As stressful as it is right now, our dream is finally coming true. We have dreamt for years of moving back to SC. Wanting to get closer to family and friends, to Clemson football and baseball, the lake and it is finally happening....
We so lucky to be able to spend the summer at the lake!!! Our family lake house since I was born. It is a cute little turquoise - well actually more of a teal colored 3 bedroom humble, home sitting on a beautiful piece of property on the water. We are fortunate enough to wake up to the birds chirping, boats driving by, kids playing and a beautiful view. It truly is a paradise. A sweet, memory filled, paradise.
After moving to the lake, we have been in a mission to find a place to live, to settle. A job. A life. Schools. Friends. Mike has quite a few interviews and opportunities.....so we will see. Until then, we will enjoy out little paradise....
He got it!!!! After 24 years of service he got the precious little blue ID card!!! That is the RETIRED ID!!! What an accomplishment! This last year has flown! We started prepping for retired life over a year ago by taking the class TGPS, formerly known as TAPS. It snowed and some classes were cancelled. But, by recommendations of many, we took it again! This time, we took it all, wrote down every details, talked to people about things and felt ready. Ugh, we were not ready enough. But, it is all happening....fast.
OUR RECOMENDATION: Take that class 2 years out, 1 year out and 6 months out. Spouses, go to every part that they recommend you to go to. Take notes and look at your notes when you get closer and closer. (We should have done this!) Take your old notes and just update them the 2nd and 3rd time you take the class. Why? You forget. Things change. Life.
but she doesn't blog. Three years since my last blog post. Facebook world kinda took over. I am a little sad now that I have not kept up with it all here. But, instead of just being sad, mad and a wee bit crazy, maybe I should just start again. Just add to it. Just pick up where I left off or rather pick up right now. So, I am going to start today. Who knows it may be 3 years again but I know one day, I will be glad I have what I have.
So here we go.....with full plans of blogging. Lots.
What do I want this to become???
First and foremost....A dairy of our life, for me, my family, my children.
A way to share, inspire, communicate and just plain chat with others. Life is big. Life is a bit crazy. And sometimes sharing makes us all feel like we are in the same fruit loop box! :-)
But frankly, if anyone knows me, knows I love to talk. God blessed me with extra words. And, this is my place to talk....It is your choice to listen or not. Or join in! I LOVE when people talk back!
So...welcome back to our life!!! Our journey continues!!!
THIS IS US - NOW
(Anna - 18, Sully 11, Mason 6)
It has been a while. It has been year. Wow. I guess when Mike came home life just got all kinds of crazy! It was all good. But, now he is gone again. Left yesterday. And I have tons to do, tons to get done, tons of goals before he comes home. I cleaned out my closet today! Quick update: Mike is now stationed on the USS Gunston Hall. They deployed yesterday. I know. I'm not happy about it either. But, we will make it! :-) We are strong like that. Plus I have one heck of a support group. On top of my amazing family and friends, I am now the President of the ships FRG - Family Readiness Group for the non military peeps like my parents.
We have our first meeting on Valentines day and we have over 25 people planning to attend. Plus children! I am super excited. Not sure how I will talk in front of them all but I guess I will face that fear and figure it out. I am still shooting as well. Matter of fact, a dear friend/fellow photog and I have started a group on Facebook for networking/friendship in the photog community. We are going to help each other grow our business!
I know, I told you I was busy. And, I am selling Advocare again. Well I am more excited to be taking it than selling it but I had to sell it to get the discount! And, I hope to be helping my sponsor who is a dear friend's older brother who has Leukemia. He is a personal trainer and owns a gym and can not work while going through chemo. Every penny counts.
And who knows...maybe some of you will see the benefit of it and jump on the wagon! It is going goo places starting tomorrow! You will see... Mike and I are both doing it. I am excited and nervous but it will be good once we get started. I hope to keep blogging through this journey of deployment, life and all the other stuff!
After driving over 2 hours to get 26 minutes away we finally made it to the race. It was sweltering hot and we were anxious to get started! Saw some great friends as we walked in and they looked awesome! They were also showing off their peanut butter they got for finishing the race! Incentive for this peanut butter loving family! Anna and Sully looked awesome! Mason was in stroller and ready to get colored, I think. We headed towards the race....and walked and walked and while we saw people running we never did find the start. So, we jumped in and took off. It was hot. Most people were walking. 2/3 of the color stations were out of color and told us to roll in it. Ummmmm no. There were ZERO water stations and our water that we brought was empty and we were hot. There were no bathrooms along the way. Lots of people were taking breaks in the bushes for shade. We kept going and as we approached the finish line, there was no music, no excitement and no color fun! When we found the water at the end an the water was warm. Not even chilly. And, they were out of peanut butter, but people were walking around with cases of it. We were not first, matter of fact, we were close to the end.... but I bet there were still 100 people after us. For the amount of money that this race cost us, we were quite disapointed to say the least. It was our first race with the entire family! We wanted to show our children how much fun exercise can be. It was not fun. At all. We had more fun dancing and singing in the car on the way over.... Color me RAD is MUCH better and I am sad that my children's first race was this one. Am I glad we did it?? IT is hard to say, we did it! We finished a 5K. We walked more than I have ever walked in a paid race but....I am thrilled my children did a race with us! I will just do more research next year! Because Color Vibe disappointed. But we looked cute and that is kinda a win! Def a WIN!
I have so much to tell you all but I am about to BUST at the seams to tell you about our dream come true. This post may be all over the place as words are hard to describe our gratitude and how I feel. As most of you know we have been living a long deployment, well it all started last January, like 2012 January. So with in 16 months, Mike came home for 1 month after 3 months of school and then was supposed to be home for 2 weeks at the 6 month mark. Fortunately, he made chief this time around and unfortunately was in initiation during the 6 month period so he was not able to come home. We were able to finally get him home at the end of January which meant we had not seen him in 9 month. Some of you may remember that we were honored on Thankful Thursday by our AWESOME Realtor Barbara Sgueglia. If you do not remember or did not know, you can see it here! Welcome Barbara to my blog!
AND, guess what??? We won!!!! I know right??? I NEVER win anything and we won this awsome prize!!! You can view all of this on her Facebook page right HERE. I highly recommend you liking her page as you will see true patriotism from Barbara. (Among other things.) Patriotism that you do not see as much as we should in this country. She will make you proud. I am proud to not just call her my Realtor but call her my friend. She and her husband both have been nothing but amazing to me and my family. No words can even come close to expressing my gratitude! Not just for this trip, but also for taking care of us. When we bought our house we were just getting to know Barbara. We had been through 5 Realtors that we just did not click with. I was frustrated beyond belief. Barbara saw our vision right off the bat, told us what to do, found our house and led us through the entire process of fulfilling the dream of becoming homeowners! We were nervous. She had answers and was there. She went to bat for us when another professional was pushing us off. When we have referred friends and co-workers to her, they have come back thrilled with her level of professionalism and the ability and know how to get it done and done right. I only wish all my friends would use her and NOT just because she is now my dear friend, but because they are my friends and I want them to have the kind of help that Barbara gives. Not only did she find our house, go to bat for us, give us advise, but she also gave us a home warranty for our home. What a gift! And it was not because she liked me, she does this for all military families as a way of saying thank you for serving this wonderful country. I could go on and on but if you want to hear more, call me! Or rather, call her! The process of buying our first home also started a lifelong friendship with Barbara and her husband Dan. These guys are something. They are a loving couple who constantly give, give, give. Dan owns a body shop in Norfolk. You can view his page HERE. He has done work for us as well as for people we have referred to him. ALWAYS great work at a reasonable price! Matter of fact, Mike allowed someone to drive his jeep at work one day. The boy rear ended a lady in a Honda Odyssey. Brand New. Ouch! Mike gave her Dan's card and asked her to please get an estimate there. She did, as well as 3 others. She ended up going to Dan and called Mike a few weeks later thrilled with the job well done. Dan is the man! :-)
Actually Dan and Barbara and both more than business. They have a beautiful family. They were high school sweetheart! They are best friends. They both exude kindness, patriotism, a love for God, their friends and family and are just good people. They are loyal and honest. Our friendship started as business but it so much more now. They have both been there for us while we celebrated birthdays, prayed for us when we needed it, helped me through this deployment and well just been dear friends. We are thrilled that they were thankful enough to give this generous prize and that we were lucky enough to win it!
So, we booked our trip! And, we just got back from Disney! (our trip details in another post - soon) The resort that Barbara and Dan sent us to was top notch AMAZING!!!! But, I am not surprised! They do things right! We had a blast! Barbara and Dan, we can not thank you enough for making this possible for us! We smiled, we laughed we experienced the magic of Disney! It was a dream come true and all because of you!
AND we got to check off #8 on our list of 100 things to do in 100 days even though it is more of a bucket list!
Halloween is a holiday that we love in the Curti household! We like to make it a family event! This year....the boys were Mario and Luigi thanks to Alla! (They were her boys costumes last year!) They were thrilled and I was thrilled I did not have to buy costumes! :-) WIN WIN! Funny thing, the kids across the street, with whom we were trick or treating, were Mario and Luigi too and we did not even know. And, they were opposite my boys so.....Sullivan and Josh were Mario and Luigi and Mason and Ian were Mario and Luigi! It was great! Everyone kept telling the little ones that there were 2 bigger Mario and Luigi's that were here right before them. Yup, their brothers. I know it was cute. We got too much candy and the kids had a blast! Mason was saying trick or treat at every house and thanks you when prompted, not that anyone could understand him. They still thought it was cute! :-) It was cold, for the first Halloween in years. However, there were very few people out with fire pits. Usually in our neighborhood there are tons of people sitting outside with fire pits out. It was fun, Mike was missed and next year will be better! And we hope to all dress up!
We also did our annual Halloween Trunk or Treat with the Smart Moms Coop! What fun and these are some mighty cute kids!!! I feel blessed to be a part of this amazing group of women and children!
I joined a MOPS group this year. My girlfriend Christina introduced me to it and I think it is something that will be good for me. Fellowship with other mothers including speakers and something fun to do, sounds perfect! So our group took the kids to the pumpkin patch and Mason and his friend Hadley had a blast! (Sully was in school) They picked out pumpkins, saw the animals, ran circles around each other, went down the slides, played on the tractor and were little 2 year olds!! Arn't they cute!
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