My Babies

They cuddled up together on their own. They are so entertaining. They wrestle all through the night. I only get to cuddle with them during the day now. Too cute!

Saying Goodbye, for Now and Christmas in MD

Here is a quick picture of the family. The cats didn't seem so excited to be scooped up and forced to be still for a few moments. We didn't prepare them for the photo... :)


Well, Daniel and I had to part on December 9th. It was and will probably always be one of my least favorite parts of the deployment for obvious reasons. When I dropped him off, of course all his team and several other teams were in the same parking lot saying goodbye to families and just passing time before orders were given to move on out. It can be awkward staying there too long, as a wife, but every part of you wants to stay. I had to force myself into the car and drive away. It was no good.

Here we are with another couplef rom his team giving a smile for the camera. I had to stay as positive as I could that day. It was important to be strong for Daniel, the other wives, and for me...

Thankfully, Daniel and his team arrived safely to their final destination and they are adjusting accordingly. He has good things to say. He has a general good spirit about the year's work so he has been encouraging to me already. He enjoys the team and now that the team that was there prior to their arriving is coming back to the US, they can really get into the groove of what they need to accomplish.

I was able to travel up to Maryland to spend Christmas and New Year's with my family. It was a quick drive up there with both cats. They kept me company by constantly letting me know when they needed something or by just sitting in the passenger seat and looking out the window. They really are good companions while Daniel is away.

Sharing Christmas with family was special this year because last year Daniel and I were in Hawaii having our own strange Christmas. We knew he had to deploy the day after Christmas so the day was difficult. I was thankful to be with my loving family during the holiday this year. We celebrated on Christmas Eve Day so we could all be together. It was a good time of reading the prophecies of Christ's birth in the Old Testament and the fulfillment in the New Testament. Sarah and I sang a song for the Christmas Eve service at church. I always value the times I am able to worship side-by-side with my family. It is a true blessing on this earth!

Mom and Dad in DC in front of the Christmas Tree across from the White House. Daddy's big smile is too cute!

I was able to spend some valuable time with my old church family, the Life. New Year's Eve I celebrated with Katy and her family as well as a couple other Lifers. We were able to play some games, chit-chat and most importantly jam through the night. Robert, a wonderful guitarist and violinist, and Katy, a rockin drummer, are very talented musicians and they make it easy to just play for hours and celebrate with music. The night was made even more special when Daniel called me at 12:02 am. I was surprised and ecstatic to hear from him. He knows how to make his wife feel special!

I had an other excellent opportunity to spend time with some Lifers when we all piled onto the metro and visited the Sackler Museum in DC. The museum had a featured exhibit titled, In the Beginning, on ancient Bible manuscripts. I was amazed at what all the exhibit included. There were pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls and codex scraps from the Dark Ages in ancient manuscript. I was truly amazed at how vast the exihibit was. I was honored to be able to view it all. It is such a blessing to have a God who loves us enough to ensure that we have His Word to read daily. Through the ages the Bible has stayed the most important book to ever be written, copied and read. What a blessing! It was a truly great day!

Left to Right: Me, Katrina, Katy, Jenny

After the museum we crashed at Jonathan and Kartina's house for an evening of pizza, conversation, and a truly "illuminating" movie. (Thanks again you two for opening your home on such short notice to a full day event.)

Quick Picture of the Adorable Family: Katrina, Jonathan and precious Aliyah

I headed back to NC on the 2nd of January and have stayed busy since. I will continue on with another post soon.

Thank you for your prayers and support. We love ya'll.

Thanksgiving and New York, New York Continued...

The three MGs...

We had a wonderful time that day as a big family. Someday we will hopefully all be able to spend a holiday in Missouri!

Here is our adorable nephew. He is the oldest and too cute to handle!

To sum up our Thanksgiving holiday was very special with family.

Daniel started his leave the week of Thanksgiving so we planned a trip during the second week of leave. We ended up using free plane tickets to fly to New York City and stay in some friend's apartment in uptown Manhattan. We were so blessed!

Oscar, the newest addition to our family, is trying to be a stow-away. He looks like he doesn't want us to leave him behind. "Maybe I can fit in this suitcase with your clothes Momma."

We had an amazing time. We went to two shows, Phantom of the Opera and Chicago. We took a bus tour at night that showed us around the city and hit all the Christmas decorated sections. It was cold and windy but we loved every bit of it.

The apartment we stayed at was amazing and it was on the same street as Carnegie Hall so we were located close to many sites to explore and enjoy. We walked through Central Park, explored the Metropolitan Art Museum, paid our respects to the World Trade Center site and took the subway everywhere. I am proud of how well we did in manuevering the city. We felt pretty confident when we went out each day because we would look over maps and subway guides before we left. We had such a great time.

Here we are at the Majestic Theatre where Phantom of the Opera ran:

This is downtown during the Christmas Lights Tour . This was taken in a courtyard next to Central Park. Every tree had been wrapped with lights. It was beautiful.


This is the Rockfeller Center Christmas Tree. It is not all its cracked up to be unfortunately. When you get up close you can see that several if not most of the braches were cut off and reattached with tape and zipties. It is much better from afar. It is kinda sad, but I guess it is a large tree to move into a very busy city.

We were so thankful that it did not snow in NY and delay our return home. Everything went relatively smooth. We did have to run like mad through Dulles airport to get to our
flight to NC. That was not fun, but it was still part of memory making when you travel.

We were so blessed during Daniel's leave time in December!

Thanksgiving with Family & New York, New York

It has been a wonderful past month. I can't believe how it has flown by, but when I think of all the wonderful time with family and new friends I can say we are truly blessed.

Our new church has been exactly what we prayed for. When we left Hawaii our prayer was for a church family that would be as wonderful as our last church. We also prayed that Daniel would be able to get to know some of the members so he will know some of the people I will be chatting about constantly this next year. Our new church emphasizes the lifestyle of a church family. We see the people from the church several times a week. This is exactly what kind of supportive and loving family I need down here during these upcoming months. It is such a blessing. We have already started building some great relationships with several couples. We are so thankful for the great Biblical teaching, wonderful fellowship, and heartfelt worship. We feel at home with this church.

The Marine Corp Ball was great fun this year. We had talkative people at our table and the a couple from our church was also there. We did not know many people because it was the ball for the unit Daniel was with at the base here in Cherry Point, not the unit he is deploying with. The guest speaker was good and the live band really lent itself to the traditional music played at the ceremony. The evening was very enjoyable despite knowing only a few people.

The following week was Thanksgiving and it was a great week. Daniel's parents came in for a full week. They stayed with us for half the week and Daniel's older brother Everett and his family the rest of the week. Unfortunately I was sick for most of the week, but that didn't stop us from having a great visit. We showed them around our local area and hit a few antique stores. I was glad we did; we came away with a great hall table. (I had been searching for one for some time.)


Thanksgiving day we traveled over to Everett's home for the day and enjoyed a yummy meal, and great conversation, but most importantly wonderful play time with the adorable nephews. These two boys are so much fun. Daniel and I love to play with them. The oldest is three and such an intelligent boy. He always has something cute to say and a precious smile to go with it. Meghan, our sister-in-law, Mom, and I took a quick photo on their couch...


Hmm, it is not letting me post the picture. I will try again.

Football Game and New Family Addition in Feline Form

Hello Dearest Friends and Family. I have not written in a while mainly due to the fact that our computer crashed. We got the blue screen of death and then the eventual computer gibberish(that is what it is to me) that let us know it was the end. Daniel handled everything so I just stood by and gave moral support. We are back up on our desktop we just need to get the old hard-drive information recovered. Daniel is assigned to that mission as well. He seems to enjoy it...

We have been maintaining a steady schedule with Daniel "out in the field" last week with training and my activities with LINKS and KVs. Basically Daniel was sleeping under the stars or in a mini tent last week as they were conducting night operations and staying with the ammo and vehicles. Thankfully it wasn't too cold last week.



The weekend before the field week we had the chance to go to the NAVY vs Duke game on Saturday. Navy beat Duke 38-13. It was an absolute beautiful day outside and we had great seats so it made for a wonderful Saturday event. On our way home from Durham, where the game took place, we met up with sister Sarah for some dinner. She took a break from her studies to hang with the sis and brother-in-law. We had a good time with her.

Earlier in the day I had cut Daniel's hair. I just had to post the picture because I was quite proud with how it turned out. It is not the best picture because he had a hat on all day, but I think the shaping and sides turned out well. I just wanted to post his cute face anyways, even if I hadn't shaved his head.

The fall foliage around here has been just beautiful and we took a quick photo of an amazing red tree in the parking lot as we were headed back to our car that day of the game. I just wanted to post it for extra color... :)

This last week as I was running errands I went into the pet shop to get our lizard Leelu some yummy crickets. I made the mistake of going back and looking at the kittens. Well, it really wasn't a mistake just a bad idea if I wasn't planning on taking one with me that day. Well, I fell in love with the little boy kitten that was peach with white strips. He was not as small as the rest of the kittens and because they had had him for so long they were willing to give him to me for free. I couldn't pass this offer up since most of the cats at the Humane Society were older cats with histories... I wanted a fresh kitty to mold into a sweet cuddle-bug. Well, that day I went home and discussed it with Daniel. I went back the next day and picked him up. There was not a lot of molding needing to be done on his part because the instant you touched him he would become limp to be held and start purring. He has the loudest purr of any kitten I have heard. The vets even said they could not find his heartbeat because of the purring. So he is an absolute lovebug. The only problem was convincing the master of the house, you know, Meli, that this was a good idea.

For about 5 days Meli did nothing but hiss at everything that got near her, the kitten, us, a piece of laundry I would fold on the bed near her nap spot. She was a rotten cat. She was not happy with the arrangement with the new kitten and made sure we knew it as well. As the days went by the kitten, now named Oscar, couldn't contain himself any longer and he started showing signs of wanting to play with her. She finally caught on and that is all they do now. They chase each other around in circles and then lay down for a bit and wrestle. They are hilarious to watch and we are so happy with our new baby. He is doing just what we wanted, keeping Meli from getting lonely and fat, and keeping Maryn from getting cold at night when Daniel is gone. They are both good little portable heaters.

Here he is being the lovebug. You can tell he just woke up for the camera. I have more pictures on the other camera but that photo program has yet to be added to our desktop so I won't be able to get them up on here yet. He is so much fun!

This last weekend we made a quick trip up to MD to visit my parents before Daniel leaves. It was a late drive up Friday night and and afternoon/evening drive back on Sunday. On Saturday morning we went to the Academy to explore for a bit. Daniel was amazed at all the construction that has been completed since he left. There were several renovated halls and entire buildings. They are renovating King Hall now and building a new field house. It was another perfect Saturday to be out walking in the amazing weather. We just love visiting the Academy, with Daniel's memories, our dating throughout his time there, and then our wedding at the chapel there are just so many reasons to keep it on our list of places to go.


Well, this week we are preparing for Daniel's parents visit for this next holiday week. Daniel is in his last week of training and unfortunately they put the language classes last. He comes home and I ask him to repeat what he learned so it will hopefully stick in his memory longer. The Arabic alphabet and sounds is the hardest part. I know it is so much easier learning a new language if you have someone either speaking it with you away from the class or at least someone to explain the new things learned. I got him a little book with pictures and the English alphabet spelling out the sounds of the Arabic words. I hope it is helpful. He is also getting all kinds of literature from this class. We just have to use it during his leave time so he doesn't forget it all. That will be the challenge.

Love Ya'll!