Ricky's Anniversary/Birthday Present

 This is Ricky's present. He somehow talked me out of getting a new car for our anniversary present and into getting him a new bike for his anniversary/birthday present. I honestly don't mind though, cause now I get to be that super cool hot chick on the back of the bike!

He is so excited to learn how to ride it. Unfortunately for him we are going out of town on Monday for 3 weeks so he has to wait till we get back.

For all those people out there who might be wondering about the bike it is a Buell Blast, 500 cc, 1 cylinder. I don't know what most of that means but I don't think I really need to, considering I don't plan on driving it anywhere anytime soon, or ever... :) And I'm ok with that. 

Valentines Day Present

Ricky has been wanting to get a bigger and better TV for about a year now. We had agreed that eventually we would get one but I honestly didn't think it would be soon. So Friday we went to town and we decided to go window shopping and just get an overall price range for TVs and sound systems, to sort of know what we were going to eventually have to pay. Well we found a really good deal at sears. We had agreed to wait till Tuesday to get it, but we changed our minds and decided to go back and get it that night. Lucky we got there when we did cause 3 other people showed up after us for the exact same TV, unfortunately for them we got the last one in stock. 

So to sort of justify getting it we decided to call it our Valentines Day present. 

Now I just have to figure out a way to get him away from it. 

He's home!!!!

Ricky's home! Life is once again wonderful. 

He's only been back a week so we're still in the processes of getting used to one another again. 

But even though we have each grown and changed while apart we still love each other more then anything in this world and life has never been better!

SNOW!!!

So as most everyone knows snow has come. A lot of it, and Abilene was not the exception. We got quite a bit, and it's actually stuck around for more then a day. Of course all the schools are closed, and a lot of the stores have been closing early as well. In fact I haven't had to work the last 2 days because of the weather. So you may ask yourselves, "Audrey, what did you do with yourself if you didn't work for two days and have pretty much been snowed in?" Well I'll tell you...

I cooked, more then I have for all of January. I tried to make tamales. They didn't turn out great but now I know that I can only improve on them from here on out.

But since the tamales didn't really turn out I had to make something that did, so I made mini banana bread loafs. Those did turn out really well. I ate two loafs that first day. 

I also tried to experiment with my muffin recipe and well those didn't turn out good at all. I also made pretzels. Those were delicious and are all gone. I would have gotten a picture, but I was to enjoying them too much and then they were gone. 

I've actually really enjoyed just spending my days at home, but today I was stir crazy and I needed a few things from town so I braved the weather and went to town. I don't ever remember driving on 2 inches of ice before now but I am glad that I was taught how to drive on ice, which is more then most of Abilene can say. I didn't get stuck and I wasn't ever scared of being out of control. Ricky, if only you could have seen me, I'm pretty sure you would be so proud. I drove like a pro! :) 

Progress on my project

Anyone who reads this knows that I have been doing a lot of projects lately. Well I have finally made quiet a bit of progress on my latest one. 

It has gone from this...

To this...

To this.

I'm almost done. I'm still trying to decide if I want to leave it white, or if I want to paint it a different color since all my walls are white. Or if I want to do a design on it. I don't know. What do you all think I should do? Any suggestions would be welcome cause I'm just kind of stuck.

Story time

If your wondering why is there a picture of an iphone don't wonder for too long. There is a story that goes along with this picture just below.

The story goes as follow... Not to long ago, Ricky was doing laundry, and without really thinking put a pair of pants in without checking the pockets, which isn't like him. Even he said it was weird for him to do that. And wouldn't you know it, he had his phone in them. He didn't realize until it was to late to save the phone. Needless to say he was very upset, so in order to help him feel better I told him that we could just upgrade his phone and I would send that to him. He agreed and that was the plan for about one night, but the next day he decided that I should upgrade my phone and just send him my old one, that way if he did end up destroying another phone it wouldn't be the new one. So I readily agreed and now I have the new iphone, and he has my old one. So for anyone who is reading this just know that my husband is the best, cause even though I was going to give him the new phone, he gave it to me instead. 

Thus the photo.

100 Days of Deployment

Deployments... Not the fun-est thing to go through, but they definitely give one time to really get to know ones self. 

This is what 100 days of deployment looks like through my eyes, and my camera. (If you actually read my blog you might recognize most of the pictures. I'm sorry but your just going to have to deal with me going over everything since Ricky left.)

The very first picture is one Ricky took. I really like it. It feels like a good deployment picture.

This is how I've been able to talk to and see my husband for the last 100 days. Still it's better then nothing.

 This is the very first of my projects. It was from mutual but still a project all the same.

 I reorganized the bathrooms, to mix things up and give me something to do.

 I started christmas shopping early.

 I made this to store all of the coins Ricky's gotten, until we can find a better way to put them on display.

 I started and finished this project all within about a week. I was desperate for something to do.

 My poor puppy got sick and I had one of the most challenging weeks of my life, but I know now that without that week I wouldn't have found my strength as an individual.

 More christmas shopping. This is Ricky's.

 I got my most awesome camera. I love it!

 I got a 30% off at Kohl's with my charge card, plus my employee discount so I went a little crazy and got a lot things that I thought Ricky and I would enjoy having and called them Christmas presents. 

 As you can see they are random but totally worth it.

 Well... I guess I could have said no to this one but too late now.

 I got a Christmas tree to help me get in the mood for Christmas.

 I hung out with friends who were kind enough to invite me over for dinner regularly so that I didn't have to cook for one.

 I put my camera to use and took some photos of some friends. (I really enjoyed doing this and am hoping to do more of it. HINT HINT)  :)

 I went home and was greeted by the loving faces of my family. Doesn't he look so excited to see me.

 I spent a lot of time with family, both mine,

 and Ricky's. I really enjoyed getting to know my new little brother in-law. 

 And it was great to spend time with the in-laws in general. Thank you guys for completely making me apart of your family!

 I was lucky enough to be home when my sister in-law had her baby girl. I love babies!

This is Abby. She is absolutely gorgeous and was so awake when I was taking pictures. I loved it!

 I started a new project. I hope it turns out good, but we will see since I don't really know what I'm doing and am just kind of winging it.

And just recently, (Wednesday night) we had a combined activity for mutual where we hoped to teach our youth about etiquette. It actually went over very well. 

So that has pretty much been a fast forward of what I've been doing since Ricky has been deployed. But the best part of reaching 100 days is that I don't have too much longer before he comes home! I can hardly wait!