Home Sweet Home

He is home. Home Sweet Home.

I can't even express the amount of relief, sheer relief that was lifted from my shoulders when I saw him and when I finally held him in my embrace. It was literally a perfect moment.

The day began with another homecoming just hours before. Only slightly stressful, but a perfect distraction. I ran around the gym, playing with little ones, calming down stressed out friends, watching the boys file in, snapping pictures for friends, then helping the Chosen boys find their Welcome Bags, posters, and food back at the company head quarters.

Kaitlin and I had 20 minutes- we touched up in the head quarters bathroom...gross...and headed back to the gym for OUR turn. MY turn. I have been to so many homecomings that this one felt just like any other one, except I didn't have a camera in my hand the whole time. It was my turn to be the subject in the camera.

When they started playing that song. The famous song, The Boys Are Back in Town, our heads snapped towards to the door to watch. Impatiently waiting to see his face. Katie to my left, Kaitlin holding my right hand, and Lindsey beside her. Taylor was the first one spotted. Then Mason. Next Alex. And I was still waiting. And waiting. Panic is seriously the best way to describe the following moments. It felt like a hand was squeezing my heart. This was my nightmare coming to life. It was seriously happening! My sweet friends all stopped screaming and yelling and started scanning the crowd for me. "He has to be here, Anna." "We will find him" "They called you to tell you he was here." "This is the last flight, they didn't leave him."

Caleb, one of James' squad leaders, "I see him!"

I have never been so thankful for another set of eyes. I rushed over to where Caleb was, totally disregarding the prayer, and frantically tried to follow his finger through the crowd. Found him!

Literally just in time. I found him, and they were released, and I was gone.

I wish I could describe it. Put into words what it felt like. The emotions my heart felt. But I'm not that good with words. You'll just have to trust me. Definitely won't experience another moment like that one.

Reminiscing

I was looking for a birthday card to get into the mail and instead I stumbled upon my Sweetheart card holder. Kara gave it to me...it is a cloth envelope for me to keep letters from my sweetheart. It has an American flag on the inside and this poem:

Sweetheart

I thought that you would like to know 

That someone's thoughts go where you go, 

That someone never can forget

The hours we spent since first we met.

That life is richer sweeter far

For such a sweetheart as you are,

And my now constant prayer will be 

That God may keep you safe for me. 

I have lots of letters. Letters from high school. Letters from college. Letters from Ranger School. Letters for our engagement. My Sweetheart has a way with words. He is so eloquent and can be so ridiculous. For example:

"I really have to sleep now (unintelligable letters/words) In fact, I just passed out writing this and someone had to wake me up..."

"I heard we don't get our packages on the bus this time, so not so much food, but definitely chips and cookies and candy."

He is so sweet to me. He always has been. Even though we were far apart. And I am so glad on days like this that I can sit back and read his words. How he can still make me smile- even though I know what the letter says and how he can still call me out for having the same "eye rolling" and "head shaking" reactions. 

Our love transcends any distance- it always has and always will. One day it won't have to. One day soon we will be back together. But for for now, the poem's words ring true- my constant prayer is that God may keep him safe for me.

Another year has gone by

Two years. Yesterday, James and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary. I can hardly believe it. And boy are we celebrating! I'm turning everything we are doing this week into an anniversary present! Genius!  I mean, why not celebrate for as long as you can? IT truly is a wonderful blessing...marriage and the fact that we are both still alive after 2 years.

We spent Saturday night in Venice at a hotel filled with so many luxuries- a bath tub, a robe, slippers, a view of canals and rooftop gardens, and an American breakfast. And the whole day Sunday consisted of naps, reading books on the couch, and watching a romantic movie. It was perfect. Soaking up that time.

Then, on our actual anniversary, my sister and her friend Kalyn flew over to visit!! Well, they are going to a study abroad session in Florence, but wanted to come spend a few days with me before they headed down south...Mary Kathryn also pointed out that has spent every anniversary with us so far! We clearly need to keep this trend going. Even though it was a rainy day, we spent the afternoon having tea at a friends house, waiting for James to come home...well I was waiting- anxiously waiting. I just wanted to spend the day with him- the whole day, and not share. But work calls. He came home earlier than I had expected, and we ate salmon, orzo salad, and asparagus on our china with the new chargers that I had gotten from Nove. It wasn't much-really easy to fix, but it was sweet, and special and nothing burnt. Always a plus.

Lastly- we have been given a 4day weekend!!! Woohoo!!! Thank you Army! And because we are SO last minute, we are still looking for something to do....typical. But I'm still considering it an anniversary trip...its more fun that way.

I'll be honest- the thing I love about birthdays/celebrations in general are presents...but what's even better is the reminiscing that these occasions bring about. We all do it naturally- we sit and we think about 2 years ago, or what has happened over the past year. Sometimes it's sad, overwhelming, or a straight up whirlwind, but you are never in the same place. You have always grown in some way shape or form. As I sit and reminisce over that day- May 21st, 2 years ago, I remember little things- I remember being stuck at the bridal luncheon without a car, all of my girlfriends gathering around to take pictures, to keep me from getting wet when the rain started, to pray over me. I remember my sister and brother holding my hands as Chandler sang, Never Alone. I remember listening to her voice- just as I had imagined it. I remember the doors opening and seeing James and way too many eyes looking in my direction. I remember my brother giving him my hand and looking into his eyes, thinking, "Oh my gosh, this is really happening". And I remember being called, Mrs. Simpson. Then the reception started and my memory fails :) But where my memory fails, I have beautiful, beautiful pictures to fill in the gap and remind me of the 375 people that decided to come and support this crazy, young, high-school sweetheart couple.

This past year- straight up whirlwind. From this time last year to now, James graduated IBOLC, went to Ranger School graduated Ranger school, we spent a wonderful amount of time in Georgia with each other and friends, thought he we going to RSLC, got denied, packed up, spent Thanksgiving with family and friends, said our good-byes, hopped on a plane, darted to Italy, and have been traveling around ever since! It seems like a blink- seriously, why is time slipping away!!

This next year- will consist of few days together and many days apart, but I know there is a plan. I know next year I will not be the same, I will have grown, I will be stronger. And I hope to enjoy all of the time we do have together and I can't wait to see how our love will grow and maintain while we are apart.

Cheers to the next year and the 80 more to come!

My Obsession.

My Heels.

New uniforms for Senior night? Beautiful. Enough said.  

Another fav.

The First Day.

Yesterday was the first day. Well, James' first day. But you get my drift. The first day with his platoon. The moment we have been waiting for. The moment that he stands behind his men in formation and looks out onto them, thinking and knowing that these are his guys and he will be there for them, help them, protect them, guide them. I am so proud of him and yet, honestly, some kind of jealousy sets in. These guys get him all day long and will have him 24/7 come June, which leads me to believe I could totally pull off a uniform. Yesterday was the first day since Ranger school that I didn't see him during daylight hours. Yesterday was the first day of working long hours...and they will only get longer. So in some sense it is the first day of the rest of our lives, or the next 6 years of our lives.

I heard this song on Pandora.

And then immediately bought it.

This is the first day of the rest of our lives.
Love will make us a shelter as we weather the next 6 years, but especially through this year.
I'll stand surrounded by family and friends, and I'll know that I'm not alone- we will be each others brother's keepers.

These next couple of weeks will bring a lot more "firsts" for the Simpsons- Welcome 2012.

Christmas Time

I thought last Christmas was hard. I worked Christmas Eve night and flew ALL day on Christmas day-but I got to spend the holiday opening presents with the family, even though we made everyone work around our schedule. You see, I like tradition. I like baking Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve and going to Beverly's party before the Christmas Eve service. I like waking up Christmas morning, opening "Santa" presents, eating sausage and grits casserole, singing happy birthday to Jesus, blowing out his candles on our Christmas morning cake, and then opening stockings and family presents. So I was a little thrown off last Christmas.

So logically, I was probably going to have a melt down this Christmas. Living in a hotel. Across the world from my family. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Leading up to the big day, I started getting anxious. I wanted a tree. I wanted lights. I wanted my Christmas decorations that I bought last year at Hobby Lobby. I wanted to bake cookies. I wanted to put icing on sugar cookies. But I couldn't. It honestly didn't even feel like Christmas, which was not okay.  So I went out and bought a Christmas smelling candle, a poinsettia (our Christmas plant, instead of tree), mistletoe, and an ornament. The Sorenson girls made us ornaments one night out of origami paper and I ended up going to 2 ornament exchanges, so I had plenty of Christmas ornaments to fill our window sill. It was great. The hotel room was looking as much like Christmas as it could given the circumstances. Plus, we received the best package in the world from our parents! They wanted us to have something to open up on Christmas morning, and so they sent wrapped presents. It was seriously, the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done, and James and I could barely speak when we opened the packages and saw the presents. Once again, blessed beyond measure.

But something was still nagging at me...I was getting so frustrated with myself. Then I found this book that I had packed. It's called One Thousand Gifts. My friend Fawn from Georgia gave it me and Meredith as a gift before we left, and we had started reading it together. It is an amazing book- it's all about how to live fully in the moment and be thankful. I realized that I can't live my life always hoping for something else- sounds like a realization I should have made long ago. Right now I have James, a poinsettia, and Christmas presents that our family sent. It also hit me that next year, I will be in a house. I will be able to decorate a tree and hang lights all around. I will be able to bake Christmas cookies, and hopefully see family. But I know Christmas morning I will want to give my right arm to have what I have this year- James and the Ederle Inn. So why think ahead? I stopped being sad at all after I had that realization.


Our Christmas here was incredible. We definitely missed family more than we could have imagined, but our Mom's had already taken care of everything. We literally sat in front of the presents talking about what we did to deserve presents and feeling super guilt that we had definitely NOT been on the ball with our presents :) Whoops. Our family is the best. Hands down.

I even tried to make cookies in the microwave the night before...it was about halfway edible.

We had an amazing breakfast- that took about an hour to cook due to the fact that you can only use one burner at a time because it doesn't fit 2 pans on it... but we kept things warm in the microwave. No worries.

We drank mimosa's with the best prosecco ever and the probably the worst quality of orange juice ever- so it basically balanced things out. We put nutella and peanut butter on our pancakes and devoured the breakfast sausage. It has been a while since we have had a good breakfast around here.

And we opened our presents. Woohoo!! As embarrassing as it is, I am just as excited about opening presents as a 23 year old as I was as a 5 year old. Oh well, I think it's a good thing- most of the time.

We got some wonderful things, but the top 2 presents ended up not being presents at all. First of all the boxes that everything came in have proven most handy when I'm doing laundry! I am no longer dropping random socks as I walk down the hall. Secondly, we got some ziplock baggies! Now we can store food! I'm not sure why we haven't bought baggies at the store yet, but we haven't...probably something to do with the fact that we try and buy as little as possible so we don't look totally ridiculous carrying more than we can handle back to the hotel.

This was extremely long, my b. Hope everyone else had as special of a Christmas as we did!!

Paris

We took our first trip this past week. It was our Christmas present to each other- 4 days in Paris! I am not going to lie, I was a mess leading up to the trip. For some reason thinking about traveling to another country where you can't speak the language just freaked me out...and trying to figure out how we were going to get to the place we were staying overwhelmed me. This is why you stay at actual hotels.

I was introduced to this website this past summer, and knew of a couple that used it they went to Paris as well. All in all, it was wonderful. We paid a reasonable amount of money to stay in an apartment that was literally a 2 minute walk to the Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Elysee and then a 10 minute walk to the Eiffel Tower. The location was perfect. The traffic around the location, not so much. It was very loud, but oh well.

The apartment was cozy enough and it had a low bed, so James was in heaven. So we flew in around 5, but didn't actually get to the apartment until 7ish, because a)we had to at McDonald's- don't judge and b)we were trying to figure out how to get there. Thankfully, James was in charge and I was successfully letting him take the lead on this one. I decided before we went that I wasn't going to freak out anymore. We were going to get there, and it didn't matter if it took us 8 hours to find our way downtown or not, but it would be fun and an adventure either way. Good thing it didn't take us 8 hrs! We didn't have any trouble getting to the apartment, or navigating the metro and trains the whole trip!

Here are some highlights:

Eiffel Tower at night. It was seriously unbelievable. It was rainy, gross, and absolutely freezing, but we decided to venture out anyway and we were so glad we did. We just started heading down the street towards the huge, shiny building that lit up the sky. It was a pretty foggy night, so the top of the tower made the surrounding clouds glow this BEAUTIFUL red hue. We grabbed some hot wine, that I successfully ordered in French and enjoyed the view.

 

There was a little patisserie right around the corner from us, so we ate there in the mornings. Can I just say that the pastries were to DIE FOR. Hot and filled with chocolate- perfection. And we had oranginas. I probably drank 4 Orangina's while we there...so stinkin' good.

Our favorite museum was the Orsay, which kind of surprised me. I thought the Louvre was going to be at the top of the list, instead it was at the bottom... The Orsay on the other hand was awesome! It had a lot impressionist paintings, which are my favorite. I discovered that I really, really liked Monet's paintings. I have never been a big art person- I do think it is beautiful, but I have never really found myself drawn to pictures, but when we found Monet's collection it was a different story, I could have spent hours just looking at them. Here were a couple of my favorites:

James ended up loving all of the sculptures. So he was happy at the majority of the museums :)

Here is our little rant on the Louvre. It is huge. Absolutely massive. And if I could do it again, I would probably do parts of the museum each day, but it is WAY too much to do at once. And it was crowded, obnoxiously crowded. Plus, the Louvre allowed pictures to be taken, which the majority of museums don't, so with the crowds and all of the cameras it was difficult to walk without getting in someone's picture. I was over it in about an hour. The other downside, was that everything was in French- no big deal because we got the main points of all of the paintings, but we really wanted to read about some of the artifacts that they had. The other museums had like 12 different translations for each main event and usually the pictures as well- just kind of surprised me that the Louvre didn't. I'd really like to go back to Paris, and spend more time there, but it was by far the most overwhelming part of the trip.

Notre Dam was another incredible visit. The stained glass windows were breath-taking. We really enjoyed sitting and listening to the organ play and reading about it's history. It took 200 years for this church to be built, and it was built by the people! Everyone chipped in to do their part and construct this beautiful place of worship. That was the part that really got to me and James- the people that started building, didn't finish it, but instead passed down their passion to have a place of worship and didn't only pass it down to one generation, but through multiple! I thought it was so cool! I was also amazed at all of the detail. I mean the stone has beautiful curves in it, and have trouble fathoming how they made the stone curve like that back in the day... I also wonder how many people died in the process of building the church.

My other favorite part of Paris were the cool doors!! James mocked me as I would stop to take pictures, but they were just so cool, old, and were such beautiful colors.

We had a fabulous time. We ate some amazing food- the cheeses were my favorite, and drank a lot of wine. We will definitely have to go back and visit again because there are so many more places that I'd love to see in that city!

Dahlonega

I took James back to Dahlonega. Back to Mountain phase. It wasn't completely intentional. I actually thought about it long and hard before I booked the hotel- worried that he wouldn't want to go back to a place that had so many memories attached to it. But I did it anyway. He loves the mountains. And those are the closest to us, so it was just going to have to do. Plus, we stayed in the city of Dahlonega and his little army camp was a little ways away- so it's basically a totally different place.

We stayed at the Park Place Hotel. It was awesome! It had the feel of a bed and breakfast- all of the rooms were different and ours had this great little sitting area with a love seat! But it still had the amenities of a hotel- towels, sheets, shampoo, conditioner, and a TV. So we were set. It was the perfect little get away. James slept for a LONG time and I had Good Morning America and Regis adn Kelly to keep me company! But he seriously needed to sleep...so I was completely entertained. 

The town of Dahlonega is precious! Right around the corner from our hotel was the town square. Literally a square! And it had the coolest stores: Fudge Factory, a General Store, little trinket shops, a cafe, an Irish pub, and all these little restaurants. So we piddled around- shopped a little bit, ate ice cream, went to the pub and a pizzeria, and in general just had a blast. This was my favorite store:

Such a great color! We also went a winery...awesome! It is called Monteluce- one of my friends down here suggested it, and boy are we glad! We were literally the only ones there and this older man took us on a tour and explained to us how they make the wine and the whole process. We even met one of the wine makers! The other one lives in Italy- his name is Stephano! I'm going to find him. Personal goal. But their wine is phenomenal! Sadly, it is only sold in Georgia right now, but it's okay because we bought a bottle. We taste-tested about 6 different red wines...seriously ah-maazing. Then James drove us home:)

The vineyard is on about 16 acres, but there is a whole development surrounding it- well up and coming development. And all of the houses have this Tuscan style architecture- beautiful. They also do a lot of weddings- which I can see why... The inside of the winery full of dark woods with vibrant, rich colors and fabrics- very Italian.

James and I had an absolute blast. It was very relaxing and beautiful. I highly recommend going to Dahlonega, Monteluce, and The Park Place Hotel.

Ranger Graduation

This ceremony brings to end the Ranger phase. James has been preparing for this graduation since his freshman year of college, me, on the other hand, has really only thought about this since March. But when July 23rd came it took over both of our worlds. James lived and breathed Ranger school- clearly, and my world was just consumed with my husband being gone. Sometimes it was irritating, sometimes sad, and sometimes my life seemed pretty normal.

But the week leading up to graduation was incredible! James got a 5hour pass on Wednesday, then a 10hour pass on Thursday, and then he actually got to come home on Friday. Having him home during those passes was kind of weird. There is definitely an adjustment that occurs...but having him home was everything that I had imagined. His stuff was everywhere, but we easily fell into our usual routine- praying before dinner, eating together, watching a movie, and telling stories of Ranger school or my life during Ranger school.

What was even more fun was collaborating with my mom, and mother-in-law to plan a party for our new ranger. It was an even better party because Aunt Wendy, Elizabeth, BaaBee, DanDan, and John Burgess were able to join us! Having all of the family here this past weekend was the biggest blessing in the world. James and I felt so supportive and loved.

Here are the pictures of the best day ever:

All of the graduating boys. There were 109 of them, and about 50 of them were first time go's!!

All of the family here to support us

 Pinning on his  Ranger tab!!

James and his sweet sister, so glad she was able to even come!

Party time! Mom made the sign :)