A Taste of Army Life

So I have yet to attain the official status of "Army wife" but I sure have gotten a taste of the life style- and it's only just the beginning of a long road that awaits Matthew and I ahead. It's a bitter sweet feeling. I am so excited for Matthew to finally be able to get started with his career after a 9 month wait for his first training to begin after commissioning back in June 2008. Yet I am so sad to have him away for so long and of course at a busy and stressful time- and a time when we might otherwise enjoy the planning of our wedding, together.

Matthew packed up and headed out on the morning of March 8th (oh how quickly that 9 months went by- for me anyways). He headed to Ft. Benning, Georgia for his first training and will be there until April 28th I believe and then will be headed to Ft. Knox, Kentucky for his next training and will graduate that one on August 28- the weekend before our wedding. He will have to remain at Ft. Knox for the next week and will then head home the night before our big day.

I am still able to talk to Matthew on the phone most days and we have email, web cam, and snail mail to help keep in touch and get each other through this time apart. I will probably getting to visit once while he is at Ft. Benning and we are unsure about the visits at Ft. Knox. Although Ft.Knox is only about a 3 hour drive we have been told that Matthew will have very few weekends off- which would mean not many visits possible, but we'll see if that holds true or not and I am sure we'll see each as often as we can.

The first few days of Matthew being gone we're pretty rough for me (and I think his first weekend free was a little rough for him) but things are getting better and it feels a little easier (most of the time) as the days pass- we're making it through alright so far. Only about 5 1/2 months to go!!



Below are pictures of us packing/preparing Matthew for his 6 month adventure of training:

Military Ball

February 27 was The Ohio State University Army ROTC's 100th annual Military Ball and because Matthew was working for the ROTC program during his time between commissioning and his first training we had the pleasure of attending. Below are a couple pictures:

just becase he loves me :)

So I love, love, love getting flowers and Matthew has been getting pretty good at that whole deal! I somehow get lucky enough to get flowers for most milestones in my life (like happy birthday flowers, congratulations you passed your social work licensure exam flowers, I'm so proud of you for making it through another quarter of grad school flowers, etc.) but one day- just an ordinary day, with no major accomplishment recently past or near in sight I came home and opened the door to... flowers...just sitting on my counter. Beautiful flowers just awaiting me- and for no reason at all. No reason other than just because he loves me :)

Just because he loves me and because he wanted me to know that although he was going to have to be away for 6 months- he loves me no matter where he's at :) And although I know that (or I wouldn't be marrying him-haha) it is so nice to be reminded of those little things in life that mean the most. It is nice to be reminded everyday in some way of our wonderful love!!

I love when my family visits!

Saturday February 21 Grandma Spaeth flew out of Columbus headed toward Tampa (lucky here) which meant she needed a ride, which meant my family would be bringing her, which meant a family visit!! :) The family (mom, dad, Britt, Austin & gma) came to pick me up so Grandma could see my apartment- then we went out for lunch and dropped Grandma off at the airport. Once we left the airport we did some tie finding and bridesmaids/mother of the bride dress shopping, then went to mens warehouse to get dad and Austin suits....buuutt I can't make up my mind about groomsmen attire so we didnt end up getting anything (so we still have yet to make any progress in that area) After all our shopping we went out to eat at one of daddy's favorites- Joe's Crab Shack and then hurried back to campus area for a hockey game where we got to enjoy the game from the president's suite. (Oh and Matthew failed to let us know that we'd be trekking in the freezing windy cold to the game so none of us had our cold weather gear- not fun!! So the guys picked us girls up at the door afterwards :) But our night didn't end there, we went home and played apples to apple and the family didn't end up leaving until around 2am. Late night for us, even a later night for them. I definitely enjoyed it though- and I hope they did too because I sure love it when my family visits!!

Braving the Cold Once Again

Probably to most everyone's surprise, and even to my own, (I think) I have done a pretty good job at getting out a braving the cold this year. The latest adventure was working on my skiing skills. Matthew and I went to Mad River Mountain a few weeks ago for me to practice and work toward perfection- that way I'll be ready to hit the real ski slopes out in Colorado-hahahaha I am so very far from perfection and will not even be anywhere near good when we make our way out west. However, I did have fun and I think Matthew had fun solely based on the fact that I was there attempting. I slowed him down quite a bit and probably shortened the time he would have been there by a few hours- but that's okay :) I graduated from the bunny hill after a few times and on our way up to the big girl lift I almost gave up. It turns out I don't have enough strength to move on skis up hill. However I finally made it. Then once we were on the lift and started on our way up, Matthew says "oops this isn't going to the one I thought" I about jumped out of that darn thing-but I rode it out and made it down the slope okay (it really wasn't that bad). Then we headed over to the one he originally meant to take me down and that one turned out to be my favorite so we stuck to that until it started getting too cold and we headed home.

Geocaching in Hocking Hills

Matthew and I went on a little weekend trip to Hocking Hills back at the beginning of February. We stayed in a cabin with a few friends and just kind of hung out a relaxed. We ate some nice home-cooked meals, sat around a bonfire, and enjoyed the hot tub :) One one of the weekend afternoons Matthew and I left the group behind (after they all turned down the offer to join, of course) and we went and did a little hiking and some geocaching. We mostly did the park and grab geocaches due to the weather, however we attempted to get out and hike to one in the Old Man's Cave area but were a little weary of our safety due to the thick, slick, sheet of ice that cover all pathways. We were almost silly enough to attempt the stairs, that was until Matthew almost bit it and then we re-thought our plan. Despite the dangerous icy conditions- it was absolutely beautiful to see the frozen parts of the water falls and all the ice and snow glistening in the sunshine- oh how I/we love nature :) I think we found about 4 caches that day before we had to head back to the cabin for dinner time. That part of the weekend topped it all off and of course was our favorite part, with the bonfires and the hot tub coming in a close.

FYI: This time when I went geocacing I didnt happen to stumble up on any other diamond rings- I think it's safe to say "that's something that just don't happen twice"

Christmas Tree Bonfire

January 31 Matthew and I headed down to his parent's house to visit a bit, enjoy some yummy mexican dinner, and then go to my first ever Christmas Tree Bonfire. The Christmas tree bonfire is exactly that a bonfire made of old piled up Christmas trees. Matthew was excited to take me to this event because he knows how I love bonfires- and he kept telling my how big and awesome the bonfire was and although it turned out to be a good time I was a little skeptical at first as they had trouble getting the fire started and I was outside freezing in the January weather. The cold waiting part wasn't fun but the pretty, warm fire part was a good time. And although to Matthew's credit the Christmas Tree bonfire has been much larger in the past than it was this year- I keep telling him that he still has yet to see what an big fire looks like- the kind of bonfires my dad used to have and people would call the fire department saying there was a house on fire...and just like my daddy always used to say "now that's a fire!"

Pictures from the Christmas tree bonfire are below: