5 on Friday Volume: 1

I am linking for my first ever 5 on Friday post!  Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I am busy planning a huge dinner for about 15-20 of Tom's military co-workers

1.  Thanksgiving and Lions football go hand and hand for this family!!!  

2.  This will be my 1st year making a huge dinner on my own. Every year in the past we have always gone home on leave for Thanksgiving.  I have tried to stay organized and plan ahead as much as possible.  I created a menu, collected recipes, and made a grocery list.  I am hoping our 1st Thanksgiving in our own home looks as delicious as this!!

 

3.  Our Menu

 



4. 

I plan to give this Raspberry Wine Spritzer a try!!

Here is the recipe:

Combine Equal parts Barefoot Moscato White Wine(chilled)

and Diet Sprite (chilled)

add frozen red raspberries

Serve Chilled 

5.  Thanksgiving is going to be so different not celebrating with your family.  I am so thankful we have such awesome friends here with us to celebrate with.  One things is for sure, we will certainly be missing our family.

 

 

 

 

Random facts about me

1. I dont have any of my wisdom teeth, not because they were removed but because they never grew in
2. In the past 5 years I have moved 5 times.....life of a navy wife
3. I went to school for medical assisting and 2 months before graduating we found out we were moving out of the country.
4. I have a starbucks frappa addiction, we have a coffee shop here on the island that "sells" starbucks......I...t is not the same!!
5. I didnt get my drivers license until i was 18
6. The first time my husband told me he loved me was on new years eve, he wrote I love you in the snow
7. I hate driving.....especially on bridges, at night, and in traffic
8. I am a planner, i have lists for EVERYTHING
9. Our last name means Dairy or yogurt in Arabic.....we learned this last year while my husband was stationed in Bahrain.
10. I have lived in 3 different states and 2 countries
11. I dont know how to drive a stick shift
12. i have fractured both of my ankles
13. I have an eye sensitivity to lights
14. I have never been to Disney
15. I survied a hurricane, earthquake, and tornado........all in the same week
16. I am obsessed with decorating for every holiday
17. The first thing I do in the morning when I come downstairs is open the blinds......there is nothing like the sun pouring in to start the day off
18. I get hives every single day.....I really need to get an allergy test
19. I am absolutely horrible at sending things in the mail. I will buy cards, birthday presents, write checks, ect. I will even get it all packaged up and then it will sit for days/weeks/months. Thank goodness for online bill paying
20. There is a 5 year 4 month and 3 day age gap between my husband and I.
21. My family did not "like" my husband when we first started dating. They thought he was way to young for me. They quickly realized he was AWESOME and now sometimes I think they love him more than me
22. I have an unhealthy love for our dog, I worry about him constantly. I talk to him like a person and treat him like he is my baby.
23. I taught my husband how to dive into a pool
24. One of my biggest fears is that by the time we finally are blessed with a baby our parents will be to old to enjoy them.
25. My mom is the strongest most beautiful person I know. Every day I see myself becoming a little more like her and I couldnt be prouder.

Halloween 2013

Halloween weekend was a blast.  I got in the spirit by wearing my skull tank top, I thought it was pretty festive!

 

 

I wore my Halloween spider socks to Step class the day before Halloween.

I made Halloween swirled sugar cookie for Tom's section at work.

 

 

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I missed all of these cute little trick or treaters more than anything!!! Thank goodness for Facebook updates. I was beyond excited to see their sweet faces flooding my news feed Halloween morning.

Halloween day I decided I was going to try to wear a scarf. I have so many cute scarves that I haven't been able to wear here because its just to hot for something wrapped around your neck.  I gave it a try on Halloween and 30 minutes in I ditched it. It's just way to hot for scarves here. 

Tom had to work on Halloween from 6am-6pm.  Trick or Treating on the island was scheduled from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.  I had invites to tag along with some of our friends who have kids and to pass out candy with friends who live in a smaller neighborhood.  I decided I wanted to stay home and see how many trick or treaters we would get.  I dressed up at Batman and Dakota dressed up at a little pumpkin.

It was about 6:45pm before our first trick or treaters arrived. We live to far up the mountain for anyone to want to trick or treat at our house.  Our favorite kids did stop by to visit and load up on candy.  Dakota was over the moon excited to have kids to play with.

Of course I couldn't resist a fall photo shoot with our little pumpkin.  He absolutely HATED that stem on his head. 

The only trick or treaters we got all night.  We spent 15 dollars on 2 huge bags of candy and we only got 5 trick or treaters.  Pebbles, Ariel, a pirate, Belle, and a superhero!!! 

When Lindsey and Lionel brought the kids over so we could see them in their costumes we had to take a minute to snap a picture of the two of us all dressed up. 

The Saturday after Halloween was the base MWR costume party.  We dressed up as Batman and Robin.  Our costumes were last minute things I threw together so we could go to the party.  I think they turned out pretty cute considering I didn't spend a single cent on them.

We headed over to Brittany and Andrew's house for a few drinks and then headed out to the party. Our plan was to take the bus so we didn't have to worry about drinking and driving. 

As we were walking to the bus stop we watched the bus drive past.  We had no idea when the next bus was scheduled to come so we just started walking.  It's a few mile walk to the Windjammer where the party was happening.  We looked pretty funny walking down the road in costumes.  We were all sweating to death so we decided it was time to try to hitch a ride the rest of the way.  We finally flagged down a van, we all climbed in and arrived at our destination in one piece (only in GTMO can you safely hitchhike).

We danced the night away, laughed, and tried to keep the creepers off from us.  It was such a fun night.  When it was time to go home we had to figure out which bus would take us to our housing neighborhood.  We had to wait about 45 minutes for the bus to finally arrive and then walk about half a mile from the bus stop to our house.  It was an awesome night, my most favorite Halloween to date!! 

Pumpkin Carving

We had some of our most favorite people over for an impromptu dinner and then pumpkin carving. I first met Brittany through a mutual friend, she told me that Brittany and Andrew would be moving to the island and that Andrew was also an MA like Tom.  I was so excited to learn of a MA wife coming to the island!!!  There aren't to many of us.  I messaged Brittany on Facebook and we hit it off right away.  They arrived here in GTMO September 21st, we met them at Ferry Landing to welcome them aboard and later that night they came to celebrate my 30th birthday!!  We became island besties very quickly!! We all just get along great. The guys work the same days of the week, although, Tom is working days and Andrew is working nights we still get to hang out together on their off days!! We have had many double dates with them. They are such an awesome couple and we value their friendship very much. 

Fall Has Arrived

I have long since deemed it officially FALL the day after our anniversary!! I pull out all the fall decorations September 7th every year and my heart squeals with excitement!! Fall is my absolute favorite season!!! Pumpkins, colored leaves, fall scented candles, all of it just sings happiness to me. 

Our front door all decorated for fall!!! We have the happiest, cheeriest, most welcoming door on our block!!

 

The living room got some fall goodness too!!

 

Gtmo Pumpkin Patch

I have to say that GTMO does take good care of us.  They are always coming up with ways to bring the community together and make life on island enjoyable.  They brought in pumpkins and made a

GTMO pumpkin patch up at the Youth Center.  It turned out super cute!! They even had a pumpkin carving station so you could carve your pumpkin right there and not take the mess home. They also had paints if you wanted to paint a pumpkin.  The best part about the pumpkin patch was it was FREE!!! It made my heart happy to have a piece of fall here in tropical paradise. 

 

Fall leaves were scattered throughout to capture the true feel of fall.

A picture area with props to capture fun fall memories!!

We went on a Saturday, the patch had been open since Thursday so a lot of the pumpkins had been picked over or munched on by the iguanas, banana rats, or anything else that thought pumpkin sounded like a nice fall treat!!  We managed to find a few good ones though!!  I can't say I have ever been to a pumpkin patch in a summer dress before!!! I love adding new pages to this chapter in our lives.  We are enjoying every moment of it.

Shark!!

The week of Halloween we decided to take Dakota to Ferry Landing to try to get some pictures of him in his Shark Costume.  He had a blast playing in the water and exploring.  Everyone that saw him thought he looked absolutely adorable!!! I asked Tom to walk the plank with him so I could try to get some cute pictures......the plank was covered in slippery algae, Tom took a few steps and then slipped off and scraped his arm up pretty good.  Thank goodness his wife is a Medical Assistant, I doctored him up and made sure he was going to survive.