Thanksgiving

This year, since we weren't able to go visit my family for Thanksgiving, my parents drove over to visit us instead. It was so nice having them here with us for a week. We really do enjoy having visitors come & stay with us :) It gives us an excuse to make the apartment look all nice & pretty & it's always fun coming up with new things to cook and desserts to bake.

Unfortunately Sayre was on duty on Thanksgiving day, so we had our nice big turkey dinner on Friday instead. On Thursday, since Sayre had to be there anyway, I took my parents on base so that he could give them a tour of the ship. The ship is always seemingly impressive to outsiders, but trust me, I don't think anyone that's had to stay on that thing for more than a day finds it to be like a floating mansion by any means haha.

On Friday we drove around a bit - I tried to give my parents a tour of my office but failed to obtain a working key to the exterior door.. oops! Eventually we ended up back home and enjoyed our delicious Thanksgiving dinner :) thanks to mom & dad who brought pretty much everything... I only made pumpkin pie & sweet potato casserole - they brought everything else. Oh & since we won't be heading to Louisiana for Christmas this year, we also managed to squeeze in a little Christmas celebration as well and swapped presents. Anyway, it was a very enjoyable, but much-too-short visit.

Halloween

For Halloween this year, Sayre and I unfortunately didn't have the opportunity to participate in "Trunk-or-Treat" at church like we did last year because he was in Rhode Island for SWO school up until the night of the event. I did, however, still have a lot of fun this year :) I managed to get some of my fellow co-workers to dress up for the occasion with me, which of course made the Friday before Halloween that much more entertaining - especially since I, of course, took the opportunity to continue the friendly feud of LSU vs Florida. I dressed up as "Tiger Bait" and wore a Florida tshirt that I tore on the back to look like a tiger paw had gotten to it & iron on the words "Tiger Bait" to the back. It took a little while for my co-workers to get it (I guess it makes more sense to LSU fans who yell "Tiger Bait" at the opposing teams). I was still proud of myself though ;) Overall, it was a really fun day in the office. When Sayre got home later, we had fun carving our little pumpkin and then I roasted up the seeds :) mmmm yummy! I love fall!

An Emotional Return

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of experiencing the homecoming of the USS Taylor. My friend's husband and another friend's fiancée were aboard the frigate for a 6 month deployment and returned home on October 23rd. I tagged along with the girls to photograph the incredibly emotional and heartwarming day.

It's really hard to put into words the range of emotions I felt that day. At times, I felt almost as nervous as the girls did because I began to realize the enormity of the day and I could only just begin to imagine what it must feel like to be reunited with your loved one after they have been serving our country overseas. All too often we take these things for granted - heck, even despite being a Navy wife myself, the fact that every single day people are separated from the ones they love who are defending our country isn't always in the forefront of my mind, but experiencing this homecoming helped me to gain a much better appreciation for the sacrifices that these men, women, & their families make for our freedom. No matter who is in office at any given time and no matter what state of affairs our country may be in, the fact of the matter still remains - these men and women put themselves at risk every single day for the truths & principals upon which our forefathers founded this great nation.

I just beamed with pride as tears welled up in my eyes watching these sweet amazing girls that I have gotten the privilege of getting to know be reunited with their men. I am honored that they let me be a part of that amazing day. Honestly, it was such a privilege for me just to be able to experience something like that too so that I will know what to expect someday after Sayre returns from a deployment.