Monday Meetups - Valentine's Additon

Time for another Monday Meetup via the Homefront Team! This week is, appropriately enough, a Valentine's addition and the questions were actually submitted to the blog by me :) so yay!! Ok... here goes...

1. Do you like to celebrate Valentine's Day or do you cringe at the thought of Cupid? 
Well, I think we should express our love to each other on a daily basis, but I tend to enjoy and participate in all holidays :) so Valentine's Day is usually pretty fun - especially this year with super sweet co-workers and a super sweet hubby :)

2. Are you a flowers or candy kind of person? Or do you prefer something handmade?It really doesn't take much to make me happy... honestly the simplest things make me smile!

3. What's your most memorable Valentine's Day story?
Although years past have been very memorable & sweet, I was shocked by the events that unfolded this year. I got several incredibly sweet surprises from Sayre that were completely unexpected but very much appreciated. I also had lots of fun making cupcakes for the office. Mid-morning I was surprised once again with beautiful flowers from Sayre as well as from some really sweet co-workers.

Girl Time

I absolutely love spending time with my dear-sweet-husband, but this past month and a half has offered quite a few opportunities for lots of fun times with girl friends. It's reminded me how important it is to have good female companions around to share giggles, tears, and stories with. I've been so blessed to have found some pretty awesome girls here in Jacksonville without whom I couldn't have made it this far. Being away from friends and family back home is rough, but these women have made life so much fun!

Last weekend, Katharine, Brittany, and I had quite-possibly the girliest Super Bowl party ever complete with yummy pigs in a blanket, scrumptious wontons, pasta salad, very addicting bread & cucumbers with deliciousness sandwiched in between, and a super moist yummy cake! We each supported our favorite respective NFL teams despite the fact that neither team was in the Super Bowl ;) What a fun night!



I mentioned previously one awesome co-worker who I experienced my very first (and rather interesting) Renaissance fair with. My job is full of awesome people! I've had the opportunity to spend some time outside of work recently with two other great girls as well. Their shenanigans definitely had me laughing my head off :) I am a very lucky girl who has stumbled upon some pretty awesome people in my lifetime.

January Wrap Up - 1 Month Down!

 I've been so busy since my last little post on here that it's hard to know where to begin! January 20th through the 26th, mom and NaNa were in town visiting which was tons of fun! On the days that I had work, I'd come home to a yummy meal that they prepared and then we'd enjoy the evening spending time together - NaNa even learned to do bowling on the Wii and beat me twice! (She's 90 years old!!) On the weekend we spent some time showing NaNa around Jacksonville and Mayport... she even got to see some of St. Augustine too! Speaking of St. Augustine, we actually met up with Aunt Gayle & Uncle Wayne one evening down there as well because they were also in town visiting some dear friends. What perfect timing!

Certainly one of the highlights of their visit here was getting to take them to the Barry Manilow concert one evening :) Mom always was a "Fanilow," so when I heard that he was going to be in town while they were here I just knew we'd have a blast going to see him! He really put on a great show - complete with a full orchestra and everything.

Friday night after they left, I went to another concert with my co-worker and her sister. We went to see George Strait & Reba McEntire! Once again, another fantastic show!! Those two are such country super-stars... I really am so glad we went. I had seen Reba in concert twice when I was around 10 years old and even back then I can remember her performance bringing tears to my eyes. 14 years later, and she is still just as incredible, if not even more so, than she was before! George did a fantastic job too - in fact, they both played and performed for so long that we actually just couldn't sit in the arena any longer so we left after about 4 hours... I think George still had 2 or 3 songs left! It was amazing!

Saturday night I had a lovely dinner with some of the fellow officers' wives whose husbands are also on Sayre's ship at a restaurant in town before meeting up with my other two awesome Navy wife friends whom I had really been looking forward to spending some time with. A night at the Wine Bar down by the beach was just what the three of us needed :) I wrapped up that epic week with a trip to the Renaissance Fair down in Gainesville with another co-worker. The weather was absolutely perfect - clear blue skies and crisp, cool air. It was great! People-watching at a Renaissance Fair is awesome haha. You see all sorts of sights & sounds! We really had a great time :)