What To Expect When You're Expecting

What to expect when you're expecting your first year of law school as a couple? 

This was our first question when we found out this was really what we were going to be doing for the next three years. It's funny because when we were embarking on the active duty military life for the first time we didn't need any explanations. My husband already had a good grasp on it, and I had family members to turn to to ask questions if need be. This territory is all new to us. So of course, I googled law school spouse blogs (yes they actually exist), while my husband read up through books and articles the harsh reality of what he's about to do.

First thing that popped up was the divorce rate for law students. No bueno...but neither is the divorce rate for military couples so we quickly shrugged it off. I read a lot about what to expect from your spouse, being that the first year is usually the hardest. I read things like they'll be "working" 60-70 hours a week, so make sure you keep up things like the household duties, cooking, etc. Keep the marriage alive with fun dates to take their minds off the stress while realizing law school in only 3 years long and your marriage is a lifetime, so keep it in perspective. Be patient with their frustration levels. Most law students are accustomed at being the top 10% of their college graduating class, and they've "figured out" their learning style and were highly successful at it. Law school rocks their world in that sense to the core. I read and liked this excerpt:

"To begin with, first year law school classes actually disrupt the learning process. The manner in which the classes are taught lends a net negative pedagogic benefit -- students lose ground by attending classes. The ABA (American Bar Association) has made class attendance mandatory. So excellent students go from learning easily and really enjoying it to being disrupted and finding classes painful. Next, college seniors in the to 10% or so of their classes are used to being respected and well treated by their professors. They are used to consideration, patience and respect. First year law class professors consider the students untried raw meat, 95% worthless. The change is often a dramatic shock for students.

Finally, 90% of the class will not be in the top ten percent. That seems pretty obvious, but in most law schools, 90% of the class (or more) is used to being in the top 5% (or top 1%). For most students, law school means that they will have failed (since not being in the top 10% means failure to them). Worse, the grading method in law school is extremely arbitrary and guarantees a result more random than fair (especially in the first year when all the important grades, rankings, admissions to co-curricular programs and 1st clerk ships are all determined)."

After all our reading, we surprisingly still want to go through with this. Crazy huh? In some ways us being hundreds of miles away might be a blessing. My husband won't feel that underlying pressure to spend time with me when he should be studying. When we DO get time in person together it'll be quality time with no distractions. Down sides, he'll have to do his own cooking, laundry and cleaning but I'm sure he'll welcome those little study breaks when the time comes. 

In some ways the reading has eased our minds about what's to come, and in other ways it intimidates us. Luckily, we've faced challenges similar to this before and come out on top. We will focus on the positive, celebrate EVERY semester he's accomplished as it comes and continue to support each other even if it's from a distance. We'll embrace the suck, keep everything in perspective, and never stop communicating. Ah the power of positive thinking!

MLK Weekend in TX/OK

We had one helluva MLK Day Weekend, so hold on folks because it was a crazy one!

As I blogged before, the McVay family started out the new year with a TDY to Texas. It felt really hard leaving my husband after he’d only been home for four months, but we didn't have a choice. {Putting on big girl panties in 3…2…1…} In all reality it’s a relatively short time apart compared to what we've been through before, it’s just bad timing. Any who, we worked a way out that my husband could come visit me for a week while I was in Texas! The visit was a quick whirlwind, but so worth having him here while I could.

First, we had the opportunity for my husband to meet our 1 year old niece Elise for the first time!

First picture together!

Elise with Uncle Kitty

Then after about 8.5 hours of driving we made it to his parent’s house, which my husband hasn't seen since they bought it while he was deployed. It was a great reunion, and the first time his parents have had their home so full of family. You could see how full of happiness they were in their eyes. That alone made all the driving worthwhile. We relaxed, played with the pups, shopped and even got a good family run in! The only thing that would have made that weekend perfect was if my brother-in-law could have been there too, stupid deployment! We definitely missed him. We didn’t want to leave, but my quick-thinking husband scheduled a law school interview last minute with a school in Oklahoma as soon as he found out we’d be in that area anyway. He either could have done the interview over Skype or in person, so the stars aligned and it just worked out perfectly that they could see him on the last day we’d be in Oklahoma.

Us McVay women are lookers!

Play Time

Visited Kit's Grandma, the sweetest.

Cal and Rip

Never short on attention!

Yes our McFamily is all in sweats but that's not important. What's important is that we're TOGETHER. Celebrate it when it happens!

Back on the road again! I was way more nervous than he was about his interview. He’s so confident, intelligent and knows himself so well that it left little room for pesky nerves. He told me not to get my hopes up, so I didn't but it was hard quenching my excitement. I dropped him off, gave him a good luck kiss and sent him on his way! While he was touring the campus and fighting with words for a chance at an opportunity of a lifetime…I headed to meet a friend for coffee!

My friend and I don’t have a lengthy history together, but sometimes that doesn't matter. We connect on many different levels, and sometimes it’s just so refreshing to talk to a strong, independent, fight-for-want-you-want, driven woman. Especially when I’m surrounded by men all day back home. She gave me a tour around the city, much needed woman time and it was wonderful. Thank you girl!

Afterwards, I picked up my husband and he’s smiling. Good sign! He liked the campus and said in many more words then what I am, that the interview went very well.

Lastly, she’s recommending me for admission!

AH!! He always builds it up and leaves the best for last! Now, this doesn’t mean he’s accepted, just that she’s recommending him to the board of advisers. The entire drive home (8 hours to be exact), we talked about what if’s, how are we going to do’s, and can we’s. This road trip came at the perfect time given we had so much running through our heads.

The next day, I come home from class and my husband tells me those three words I’d been dying to hear since he decided to pursue law school…

I Got In!!

WHAT!?! Hell yes! He officially got accepted into Tulsa’s School of Law.  What are the odds he’d get accepted so quickly and while we’re still in the same city? I’m so grateful that we got to be together to celebrate this incredible news. This doesn't mean he's going there quite yet, we still have time to decide, but excited nonetheless! Along the same line, and within minutes of each other, we found out a military family that we’re really close with is getting PCS’d (moved) back to Tulsa OK! They've been overseas for a while and have tried hard to return, but it’s been impossible until now. Looks like Tulsa is the place to be! Finally, we went out for our last date night that we’ll get for the next month and enjoyed our favorite eats and drinks in Texas.

Our FAV pub

Cheers!

"He's Accepted" Face!

The McVays say, "Challenge Accepted".

What a chaotic, exhausting, incredible, milestone of a weekend. Many firsts, 19 hours total of driving, over 900 miles, new faces and some great memories. It was all flying by so fast I had to force myself to drag out my camera to capture the “firsts”, but I’m sure glad I did. I always tell my husband, “I want our family to celebrate the little things.” And that’s exactly what we did. Celebrate the little wins in life because it helps you stand stronger against the losses. I’m very proud of our little family right now.  

Deployment Aftershocks

Just like last year, I'm kicking off this new year with more school! I have training in Texas again, except this time no Zeus...or Kit. We decided it was best for him not to come with me since we'd have to board Zeus for 7 weeks (pricey!), and he's almost landed a job at home. This decision came surprisingly pretty hard for both of us, especially since it's been less than three months since he's been home.

Not sure if other spouses go through this after a long, emotionally taxing deployment, but when we found out I'd have to leave for 7 weeks my mind went right back into that mode when I had to send my husband off overseas. I felt anxiety, sadness and half my brain kept saying, "We'll be separated again for so long, it's going to be tough, very little communication, etc." when in all actuality it's only 7 weeks. Easy after being apart for almost 11 months, and this is what the other half of my brain was saying. One half of my brain is emotionally battling the other half of my hysteric brain, and it was an emotional roller coaster those couple days before I flew out. I found myself having to soothe myself, weird right? "Andie, we'll have FaceTime, daily calls and texts..." At times I felt like poor Smegal! Again, I was pretty grateful for my understanding husband. He soothed me and made me feel a lot better about leaving, and hey what are best friends for?

Once I arrived and settled I started feeling better. I even spoke to another classmate who really brought me back to reality. They're married with two kids and just returned from a deployment in September. After they finish this training they're heading straight back overseas for a year long tour with no stop off at home and with only a four month break to recoup. This really made me realize that it could be worse, much worse and to just take deep breaths and calm that side of my crazy brain.

I know that I'm a strong person, but sometimes a girl just has her tough moments. Sometimes something that would seem relatively easy, grows into a mountain that seems impossible to climb. I'm just incredibly grateful for the gentle support and understanding people I have in my life. They're my ropes that I never knew I needed to climb these "mountains", and I couldn't ask for better quality.

I know experiences we go through in life shape and mold us into who we are in the present. I'll just have to work a little harder than usual to not let my husband's deployment after-effects affect me negatively. One step at a time!

3-Day Juice Cleanse

I'm sure everyone can relate to the feeling that always seems to follow the holidays. You know what feeling I'm referring to...the bloated, stuffed, clogged, fat, greasy feeling. Well we sure felt it here in our home, so we decided to do something about it!

3 Day Juice Cleanse!

We've had friends complete this before and really loved the feeling they got and the detox they felt. We've watched documentaries, read research and asked people who have done them. Finally we decided to go for it. This is a great site to read if you're considering it!

http://www.rebootwithjoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/RBWJ_3-dayplan-11-05.pdf

We decided on only a 3-day cleanse, especially since it's our first one we didn't want to go to extreme. We juiced 5-6 times a day and each recipe makes about 12-16 oz. We juiced each one once a day, then picked our favorites for the repeats. Here are the recipes we chose from everyday, each recipe makes one serving!

Carrot-Kale Combo
1 Green Apple
3 Handfuls Spinach
6-8 Kale Leaves
4 Large Carrots
1 Piece Ginger (thumb size)

Green Lemonade (Our Fav)
1 Green Apple
3 Handfuls Spinach
6-8 Kale Leaves
1/2 Cucumber
4 Celery Stalks
1/2 Lemon

All Green
(Use as much greens as needed)
Romaine
Kale
Spinach
2 Handfuls Parsley
2-3 Celery Stalks
1/2 Lemon
1 Piece Ginger

Apple-Beet-Carrot
1 Apple
2 Beets
3 Large Carrots
1 Piece Ginger
Spinach/Kale (optional)

Mean Green
1 Bulk Kale
4 Stalks Celery
1 Cucumber
2 Green Apples
1/2 Lemon
1 Piece Ginger Root

This is the juicer we're using, Jack LaLaane Power Juicer. We got it for Christmas last year. It's a hoss! Juices like a charm, very sturdy and easy to clean and assemble/disassemble. 

Also, if you're thinking you don't have the money for this, you're wrong. We calculated up how much we'd need of each vegetable to get us through three days (for two of us) and even went to Publix to get our produce (not as cheap as Walmart). We spent a total of $65.16. Divide that by 3, that's $11/day/person. Definitely affordable. 

Day 1: We felt drained. My husband especially because while you're fasting you aren't suppose to have any caffeine, vitamins etc. He's a cup of coffee every morning kind of guy, so he had a huge headache most of the day. Personally, I felt a little light-headed once or twice and a little drained but nothing too bad. We drank about 80 ounces of water each so we peed like crazy. Every time we felt that twang of hunger, we'd juice, so really didn't feel hungry at all. We ended up juicing 5 times this day. The beet drink was the hardest to get down...yuck! Lost almost 4.5 pounds in one day, probably mostly water though. No diarrhea or weird stomach issues yet.

Day 2: Felt more energetic. Still peed a ton. No headaches and still solid stool! The drinks were a bit easier to get down, didn't taste as bad as yesterday. We did see a Papa John's commercial and start drooling though. Today was HARD to not cheat, especially with a cupboard of perfectly good bread, lunch meat, cheese and soups waiting on you. My husband even had a referee meeting at a local Pizza Hut tonight, but only had one piece and felt yucky afterwards. Rock-star!

Day 3: I had to go to work, so I took juice with me. No temptations at work so it was easy to stick to it. My husband finally felt his energy come back. Today is also my birthday, so we ended the day with salad, miso soup and sushi! It was a nice ease back into food.

Overall, I think it helped flush us out for sure. We felt less icky, weighted down and at the end had our energy back that we lost over the holidays. We also got a jump start on our weight loss, bonus! Coming off a cleanse though, we had to be careful. We couldn't run to the nearest Papa Johns and load up, and really we didn't want to for some strange reason. We had to ease our bodies back into solids. We first had salads and soybean broth soup. Then ate a little sushi, we missed protein! We never had a "colon blowout" as my endearing husband kindly refers to as diarrhea. Also, seven days later I'm still keeping 4 pounds from the total 6.5 that I lost during the cleanse. Maybe it wasn't all just water! We'd do it again for sure, but next time try for maybe four days instead of three, just to see if there's more of a difference.

Here's to starting off 2014 clean and detoxed!

26th Birthday

Another year older and first step into my late twenties officially.

26!

I don't feel old, but I'd be lying if my maternal clock didn't start slightly ticking today!

The main thoughts I keep having are just simply how grateful I am for the changes this year is already bringing. This time last year I was border lined depressed, sitting in a empty hotel room far from home alone with a pitiful Lean Cuisine from a quik store. I even tried FaceTiming my in-laws but quickly choked up. I felt sorry for myself, alone and it was awful. Definitely my worst birthday to date. Well thank God it's over. Moving on to better memories!

This year is quite the opposite. I'm with the one whom I love above all others. I'm not alone. I'm content, extremely happy, cuddled in the warmth of our home and ringing in another year older with a smile on my face. I have all I need curled up at my feet and draped around my shoulders. What more could a girl want to start out her late twenties?

26 years old, Whoop Whoop!

Made from scratch, frosting included! His first one and it was perfect.

My oh-so-handsome cake chef!

This birthday I am enjoying having my cake and eating it too! Here's to a wonderful new year and the end of the holidays officially in the McVay House!

4th Anniversary

January 1, 2014 makes four years married for The McVays. Four Years! It's crazy all the things two people can experience in four years. 

4 Moves.

3 States.

2 College Graduations.

6 Countries.

1 Dog.

1 Deployment.

I look at this man before me today with more love than I had on that first day I whispered those 3 words to him. How is that possible? I think it's because I feel like I know him so much better now. Time has slowly unveiled his quirks, faults, wonders, strengths, and just purely...him to me. I appreciate him for every single ounce, good or bad. Four years ago I thought I knew the man I was marrying, but standing here today with him beside me, I had no idea the wonderful life partner I was blessed with. He's my biggest fan, listening ear, best kisser, greatest hug giver, most silly make-you-laugh guy, killer uncle, giving, kind, courageous, bow tie wearing husband of mine and I couldn't be more lucky. We've built our life together from the ground up, and we believe the sky is our limit. 

Here are some photos we took today to remember our four years together!

Because we can't be too serious

Love a man in a bow tie

This year I bought him engraved "KKM" cuff links to accessorize his ever growing style.

He gave me a beautiful scrapbook he made, reminding me of our home here together since I'll be leaving for a couple months very shortly. Yes, it made me cry at the restaurant. I don't even care, because it's the sweetest thing ever.

Lastly, I made him a mounted travel map to document places we've been together, plan to go and dream of going. He's been wanting one for awhile, so I was glad to make one for us.

Dinner at our favorite place, Firefly

We didn't do anything crazy to celebrate our lives together today, but we did exactly what we wanted to do. We spent the day together, took photos, ate a wonderful meal and watched our alumni football team by a roaring fire. We may be low-key homebodies, but at his point who cares. We love our "old-people" ways!

Cheers to four beautiful years together my love!

The Spencer Family Visit

First, let me start off by telling you how we came to know the Spencer's. My husband went to Olive Junior/High School (small school in rural OK), and because friends with Wes around ninth grade. They also joined the same Army Reserve Unit and have been great friends ever since. They even deployed together this last year and had each other's backs. Definitely a bond that runs deep. Naturally I came to know them through my husband.

Jenna and I became friends almost instantly. She's so down to earth, independent, real, no-drama and no-nonsense. My kind of girl. Our boys left for Army training frequently together, so we'd meet up and talk about life, missing them and future plans. In college we'd drive to their house twice a month for dinners and fun nights in the country. We were even at the hospital when their son Jaxon was born. We became especially close when our husband's deployed together. She was definitely my biggest support system, aside from my husband, that I had through that time. So when they said they wanted to come visit us in Florida, we were ecstatic!!

We love visitors and love having time with them and their growing children. We went to the playground, hit the beach, had fun movie nights at home, took family pictures, fished, fed goats, cooked many family meals and even tried chocolate gravy for the first time, shopped, rung in the New Year together, and even snuck away for a girl's night out. Here are some photos from their stay!

She has them catering to her already!

Trying to keep her occupied while everyone sleeps!

Family Photos

Jenna + Wes

Best Friends

Ready to fish with his Nemo pole!

Off they go

Fisherman Jaxon

Mom was cringing at all the sand she was eating!

Happy NYE!

They made it until midnight!

Spencer family starting 2014 together!

The McVays on NYE

Looking for crabs

Having them here was SUCH an incredible blessing. It warms our hearts playing with the kids, and getting to spend some quality time with them. Also, to say we missed Wes and Jenna is an understatement. We went from seeing them multiple times a month to now just once/twice a year. We definitely count ourselves lucky to love and call them family. We miss them already, so until next time!!