Weekending

Now that it's the end of summer, hubby is back to work on a normal schedule and I will be back to school as of later this week. We honestly haven't had a "normal" schedule together since we moved to Military Home #2, so I can't even say it's "back to the grind." It's more like, figuring out what the grind even looks like for us as a couple. But, that notwithstanding, we can still enjoy our weekends. 

Today for instance, we ventured to a little town nearby for some local barbecue. We live in one of those places that takes its barbecue really seriously, and we are definitely not from one of those places, so it's a fun adventure to discover the local grub and traditions. After we ate in the very old, smoky, awesome barbecue place, we stopped by an antiques shop, with all sorts of old treasures and maybe not so treasured items. In addition to the housewares and other miscellany, there were a ton of books, mostly paperback. We enjoyed looking around but didn't buy anything. It does make me want to go to thrift stores more often though, in hopes of finding some fun things for the house. 

Our lunch spread

After our stop in the little town, we came back to our town and ran some errands, mainly at Tarjay, deciding on exciting items like a new (full size) ironing board and a step stool. Yup, we're really exciting people like that. We picked up a movie for tonight and headed back here after that. For dinner tonight, we're having a Southwestern (and vegetarian) pasta salad, which will counterbalance the meat-heavy lunch  we had. Now I'm off to play a board game with hubby. Here's hoping we're still on speaking terms afterward... :-) 

Hope everyone else is having a great weekend so far!

End of Summer

Well, as my number one fan reminds me frequently (that would be hubby), I have slacked on the blogging front again. Things have been crazy, for both better and worse. On the better front, I finished my second internship of the summer and we went on a week long vacation to see some beautiful mountains and visit friends. I really have been enjoying all my time with hubby - I'm a lucky lady!

Gorgeous scenery (and my hubby)

At a visitors center

At a gorgeous mountain lake - the wonders of self-timer!

Me with my beautiful (and pregnant!) friend R. :-)

And one more with the hubster. 

On the whole, it was a lovely vacation, but the "worse" had a part to play as well. Earlier this month, we found out the war had taken one of hubby's very best friends from school. I spent the first couple of weeks largely in a lot of disbelief and shock. There is a lot I could say, but I will just say this - there is no doubt that the war is not over. Hubby's peers are still in harm's way, and this was a horrible reminder of that. 

Through the last couple of weeks, we haven't come to understand any better, but we have talked a lot about the good memories we have with hubby's friend, and we took a break from our vacation to fly to another state for the memorial service. It was hard, as would be expected, but we are both glad we went. We got to see his father, brother, and wife, and while there is nothing one can say that would be adequate, we tried our best to express our condolences. Hopefully our presence alone showed how much hubby's friend means to us. 

My only parting words on the blog from this awful event would be, as cheesy as it sounds, that we should never take our lives and our loved ones for granted. Especially as twenty-somethings, it's easy to assume we have a lot of life ahead of us, but as I've been made all too aware a couple of times in the past year, that's just not guaranteed. 

So, that's been the end of our summer - both a lot of joy and a lot of pain. I am gearing up for the school year already, and hubby is going to start the "normal home life" after his unit's time away, whatever normal means. I'm just hoping I can make good work of my "to do" list before school starts!