Crazy thing called life.

Yesterday we witnessed our first REAL tornado warning. We had a couple in Colorado Springs, but nothing too severe. I was at work when I heard the tornado sirens go off, but had to finish out the day before I could go home. Jason picked me up from work and we stayed in his car in the parking garage until the storm had passed. Nothing actually touched down, but I guess there were some funnel clouds spotted. Here are some pictures from after it had passed (I was too scared during the storm to take pictures haha).

The storm moving away.

Hail at our house.

Hail and the lake that was made in 

about30 minutes.

Jason and I went to a few antique stores today to browse what they had. They have a huge antique mall downtown that has a nice selection and it very well laid out. I found a wooden "G" that I put in our living room and some tiny American flags that match our theme. We had lunch at Darn Good Soup, and outside they had a display of art and the artist did mostly giraffes! I was in love with some of the paintings, but I refrained from spending $200 on one ;)

LOVE this one!

In doggy news, we got Lacy groomed... finally! Jason wanted to grow her hair out for the winter and save money on grooming, so she was really fluffy and shabby looking. Now, she looks like a rat haha. There is no middle ground with that dog. She has to feel better being short, though. 

Before

After :)

In moving news, we got orders!! We are OFFICIALLY going to Schriever AFB, Colorado. We have a departure date of June 1st and a report no later than date of June 30th, but Jason would have to take some leave if we wait until June 30th to get there. We should be rolling out of Indiana in early June sometime. The drive is pretty easy (seems like we just did it 10 months ago.... oh we did) but we plan to take two days and tow my Highlander behind the Jeep. We are planning to get on the waiting list for base housing on Monday. The housing looks gorgeous! I really hope we are able to get one. We won't know until shortly before we get there, but our friend, Laura, has offered her home if we don't have a place to stay :)

Finally, my dad took this amazing picture of a hummingbird feeding her baby in their backyard. I told him he should enter a photo contest! It's one of the best photos I have seen (probably second to the moon picture you took, Dad).

Scratch that

Forget everything I posted about Georgia. There was a mix up with the date that the Air Force had as Jason's graduation and they had us down to move in late August. When he told our assignment officer that he was done on June 1st, everything changed. He told us last Wednesday that we would not be going to Georgia and would get back with us soon on where we are headed. We found out today that after 10 months away, we are headed back to Colorado Springs! We were so excited and in shock when we found out. I was sure they wouldn't send us back there, since we just came from Colorado. I'm not complaining though.

After the call, I immediately called my friend, Laura, who I worked with in Colorado to tell her the good news. Her husband is in the Army so she understands the craziness of changed orders and uncertainty. I am hoping and praying to get my old job back until we start having little baby Gabrick's :)

I think about how stressed and flat out scared I was this past week. I was thinking about how hard it would be to fly ourselves, the dogs and everything we own overseas in 10 weeks! I would pray that God's will would be done and tried my hardest to trust completely but it was so hard! Little did I know what God had in store for us. Not only are we going to be in Colorado for two years, but we were told that it is highly likely that we will be headed overseas after this assignment. Two years to plan to go overseas? I can do that :) Jason  really wanted to head overseas this assignment, but is overjoyed to be heading to Colorado. Right now he is even singing "I'm so excited, I just can't hide it!" ;)

The Lord really has gone before and prepared a way for us. He will never abandon us...

Photo Shoot and Pasta Salad

We might have some major changes going on here in the next couple days... But until we are 100% I won't post on it ;) (no, I am not pregnant haha)

Recently I made my mom's and now my pasta salad. I have made this dish for so many different occasions and get together's throughout the years, and it is a crowd pleaser! I thought I would shade the recipe... well, I just wrote it out and it's not really a recipe haha. All I do is add about 3 small packages of artificial crab to 2 boxes Suddenly Salad Classic. Make the pasta according to the box and mix in the shredded crab to the pasta and dressing. So simple and so delicious!

This past weekend, our friend, Rebekah, took some pictures of me and Jason with Jason in his ABU's. I really wanted a picture for the top of this blog, but she was so sweet and made a whole "photo shoot" out of it. Here are some of our fave pictures :)

I love Bekah! We really do look like sisters, I don't

care what anyone else says ;)

New Beginnings

Since we found out about Georgia, I have been getting back into the "Air Force way of living." This past year has had little to no military influence, with the exception of Jason's couple days in uniform. I was thinking about it this past week and someone asked me if it is weird having a "normal" life. Well, this isn't normal for us. The Air Force is normal for us and this is weird. Things are starting to come together and we should be getting orders in the next few weeks. That will make Georgia final... well, as final as the military can make it ;) 

Today we are going through the basement and getting rid of anything that we haven't used in the past year and it's sentimental... we'll probably keep my wedding dress ;) We don't want to move into a new house with a bunch of junk we won't use, like we did here. We are also getting Jason's Jeep a tow package so we don't have to drive my "ticking time bomb" of a car down there.

I've made a couple new things from Pinterest this past week. We combined small groups on Thursday and had a guys and girls party with another group. I made Apple Cinnamon Roll Ups for Jason to take and Garlic Chicken Puffs for the girls group. They were both SO easy and really tasty, too! Here are the recipes :)

Apple Cinnamon Bites 

1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 package refrigerated pie pastry
2 tablespoons butter, melted

2 medium tart apples – peeled – I cut about 16 slices

Combine sugar and cinnamon

Set Aside a 1 Tablespoon of the mixture

Unroll Pastry and brush on 1 Tablespoon of Butter and sprinkle sugar mixture.

Place Apple Slices into the bowl with the rest of the sugar mixture – and mix.

Cut the pastry into strips — about 1 inch wide and 5 inches long.

Wrap one strip around each apple wedge, placing sugared side of pastry against the apple.

Place “pies” on parchment paper lined baking sheet. Brush on the remaining butter and sprinkles with the rest of the sugar mixture.

Bake at 425 for 10 – 13 minutes or till golden brown

Garlic Chicken Puffs 

4 ounces, weight Cream Cheese

1 teaspoon Garlic Powder

½ cups Cooked, Shredded Chicken

2 cans (8 Oz. Can) Refrigerator Crescent Rolls

Mix cream cheese, garlic and chicken until well blended.

Unroll crescent rolls and cut each triangle into 2 triangles. (When you unroll the crescent rolls, 2 triangles are attached, making a big square. You can just cut from there, following the perforation for one cut, and make another cut from the other corners, giving you 4 little triangles.)

Place 1 teaspoon of chicken mixture on the center of each triangle and fold the corners in over the creamy mixture.

Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 12-14 minutes.

And last, but not least, my best friend, Valerie and her husband Jesse had their baby on the 1st! Benaiah Daniel was brought into the world! He is the cutest bundle of joy with some cheeks that just make you want to kiss him! I am filled with joy for the three of them and can not wait to meet the little guy! I remember the day Val told me she was expecting. It was two days before our wedding and she told me she was bringing a guest haha. I love her! Here is the cutie patootie...

   "Never once did we ever walk alone, Never once did You leave us on our own. You are faithful, God you are faithful" 

100's Night?

It looks as though we are 100 days until our PCS (Permanent Change of Station) to Georgia (approximately). I feel like Jason and I were still in our "honeymoon" state of mind during our last move (probably since we had JUST gotten back from our honeymoon). I plan to be as organized and prepared as possible. I got my Military Spouse magazine in the mail yesterday and it could not have been a better issue. It was their "PCS Issue" and had a TON of wonderful information on what to expect and how to prepare for a new place. There was an article about a Navy Wife who PCS'd from Hawaii to Twenty Nine Palms in the desert of Southern California. She said she was angry and felt abandoned by her deployed husband. She talks about how she made their new base a home and got involved doing things she loved and meeting new people. She ends her story by this wonderful quote:

"As Military spouses, we have it made. We get to travel the world and meet wonderful new people we never might have had the courage to meet if we weren't thrown in feet first. It might take a while to adjust, but it will be worth the wait. So go find the gems hidden in your new duty station - believe me, they're there. Even if they are buried in sand."


There is also a wonderful article about the importance of keeping in touch with your friends from a previous base. It's like this issue was written for me! It goes to show that I am not the only one with these difficulties and questions about the big move.

God worked wonders in my heart today at church. I was feeling really excited about moving to Georgia, but I know myself well, and knew with all the excitement, I forget about the wonderful friends and church I will be leaving behind. I received prayer and was immediately overwhelmed with an equal sense of excitement and sadness. God has blessed us abundantly here in Bloomington, and I am 100% sure He will do so in Valdosta. BUT, with those blessings we have become close to people, and are not ready to leave them yet. Through my last few moves (Colorado, Back and forth to California and Indiana) I detached myself from everything in the last few months of our stay, but this time I am going to savor every moment with our "family" here in Indiana. Better get ready to see entirely too much of me, Bekah ;)

On an non-PCS note, Jason and I saw Act of Valor yesterday. It was amazing! It got awful reviews, but the guys in it aren't actors, they are active duty Navy Seals. It makes me so thankful that Jason isn't a Navy Seal, but also so thankful for the men who risk their lives in missions most American's don't even know happen. I would definitely recommend it :)

Georgia on my mind.

Yes, it looks like we are going to be heading to Moody Air Force Base in Georgia this June. We are SO excited that we finally found out (well, it's 99% that we are going there and you never know with the military...). We have heard GREAT things about this area of Georgia from guys who have been to the base and people who have lived in Georgia. I know God has a plan for us there and we can't wait to see what it is. But, at the same time, we are heartbroken that we have to leave our wonderful friends here in Indiana. We have created such wonderful, lifelong friendships here in such a short time, it's going to be really difficult to drive away from all of that.

We have already started looking at houses since we will be leaving in about 3 months! I feel like we are at USAFA all over again. Wait, wait, wait, then everything happens way too quickly. I've been in a state of constant prayer and feel really comforted about it all. Since we aren't 100% sure Georgia is the place, we are waiting a couple of weeks before we talk to anyone about houses. Base housing would be ideal, but that is not always available. We plan to take a long weekend to drive down there in the next month so we can look at the area and some houses. We won't be doing another "site unseen" like we did here in Bloomington.

The job Jason will be doing will really help his career. He will be one of two Public Affairs Officers at the base working with the rescue ops helicopter unit. And IF they decide to send him to tech school for Public Affairs, it will be in Maryland, so not too far of a flight for me to go visit :)

Recent Happenings at the Gabrick Home

Still no news on where we are going... We know less now then what we knew before. Our placement guy (that's his official name) told us that the list we were looking at was not accurate and that they don't have an accurate list up. So we are back to being able to go ANYWHERE in the world. I am still getting the dogs ready for a possible overseas trip, but it is so hard since every country (even Hawaii) have different laws on what they need done. I should be stressed, but I'm not. I know wherever we go we will be blessed!

Jason's mom came out to the Hoosier state for a quick visit this weekend. She arrived Thursday evening and headed to Arizona this morning to visit some of her family down there. We had such a great time with her! We went to Oliver Winery and then headed to Indianapolis yesterday for lunch and to see Lucas Oil Stadium since none of us had seen where the Super Bowl was this year. It was a wonderful weekend with family!

Jason showing his mom around IU

Last weekend I had a great girls night with some of the girls from our church small group, and when Jason came to pick me up he told me he found a dog outside near our house in 15 degree snowy night. We drove around for a while trying to find the owner and posted some stuff online about a found dog but didn't get anything. This puppy was the noisiest thing I have ever met! She cried all night and all day. We ended up taking her to the Bloomington Animal Shelter the next morning to find out that out that she had been adopted out of there not too long ago and the owner was out across the street neighbor. Jason took her over there and they had NO CLUE that she had even gotten out. They were still hung over from the night before :( The poor girl would have frozen if we hadn't picked her up when we did. Some people just shouldn't own animals...

Jason spoiled me on Valentine's Day. I came home from work and he had made steak, potatoes, rolls and strawberry shortcake. I had a dozen roses, the new twilight DVD, a "I love my hubby" shirt and a box of chocolates. He even printed a menu for the meal he made :) I'm so blessed to have a husband like him.

Dinner table set for Valentine's Day :)

I love him! I HAD to wear pink scrubs to work ;)

Dinner menu.

Shirt from my hunny!

I love cherries so Jason got these soaked in Moonshine...

Not so tasty.

My roses :)

Work is finally starting to slow down a bit for me. I worked my 109 hours in two weeks, got really sick, missed some work, and now they are planning on hiring some one else to ease the load a little. It will be nice to be able to see my hubby once in a while. I even got a day off in the middle of the week (today) because the Doctor is sick.

We saw The Vow and Red Tails as a "double feature Valentine's date" last weekend. The Vow was AMAZING! I loved every minute of it, Red Tails was less then wonderful. The story was good (could have been better) but the acting was horrible :( We were really sad because we had heard it was good. Jason kept apologizing to me for making me see it haha. He made it up to me by seeing The Vow.

I've done two crafts since my last blog. They were pretty small and easy, but I love them! The first one I did was made a jar for all of our memories in 2012. Anytime we have something we want to remember or write down how we felt about an event, we write it down on a piece of paper and put it into this jar :) The other craft I did was one that I have been thinking about for years. I gathered all of mine and Jason's letters to each other from the Prep School basic and USAFA BCT, put them in chronological order and into a binder. It was so fun to go through all the old letters and see how much we have grown and how much in love we still are today. It was a hard 5 years, but we knew from the beginning we were going to make it through. I also put our first conversation into the front of the binder. Since we started out relationship on Myspace, we have it all written down.

I always loved to draw Jason fun pictures :)

I'm going to end this long blog with something that God has shown me these past few weeks. I have been working a lot and Jason has had a pretty light schedule, so I would come home to a clean house and dinner during the week. It was definitely trying on both of us, but God has shown us what it will be like for the other one for the rest of our marriage. Jason will be working long hours and I will be home with kids and (hopefully) a clean house and dinner. It put things into perspective for us, and I hope we will grow from it and remember what it was like for the other person when that time comes :)

And finally... Misty in cowboy boots ;)