What keeps me going on nights like tonight

So my computer, as of late, has been temperamental at best. I've discovered that HP's have a lifespan of about a year before one thing or another starts to crap out on you. For me, my battery has like zero charging power, my computer overheats and thus causes monitor problems as well as freezing and other various issues. So in the interest of backing up my info in an affordable manner, I'm going to put everything on flash drives, just in case. But there's no use in transferring stuff I don't need anymore, so I'm going through and getting rid of all the junk. I told you that to tell you this.

I'm going through all these photos, and of course a lot of them are getting to me tonight, memories I've made int he last year with my wonderful husband, the man I won't be seeing for a while. Strangely, this one is one that has really struck a chord.

This is freakin' adorable is it not? But it was about to get deleted, because as adorable as my little Willow-Pillow is, I have about a million pics of her doing stuff like this. And then when the little verification box popped up and blocked out my puppy's face, all I could see was that chunk of Hubbs' face that made it in the picture. And I saw his eyes. The way he's looking at me in this picture still stops me in my tracks.

I remember one night when we first started dating, we stayed at his sister's house for a game/movie night. His sister fell asleep on the couch, and the boys went out to talk. I headed to the bedroom we'd be staying in and started getting ready for sleep, putting on my PJ's and finding a movie to watch. My new boyfriend came in the room to let me know he'd only be a few more minutes, he and his sister's boy were having a really good talk. So I of course told him that was fine, I'd put in a movie and go ahead and go to sleep. I'm putting the movie in, and I turn around to reach for the remote and see him there still, standing in the doorway, just looking at me. With that very look in his eyes. When I ask if he's okay, he just says "Yeah, I just wanted to look at you for a few more seconds. I'm so lucky."

And on nights like tonight, I try to stick to one of my favorite quotes, and focus on what keeps me and Hubbs together, rather than what separates us. Those moments are what brought us together, they are the moments in which I feel like all is well in the world, and small moments that I swear I will never forget.

I guess I didn't need to share that, but I feel like it's important to notice little things like that. Like that is God's way of going "Hey, don't forget, everything is gonna be okay".

The Anniversary Blog

Well, the day has finally come! Well, in my time zone, it is still only June 4, 2010. However, wherever my loving hubby is, it is officially our one year anniversary.

June 5th, 2009, I woke up in the morning, knowing that that very afternoon I would become Mrs. Voigt. I dressed nervously, met with my bridesmaids, stopped at Sonic, and headed to Lockhart State Park to tie the knot. Absolutely the most wonderful day of my life.

This is Hubbers and I the evening of our first date.

Needless to say, it's been an amazing, crazy, scary, and wonderful year.

In June, we celebrated my 19th birthday, realized as a married couple we needed our own home, and started looking.

In July, we planned a move, and executed it in one day. We now had our very own apartment and all the responsibility that came with.

In August, the military finally caught up with us and awarded us some BAH, and we got our first puppy, Willow Marie.

In September, we had to deal with a new stressor of paying rent on an old lease. We moved from a two bedroom to a one bedroom apartment, and loved it...for a few weeks.

In October, Hubbers began week long underways. With the exception of three seperate weeks, he would now be gone every weekday, and home only on weekends, until mid April. We missed our first Halloween together, and I experienced my first true fear as a military wife when there was a jet collision over the waters Hubbers was doing his training in. He was out for three extra days, leading a search crew trying to recover bodies. This was also the first time I felt such an intense pride for what he did.

In November, I cooked our first Thanksgiving dinner. We had ham, potatos, devilled eggs, scalloped corn, regular corn, green beans and pumpkin pie. We also decided we'd take our first road trip and started saving for the holiday vacation. I sprained my ankle a day before one of hubby's underways and hobbled around on crutches. The following underway, I contracted what I swore was swine flu. Hubby came home to find me in bed, sicker than i'd been in almost a year. He was home for two nights. That first night was his birthday. He spent his birthday in the ER making sure I was okay rather than party with his friends.

In December, we got to actually spend our holidays together, rather than living across the country. We packed up the truck, and drove 19 hours, Willow in tow, to Texas and had an amazing holiday with our families. We met my nephew for the first time, and really bonded with our new in-laws.

January brought more time apart, but a closeness when we were together.

February marked one year from the day Hubbers proposed to me. It was also the first time I hadn't been "alone" on Valentines day. He brought me tiger lillies, roses, the most perfect stuffed giraffe and Carlos, the huge stuffed bear that I snuggle with now that he's deployed.

In March, we added Bailey Rae to the family. Bailey was infested with fleas and had worms, but Willow welcomed her to the family as warmly as she could.

April was finally the end of underways, and the begining of the deployment countdown. Hubby started a special school and was home every night with me. We got tattoos together and got to lotion eachother's new ink. We also finally had the means to move into a two bedroom apartment again.

In May the real stress began. We relished in our final weeks together, becoming closer than I thought possible. We made final arrangments, and when Hubbers was on leave, he spent the days with me and the baby girl I watch, making me eager more for the days that he'll be with our own child, years down the line. He's going to be an amazing father.

Eventually, hubby got on that big grey boat and left. The remainder of our first year together has been lived together via emails and facebook. Now hubby's dog-tags hang around my neck, and that is how I kiss him goodnight before I turn to sleep every night.

I put a lot of work into this post. Actually more so in the video to follow this paragraph. This is because to me, this post is my celebration of the past year. I haven't decided yet if I'll spend the day quietly lounging around watching movies and ignoring what it is, or if I'll try my best to make it an amazing day, go out to the beach, celebrate with friends, and rejoice in my anniversary. But what I do know is that inevitably, these photos will be playing in my head, as will every little conversation, every night we fell asleep in eachother's arms, every time he wiped my tears away, and every single memory we will make when he returns to me. So I want to share these beautiful memories with all of you, and I hope that you all have the happiness that I have in my life, with this man, in this world.

A Great List for the Week- Why I love My Husband

This week is week two into my first deployment, my hubby's third. So perhaps it's not super great timing for our first wedding anniversarry. We knew he'd miss it when we picked the date, but it was more important to get married than to celebrate an anniversarry together. None the less, I'm very excited and also kinda sad that we aren't together to really celebrate an amazing first year, full of ups and downs, and a billion first-times.

So when I hopped on over to Riding the Roller Coaster, I thought it was funny that her top ten list was "Top Ten Reasons I Love My Husband". Okay, that's not the funny part. The funny part is that she chalks up her mushiness to the fact that her tenth wedding anniversarry is this week, and her husband isn't here to share it with her. I'm not sure if it makes me happy to hear I'm not going through it alone, or sad that even after ten years, the same thing will probably be happening to me. Regardless, Happy anniversary to that wonderful couple!! And here's my list.

Why I Love Ya Baby!

10- At any given moment he can quote one stand-up comedian or another, word for word, even when it's least appropriate.

9- He can sense when something isn't right, and won't let me go on until he knows what it is and tries to fix it.

8- He is a proud member of the U.S. Navy and sacrifices much  to do what he actually loves- serving his country.

7- Though his methods may be off sometimes, he is still insanely encouraging to anything I want to do. Or things I don't want to do, like homework.

6- He is great with children.

5- He puts family above all else.

4- He loves that I play cook every meal and clean up ever mess- but he never stops thanking me or showing me his appreciation.

3. Some intuition of his allows him to always say the right thing at the right time- even if I'm having a bad day, I will probably receive and email that says "Smile, it makes your butt tingle".

2. He simply holds my whole heart.

1. He is nothing but himself. Himself happens to be a loving, passionate, hard working, thoughtful man with a very handsom inside and out.

Joy runs deeper than despair.

(Corrie Ten Boom)

The quote has nothing to do with my post really, but I always have trouble thinking of names for my blogs, so I'm thinking about just using a cool quote to start every one of them off. We'll see how long that sticks.

There are two things that I want to talk about in this post. Firstly, facing my fears. Fears of driving. Once, long long ago, I was a young, independent college girl who took care of my direct needs all by myself. I worked, went to school, and stayed with my parents as often as possible, and I DROVE myself everywhere. Then, I got married and moved to San Diego with me loverly Hubbers. Hubbers has had his truck since 2007 I believe, and it's kind of his baby. That doesn't bother me at all. But as time went on that kind of hindered my confidence on the road. I went so long without driving that when I had to start taking Hubbers to base when he went out to sea, I had to go about an hour early- to be sure I was the only care on the interstate. When we drove home for the holidays, I thought I'd have an actual panic attack in El Paso. When Hubbers drives, sometimes I spend the whole ride gripping the "oh shit' bars and closing my eyes. It's that bad.
But, this morning, I had to go to El Cajon to pick something up. We live in La Mesa, and to get to El Cajon, you pretty much hop on I-8 and take it all the way there. All interstate. The interstate that scares the crap out of me. But it had to be done, and let me tell you, I feel like I have been scared for no reason at all. It was a peice of cake. Maybe it's Hubbers' driving that scares me haha. The feeling I got when I made it to my destination was so much stronger than I expected. I had this wave of satisfaction. I finally feel like I'm in control again- I'm literally in the drivers seat now. I have no problem sharing that seat with my husband, but to be able to take it on myself is something I didn't know I was missing. My confidence level shot up in that half hour. Yay me!!

Secondly, I want to mention what it is I had to go pick up. My prince, my Hubbers, got me a new wedding ring set. I love my old one, of course. It's the one he put on my finger the day we said "I do". But one diamond has already fallen out. And the beast from our past (the woman we lived with when we got married, mother in the family he lived with for  years) is the one that actually picked it out. This new set is so special because Hubbers went to finish some paper work, while I stayed home waiting to sell our old couch- and he came home with the ring. I love that he still does things like that. He handed me be Kay's bag, so casually, which was almost sad because I was hoping he'd have a romantic gesture in mind. But then, the box was empty, and he came up behind me, slipping the ring on my finger.
Last Saturday, he came home early in the morning from duty and told me to get ready to go to the zoo. I know he wasn't excited about the trip but he knew I wanted to go before deployment, and he made it happen. That's not the best part. When I told him first we'd have to get online and see what time the zoo opened, and how much my ticket would be (he gets in free, that lucky man), he already knew. I know it's silly that that's what made my day. But he spent the night before looking it up at work, planning our day so that he could come home and surprise me. Things like that make me so happy. I told him that- that that's what was so important, because it's lovely to know that he still thinks of me even when he's not actually with me. It's a comforting thought before this long seperation from eachother.

Anyways, here are some pictures from the zoo. Only a few of the many I took.

I know the picture above looks like a shitty, random picture, but it's actually amazing, because the panda was nursing as we walked through the exhibit!!

And of course, the ring!

Back to blogging!

Well, it has been quite a while, and still not much has happened. As you have read in past blogs, Mike has been gone for the majority of the last month or so. While I missed him dearly, I am proud to say that my husband was involved in the rescue efforts for the collision of a Marine Copter with a Coast Guard plane. I was very shocked at how much the tragedy shook me up, as well as the Fort Hood shooting that followed, but I guess for the first time reality really hit me on the dangers that not only every day people face by going out into the world, but also that our soldiers and sailors face, even when not on duty overseas or otherwise. I would just like to take a second to say that we are very sad for the families that lost people in the recent tragedies, and we hope their souls rest in peace.
On a lighter note, I did not get nearly as much accomplished as I had hoped in my husband's absence. The first half of his being gone I hobbled around on a bum ankle, and the last two weeks I had a horrible case of the flu, in which I learned that military hospitals will nearly always have atleast a three hour wait in the emergency room. I did, however, manage to try the little recipe I got from Emily, who got the recipe here This is a double decker pumpkin pie, and while the picture I took do not do it justice, it was absolutely amazing!!

I'm also putting up some updated pictures of the adorable Willow, as she has hit a growth spurt, and a picture of my very handsom husband sporting the new working uniform, as I know a few women on my side of the family that would love to see how well-dressed the Navy keeps its sailors these days. I am very excited to soon be posting our Thanksgiving photos, along with the Christmas tree I am so anxious to put up! Happy pre-holidays to all!

Mike in Uniform

She loves the camera


I guess it was too bright for her nap?

Getting ready for a long few weeks.

First I wanted to show everyone our first [succesful] jackolantern together!!
Mike will be going out to sea for another underway this week. That wasn't the original plan, but since the last week got messed up they have to be gone this week, and the next three. He does get to come home on weekends but his duty days kind of clash with those. Unfortunately he has duty on his birthday also, so he will be gone for over an extended period of time that week. I have to say this underway really snuck up on me and I am not in the right state of mind at all. I'm not so prepared as I was the last time but when we are done with this one, we don't have to worry about it again until deployment, and I KNOW that won't sneak up on us since I have plenty of time to prepare.
I also want to share a photo of my nephew and I, sort of together. This was his mom's idea and I thought it was really cool. Since we can't be together, this is our way of bonding when he goes over to my parents house for time with Gramma and Grampa.
Micah and Aunt Mikey