Texas in a Box

Hey Y'all!

My husband and I were married back in October and then moved to North Carolina the following day. Unfortunately he deployed in January , so he hasn't been home to Texas since our wedding. When I was home in February, I thought it would be a fun idea to send my husband "Texas in a box". You could really so the same concept with any state or even just the idea of home.

For my package I included:

• Julio's tortilla chips
• Nacho cheese
• A&M crunch
• Beef jerky
• Longhorn poop candy
• What's burger ketchup
• Texas flag chocolate bar
• Texas koozie (You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas - Davy Crockett)
• Texas playing cards
• Texas Chapstick
• Texas mints
• Various Texas themed candy
• Duck Dynasty plastic cups (not Texas, but an O'Sullivan favorite)
• Zac Brown Band CD (also not Texas, but one of my husband's favorite bands)

Basically, I included stuff that you can only get in Texas, are Texas favorites, or that made him think of home. I know he has already mentioned to me that they have used the playing cards on multiple occasions. 

We are planning to go home on his post deployment leave, but as most people know Texas is kind of obsessed with itself and being away from Texas can be hard on a Texan. Every time I make a trip home I have a must do ( must eat really ) list. 

Have a great evening!

Morgan 

My First Care Package - Valentine's Day

The day my husband left I was pretty upset, so I decided I would go ahead and get started on his first care package.  My husband is on a base a good amount of his deployment. He does go for about a month at a time on missions, where he doesn't have access to a base, but for the most part he doesn't "need" anything. The care packages are more for fun and to let him get a little something from home in the mail.

For this care package I actually used wrapping paper and scrap booking paper. The wrapping paper is the shinier red paper with the uniform hearts. The scrap booking paper is the multi-colored/shaped hearts. I wanted to try two different methods to see what I like better. Going forward, I have continued to use scrap booking paper exclusively just because there are more options to pick from and it doesn't rip as easily.

 

I used the typical Pinterest idea and put a little cheesy tag on a bunch of items I was sending him.

  My husband really likes airheads, so I found a set of Valentine's that included airheads. I wrote a little message on each one. Each message was something I love about him, or miss about him, etc.

 I also like to include a hand written note, card, or something along those lines. Even though we do communicate on a pretty regular basis, I think it is something sweet to always include especially since it is handwritten.

As you can see, I like to include personal pictures on the flaps of the box. I think it's a fun way to send pictures to him. I am pretty sure that this box sat for two weeks waiting for him while he was on a mission, so I try not to ever pack anything home baked just because I know his schedule varies and I don't want him to open his package to find gross cookies or something.

NOTE: You can order bundles of the flat rate boxes (they cost about $14/$15 to ship) for care packages through the USPS website. They are FREE and are also delivered to your home FREE.  In my opinion, I will do just about anything to avoid the post office! I also like to have my customs form filled out before going to the post office to save time, so each time I go to mail a box I normally pick up 2 or 3 blank forms.