front of nearly 150 of our friends and family. We were so blessed to have them join us for that special day. Now that it is the new year, I'd like to take a quick look at all of the events that happened in December for us.

December 4th we got married.

Then we went on to finish the semester with "dead week" and finals week. At the end of finals week, December 17th, Evan got commissioned into the United States Navy.

The following day he graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelor's of Science in Industrial Systems Engineering.

The next day we left for San Francisco for our week-long honeymoon. We visited Alcatraz, the aquarium in SF as well as another one on a trip to Monterey and Carmel. We saw the Yoda Fountain in front of Lucasfilms, Inc. We ate at many different restaurants while we were there including the oldest Italian restaurant in America. And of course we rode the historic and iconic cable cars.

When we got back from SF, we went to my mom's house where Baron had been staying since graduation day. While we were there, we decided to take our nephew Cameron to Zoo Atlanta. He is 2½ years old and has never experienced the zoo before, though he has been to the Georgia Aquarium.

He loved the zoo! He loved all of the animals...as long as they were kept at a distance. In the petting zoo, he would not get close to the goats and sheep. The animal statues throughout the zoo scared him so he wouldn't even touch them.

 He was literally running all over the zoo, so we came up with a game of him being able to run while still not get too far from us. He would run, then I'd stay "stop," and he would stop. I'd say, "go," and he would go. The funniest part was when I would say, "slow" and he would do a hilarious slow run! I do have a picture of it but it is best when seen in person.