June 18, 2014 by Stephanie

Whitener Wednesday-We have been married 3 years!

Today is our anniversary. It is hard to believe that it was only 3 years ago that I walked down the aisle towards the rest of my life.

Year 3 as with every year has had its good and bad moments.

We left off on our story last week with our first military ball.

Moving in together for realsies had its struggles. We were both used to having things a certain way after so long and then there are the added differences of life post-deployment and moving to a new state. I swore at times my husband resembled a caveman, but then again I wasn’t a perfect princess either with my nagging on where things belong. It was like we were recycling back to our first year of marriage.

The end of that summer I geared up for the beginning of a new school year at a new school. I felt like I was in a groove at work and was ready for the new challenges. I was continuing to job search for a full-time job because there did not seem to be any sign that they would be turning my part-time gig into something more permanent. I however, worked that semester trying to change their minds.

It was that fall that Tom started an intensive training schedule. He was out at a range or some training mission every other week it seemed.

In September, he had to undergo another surgery for a tumor that had grown on his hip.

Also in September, we made the plunge and added to our family by adopting Crosby. It has been a whirlwind with them since, but I couldn’t imagine not being a two dog family. I love my little pups, even with moments like this…

I ran my fourth half marathon for a family that we have had a great time getting to know in the past year. They inspire me greatly as Tom and I look to start our own family.

Tom and I hosted Thanksgiving at our house for the first time, and I would like to think that it went off really well. We had turkey for days…

This year is the first year in our ENTIRE relationship that we have been together for every single holiday for the ENTIRE year. Mind boggling that it took us seven years to do that. It was so great to have Christmas, birthdays, and everything in between with Tom.

Right after the new year, Tom was forced into a job change. We also had to come to grips that Tom would be deployed again. Some days I have accepted it, other days there is just anger and bitterness knowing that he is so close to peacing out from the military.

We had been actively trying to conceive for awhile, but after the new year thanks to some complications I was having hormone wise, we decided we would look into a fertility specialist just to make sure that everything was hunkydory on this journey. We also wanted to get everything checked out before Tom went on deployment while we had the time.

It was then that our life changed completely. We found out AT the fertility doctor that we were actually 8 weeks pregnant. You can read more about that story here. We are having a baby! We still get a kick out of telling that story.

Baby 1

Our lives have kind of been topsy-turvey since. Tom still has been doing training missions, and I have been working as much as I was allowed. We have crafted and DIYed our butts off this year. Check those specific tabs if you want to see what we have done in the last year! Some have been duds, but some have been the bombdiggity.

We then found out that we are having a boy, and we decided on the name George Lawson. We think the dogs know what is going on by some weird behavior we have been seeing, and we hope they are as excited as we are once George becomes their new playmate!

I participated in my 5th half marathon with my sister-in law. I was 19 weeks along at the time, and we successfully made it all 13.1 miles.

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We have done some traveling over the past year. There have been countless trips to Missouri to see the famjams. We had a trip over Easter to see our friends in Indiana, and recently we took a trip to Iowa.

But mostly this year we have spent being homebodies enjoying being together. It was the first time we got to come home to each other every day. It was the first time that things seemed relatively normal, as normal as they can get being a military family that is. It was the first time that we didn’t have a countdown going until the next time we would see each other. So in our third year of marriage and seventh year together, we were still able to have a lot of firsts.

We have gone through every emotion possible between the two of us this past year. We both have been strung along and had discontent with how our careers were going. I had ups and downs of being a temporary employee (ups like I wrote here, here and here; downs like this) and being stuck in a never ending job search. Tom’s leadership has been less than stellar leading him down some paths he never wanted to go through during his Army career. For example, they forced him into a job he didn’t want and had him slotted for a deployment that he will need to reenlist for even though he has no intention of doing so, but they are sure he will. Hence him being on the list in the first place. You know stuff that we have no control over, but impacts our life dramatically. It was during these times that we have had to be each other’s rock and just keep keeping on. We learned to accept things and make new plans when necessary. We learned a lot about ways to support each other through this year, and it has been nice to do that in person. Special moments.

And then to learn that we are going to be parents. Words cannot describe the happiness and content we have experienced since hearing, “You knocked her up.”

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It has been a year.

So much has happened, but yet at the same time very little in comparison to other years. Although, I think George kind of trumps everything as far as life changes. It is a little ironic that our first year of just us in one place, will also be our last with just us.

All I have to say for the last few years is, “High five Husband.”

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Happy Anniversary to the man who has taught me so much about life, love, and happiness. To the man who can make me laugh even in my darkest moments. To the man who never ceases to amaze me with his courage and passion. To the man who is the best dog dad and soon-to-be-George dad. To the man who encourages me in all of my endeavors and has made so many sacrifices for our family. To the man who is always on board for crafty time and is the best handy man to have around. To the man who makes me prouder than I ever believed possible. To a man who has never doubted us for a second since we met.

Here is to many more great years to our add to our love story.

June 9, 2014 by Stephanie

35 before 35 Update

May went way too fast. Here is how I did this last month.

1. Crochet something else besides blankets or scarves at least once a year

2. Do a photography challenge

3. Visit 5 cities I have never been to before (4/5)

Tom and I had a wedding in Spencer, Iowa this month. (This one was easier to do than I thought! I will have this done next month!)

4. Tour at least one of the distilleries in the KY/TN area

5. Send at least 5 snail mail a month

I think I did this. I know I sent out some mail, but I cannot recall if it was 5…

6. Become a “professional” photographer

I did another infant shoot this last week. The family was great! Although the belly may start getting in the way of doing some things with bending over.

7. Run at least 10 races (any distance) (1/10)

8. Go camping with Tom

9. Pay for the car behind me in a drive through

10. See Tyrone Wells live as many times as possible

11. Tour Fort Defiance here in Clarksville

My mom is in town visiting this week, so she and I went this weekend. I was expecting buildings, but it was an earthworks base, meaning they basically hid in the foliage and man-made trenches. They do have a beautiful trail you can walk, which I want to take the dogs through since it is mostly shaded.

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12. Water ski with my dad

13. Do a 5K with my mom

14. Take a swing dance class with Tom

15. Read at least one fun book a month and one professional development book every three months

I just finished “Fault in Our Stars” this weekend. So good!

16. Take a pottery or stained glass class

17. Do one new recipe each month

Sweet Potato Brownies

18. See both a Clemson and UCM football game live

19. Find a place to volunteer on a regular basis

20. Go hiking

Tom and did some hiking around a lake back home. I am not sure if it was text book hiking, but it was a trail in the woods…

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21. Ride in a hot air balloon

22. Go to at least 20 “new to me” restaurants. (14/20)

I went to three this month. In Missouri, I met up with some Clemson friends in Columbia at The Fieldhouse, which is a bar and grill place. It had decent food, but the service was awful. While we were in Iowa, I met a friend and her fiance for breakfast at American Classic Cafe. They had a pretty decent breakfast, but it was your typical diner breakfast. This weekend, my mom and I tried out a little German cafe/bakery here in town called Silke’s Old World Breads. THIS WAS SO GOOD! We just got a few baked goods and Chai teas after our visit to the farmer’s market, but I will definitely be taking Tom back for a full meal. It was quaint and had the perfect atmosphere.

Cheese Croissants. YUMMY

23. Stay at a bed and breakfast

24. Spend a day without electronics (phone, t.v. and computer)

25. Have a Kentucky Derby themed 3oth birthday party.

26. Explore Nashville while we live here

27. Watch at least 10 movies that I have not seen before that won Best Picture at the Oscars and at least 20 documentaries (not necessarily Oscar winning) Movies (0/10); Documentaries (4/20)

28. Sew an item of clothing from scratch

I didn’t do clothing, but my mom has been guiding me through the process of making all of George’s baby bedding. It all is looking great so far! We are also making a rocking chair cover and pillows galore.

This is his blanket only half way finished.

29. Do a personal devotional/bible study on my own

30. Be a mascot for an event

31. Go on our honeymoon (preferably somewhere tropical)

32. Host an annual NCAA Basketball Tournament Championship game party

33. Go on a mission trip

34. Be on a recreation volleyball team

35. Become a mom

Only a couple more months till we meet our little guy!

June 4, 2014 by Stephanie

Whitener Wednesday-Our First Year Married

Right after the big day, Tom and I had some big decisions to make. I would say they were not your typical first year of marriage problems. To make sure everyone is following along, the year was June 2011 to June 2012.

I was about to start my second year at Iowa State in a position that I loved. Tom, however, had not been as lucky in the job search realm. He had been interviewing for police positions all over the central Iowa area, and even some departments more than once with no luck for over a year.

We decided after the wedding Tom would apply for one more department. He had always talked about going into the Army. If you remember during grad school, he had considered enlisting, and I wasn’t as on board then. If he wasn’t able to find a police position within the first six months of our marriage, we agreed that he would enlist. I finally saw that it was something he needed to do. We felt that it would help in the future for job searching or it could end up being a career move for him. Either way, it would be a way for Tom to provide for our family and have some career satisfaction.

The next few months we waited for some good news. We filled our time with trying to act like a normal couple without this huge decision on our shoulders. We went to ZooBrew like champs and visited our families.

ZooBrew was one of our favorite summer time activities. Booze and large animals? Yes please.

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Getting in some Nuncle Tom and Aunt Teffie time with our beautiful little niece.

During all this madness, we decided it was a good idea to get a dog. It was not our intention to get one until we had things figured out, but things just kind of spiraled out of control one weekend. Before we knew it, we brought Grace home that Halloween. By far the best thing that happened that first year! (Also in writing this, I realized that I have never wrote about Grace’s adoption since we got her prior to my blogging adventure. We told Crosby’s, so I guess I should maybe plan to tell the full story about how we got Gracie lady!)

Grace on the way home with us from the shelter. Now seeing her pictures from back then, I can see she has definitely grown since we got her at 36 pounds!

Grace managed to keep us busy and definitely made things happier for us. We were feeling like a family and things were normal right?

Well our life likes to be tricky and never goes as we planned. There were still no job prospects…crickets I tell ya. So Tom enlisted into the US Army right before our 6 month anniversary. Tom would leave that March for Basic Training, and we would have to endure long distance once again.

Fun story though, while Tom was at MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station-where he officially enlisted and did all the initial testing/signing his life away) he got two calls for job offers. One was for a police department, and one was to teach Criminal Justice courses at a local college. Seriously? This is our life…

Since we knew that Tom would be gone for our first anniversary, we decided to celebrate our 6 month as if it was the whole first year.

I managed to throw the most epic surprise going-away party ever for Tom, which is saying something because I am the worst at keeping secrets. It was a great day to celebrate and be with friends and family before our life changed completely…once again.

Tom humor on our kitchen calendar.

He left for Basic Training at Ft. Benning GA in March and did not graduate until July 3rd after our first year anniversary. For those 3.5 months, we talked mostly in letters. We each wrote one every single day, which are pieces of our life that we still have in a box to cherish for a life time. We talked on the phone twice the entire time. One happened to be around my birthday and the other was on our anniversary. We were lucky that these days fell around Mother’s Day and Father’s Day so they got to use the phone for those things. And my wonderful husband choose to call me quickly as well before he talked with his parents. Such a cool feeling to hear him talk after silence for months.

This kind of distance was much different than our first go around obviously. Since our communication was very limited or delayed, there were a lot of first year marriage milestones that we didn’t get to experience or where one of us had to make decisions on our own without the knowledge or input from our partner. I knew he was out of danger so there was something romantic about writing love letters every day to him before I went to bed. Granted I would rather of had him home, but you have to look at the positives. Every day, I wrote to him “I love you more than yesterday.” And every day it rang true.

Not much else happened those few months besides me taking a picture of Grace every day to mail him. Having Grace was the best distraction while Tom was away. I mean work definitely was distracting too (have you ever been on a college campus during move out?). But really I just hung out with Gracers for the most part being an obnoxious dog mom.

These are just a few of our gems.

I did get to see him for one weekend while they had pass. It was a glorious couple of days. I will never forget how skinny he was then! It was like I was married to a different person.

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I also had it in the back of my mind that this could possibly be my last year at Iowa State before we had to move to wherever the Army sent us. So I just tried distracting myself with making the most of the time I had there.

It may sound horrible, but I honestly don’t remember what I did for our anniversary that year. I probably took Grace for a long walk and did nothing if I would have to guess. I may have taken the day off work…

But in all fairness I knew we had a big reunion coming up in the next month with his graduation. I was just counting down our long distance days at this point.

Come back next week to see how year two went with Basic Graduation starting us off! Thanks for reading every week!

At least we looked good that year! (I also had perfected the wavy curl look, so it is obvious I used it on every special occasion…)

June 3, 2014 by Stephanie

The Iowa Reunion Tour

Tom and I had a great time (expect all the driving) being in Iowa this past weekend.

It was kind of hit or miss last week whether Tom was going to be able to join me. Fortunately his pass was approved the day before we were scheduled to leave. Thank goodness because that 12 hour drive back would have been awful. Plus road trips are always better with him!

We had a wedding in northern Iowa for a former student of mine, but we decided to stop in Ames the day before to a) break up the trip and b) see our old home.

We lived in Iowa for 3 years. It was the start of our life as a married couple and became real adults. We made some great friends and had wonderful memories from our time there. Also, I believe Iowa is a hidden gem of the United States. I really loved it there.

It was hard to leave Iowa a year ago after Tom returned from deployment, but we knew that it had to end. It was great to be back in Ames and to see some lovely faces again.

We made the most of the afternoon we were in Ames by eating in some of our favorite restaurants.

I definitely miss the college coffee houses and cafes.

We chatted with my old supervisors which was so great for me mentally. It reminded me of a time where I thrived professionally, and that someday I will have that again.

We were able to catch up with several of our old friends that night. It was awesome to be able to chat and pick up right where we left off. With Facebook, you can still follow along with people’s lives, but there is just something about being able to be face to face with people that does something for your soul. Lots of laughs were had!

We also went by our old digs. And I am not going to lie, I almost broke down in tears as we drove away from Friley I was so emotional, and I am not sure I can blame that on hormones.

That building behind me was our home for 3 years. I love how big it is; you can’t get it all in one frame. Yes we lived in a giant residence hall. We were given a really nice apartment in there. Oh Friley.

I also was spoiled by my old neighbor/partner in crime who has been stocking my favorite ISU dining muffins. I swear these things have drugs in them, they are so addicting. (I am aware that they do not, and they are just really delicious.) We used to text each other when it was chocolate muffin day so we could fill up our to-go containers with just these goodies.

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Then we headed even further north for a wedding.

It was the first Catholic wedding I had ever been to, and Tom wasn’t too familiar either. We were fish out of water.

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When they had the congregation do the greetings where you apparently say “Peace Be With You” to each person you shake hands with, Tom instead introduced himself. The ladies in front of us were not impressed with, “Hi, I’m Tom.”

I also made a blunder when they recited the Lord’s prayer. FYI the Catholics do not say the whole thing! I did not know this. I just felt really proud of myself that I actually knew something they were doing, so I just went along merrily! Unfortunately, when the rest of the church stopped reciting, I kept going. Just me, practically sounding like I was screaming the end of the Lord’s prayer all by myself….Embarrassing.

There were quite a few of my former students at the wedding. It was so good to hear what is going on in their lives and where they have moved on to. Each of them had such a huge impact on my time there since we worked together practically every day and some of them for almost the entire time I was there. It was fun to see them all grown up!

Sorry for the bad picture quality! They were all of my staff members at one point in Friley. And of course Tom was the odd resident of the building being neither staff or a student…

It was a fast trip since most of it consisted of us driving across the midwest. Let me tell you, road trips are not as fun when you are pregnant. At least the people on the other end made it all worth it!

Thank you to everyone we saw and made an awesome reunion for us!

Those of you who we didn’t see, I am just saying Tennessee is really pretty and we are happy to have visitors…

May 28, 2014 by Stephanie

Whitener Wednesday-Our Wedding

We have made it to our wedding day of the Whitener love story. I won’t go into a lot of the planning portion. I am just glad that that part of our life is over and done with it. It all led up to one of the best days ever.

Get ready for the picture overload!

Wedding 1

My mom painted the tree, which was our guest book and has since become living room art work. We stayed pretty simple with the rest of the decorations. My sister-in-law helped with a lot of the planning, which was helpful since we lived in Iowa and the wedding was in Missouri. Tom and I made all the ribbon dancers that were used for our exit out of the church instead of bubbles. That broach was my grandma’s who was not able to make it to the wedding. I also carried hankies from my family and Tom’s family, which came in handy later on during the ceremony.

Wedding 2

My dad made my necklace and earrings. My grandpa helped officiate the wedding, which was really special for both of us. He made pretty much everyone weep with his warm words. And yes, we high-fived our “I do’s.”

Wedding 3

We were very intentional about making our wedding about our story and who we are as a couple. We planned every detail to make the wedding very specific to us. We didn’t have any traditional music and put in personal touches everywhere, hence the high-fives. We wanted to make sure our wedding was “us” and not cookie cutter. We had a lot of help from our family and friends for getting on board with this and adding little pieces throughout the day!

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We drove off in an old school Aston Martin.

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We had the best wedding party. My brother was my man of honor, and Tom’s sister was his best woman. Keeping it real doing our own thing.

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This is one of my favorite shots of the day. It was just one of those moments that it was just Tom and I before we went into the winery for dinner. We didn’t see each other before the ceremony, so it was really the first time we were able to steal some moments together.

Wedding 4

One of my favorite touches was our candy buffet. This was our favor for everyone. We thought it was better for everyone to get exactly what they wanted. We made the jars ourselves with tags and ribbon. It was also really fun to search for yellow and blue candy! We felt like kids again.

Also, picking our wedding colors was really easy. Tom’s favorite color is blue, and mine is yellow. Boom color choices made. (It also turned out that we looked like even bigger Royals fans. We still to this day find ourselves in our wedding colors unintentionally…)

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Our reception venue was absolutely gorgeous. We had it at a winery right outside of town that was on a hill overlooking the river and capital.

Wedding 5

I am not the biggest cake fan, so we opted for a smaller cake and several other desserts in addition. The one thing I would change about the day would be to actually get some of those desserts. The only piece we had was the small bite of cake we fed each other. Everything else got devoured, even the plate of samples we had set aside in the kitchen for ourselves. Yes, someone ~~ate~~ stole that! And yes it has been three years, and I am still not over it. So we were not able to partake in the one year anniversary tradition of eating your cake, because every little piece of everything was eaten that night.

Wedding 6

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I think the best part of our wedding was just to have all groups in our lives come together in one place. It was so fun to look back at pictures and see different people interacting and having a great time. We obviously had a blast.

One of most genius decisions I made was to have a party dress. I absolutely love my wedding dress. It was the first dress I tried on, and it was everything I ever dreamed for a dress for our day. However, that thing was a beast. It was very hot with all the layers, and felt like it weighed a ton after a few hours of wearing. I decided to get a cheap short dress that I could wear after all the ceremonious things occurred so I could move and groove more freely. I highly recommend it for any bride.

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Yep this happened. I am sure you can guess what song was playing.

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We had so much fun celebrating with those that we love. It was a wonderful day to start our marriage, and it was better than anything I had ever dreamed of as a little girl.

Thank you for reading our story up to now. Next week I will recap our first year of marriage.