There is always something to be thankful for: Hello to a New Year

Here we are again, another year down and a new year starts TOMORROW! This year has brought happiness and joy, along with sadness and heartbreak. No year will ever be filled with only happy days, but it's only what you make of it! I am very thankful to have experienced 2013 in the best way possible and am excited for what this new year of life will bring.
My TOP TEN moments that I am thankful for in 2013..DRUM ROLL PLEASE!
1.Healthy family members
2.Married my husband

3.Traveled to MEXICO

4.Made new friends 

5.Precious time spent with family and friends

6.Left my teaching job to begin a new life in a new state(bittersweet moment)

7.started my BLOG
8.Bought our first home
9.BUILT our first home
10.My sweet beautiful niece Olivia turned 1!!

Ryan and I will be ringing in the NEW YEAR in down town Destin watching fireworks and listening to awesome live music. Happy New Year to all!

Arkansas Living: part 2

Well Part two was not written as quickly as I thought it would have been. I was swept away from blog land with my crazy life! As of now, Ryan will graduate in the second or third week of January and head back to his home base in NC to outprocess while I will stay in FL until he is finished. Once he is done we will visit home in West Virginia (his side of the family) in March and then drive down to NC, pick up Ryan's stuff in storage, drive to FL, pick up my things in storage and then head to TEXAS! It's going to be a whirlwind and we are MORE than ready to be settled in our new home!
So let me backtrack to our second half in Arkansas. We didn't quite get to hike and do as much outdoors becuase the weather got cold and the ground was covered in ICE for a while so I am going to share two of my FAVORITE crock pot receipes(remember that it was my only source of cooking) that I made while we were there.
My first favorite receipe (and Ryans) was a delicious and super easy pulled pork. Here is what you will need:
1 boneless pork shoulder (3 lb.)
1 1/4 bottle sweet baby rays BBQ sauce
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. paprika
This is SO EASY.. are you ready?
in a bowl mix up the sugar, BBQ sauce, and paprika together
next put the pork shoulder in the crock pot and pour the mixture over the meat. Let the meat cook on LOW for 8 hours(it may take a little longer depending on your cooker).
After it has been in for 8 hours, pull(shred) the meat. My meat practically fell apart. Mix the shredded meat in with the sauce in the crock pot and let it cook for another 25-30 mintutes.
Sorry for the shortage of pictures in this post.. I didn't take any of the food I cooked! So dissapointed in myself for that!

This is my crock pot and it BARELY fit the pork shoulder in it. SO I suggest to use one that is a little bigger than this. I just cut it in half. It fit, but it was still a little snug.
Ryan loved this and I will absoluely be making it again!
The second receipe, is a pineapple BBQ chicken (can you tell we love bbq?) This recepipe was easier than the last one and equally as delicious. All you need for this receipe is one can of pineapple chunks (you can use slices but I prefer the chunks because I like to eat them with my chicken), one bottle of hawaiian bbq sauce, and 4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
This is ALL you need to do:
Put the chicken breasts in the crock pot, dump the pineapple chunks(drained) onto the chicken, and then dump the bottle of bbq sauce on top of that! Let the chicken cook on LOW for 6 hours or HIGH for 3 hours.
This is what it looked like once it was done in the crock pot.

Let me know if you have questions on any of the receipes!

Arkansas Living

Arkansas is a beautiful state and we have been super lucky to enjoy it's beauty! As I said before, Ryan is in training here for his new job until January (2 and a half more months).. and we are hotel living on base! I am based in FL until he is finished but I am constantly back and forth from Arkansas to FL visiting him for weeks at a time. So any opportunity we can get out of this hotel, we do it! We love to get outdoors and we have been hiking a lot at Pennicle Mountain State Park! I highly reccomend the trails there, if any of you are ever in the Little Rock area. Here are a few snapshots of the beauty we captured on a few of our recent hikes...

It's October and it's PUMPKIN PATCH SEASON!! I am in LOVE with Fall weather.. so it was a given that we were going to to a pumpkin patch. I went home to FL in the beginning of October to visit for my Niece's first birthday and her party and we went to a patch and corn maze together(my mom, brother, his girlfriend and my niece).

(my brother, Caitlin, my niece Olivia and I in FL)
Okay back to Arkansas!! Ryan and I went to a pumpkin patch and corn maze in Lonoke Arkansas... it's about 20 minutes away from the base. We had a blast despite the fact that we were the only people there without a child... every time we show up somewhere where we are the only couple without a child, I get baby fever. Then Ryan quickly reminds me of how young we are and so not ready for babies right now... he is right and we both have an agreement on when we want to try for babies and it is NOT anytime soon! (sorry mom and dad!) Here are pictures of the corn maze.. it was actually pretty hard! We made a good team though and only lost eachother once haha.

(We took a hay ride around the farm and luckily we were able to get a picture together by this nice lady who had 4 (small) kids in tow.. by herslef..yikes!)
They had a few games to play after the maze and they had our favorite game (kidding) horshoes! Only the horshoes were toilet seats... classy right? It was hilarious so we had to try it out.

ARKANSAS LIVING PART 2.... COMING SOON!

Home is where my mom is

So here I am, sipping on my diet coke and going on day 7 of racking my brain for inspiration on my very first blog post. I've already told you all about myself, my husband and our story of how I became a part of this Air Force lifestyle.
I started this blog mainly for myself to keep track of my life, memories, feelings, adventures etc., but also to share with fellow bloggers, and family and friends our life's adventures.
So here it goes, I pour my heart out about JUST how much i'm going to miss my family when we make our big move to Texas in February!! (for now, Ryan is in Arkansas finishing up loadmaster school and I am back and forth from Florida to Arkansas visiting)

(the place that I call HOME)

My husband has been in the USAF for 6 years now, and has been stationed more than 12 hours away from his home, family and childhood friends for all of those 6 years! So he is more than used to being away from family, and missing the important moments back home. When Ryan and I got married, I knew exactly what I was in for and that there was a 99% chance that I would be moving away from my family, the house that I grew up in, the amazing lifelong friends I have and the BEACH that I live literally 2 minutes away from. That 99% chance wasn't a 100% chance because we were anxiously awating orders to a new base due to the fact that Ryan was in training for a new job AND that job could possibly take him to the Air Force base in my town. I tried not to get my hopes up and I was already preparing myself for him to tell me that we weren't going to be living in my hometown bubble for the next however many years! As much as I was preparing myself, reality hit me hard when he told me that we had received our orders and it wasn't to Florida, but to Texas. Now, yes I know Texas is not horribly far from Florida (13 hours to be exact)... and it could be that we were headed half way across the world.. Which if that did happen, I would deal and life would go on. BUT.. for this small town girl, who is VERY close to her family and her mom is her best friend, it might as well be half way across the world.

I grew up in a pretty tight family that consisted of my mom, dad and older brother, and by all means we were not perfect but we LOVED with all we had! My parents did everything they could to give my brother and I a happy childhood and it was so much more than that! We spent a lot of time camping, going to the beach and the creek etc. as a family. As I got older we grew even closer and today my family and I are closer than ever. I went to college and worked 30 minutes away from home so I also lived at my parents house as I went through school. Up until I married Ryan I lived at home. I am a total momma and daddy's girl!

So lets backtrack to what I started this post about. I am MOVING AWAY from HOME! AHHH! As dramatic as it may sound, I am scared to be away from everything I know. My heart actually hurts to think about not seeing my family every day,not going to every family function, not seeing my BEAUTIFUL niece grow up right in front of me, my beautiful niece forgetting who I am (crazy, I know.. but I do think this). My fears for moving to Texas consist of having no friends, and no family living right next to me. I know that I will be fine and it will take time to adjust to being away from family, as well as meeting new people.
So while I am still dealing with moving away from everything I know, I am so thankful to have the best husband in the world to make this move with and start the next chapter in our life together. There are things that we are looking forward to about Texas, like that it is still in the SOUTH.. I can't live without some southern made sweet tea. We also are looking forward to the outdoor adventures we will have on the lakes, hiking trails and more!
All of my fellow military friends tell me that being away from home gets easier, and I do hope that is the case. Thank goodness for FACETIME, SKYPE AND PHONE CALLS. :)