Vacation in Punta Cana, DR

So I am finally getting around to downloading our Dominican vacation pictures. We went to Natura Park Resort in Punta Cana earlier this month during Sam's leave for 5 nights. It was wonderful! We just layed around on the beach or by the pool, drank lots of pina colada's (Molly) and margarita's (Sam). It was the perfect relaxing vacation and we even got to go sailing every day while we were there!

Our room and the view from our balcony.

On "Dominican night" the resort had a big outdoor feast of traditional Dominican cuisine and a bunch of local vendors came to sell things like jewelry, paintings and cigars.

The beach was so beautiful and the water was so clear and warm. Sam enjoyed spending some time snorkling while I enjoyed sitting under the little cabanas with a nice tropical breeze blowing! Why can't the US be this beautiful?

Trip to Charleston

After Sam returned home we had two weeks of vacation. The first week we spent in the Dominican Repulic which I will post about later after downloading pictures. The second week we spent at my favorite place in the whole world... Charleston, SC!

On our drive down we stopped to visit some good friends who just recently moved to Fayetteville, NC. Matt recently graduated from MUSC dental school and is now an Army dentist. We were so delighted to spend the evening with these guys and to finally meet their adorable little daughter Millie! We miss you guys tons!

Doesn't Brooke look awesome for having a 3 month old?!

Next stop... the Surratt home! Our good friends Josh and Lisa and their 1 year old son, Miles, where gracious enough to allow us AND the dogs to stay with them while we were in town. Their dog Otis is from the same breeder Winston came from and Bella and Otis use to be best buds but now I think Winston stole Otis from Bella. But Bella didn't care cos she was so interested in Miles, she was very gentle but wanted to give him LOTS of kisses! It was a riot with all of them running around. We had some great quality time with the Surratts, cooking out, playing cards, going to the beach, and taking Josh's dad's boat out for a little drive over to Shem Creek for dinner.

Winston loved the beach as you can tell!

Picture of Shem Creek from the water and our view from dinner.

I also got a chance to have lunch with some of my previous co-workers from Garden Zone. It was great catching up with those ladies!

We were also so thrilled to be able to share in the celebration of Matt and Heather Alt's wedding while we were there. We even got to have lunch with them and some other Navy friends during our trip.

And we got to go to church at Seacoast Sunday morning which was really special for both of us. We miss Seacoast so incredibly much and were thrilled to be back! Plus we ran into several friends from our old small group at church and got to have lunch afterwards with our friends Brad and Jan and one of our favorite restaurants with the best view, California Dreamin.

We had such a wonderful visit and are so happy we got to see everyone that we did. Although it wasn't long enough and we really missed seeing several other friends in the area that we weren't able to hook up with due to time.

Sam's Home!

Okay... so this post is a little late... Sam actually got home almost 3 weeks ago. After spending 27 hours traveling from Greece I finally got to pick him up in Manchester in the middle of the night. It is funny that even though he had been gone 5.5 months as soon as he was back it seemed like no time had gone by at all. After a few days laying low in NH we went back to MD and had a nice Welcome Home party for Sam. Here are some pictures from the party.

My sister made this awesome sign even though she couldn't be there. But unfortunately it decided to pour rain with high winds so the sign didn't last long.

I had to put this picture of my parents in cos as I was taking it my dad said "Is this going to end up on the internet?" Yep Dad... it is!

That's Sam's family on the right. I can't believe I got a picture with ALL the boys smiling at once!

More to come soon about our vacations:)

The move to New Hampshire

I have very mixed feelings about moving to NH. I am so excited to be getting my husband home soon! And I am glad to have our own place to live again with all our own stuff. I am also super happy to be near the other families on Sam's boat. I've meet a few of them and love them already! But it was hard leaving family as I mentioned in my previous post. And it is always hard moving to a colder climate... but it will make Hawaii all the sweeter when we finally relocate there!

I drove up to NH on Wednesday and stayed with new friends from Sam's boat. They have been so great to me... letting me stay with them last week when I came up for the meeting and then again this week with the dogs in tow! Bella and Winston did great on the drive and had a blast playing with Zac and Rebekah's dog, Aidan. Thursday we had some time to burn before we could get into the apartment so I took the dogs for a ride up the coast and we checked out the Maine beaches. It was beautiful, but I will take SC beaches over these any day! It's kind of annoying because even though there is hardly anone on the beach (probably due to the fact that it never really gets warm enough here), dogs aren't allowed on the beaches here:( Bella was pretty upset... Winston still doesn't know what he is missing but will find out shortly on our trip to SC!

Despite the disappointing dog rules, it was a very pretty drive. And after getting into our apartment I explored Newmarket (our new town) a little bit. It is kind of a cute little town with several restaurants and little shops.

After exploring I found the nearest town with a real grocery store (as opposed to the little general store in Newmarket). Then I sat in our empty apartment trying to imagine how all our stuff was going to fit.

The next day the movers came and sure enough everything got into the apartment... however tight it may be! My WONDERFUL father-in-law drove up that day as well with a van full of stuff I had at their house. He was a total life saver! He helped me unpack and he put together our new patio furniture that is currently serving as our kitchen furniture. We went down to Portsmouth after spending a long day unpacking even though it didn't appear to make much difference since the place was still a giant mess! We had a delicious dinner at Jumpin Jay's Fish Cafe. I highly recommend the seafood chowder! Yum! Portsmouth is a pretty neat town... like the New England version of Annapolis. People are pretty nice but a little nuts... they are all wearing shorts and tank tops and it is definitely not warm enough for that here!

Saturday we drove around the Southern Maine coast and checked out a gorgeous light house but I forgot my camera... sorry! Then we did a little more unpacking and my father-in-law left to go home. Since then I have just been unpacking and cleaning and doing mountains of laundry. I had all te best intentions of trying a new church on Sunday, but it didn't happen... I was so exhausted and still had so much to do!

Today I am starting to feel better about the state of our apartment. Things are pretty much put away and now I just need to do a really thorough cleaning and find "homes" for some random things I don't know what to do with. This apartment literally has NO storage space so our second bedroom has turned into a large closet. There is pretty much only room for the treadmill and the desk and the rest is packed full of our stuff that doesn't have anywhere else to be! But it is okay cos it is at least organized now.

Today is also our two year wedding anniversary which I keep forgetting because Sam isn't home. In some ways I feel like the time has flown by and in other ways it feels like we have been married forever. Either way, I love being married... probably cos I have the BEST husband in the whole world (even though he adandon's me for months at a time... haha)! I really do thank God every day for blessing me with such a wonderful husband, I couldn't ask for a better marriage:)

Dad's Birthday Party

My dad's 55th birthday was a week ago and my mom had a cookout for him. It was so fun getting together with family as it always is. Here are a few pics of the occasion.

My Dad had to cook his own dinner while my mom snuggled with Winston. Haha... to my mom's credit, she spent the previous two days preparing for the party and getting the porch ready for summer and guests.

My dad is at the point where his candles no longer represent his age... they represent years till retirement. He told my mom 11 more years. But... my mom only put 10 candles on there cos she is already ready for him to retire!

My mom did have a little help preparing for the party. I made the cake:) Spice cake with mocha icing... it's our family's favorite and it was yummy! All-in-all it was a great night. I was feeling pretty sad as I left the party because it was only a couple days till I would move to NH. I've never gotten emotional about leaving home before but I've so much enjoyed these few months being near family and reality is sinking in that I will probably never live so near them again and that is a sad thought. I am just glad that I have had this time while Sam has been gone to spend with some of my favorite people in the world... my family!