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 

Little Ring Made of Gold

HOWDY!

 I kind of started this blog, then fell off the Earth and that is because I am home visiting family in Texas.  I work from home back in North Carolina, and with my husband deployed, it just seemed like the perfect opportunity to travel home for a bit. The purpose of my trip home was to see my younger brother get his Aggie ring! This is a huge milestone for any student at Texas A&M, it means that the student has 90 credit hours and is therefore classified as a senior. My husband and I are both former students, and tradition is that a former student will present the ring to the Aggie who is receiving their ring. I basically invited myself to present my brother with his ring.

A&M has many traditions including dunking your ring in a pitcher of beer and then chugging it as fast as you can until you catch the ring. Some would argue that ring day is far more exciting than graduation day. I know most people do not buy or wear their college class ring, but at A&M pretty much everybody does. I am sure the company who makes college class rings LOVES A&M. The ring is how Aggies identify each other all over the world, which is part of what makes A&M so unique. My husband and I were at a Ace Hardware in North Carolina (both wearing our rings) and the cashier said "Did y'all go to A&M? I see your rings" And of course we nod and say that we did. Turns out her brother is a current student and actually is in the Corps of Cadets (which my husband was a part of when he was at A&M. See the cool uniform in the last two pictures :P )

Anyways, I am SO excited for my brother. I can't believe how much he is growing up and I am so incredibly proud of him. I am just so thankful I was able to experience this with him!

Here are some pictures from Ring day:

Me presenting my brother with his ring!!!

Our rings!

And for fun, a little throwback to  April 2011  when my husband and I got our rings!

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.

Welcome to My Blog

Well, I am new to this whole "blogging" thing. I'm just a 23 year old exploring a new state, learning about home ownership, and navigating through life while my husband is away on his first deployment.

Our story began back in high school, my husband and I officially started dating our senior year on October 26, 2007. He likes to claim that I "followed" him to Texas A&M, and we both ended up graduating from there in May of 2012. At that time, my husband also commissioned into the Marine Corps. It wasn't until the following Christmas Eve (December 24, 2013) that we got engaged when my husband was home from The Basic School for Christmas. He actually proposed to me in the same spot that we took our senior prom pictures and was also our usual "date spot".

 

We planned our wedding for October 5, 2013 which was intimidating. If you have ever planned a wedding where one (or even both!) spouses are in the military, you will know how stressful it is just because of the simple fact that there is no guarantee that your bride or groom will be there! Somehow, the date that we initially picked out worked perfectly.

The following day we moved to North Carolina and three short months later my husband left for his first deployment! This blog will be about us, our adventures in North Carolina, my adventures in being a "house wife" & home ownership, and some military related posts (deployment, care packages, etc). Oh, and probably also some pictures of our sweet fur baby, Elsa: