Sick as a Dog

3am

10 pm

We knew that living in the country we should expect to run into snakes, spiders and scorpions. We soon found out it's hard to brief our dog on the rules of not sticking your nose into big, dark holes or getting within stinging reach of scorpions. We're not 100% sure on what exactly stung him in the face, but we're thinking a scorpion. There has been a severe drought here this summer, so the scorpions are continuously on a hunt for water sources which brings them into our house on a daily basis. On this night, I came home from work about 9:15pm and Zeus was fine, greeted me as usual. Around 10pm I noticed his muzzle had these hard bumps beneath the skin, and they were popping up at a scary rate. We gave him some children's benadryl then tried to call the vet. Of course it was a Saturday night and the vet didn't have an emergency phone line. I woke up about 3am to check on him and his poor little face had swelled to the size of a cantelope! As you can tell, he was miserable. We pumped him full of more children's benadryl and other drugs to help him with the pain and swelling. Luckily around noon the following day his face began to go back to normal, and then we got that return call from the vet. He said there was really nothing they could have done except give him more expensive versions of the medicine that we gave him. Thankfully Kit's mother is a nurse and knew what drugs a dog can have and what drugs can be taken with others. Funny thing is, when Zeus comes across scorpions now he veers far away from them and no longer has an uncontrollable urge to shove his nose at them. Old dogs can learn new tricks!

E.M.T.

My husband and I knew our marriage would face some unique challenges and situations. We knew at some point my military career would dictate where we would live, when we could do things, and quite possibly limit or hinder my husband's career choices. Thankfully, I have one amazingly understanding partner in life, and he knew better than I did what all of this would mean. He has gracefully accepted that he will have to put his dreams of becoming a firefighter/police officer on hold (for how long we don't know), but it doesn't mean he has to take it laying down.

For our first assignment we will be at Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo TX for eight to ten months. Eight to ten months is long enough to get a temporary, insignificant job or be a stay-at-home hubby. He definitely doesn't want to play house hubby for that long, and I don't blame him. If the role were reversed, I wouldn't want to stay at home when I knew I could be contributing to our family by bringing in some extra, much needed income. He wanted to work, but he wanted the job to be meaningful and useful for the future. He did a little research and discovered people are more inclined to get hired onto a fire house if they have had some previous paramedic or E.M.T. experience. He was accepted and classes start August 15! The classes run until the beginning of December. We will have to spend a couple months a part, but it is a small sacrifice to make to be able to see my husband still follow the path that he wants so desperately to pursue. I'm one proud wife to see my husband further his education and still chase after his dream. He will make one helluva E.M.T.!

Nature Calls

Hiking

My husband and I are currently living with his very loving and supporting parents in Sulphur, awaiting orders to move to Goodfellow AFB in Texas! Since we've been here we have re-kindled our love for nature and being healthy. We both love being outdoors, but with the 100+ degree heat we plan our time outside carefully. We live five minutes from the Lake of the Arbuckles and twenty minutes away from the Chickasaw National Park. The park has numerous challenging hiking trails, a chilly creek that is perfect for swimming and a wonderful lake that features a 3-mile cemented running path around it. Every week we usually run 12 miles, hike 6 miles and bike 16 miles. With my in-laws and I on weight watchers, we've all been very conscious about what we eat and focused on everything having a nutritive purpose. This new love affair with mother nature makes us feel stronger, but also has given our minds a much needed reprieve. We've even inspired my in-laws to start bike riding again, which has led to all of us exercising together 2-3 times a week. Even though October can't come soon enough, it will be a little sad saying goodbye to the mountains, hiking trails and lakes!

Baby You're A Firework

I love that time of the year when for two weeks I smell everyday of gunpowder and sweat, spend hours outside selling my expertise on the knowledge of firepower, and guzzle up to 120 ounces of water a day. Firework Selling Season!  My uncle owns the stand and has had me selling fireworks since I was about twelve years old. I absolutely love it. I love the manual labor of hauling boxes, working outside and playing saleswoman. The best part is seeing and working with family that I haven't seen since Christmas. One of the benefits of working there for so long is knowing everything there is to know about fireworks, still deciding what to do with all this now useless knowledge stored in my head!

Sadly, this is my last year to work with the family.  I had the opportunity to live in Enid with my parents for 2.5 weeks, and focus on working the stand. Every 4th of July the average person usually cooks out, relaxes and shoots off fireworks. My normal 4th of July is working a 12 hours shift in the heat, and catching tidbits of the local displays in the distance. Wouldn't trade it for a thing. I have had some amazing times, great memories and made some great money! Even though I will always miss the stand every year at this time, we're definitely looking forward to next year engaging in a normal 4th of July!

Europe Bound

When my husband and I first started talking about having children, the first thing we discussed were things we both wanted before we felt like we'd be completely ready to plunge head first into the parenting years. The most obvious was graduating college and having those degrees. CHECK! Then came other things like time to grow, mature and just time to enjoy one another. We definitely aren't in any hurry, no fevers yet! We get our baby fixes with our very close family friends The Spencers, The Campers and  The Houghs who supply us with ample baby playing time! We firmly believe these years we have together facing and devouring what the world has to offer will only build a stronger foundation for our family. Another big  stepping stone we both wanted to see happen was a backpacking trip through Europe. We decided it wouldn't make sense taking a trip like that when we had wee ones at home, and when we would have way better things/people to put our money toward.

Being the adventuresome couple we are, finally took the step of booking that round trip flight out of Paris, France! From there the planning, reserving trains and hostels, and guidebook reading only made us more excited! Originally we wanted to spend 3 weeks in Europe, but given our current situation of being nearly homeless, unemployed college graduates, we decided 1.5 weeks was plenty. Our journey will take us to the DDay sites in France, Paris France, Zurich Switzerland, Rome Italy, and Venice Italy! We truly couldn't of planned this trip without the generous support from both our parents, and we will be forever grateful!

May Mahem

May started off with a bang for us! We brought the month in with a 13.10 mile run for the OKC Bombing Memorial. It was wet, stormy, and cold but the weather made it all the more worth while. We crossed the finish line together hand-in-hand at 2:35:46. We felt amazing that we accomplished something so physically challenging.

Then came graduation weekend! We had the pleasure of having all of our close friends and family join us for a wonderful luncheon at our home, followed by the graduation ceremony. Together we walked the walk and received our diplomas. Later that night, we welcomed the next chapter of our lives with our commissioning ceremony. My brother-in-law, 1Lt. Josh McVay, gave the oath, my parents pinned my rank on and my amazing husband gave my first salute. The whole program couldn't have gone better.

Now for the present....well we had a huge change of plans last week. The AF changed my job from a Biologist! We're saying goodbye to Ohio and hello to Texas.We will spend 6-12 months at San Angelo TX. In the final stages of my job training we will learn where our first assignment base will be. We still don't know our EAD date, could be anywhere from now to May 6, 2012, so right now we wait. We are very excited for the opportunity to have one last irresponsible summer before we plunge head first into adulthood.  Our lease ends in Stillwater May 31, so from there we head to his parent's beautiful lake home in Sulphur to await our next move. Thankfully we both have wonderful sets of parents who support us unconditionally and understand our unique situation. Until then, we'll enjoy our life in limbo!

You and I

Don't you worry, there my honey
We might not have any money
But we've got our love to pay the bills

Maybe I think you're cute and funny,
Maybe I wanna do what bunnies do with you,
If you know what I mean

Oh, let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the South of France
Let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
and teach them how to dance
Let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
Making everybody look like ants
from way up there, you and I, you and I, you and I,

Well you might be a bit confused
and you might be a little bit bruised
but baby how we spoon like no one else
So I will help you read those books
If you will soothe my worried looks
and we will put the lonesome on the shelf

Oh let’s get rich and buy our parents homes in the South of France
Let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
and teach them how to dance
Let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
making everybody look like ants
from way up there you and I, you and I, you and I

Oh, let’s get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of France
Let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
and teach them how to dance
Let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
making everybody look like ants
from way up there you and I, you and I, you and I

As my precious husband was serenading this sweet song to me yesterday, I realized it fit our lives perfectly at the moment. We have so many dreams, maybe not to buy our parent's homes in the south of France :), but dreams nonetheless.