DAY 5

It's the same ol' thing-loving and missing you. It will probably be like this for 21 days :), but nevertheless I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU!

I had the craziest dream last night that we joined the army and during our training we had to practice getting all of the local villagers out of the area. We went from door to door convincing people they had to evacuate immediately or their lives would be in danger. HAHA. Where do these strange dreams come from??? I think it is interesting that in most of my dreams you are always with me doing some strange thing or another :)..... I miss you even asleep.

DAY 4-absence makes the heart grow fonder

So day 4....woke up this morning and still I feel as though a piece of me is missing. Still I feel alone and empty without you. I can't explain in words how much you mean to me and what a HUGE part of my life you are. You are the air I breathe, you are the first thing that I think about when my eyelids open in the morning, you are my princess!! I was born to tell you I love you! I'm aching to hold your beautiful face in my hands, stare into your eyes and see the love inside them. I'm aching to hold you right after we wake up in the morning. I'm aching to see your smile and to hear your laugh. There's always something we find to laugh about in the morning! :) The mornings seem to be the hardest for me, knowing that I have to go a whole day without you by my side. 18 days BABE! We're knocking the days down! Slowly but surely. I'm listening to "i found a reason" and thinking about how precious you are to me and all the tender moments we've shared and tears and welling up in my eyes. You are my everything and the saying, "absence makes the heart grow fonder" holds true. I appreciate and love you deeper and deeper with every passing day. I'm so happy to be married to you! HOW DID I GET SO LUCKY?! YOU ARE AMAZING! I'm such a baby. I'm a sucker for you!

I MISS YOU! I LOVE YOU! I NEED YOU!

Day 3-We're in the TEEN's :)

Thanks for the song this morning...Do you feel like screaming sometimes as he does? :) I love you babes. Thanks for making everything go calm and peaceful inside whenever I hear your voice. I love your voice!!! There is no better sound in the world! What can I say other than I love you like crazy!!

"Hey did you know California was like 119 degrees once?" That's what Jaxon asked me the other day :( haha.

"Why did the chicken cross the road?" "I don't know, why?" "So he could stand in the middle of the road." That was from Maile.

Oh and p.s. Yes we can make a promise to NEVER do this EVER again :)

DAY 2

Last night I woke up around 4 am...half asleep and confused I looked over and didn't find you laying next to me. It took a few seconds to realize and remember where you were. Once I remembered I was like, "UGHH! This sucks! I miss my baby!" I rolled over and eventually fell back to sleep. Then 2 or 3 hours later I woke up to Nika scratching her little mouses eyes out and attacking my feet. I pushed her off the bed but she kept jumping back up. I missed you not being there. I missed not seeing your dark brown hair spread across your pillow. I missed not seeing the shape of your body under neath the covers. I pulled your pillow close to me because it smells like you and I layed in bed for 20 minutes and pretended you were there with me. I'll be missing you all day today! Have a really really really good day! I LOVE YOU with all my heart. I carry your smile and laugh with me in my memory and whenever I miss you I picture your beautiful face smiling and laughing with me. LOVE YOU!

Day 1

To my "babes:" It's been less than 24 hours and I miss you like crazy. "How can I possibly do three weeks away from my best friend?" I thought as the plane was taxing the tarmac, my heart pounding, anxiety rushing through me....I never want to be away from you this long ever again....

I guess this will be a new, defining chapter in our already amazing love story...(can't wait to rip the chapter up and move on TOGETHER in the following chapters-hey maybe we should hold a bon fire and sing kumbia when I return :) haha).

Last minute picture: I will be holding onto the image of last night-- lying in bed next to you, laughing, talking, singing to each other, being silly...You always make me laugh, even in the worst of times. The rendition we found on the computer of "forever young," the one you added to the playlist on our blog "three weeks," (which totally melted my heart when listening to it...yes EVEN the Maile Cyrus song :) haha...every time I hear it I will think of you and me being total goofs-it is our song, just like "You don't know me" reminds me of our wedding)....ANYWAY-I will always remember our "last night," listening to 20 different renditions of that song and you telling me "I always want to stay young and fun with you forever." YOU ARE ADORABLE! I miss your adorable face and all of the adorable things that make Mike MIKE :) I miss the way you talk, I miss the way you look at me when I am talking about things that are so dumb and make no sense at all, I miss holding and kissing your hands....

FYI I am going to run and jump in your arms at the end of these three weeks, and you better twirl me around like you always do :)

Thinking of you always, loving you forever...Babes, your my bestest friend in the WORLD!

3 WEEKS

My Baby left me this morning!!! FOR 3 WEEKS!!! She went back to Oregon to visit her family. I'm happy that she gets to see her family and take a little vacation. It's going to be really weird without her around. We've never been apart for this long. I guess I'll hold on to the saying.."absence makes the heart grow fonder" or something along those lines??

To my BABY: I'm going to miss you like crazy! In fact...I already miss you like crazy. I hope you enjoy your trip. I'm glad you get the chance to spend some time with your family. You definitely deserve a vacation! You're such an amazing wife!! Thank you so much for all the treats and meals you made me yesterday. I'll have food to eat for DAYS and DAYS! I love you so much and will be thinking about you and missing you every second that you're gone. I'm going to miss falling asleep next to you with my arm around you feeling you breathing. I'm going to miss looking into your beautiful eyes. I'm going to miss your smiling face greeting me when I come home after work. I'm going to miss EVERYTHING about YOU!! Love you BABES!!

Miley Cyrus Sing Along!!

NC ROAD TRIP

NC Road Trip - making a free slideshow

ROAD TRIP

Our journey across the beautiful USA was a success! We had little or no mishaps, and Nika, although locked up in her carrier the whole way, was quite calm (thanks to the tranquilizers which saved us and her)!

We drove straight through Nebraska and Wyoming, deciding those are definitely the last states we’d consider living in. Our first REAL stop was St. Louis and Kansas City. I was able to see where Mike worked last summer and where we first started communicating. It was fun to see the path he walked on again and again, filled with excitement, when I called him for the first time. St Louis was awesome. We were able to see the famous landmark-the Gateway Arch- and tour around the area for a bit. We had dinner at Iron Barleys-Yummy little place nestled into a quiet neighborhood outside St. Louis. Mike had the famous Monte Cristo Dog (hot dog served open faced on a bun dressed with jam and cheese—it was amazingly good. I had a house special, which was also pretty tasty). We wanted to see a baseball game, Missouri was playing Chicago that day, but we didn’t have time.

Next stop-MEMPHIS. We LOVED Memphis and decided that the saying holds true-There is nothing like SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY. Everyone we met was genuinely nice; it was wonderfully contagious. We had the best smoked ribs at a restaurant called Rendezvous, downtown Memphis. (Before we left Utah we gathered all the necessary food information from the show Man vs. Food and ate at the suggested restaurants a long the way). They served not only amazing ribs but the best smoked sausage I have ever had! YUM!!! Mike and I LOVE food!

The next morning we toured Graceland; saw where the King lived, ate, spent his last waking moments of life, and was buried. It was really cool to see all of the memorabilia in the house and take in the energy of one of the world’s greatest musicians.

Before leaving Memphis we ate lunch at Gus’s-BEST FRIED CHICKEN EVER!!! YUMMY!!! Words cannot describe how amazing the spice is on the chicken. We are both going to crave the food we’ve eaten. It was fun to experience Southern culture. Your meal is served with white bread, beans and coleslaw ☺. We were also able to walk down Beale Street-the place where Blues originated. It was amazing to see all the old buildings, to hear Blues being played throughout the city, and to see everything come alive.

Third stop- Nashville. We were able to tour the Grand Ole Opry museum and see the birthplace of country music! ☺. Despite not loving country it was really cool to see all the memorabilia and feel the history of one of the most popular genres of music. We also go to see The Hermitage, the property of our very late President Andrew Jackson. The grounds were stunning-it is so pretty in Tennessee.

A small tangent-this is just a plug for those traveling either the east coast or through the southern states, a great place to crash is Drury Inn Hotel-really good service, good rooms, affordable, really good breakfast included. ☺ Mike and I found out about it and ended up staying at four different Drury Inns along the way.

As we neared Charlotte we saw the Great Smoky Mountains and I TRIED to remember the song on the show we watched over and over as kids--Six Pack with Kenny Rogers, about Tennessee- I had to call dad who started singing the familiar tune to me “Rocky Top you’ll always be home sweet home to me, good ol’ Rocky Top, Rocky Top Tennessee, Rocky Top Tennesseeee”… ☺. Mike had the privilege of hearing me and my dad sing together. :) We also noticed there were some Civil War sites a long the way and so we stopped and toured through an old Civil War Cemetery and saw some of the landscape where the cannons went off and some of the battles were fought. I just love it back here, so much history and so much beauty!

We are officially living in Charlotte, been here about a week now. We experienced our first intense thunderstorm, which freaked Nika out ☺. She doesn’t know what to do, first she was drugged for 5 days, now she is in a totally new environment, and Mike and I have switched schedules on her-I’m home all the time and Mike is gone 6 days a week. ☺

We love it! The ward is awesome, the nature is gorgeous-lush and green, and the place we live in is quite nice-pool, work out facility, BBQ, clubhouse…it will be fun to make this our home for 4 months. I leave Mike on the 12th to go home to Oregon for three weeks-longest time we’ve been away from each other. We are going to miss each other like crazy. It is as I said to Mike “you aren’t just leaving one person you are leaving three-your companion, your lover, AND your friend. Mike and I have grown so much closer; we love spending every minute we can with each other. I love love love being married to my best friend; someone who makes me laugh like crazy, someone I can be myself around, someone who respects me, loves me, cherishes me and honors me, and someone that is as silly as I am which increases the silliness in our home 10 fold. I LOVE YOU BABE!!! Miss you like the dickens!

POPCORN

Enjoy our "Popcorn" segment :) in half English, half Irish, and half British.

If you want to hear the videos you have to STOP the play list--down at the bottom of the sidebar on the right.

POPCORN!

Easter

Happy Easter! We hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! We are so thankful to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. How blessed we feel to have the knowledge of his life and his resurrection.

The weather cleared and we were able to enjoy a wonderful, quiet Sunday together. I made the "Eastman Traditional Easter Meal" for Mike and me-Glazed ham, potato salad, asparagus with parmesan cheese, popovers and of course deviled eggs. It could have fed 4-6!! :) It was soooooo yummy though!

The other pictures are when we went bowling this past week-a great past time :), and pictures of Taylor and Rachel's new little addition. We are soooo happy for them and welcome Jensen into the world!

Easter, Bowling, Other Things :)

Easter - making a free slideshow

Nika

Blog Update

FYI we added a "funnies" section of pictures and "Family Shots for the week" to our sidebar :)