The Voyage of Life: My Favorite Art Works in D.C.

art, faith

We lived in D.C. (both inside and outside the Beltway) for 5 years, and during that time we always had at least 2 preschoolers, sometimes 3. If it wasn’t at the ‘Space Museum’ or the ‘Dinosaur Museum’, we couldn’t stay long. Art museums were terrifying to even attempt with them, so like most parents, we just didn’t. One year I sent the boys to stay with their grandparents for a week, and I had the rare opportunity to wander the […]

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Beautiful Personalized Gifts for Christmas with Giveaway!

family, fashion, giveaways
Personalized Locket Giveaway!!

***I was not paid to write this review. All opinions are my own.*** Living  in the South has ignited a passion in me for all things monogrammed, engraved, and personalized, so when I came across this locket that you can personalize online in 5 minutes with words AND photos, and order it right to your doorstep, I HAD to try it. Thankfully, I was able to get my hands on a free blogger sample. (Thank you picturesongold.com!) Making the Locket […]

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My First Colossal Failure & My Supportive Spouse Overseas

Army Wives, family, hard times, military life, Real Army Wives, war letters
My First Colossal Failure & My Supportive Spouse Overseas

***This post belongs to the series True Stories of Real Army Wives. ***** My last post was about how miserable I was as a teacher. Alan must have called me the morning after my first or second day of teaching from Iraq. What he wrote in response to my hardship is one of the most touching, empathetic, heartfelt letters I have ever read. No, he wasn’t physically there, and yet with this letter you can see how he was still obviously […]

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Miserable Teaching with 20 boys & the Toothless Wonder

Army Wives, education, school
20 boys and the toothless wonder. story of my first week of teaching

***This post is part of the Real Army Wives series, which runs every Monday on storiesofourboys.com. For last week’s chapter click here.*** Sunday, Aug. 17, 2003 Oh, Alan, I missed you the MOST today! We had “Back to School” night, where we meet the parents. Everything was fine except instead of 22, I now have 25, and also this grandparent with two children in my class stayed after and basically threatened me. Yeah. This ignorant, toothless wonder, with a strong […]

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True Stories of Real Army Wives: My First Teaching Job

Army Wives, deployment, Real Army Wives, war letters
my very first teaching job. True Stories of Real Army Wives during deployment

Sun., Aug. 10, 2003 Alan, Hey Babe! Tomorrow is my first day of work. In case you haven’t yet gotten my previous letter, I got hired by Graham Elementary School downtown yesterday! Yay!! I’ll be making $32,000 this year. It’s a state charter school serving mostly low-income students, but it’s located in a church. Yeah, it’s different, but I’m excited about it. I’ll be teaching 3rd and 4th grade in one classroom, all subjects. It’s going to be tough. School starts […]

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Real Army Wives: Grim Reminders and My Guardian Angel

Army Wives, military life, war letters
Real Army Wives: Grim Reminders and My Guardian Angel

*******This post is part of the series True Stories of Real Army Wives. This blog series takes place in 2003, at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. All names of current military members and their spouses are changed.****** To read last week’s post, click here. Several things happened as that summer ended. Ashley, a friend of mine from church and one of the first people I’d met in Killeen, experienced a tragedy. Her husband’s XO was shot and killed. That was […]

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Mil Spouse Problems: 13 Months, The Illegal Question, & the Cat

Army Wives, Real Army Wives, war letters
Mil Spouse Problems: 13 Months, The Illegal Question, & the Cat

This post is part of the series True Stories of Real Army Wives. To read last week’s post, click here. Alan was good about taking photos with a disposable camera and mailing me the cameras later on. I’m going to include a few of those pictures in today’s post. Wed., July 23, 2003 11:32 pm Oh! Well, I went to choir practice tonight. I left in tears. At the end of practice, Bruce announced that he saw on Fox News […]

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The Military Spouse of the Year Award

Army Wives, military life

Kids’ papers often get turned in a day or two late. Sometimes things go missing for days before we find them at the bottom of a stack. My dining room table looks like…. Well, it looks like this: My four-year-old loves to paint just as much as I love to blog. This whole rule of disorder has been bothering me and also making me feel like a failure, so I decided to give up blogging. “I’ll do it on the […]

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Kids’ Names, The Cop, & Living a Life that Matters

Army Wives, Real Army Wives
military finances for newlyweds on 2 continents-- Real Army Wives

*******This post is part of the series, The Real Army Wives. For last week’s chapter, click here.*************** Friday, July 8, 2003 Alan, Hey! I’m being bad. I’m in class, and we are watching a truly boring video. So I’ve been brainstorming children’s names for our future children. These are some that I have come up with. Tell me what you think, and try to think of some names to add to the list. 🙂 Girls: Gracie Elizabeth  (my favorite) Kathryn Jennings […]

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