I make no secret about my initial disappointment in getting orders to go to Abilene, Texas. It was my 15th choice.
Spin it any way you want, it was a bitter pill to swallow to go to what is deemed as an "undesirable location." I have changed my tune since the first notification and nowadays I'll chime in with how great Abilene is... but it's relevant to note I really had to do a mental adjustment numerous times over.
After looking at all the apartment choices, I bought a house.
And it was YELLOW.
Oh my Lord, I felt like I was living inside a butter container.
I painted the laundry room, all the bedrooms (3), all the bathrooms (2), and the hallways.
I hired someone to paint the kitchen, living room, and study.
It took a week of non-stop work, but things got better once my house wasn't the color of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
Oliver's curiosity could not be contained, and so he had paint on him the majority of the week, just like me.
My parents also came to visit.
If you know anything about my parents, they are a freaking whirlwind of productivity.
They made my house into a home in just 72 hours. They are beyond wonderful.
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| Handsome Oliver, looking at his handsome self. |
And then I went off to Maxwell Air Force Base, for that training I was supposed to have gotten a year or so ago. :)
Officer Training School was in no way bad, but it wasn't the best. I got poison ivy on my neck...which worked it way down, and across to my ears. Standing at attention, not being able to move while your face feels like it's on fire was not fun for me.
It helped that I had the greatest roommate of my life, and I was able to go with my residency family.
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| Ate a lot of MRE's... |
Steroid shots also help with poison ivy, but lord do they HURT.
After 5.5 weeks of officer training, my parents came to my graduation!
And when I got home my degree was waiting for me!
Life moved on after that...into the working realm, studying realm, the making Kombucha realm, and the dating Quentin realm.
I learned I am passionate about making Kombucha, but not about drinking it.
And I am very passionate about this man, who I thought wanted to be "just friends."
I was very much wrong.
We had (and have) a lot of fun together. He is one of the few people I like running with, too.
He has a dog, who met Oliver.
Oliver was not impressed.
....he was really not impressed.
Around Christmas time my family was able to come down from California and Georgia to visit!
My brother and I played Tetris Attack (a game from our childhood)...it was tough competition.
My mom got to snuggle with her baby, Oliver.
We enjoyed the holidays
& we explored Abilene
In 2020, Quentin and I traveled a lot, in addition to traveling for work.
We went to San Antonio, to see my friend from Wright-Patterson, Capt Marco.
We also traveled to Dallas, Texas, to eat dumplings and go to a Korean day spa.
But on other weekends, we just took it easy.
I took a business trip to Wright Patterson and also to San Diego. At Wright-Patterson I met up with one of my favorite supervisors and learned how to be an embedded psychologist.
In San Diego, I took a class to prepare me for the licensing exam for clinical psychologists.
And also some of my residency class was able to take the class too!
We all organized it from different bases so we could be together.
And then in March my family and I went on a trip to Hawaii to celebrate 1) my graduation 2) Stevie and Kat's one year anniversary, 3) my mom being cancer free 4) my dad's new-ish job, and whatever else we wanted to be thankful for.
And then I started to really study for the licensing exam.
During this time, we got the news that my mother's breast cancer had returned, meaning they found another lump. She had just gone through treatment for breast cancer last year, so to get the news it returned so quickly meant that she would now need another surgery and she needed chemo and radiation. Not what any of us wanted to hear, but it's what we are going to work together on regardless.
Oliver remained unimpressed with the dog, but was also super fascinated by her.
Before summer, Quentin and I took a trip to New York City, which we still consider one of our best trips, especially because of the food.
And then Quentin and I moved in together!
We learned that my brother and sister-in-law were expecting their first child!
And we celebrated 4th of July with Quentin's extended family.
I celebrated 2 years in the Air Force!
And Quentin surprised me with a trip to Fredricksburg, Texas.
He told me to pack a bag with comfy clothes, exercise clothes, and a fancy outfit and we were off.
He took me to a winery
And the top rated ice-cream parlor in Fredricksburg.
And to an unbelievable German restaurant for dinner.
And to a place called Jacob's Well-- a location I saw on Instagram years ago but figured I would never be close enough to actually see in person
(haha, I get the irony).
It was such a perfect trip! At the end of the trip, Quentin made the off-hand remark that he should have proposed to me there...but he didn't have the ring.
That cued me to dress up for EVERY event after that, just on the off-chance it was a proposal.
Like when we went hiking at Ink's Lake.
I dressed up as fancy as I could for a hiking trip, only to not be proposed to, hahaha
In September we took a trip to Galveston, Texas. We had planned this trip for awhile, and suddenly a tropical storm came through.
We went down anyway.
We both needed a break from work aaaand the rental company refused to give us our money back.
It was rainy some of the trip, humid all of it, but we had an amazing time.
We enjoyed mini-cookies at night, had tasty coffee in the morning...
And one morning Quentin said he wanted to see the sun rise over the ocean.
I'm not an early riser, but it was worth it.
We were engaged!
Our relationship is pretty low-key, so it was so wild to get all the attention following the engagement. To celebrate, we went on a bike-ride down the coast and then after over-ate on seafood.
Since we came to Galveston during a tropical storm, we honestly had the whole place to ourselves, which was another great perk of vacationing when the weather was "bad."
And after two weeks, we got married. I'm really not one for long engagements. In fact, the less attention I get in a large crowd the better off I am. #introvert.
I work with Chaplains frequently as part of my job, so I asked one to marry us that following Friday. Quentin and I had asked for this day off work so we could enjoy a three-day weekend, but we also figured, why not make it our wedding date too?
So we dressed up.
Full disclosure: my mom and I had been searching for this wedding outfit online for weeks, haha
And said "I do"
I had no idea how emotional I was going to get! I was thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to crying the entire time, so I'm glad my family and his family supported our very very small ceremony (larger event to follow later in 2020).
And then we went to Dallas to have a "mini-moon"!
We celebrated by eating a lot of dumplings
And by drinking wine on the roof-top of our hotel
We had wedding photos taken.
And then I got the flu...which developed into pneumonia!! Hahaha, pushed that "in sickness and in health" part really quickly.
So my husband made homemade soup.
And I tried to drink all the liquids.
I recovered in enough time to take and pass my licensing exam!
My face after I passed the exam!!
And we went out to eat (thank you, momma for treating us!) to celebrate the EPPP exam being out of our lives FOREVER.
Toward the end of the year my husband and I went to the Big Island on Hawaii. A lot of people think this was our honeymoon, but we planned it before we got engaged.
This was our view from our room.
We snorkeled nearly every day, swam with dolphins, turtles, saw massive schools of fish, and could not have had a better time.
We celebrated Thanksgiving with Quentin's family.
And enjoyed Christmas with both of our families, first his parents and sister, and then my parents.
Hosting can be exhausting sometimes, haha, but it's always worth it.
In January 2020, we traveled to California to see our niece!
And we had planned to get additional officer training together, but COVID 19 cancelled our plans. In the meantime, we know we will stay in Texas for another 2 years (leave summer of 2022), but don't have any additional details aside from working to stay safe and healthy among this pandemic.
The adventure continues! xoxo
