This past Monday, my sweetheart and I celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary. It was a wonderful day! We planned a day full of letterboxing!

We started out by planting 3 letterboxes. We have done a series called Tour of Clarksville and we added one box to that series and then a bonus box! I’m quite proud of both of these. (I carve all the stamps we use) Then we headed to Hopkinsville to plant the first letterbox in the town! (that we know of) We planted this one at a really cool park called Round Stone Literary Park. We just had to take pictures!

The Sarge had to try to pull the sword out of the stone. Hehe.

The Round Table. It was HUGE! This picture doesn’t really do it justice.

We had fun.

After that we headed to Paducah where we tried to find several letterboxes, but it was getting dark and we were unsuccessful. But we still had fun!

When I had been planning out trip out I saw how close Illinois was to Paducah. So I insisted that we go, just so I could add another state to my list of states I’ve been to! After doing our circles (which we do on EVERY trip!) we ended up in Metropolis Illinois. It is the “home” of Superman! They even have a celebration every year! We are planning on going back for that!

After we left Metropolis, we headed back to Paducah and had dinner at Texas Roadhouse. It was yummy. Then we headed home and spent the night watching a movie and relaxing. It was a fantastic day!

Stay tuned for pictures from our trip to Gatlinburg, which we are on right now! We are attending the Strong Bonds Marriage Retreat that the Army does. We’re having a blast! Well, I gotta go so we can go find some more letterboxes!

Another week has come to an end. Time to get to know me a little better! Check out some other amazing MilSpouses at Wife of a Sailor.

1. Which was the best day of your life- Wedding day or Homecoming day? submitted by Pink Champagne, Gatorade & MREs

I have to say my wedding day. Because that was the beginning of the rest of my life. But Homecoming day was almost equal! My beloved coming home for good. Best feeling ever.

2. Were you a part of the joining the military question or did you sign up for the relationship when your man was already in the military? submitted by Cammo Style Love

He had already been in for 17 years when I MET him! LOL! I didn’t have much of a choice. Literally. You can’t choose who you love.

3. What is your favorite Disney movie and why? submitted by Raising Roscoe

The Little Mermaid! I just love everything about it, but the music is my favorite. So awesome.

4. What is your favorite family activity to do on the weekends? submitted by Destination: RN!

Really just hanging out at home with my husband. Watching movies, tv, whatever. I know he would say his favorite is letterboxing, but I like to relax.

5. Where do you secretly wish you could be stationed with you/your SO’s line of work (realistically speaking, not everyone can be stationed on NAS Fiji)? submitted by Wookie & Co.

I’d love to be in Germany. Just for the experience. But I’m happy about where we’re going next because it’s close to family and some of our very best friends are there.

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The Sarge and I went to Gatlinburg for our anniversary. It was also part of his R&R. We ended up getting snowed in for 3 days! It was a blast. It was relaxing and romantic. It was also our first time to go on vacation together, just the two of us! It was the BEST!

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My sweet husband shoveled the driveway so we could get out to explore! It was so cute.

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Isn’t he adorable. He definitely makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. I’m so blessed.

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Our cabin was A-MA-ZING! Seriously. I would love to live there for real. And the view was gorgeous!

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We tried to find some letterboxes in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but with the snow and cold we couldn’t really find them.

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We did find a really cool letterbox at this cute diner! It was fun!

We love traveling together. And I can’t wait til he’s home so we can start again!

I’m linking up with Kelly’s Korner for Show Us Your Life. This week’s topic: Your favorite vacation spot.

I love celebrating my birthday! Even though I’m getting older, I cherish each year. This birthday is bittersweet for me, since my husband is still deployed (but coming home SOON!) and because my sweet Grandma is not doing well at all. Thankfully my sister and our best friend Cara are here to help cheer me up! Last night we spent time making dinner, with our new pampered chef stuff! Then we watched a movie. Today we are going shopping, maybe letterboxing, and going to see a movie. I’m excited! Here’s some pics from last night.

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My sister gave me a $25 gift card for my Fave place! Starbucks! YUM!

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I got money from my grandparents, my aunt and her roommate. The stack of $1′s is from my Aunt. LOL!

And today I got some beautiful flowers from my deployment support group! These girls are amazing! I love them so much!!! (I’ll post pics tonight. I’m about to go shopping!) So far it’s been a great day. Especially since I got to talk to my sweetheart for a couple of hours, online AND he called me! Oh how I love that man!

It was so amazing to have my beloved husband home for our first wedding anniversary! I wasn’t sure if it would happen, but it did and I am so incredibly thankful! We planned our honeymoon/anniversary trip months ago and I had been counting down the days! We booked a cabin in Gatlinburg for 4 nights/5 days. The original cabin we booked was 2 bedrooms/1.5 baths. At the time I booked it, that cabin was one of the only ones from that rental place with internet, which we needed for The Sarge to do his school work. We chose that rental place because they had a special that if you stayed Sunday through Thursday, you got the 4th night free. Heck yeah!!

The day we were driving up there, it was snowing. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Gatlinburg, it is in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. However, the locals were telling us that they are not used to getting snow! It had been snowing some that week, before we went. We called some friends of ours who live there to ask about the roads. They live on a mountain and were not able to drive from their house to the main roads! My mom was worried we wouldn’t be able to make it to our cabin. I confidently told her “I have been praying about this for months. That we will have clear roads and safe travel. And my God is good! I’m not worried about it!” She looked doubtful and I said “I’m just believing like you taught me!” We got on the road and I prayed consistently. “Lord, let us have safe travel. Keep us safe from the ice and snow. Let us not have any car problems! Protect us with your angels.” We had clear roads the entire way! My God is so good.

The office of the rental place is closed on Sundays, so they leave packets for guests checking in. We found our packet and saw that they had given us 2 maps. There was one for the original cabin we booked, with a post-it note saying “You will NOT be able to drive to this cabin due to the ice.” I quickly looked at the other map and it said “We have this cabin as another option for you. Let us know which one you choose.” It was on the same road as the first cabin, but closer to the main road. I looked up the website on my phone and saw that the new option was a much better cabin. A Luxury cabin!!! So obviously we chose that one!

We walked in and it was so beautiful!! We were so excited!! The main floor had a living room with a fireplace, kitchen, dining room with a little reading nook, bedroom with queen size bed, full bath, deck with hot tub, and a wrap around porch. The upstairs had a small seating area in the loft, the master bedroom with a king size bed, seating area, jacuzzi tub, full bath, and a wall of windows! Which was gorgeous to look out of! The basement had a pool table, foosball table, sofa & loveseat, large flat screen tv with cable & dvd player, table for playing games (which were provided), a wet bar with mini fridge & microwave, full bath, and washer/dryer. It was so nice! I was in love with this cabin.

The first night was amazing and when we woke up, there was snow everywhere! It was so beautiful. We got at least 5 inches, but I think it was closer to 7 inches by the time we left! We knew we were not going anywhere that day, and thankfully we had food! We watched movies and he did schoolwork. Just relaxing and fun.

We had planned on letterboxing every day, but since we couldn’t get out of the driveway (the road was clear by the 2nd day!), we decided to make stamps for planting letterboxes. I also made a stamp for our new trail name. We decided to use one instead of our separate names since we are married. Much better now.

By Wednesday, The Sarge had cabin fever. Literally! He wanted to get out and explore so badly! We didn’t have a shovel at the cabin. We looked around and found a broom and a dust pan. He bundled up and went out to “shovel” the driveway off! With the dust pan!! It was so cute. It worked too! We were able to drive away around 1:30pm. We went looking for a few letterboxes. Some of them we were not able to find because of the snow. But we ended up finding 10 that day! Which is a record for us, I believe. We wanted to get pancakes somewhere, but by the time we left the cabin, all the pancake houses had closed! Apparently they are only open for breakfast. We were kinda bummed, but we ended up going to Cracker Barrel to get pancakes. They were yummy!!

The next day we had to check out. We packed up and did everything on the checkout list. Said goodbye to our cabin and headed out. We had a list of about 15 letterboxes to look for. We found the first one! But to get to it, we had to drive further up the mountain than we had before. I was nervous because of the ice on the road. We made it safely. The next one, which was very close by, was up a gravel road that was COVERED in snow. We decided to skip that one. We went several other places. Even some of the indoor boxes we were looking for were unavailable to us because of the snow. It was disappointing. We still had a great day though. We agreed that we will save those clues and go back when it’s warmer to find them.

We took our time going home that day. We have always had a blast every time we go on road trips. We sing along with the music, talk about our plans for the future, get to know each other even better. I love road trips with The Sarge! It was the first trip we had taken all by ourselves and it was the most amazing trip ever! I am so happy we were able to do it. I think I fell even more in love with him that week. Just being with him constantly. It was perfect.

Well, I know you guys are itching for pictures! Since I have so many, I’ll do a gallery view. I hope you like them! We didn’t take too many of us, but you can look forward to more of those when he’s home for good! Without further ado…

Check back tomorrow for the story of our first anniversary (the actual day!)

Double Digits. It’s almost been two weeks since my sweetheart got swept away from me. I’ve kinda been in a funk this week. I haven’t really done much. I just haven’t had the energy. Thankfully my sister encourages me when she’s home. She MAKES me go to the Y. (Although we didn’t go to class tonight because she had to work late, and because I’m still sore from Tuesday!) I have decorated a couple of boxes for hubby’s care packages. Hehe. They are SO cute! I promise I will post pictures on here, but not until I know hubby has gotten them.

Today, while I was sitting around not doing much, my friend R texted me and asked about wedding stuff. She is getting married next June. I was giving her tips and ideas. She came over for a while and we talked about different options for things. I am going to help her find a venue and make some of the graphics for some of her decorations, and I’m planning her traditional bridal shower. I’m SO excited! Not only do I LOVE all things wedding related, but now I have a project that will keep me entertained (AND BUSY!) all year long! WOOHOO! Oh and don’t worry. I will definitely post pictures about those things on here. I know you all love wedding stuff as well! Hehe.

One thing I have been doing is watching my FAVORITE show “Friends”, on dvd. I’ve seen every episode a countless number of times. I can quote most of them! You might say I’m obsessed! But it makes me laugh. Even if I just have it on just for the noise, it makes me laugh. My sweetheart understands that. When he comes home he is going to watch them all with me.

I can’t wait! My sister ordered some shelves to go in the dining room. They will pretty much fill up one whole wall. Its basically several sets of shelves, cabinets, and a desk that you stack and can put them any way you want. When they get here, I will be putting them together. But then we will have SO much more storage space!! I will be able to unpack the rest of my kitchen boxes and actually be able to organize everything! YAY! Then I can clear out the space for my desk. Now I just have to get my mom to clean the desk off, since it’s at her house! I’ll be glad to have it though because then I will have a place to pay bills, blog, etc, without having to sit uncomfortably on my bed or couch. I will also be able to scrapbook on my desk! I have not really been able to do that in so long. I need to start on our wedding scrapbook! That is part of my 101 things!!

WHICH reminds me. One of the things on my 101 list is: Do an activity with hubby just because its something he wants to do. The day before he left, the day of his party, we were soo busy! But I made the time to go with him to find a letterbox. He was so excited and it made me so happy to be able to do that with him before he left. Letterboxing is one of our hobbies that we do together. It is something I look forward to doing again once hubby is home! Although, he will be looking for some while he is overseas! There have been a few planted by soldiers! Hehe. I know he’s excited about that.

I hope everyone is having a great week!

You’ve heard me talk about Letterboxing. Hubby and I are planning to plant our own letterboxes here in town because there are only 4 here. (And this is the 5th largest city in Tennessee!!!) So I have been making stamps. We have several “series” planned, as well as some individual boxes. I took some pictures of the stamps and the printed version of them. Let me know what you think!

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I’m very proud of these stamps. Especially the big ones. I kind of hate to plant them! Although, the Army wife stamp is strictly for me! Hehe. I have more planned.

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In other news, I have a goal for a post. I am working on my 101 things to do in 1001 days list. I am planning on posting it on here and keeping it updated. Its kind of sad that I have to make a goal to make goals, huh. Oh well. My goal is to have it done by Saturday, May 1st. This is a very adventurous goal, as I have been “working” on this list for quite some time now. Ok, almost a year. Its sad. I know. But nonetheless, this is my goal. If I have not posted about it by Monday, someone please smack me! This whole not doing it thing is annoying me.

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Well, that’s all I have for now. What are your plans for the weekend?

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We had so much fun this weekend at the marriage retreat. We learned a lot about communication and how to love your spouse in their love language. Even though we’re newlyweds, I think it was great for us to go because we learned that stuff early!

We also loved where we stayed, the Chattanooga Choo Choo. For those of you who don’t know, it is a historical train station that was turned into a hotel. It is so cool! They have all these train cars that they turned into hotel rooms, as well as 3 hotel buildings. They have several shops and restaurants, including 2 restaurants that are in train cars. Most of our meals were provided for, except for Saturday night which was “date night”. So on Saturday we ate in the “Silver Diner” which is one of the restaurants in the train cars. It’s a pizza place. SO good! My parents just happened to be staying in Chattanooga this weekend too, for a business conference, so they ate with us. We made it “Double Date Night”. Hehe.

We also went into this awesome little scrapbook store that also had souvenirs and other things. While we were in there we were talking to the owner about stamps and we told her that we use stamps for letterboxing. She said “Have you found the one I have here?” We looked at each other and said “NO!” Then Matthew proceeded to RUN back to our hotel room to get our letterboxing bag! Haha. We were so excited! It was also cool because my parents were in there with us so they got to see what we do with letterboxes. My mom has gone with us to find one, but my dad hadn’t before this weekend. He started to talk about a stamp he wants me to make. I think we found a new letterboxer! (Or at least a stamp designer!)

We went letterboxing after our last session was over, on our way home. We found 3 outside a museum on the river, one on the Riverwalk on the Tennessee River in Chattanooga, one in a civil war cemetery and one at a rest area on the way home. We also found one at a former abortion clinic in Chattanooga that was bought by a Christian organization. They have a Memorial for the Unborn garden in honor of miscarried children. It was so beautiful!

Well, here are some pictures we took this weekend. It was so beautiful there! Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of the gardens at night. They had flames lit up and down the garden walk at night but I didn’t have my camera with me on Friday night and they weren’t lit on Saturday because of the rain. Boo.

(Ok. I LOVE the gallery option for showing pictures! Just figured this out. I’m slow.)

Well, we had a blast. I’m so thankful that we were able to go. What was your weekend like?

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We are back home! We got home on Sunday night, late. Monday was kind of a day to get back to normal for me. LOL! I didn’t do ANYTHING! Same on Tuesday. Which was really nice! Wednesday I did a few things around the house and for Matthew. But today I wanted to post some more pics from our vacation Kidcation. Hope you enjoy!

Matthew @ NC Museum of Life & Science

ANTS!

Space craft

Alligators

Dust Mite exhibit @ Museum! EWW!

REAL dust mites under microscope

Matthew, Kristen & Callie outside Butterfly Habitat @ museum

Me & Matthew outside Butterfly Habitat

Rocket outside museum

Dinosaur from old museum exhibit

Letterbox Stamp close to the dinosaur

Callie (my stepdaughter)

Matthew & his girls

Being silly!

If you notice, I’m normally BEHIND the camera! Of course, most of the time someone is taking a picture of me & Matthew, he is making goofy faces. It makes me so mad! We have very few good pictures of the two of us! (See following)

My goofball

So there are most of the pictures from our kidcation. We had a lot of fun! Now, can I go on a relaxing vacation?!

We are more than halfway through our “kidcation” visiting the kiddos for their spring break. We’ve done lots of stuff! Monday we went letterboxing. Tuesday we went letterboxing again and then went to see a movie. Here’s some silly pictures:

Kristen

Kristen & Mr Pickles

Stamping our Logbooks!

Callie

Callie & Mr Pickles

Matthew "flying"

Matthew & Mr Pickles

Yesterday we drove up to Petersburg VA to see some of our friends and go letterboxing at Petersburg National Battlefield.

That was so fun! Here are some pictures from VA!

Jonathon & Karen

Matthew finding where to go

Letterboxing

Carey and a Memorial

Soldiers' Hut @ the Battlefield

Callie

Letterboxing!

The street named after my sister! (not really)

Lots of fun. I’m sure I’ll have more pictures later on. Stay tuned!

In other news, my blog layout will be changing today. This awesome designer Jill from IKR Design has been working on it for me and it’s ready! So if my blog looks weird today, its because she’s installing the new layout.

Much Love,
Sarah Ruth