The End of Summer

I don't know about you, but August is definitely the last month of the summer. When you were still of school age, if you were in the month of September, you were definitely in class, which means no summer.

Today is the first day of September, meaning that in my school-girl heart, summer has officially ended. It was a good summer if I may say so. It was the longest Matt and I have been able to be together in our relationship, so we really had a blast. I moved to Germany, got a house, got some cool friends, and figured out this whole house-wife thing pretty well. But what else does September mean? It means that next month my husband comes home. The boys were scheduled to come home in November, but we heard that the Boots On Ground (BOG) date is November 25th, meaning that most of the guys have to be back by that date. And there is rumor (as always) that the boys will be coming back sooner than that. SO, next month is when my husband comes home!

He's been doing pretty well in Iraq. He just signed up for wireless internet in his bunk so we are finally able to have a long conversation at least over gmail chat in the evenings. We have fun bantering back and forth talking nonsense, but it's so comforting to be able to do that. If we can't do that life just gets to serious! His men have apparently really taken to him and show this by hazing him. Some of the things he tells me are just incredible and I cannot imagine them actually happening because it just tells like a movie. He sent me a picture of him in his uniform though and that's below. Gosh, he is such a stud!



For my birthday Sarah (my aunt) sent me a buttload of scrapbooking stuff, so now, I actually have to get down to it. I had about 3-4 boxes of stuff that I wanted to scrapbook, but it was in no order whatsoever, so today, my project was to make a dent in organizing it. It took most of my day, but I have almost everything in piles according to the year. I probably need to go back and organize it according to the school year instead of the calendar year, but heck, at least it's in like 10 different piles instead of just one! I also threw a bunch of stuff away that I just had no need for anymore.

During my organization I came across a load of letters. I guess I kept all of my birthday/Christmas/valentine's day cards for the past 10 years or so, and it was so much fun to go through them all. I even had notes that my friends would pass me inbetween classes. It's incredible to see how those friendships develop over the years. I even found a $20 bill in birthday letter from someone! Glad I looked through it! I'll consider that my pay for the day.

Apparently, over the years, two people in particular have written me loads of letters. I guess it would make sense, but I was just astonished at the mass of letters I had acquired from them! Both my mother and my grandmother (Lipps) have just sent me tons of letters. Grandma always writes these lengthy letters in her beautiful handwriting, never forgetting any holiday. And mom, she writes me tons of just "I love you!" and "I'm thinking about you!" notes. I guess whenever she finds a cute card or a postcard she just sends me stuff. I can't tell you how loved I felt from these two women. So, to you to ladies, thank you for your love and for always thinking about me! Forgive me if I haven't replied as often as I should, but I have made a plan to get better at it :).

Speaking of my mother, she and my father are going to be arriving in Prague this Friday for "business"--meaning some meetings and lots of play time--and I'm going to be joining them! Then on Wednesday or Thursday I'm going to drive them back here to hang out with me until the 18th. I am so excited to have my family visiting me! And for such a long time too! I love that they can see my house and my life, so they can better understand when I talk to them on the phone and say "I'm in the kitchen," and things like that. Dad and I plan on changing the brake pads on the car, along with the warped front rotors, and we plan to watch the Die Hard trilogy. My mom and I will be spending time scrapbooking, as she has to catch up on the last 23 years. Well, she'll do the first however many and I'll pick up where she leaves off.

Ah, but before my trip to Prague, this Friday there is an event called a Spur Ride. This is where the spouses get to dress up in their soldier's uniform and basically take a day in his shoes. We're going to have a (modified) P.T. test in the morning, move on to first aid, then NBC (eh?), a flat tire change, weapons training, and a mystery event. At the end of the day there's going to be an awards ceremony. I would clearly love to get an award, but I'm really just doing this for fun, to see what Matt goes through, and to join the other women.

Hopefully I'll have pictures to put up on the next post. And hopefully they're not of me getting my butt kicked on Friday!