Moving, Again.

I really just wanted to write my thoughts down on recent events that have happened in our lives. I am sure people who have kind of kept in touch with us, or just see my posts about moving are just as surprised as we are. They probably think, 'moving again? can't they stay in one place?' Believe me, I feel the same way. Moving 7 times in less then 2 years is exhausting, the only good that has come from it are two things.

1. We get to move to all sorts of places, and experience just a taste of it. Get to know the locations we are in and to really soak in the place we have moved to. We try and explore the new area we have moved into, so we can at least say 'It was a nice visit, and now we have seen the area so I don't feel too upset about moving away.' Not only that it gives me a chance to throw away anything we don't need. I am not a hoarder, and if any of you know my father I am pretty sure I got that from him.

2. We also get to be blessed with all the kinds of people around us. People we have just meet, or just people in the ward always seem to pop up and come to our aid when I least expect it. I can't even begin to tell you the countless stories of moving trips where things have happened, and it just warms my heart and makes me eternally grateful.

Also whenever we move, for some reason I become anxious to the point of not eating. [No this is not a cry for help, or saying oh no Kristyna isn't eating!] I just have so many emotions, and things running through my head that I don't even think about eating. I got plenty of other things to occupy my mind then eating, I need to plan out what we pack, what is going to goodwill, how we will get it there. Are we getting a truck this time? Or are we just throwing everything out? What is my time limit? Can I do it by myself?
 

Just a few example of what is running through my mind during the times of our moves. Although I have to say this move, will be our last for a while. [cross your fingers] Here is the full story for those who don't know.

My husband has been gone most of this month on business trips to Vegas, Nashville, and now Texas. On one of these trips he was approached by his potential future boss. Matt probably thought they just wanted to chat, and catch up and see how his training was going. However they offered him a job starting July 1st. Shocked and excited, we were surprised by how quickly they wanted him. For you see the deal was that Matt was going to start his new position a year from now. Not..in a few weeks! The news was delivered to me when he got back and I started going into planning mode. Matt told me however that he would be starting later then July 1st so we had little more time. I was thankful for that, but I was sad that I had to quit my job that I have really enjoyed doing. Hopefully I can get one like it in Virginia!

Now all the 7 times that we have moved have not exactly prepared me for this. This time our move is a bit bigger, because Matt and I thought we were going to be in Arkansas for 1-1.5 years. So we had gone home and grabbed all of our wedding presents we never opened, all the furniture we had yet to use. [because up until this point I had bought goodwill furniture every time] So now Matt and I are planning this big move, and I am excited but nervous at the same time.

We also had something we never had before, a little kitten. I know it probably doesn't seem like a big deal to people who have pets, and take them places. But to me I have never had a kitten before, and I want this move to be easy on him. So we made the decision almost a week ago that he should come with us home on the plane. It would probably be easier on him then being in a car with us for 16 hours, and to be at our house with my mom taking care of him. I am nervous about him flying but I am sure he will be just fine, and hopefully he won't even remember this ever happened because he is so little!

All in all I am very grateful for everything that has happened with Matt and I these past two years of being married. We have learned a lot, and we have moved a lot and yet with each time I can't help but be more impressed with him and our love for each other. We make these decisions together, and work as a team to make all of this possible. For that I am truly grateful, and if I had to move cross country with anyone I am glad it is him.

So look out Virginia, here we come back! This time to stay for good [cross your fingers] because even though I have learned a lot from moving, I would really only like to do it one more time for the next 5-8 years. That would be to our new home..[ wish us luck in house hunting!]

Thank you to all our friends and family who have helped us with each move and have listened to our crazy stories of the unknown future. We are grateful for your help, and we miss all of you that we have left behind in our moves.

Fun date night ideas? I know I haven't posted much of it lately, this month has been crazy and so has the month before that. No worries I will post more date night ideas later. I really enjoy coming up with ideas and hopefully you can use some of my ideas for your date nights!

Until next time.

Christmas Break

Just a quick post with some pictures of our time at home. We went home to Virginia for Christmas and it was a lot of fun! Pretty much excitement, from the moment we finally touched down after a 3 hour delay. The first major thing we did was go to a Capitals hockey game! It was Matt's first hockey game and he loved it, he even bought a hat!

We spent a lot of time with the family and for some reason I mentally decided that I don't need to take pictures while I was at home. I tend to forget because I am having too much fun. How stupid of me. We had a great time on Christmas Eve at my house with the whole family over. We did our tradition with the SOCK [a big Christmas stocking we call the SOCK]. It's a tradition in our family that my grandma and grandpa Whitesides did for the kids when we were younger. This year my Aunt Cindy did it for us grandkids and we had a blast once again!

Our Christmas Stocking Sock looks something like that, but it is green and a lot bigger. We go around the room from youngest to oldest and reach in and pick out things from the stocking. We can't look in the stocking and we only have a few seconds to pull something out. These are just fun little gifts that could be anywhere from a rubix cube, to a recorder, and the special surprise we all try to get is the money hidden in there! We cheered everyone's names and it was such a blast!

Then my cousins from Virginia Beach came into town and we played card games all night, watched Sherlock and just goofed around. During this time one of my best friends [who I haven't seen in over a year] Court came up from Florida and we spent the whole night laughing while catching up.

It was so great to see her and we almost cried when we first saw each other. My dad wanted to be included in the pictures as you can see. He sure is a funny man :) I also got to see another person on my break, as a lot of you might have guessed my sister and best friend Alanna.

She always loves to tease me and tell me she never gets pictures with me. Which is true, like I said I always want to take pictures but I am so bad at it when I am on vacation. So she got me on New Years Eve when we celebrated together!

All in all it was a great trip and we loved spending time with the family, and thankfully we didn't get sick this time when we were home! We only got sick..right when we got back to Arkansas. Thank you to both of our families for spending time with us and spoiling us while we were home! It was a lot of fun!

Ps. On regarding the ABC dates, we didn't go on ones while we were on vacation. We did however go out on a date night before we left to go home the next day. It was an H date and we decided we go see The Hobbit and go out to eat at Hog's Place. [A little diner here in town.]

So see you soon DC. We love and miss you already but we are happy to be home. Matt is continuing his training here with HP and soon we shall be moving back to Virginia! This year will be filled with adventures! I can already tell because we have plenty of things to decide for the summer. Happy New Year everyone! I am sure 2014 will be a great year for all of us.

 

 

I also just wanted to show a little bit of our Christmas Eve fun. We are a really loud family, and it shows in these videos. It was a blast, and I have to say I love my family so much.

D, E Dates, Thanksgiving, Birthday

This post is going to be a long one, no worries it is going to be filled with pictures and fun ideas. So it has been a crazy couple of weeks, with Matt coming back from his trip and getting ready for Thanksgiving and my birthday a lot has gone on. First I want to talk about what we did for our dates. For the D date, it was planned spur of the moment due to the fact that Matt got back from his trip so our D dates was just a simple one. We decided to go to a new restaurant here called Due Amiche.

It is this nice little Italian restaurant that reminds us of Vinny's back home. The whole time we were in there we kept thinking, "oh my gosh it is like we are right back at home!" It was at a nice reasonable price and their food was delicious. It was just one of those hole in the wall places but it was fantastic! So that is what we had for our D date.

So for the E date I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with some ideas. So I started off the date with an "Easter Egg Hunt" I didn't have Easter eggs so I balled up pieces of paper and hid them around the apartment for Matt to find. Inside each of the balls told of what the rest of the date was going to be.

After he searched and found all of the papers it told him we would be going to eat at "El Acapulco" Afterwards we went to the dollar tree and tried and to find things that began with E so we ended up getting "exploding angry birds." aka pop rocks, and glow sticks.

Since we had the glow sticks and we decided to go home and have an "electric dance off" So we turned off the lights and began our light show, and danced to music.

That was the end of our date and it was so much fun. So now we fast forward to when family came down! We were lucky enough to have Thanksgiving with some family members this year. We had Momma Wehle and Jono to come down and visit us for a week!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner and Momma and I cooked a good portion of the day and it came out beautifully. [Of course Matt helped too and Jono did dishes! Thanks!] Look at our masterpiece! Our stomachs were certainly stuffed and we even got to skype family for a bit. While they were here we showed them around Conway a bit and took them out to dinner a few times. We even saw Catching Fire...twice. Everyone needs to see it. Seriously.

We had so much fun, [Doesn't Jono look so happy?] playing board games, we learned how to play Ticket to Ride and played it twice. It does take a while to play but it is a very fun game once you get started, I won the first game and Momma won the second one. Also after Thanksgiving dinner I was just too dang excited...so I put up the Christmas tree! At least I waited until after Thanksgiving dinner was over.

Doesn't the tree just look so beautiful? I couldn't help it! I was so excited and our tree isn't real I know, but since we will be out of town I don't want to clean up all the pine needles when we come back. So instead we put some scented pine things in the tree and our ornaments are our wedding colors  blue and purple! I just love it..probably too much because I keep it on all day and it just makes me happy.

I know, I know. You are probably sick of it but in my family we take birthdays very seriously. So my husband and I have a running joke that he has to make my birthday awesome. He does a great job every year and treats me like a princess and this year we had family which made it even more fun!

I only have two pictures of my birthday because funny enough one of the last gifts I opened was my brand new camera from my love! I thought this picture was funny because it was unintentional because Jono was testing out the camera but it made me laugh so I thought I would share.

Momma gave Matt and I this for an early Christmas present she brought it down here for us. We loved it so much! {Thank You!} I got spoiled for my birthday with gifts from my mom, momma wehle and jono and my hubby. Afterwards we went to Buffalo Wild Wings and went to watch the Capitals game. They placed it on a tv for me but funny enough...we got to see the end of the game EVERYONE is talking about Alabama verses Auburn and everyone in Bdubs was cheering and screaming. It was so awesome! They came and sang happy birthday to me and it was such a great week!

All in all we have had a great couple of weeks and I just thought I would share. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and happy holidays! Christmas is coming up and we will be leaving to go back home for a few weeks to spend more time with family!

Until Next Time.

B and C dates

Last week Matt decided to take on the task of planning our B date, and so I let him take charge of that. He came home and took us to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.

While we were there ironically we watched the BYU game. Too bad the capitals weren't playing but hey we got another B in there, so I will take it.

Afterwards we went to Best Buy and looked at a few movies and games, and since we just recently came into possession of a PS3 we decided to get Little Big Planet. [I know the B is a bit of a stretch on that one but hey, we ran with it.] So after we got that game we came home and played it together, it was also on sale for $10.00 dollars so we thought it would be a fun buy for us.

We finished the night by just cuddling on the couch and watching his new show he loves, Breaking Bad. It is an interesting show, but it just stresses me out it is very suspenseful and drama packed, but it is fun to watch together especially when it has it's light and funny moments.

Skip to this passed Friday it was my turn for planning the date, it was C week. Although Matt beat me to it and came home an hour early and surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of white roses.

Aren't they just beautiful? He said he wanted to do something like that for me and he hoped it would help make me happier this week. [more on that later.] So I decided to start our date by going to...if you know me you know where I am going with this...

The best place ever, Chick-fil-a! So we went there and had some chicken nuggets and chicken sandwiches, and as usual they are delicious! After we had some tasty food we went to target and grabbed some candy that was 50% off after Halloween.Then we came home and decided to watch our recent new find, a show called My Cat from Heck, which for those who don't know is about this cat behaviorist that comes in when you have problems with your cat and helps turn them back to that cuddly loving cat. While we colored!

Don't you just love our coloring book pages? I thought it would be fun because it is always hilarious to talk about what we grew up with and I remember watching this with Matt when we were younger. Then we finished off the night watching the Capitals just DESTROY the Flyers, which always makes my night happier. Matt has gotten into hockey more since marrying me, and he was in for a treat because 3 fights broke out during the game.

 So that was my C date with Matt and hopefully we continue on with this streak with ABC dates, so far it has been a lot of fun thinking of ideas to do. This week I am not sure if we will have a date, we might have one on Saturday. For you see I just dropped off my sweet Hubby at the airport for a big business conference in San Diego.

I guess this gives me the chance to hang out and just chill out? I can enjoy the changing leaves in my backyard, with all the trees here it is just as beautiful as Virginia.  He will have so much fun in San Diego because it is almost like going back to his mission where he served for 2 years and be spoiled by the members out there. I can focus on my studies,  editing articles, and start planning for Thanksgiving?

We are new to the area so we don't know all the things to see or do here yet. So I will be searching for things to do because my mother and brother in law are coming down for Thanksgiving! I am so excited to host them but I have to figure out stuff for them to do while they are here and show them around our little area! [Going to see Catching Fire for the 2nd time is a given of course.] So for now I am still trying to keep myself busy with things here and there while Matt is gone. I think that's it for now, until next time!

Relocation

So I wanted to write a blog post, mostly for myself so I can remember times like these. I am thinking of also keeping a word document for myself so I can remember more things of my time being married and all these crazy adventures we are having.

Speaking of which, Matt's internship with the church ended and we were down to the wire on where to go for a job. We had plans to move to Indiana as most of you know, but we also wanted to enjoy our summer a little bit so we decided on our way home we would stop by Indiana get all things settled and then have a mini vacation in Virginia. Boy did we have fun.

I had one of the famous baking days with Teri, my mom, and even Alanna joined us this time! We had so much baking all day and we tried out some new things. Alanna made this delicious mini apple crisp thing that just melts in your mouth, I attempted at making an inside out smores that didn't turn out too awesome. We made little sugar cookies with kitties on them for Halloween, and many other things I can't remember right now.

We also visited our ALL TIME FAVORITE Ice Cream place, CARLS

Oh we love this place so much, this ice cream is literally the best. Ask anyone from our area.

One of the best things that happened during our time home was being able to see Baby Tucker! I kept teasing Erica saying that she better have the baby while I was in Virginia so I can see it. She timed it perfectly, because literally the day before we left she had a beautiful baby boy, Tucker.

Doesn't he just look so precious? I have to say seeing one of my best friends since I have known since 3rd GRADE, have a baby was amazing. It really made me stop and think of how all of us are really growing up and moving into this next stage of our lives. It was so much fun being apart of that even for a little bit and I loved going to see him and Erica and getting to met him, and I will for sure stop by around Christmas to see him some more.

Also over the summer we missed the huge get together at the beach with Sharon and everyone. So she was sweet enough to take us down to the beach for a few days and we loved it. We got to hang out with Sharon and Jono and relax by the beach and have a fabulous seafood dinner, we got to see my awesome cousins Colin, Toria, and my Aunt Sharon! [LOVE YOU GUYS, ps we are so loud at restaurants but who cares?]  We had so much fun and thank you for taking us Momma! We loved it.

While we were also home my dad is just amazing, can I just say that? He does a lot of things when it comes to cars, and takes care of our whole family especially his daughter. I am so grateful for him and I know it was a lot getting us all set up but all in all... We are so so grateful for...

Ted! This is Ted our new car, and we love Ted so much. We are so grateful to our family for counseling us and being there for us during this time. It was a big purchase for us and a huge responsibility but we are so grateful for Ted. It is really nice having two cars, especially in a new place.

Now to get down to where we are now. It is a funny story but I will make it short, basically we were literally driving with my mom, Mel, and then Matt gets a phone call for a job offer. He really wanted Matt and sent him over an offer letter via email 2 hours later. So we had a tough decision to make, so we made a pro and con list [yes don't laugh we actually made one] Then we pulled up to a rest stop and told my mom and all signs pointed to this other job. I felt really bad about making my mom an brother drive all the way to Indiana with us [and with a Uhaul mind you] to have to turn around and go to Arkansas.

I was nervous about moving to Arkansas because I was prepared to move to Indiana. I did all my research, and we got housing, the whole nine yards. Then here we were moving to Arkansas and trying to find housing in a day...literally. Luckily we did and we love our new place, I am sure most of you have seen the pictures of our apartment. So far we really like it here and it very green, lots of back roads and it reminds me of Virginia a lot so that helps.

So far the things I have learned about Arkansas is that we are in the south for sure, people are really polite here and they have southern accents. They love using the phrase "ya'll" which makes me smile and they are just genuinely polite no matter were we go so far. Another thing that became completely obvious was the dedication they have for their team down here, don't know them? Well come visit us and I guarantee once you cross the border into the state you will notice you have entered Razorback country.

Matt says we need to fit in and get some Razorback stuff so we can be accepted and make some friends. Sorry I am not changing my allegiance so easily, I will always be a VA Tech fan and BYU because of obvious reasons. Even though we will be here for two years I am not changing that about me, I might get an accent...I doubt it.

So right now this is where we are, Matt is working for HP here in Arkansas for two years and then getting transferred to where they need a tech guy. They say our chances to get back to Virginia are a very very high because we are the only ones in that area. So fingers crossed!

Lastly we stole Zach and Katie's idea for dates. [I am the only one writing on here too, sorry we aren't as cool as you guys; Matt likes me writing on this because he likes looking and remembering the times we had together.] So we are doing ABC Dates, I started it this week with A and it gives us an opportunity to explore our city better. We first went to Arby's for dinner, then to Starbucks for..my favorite fall drink, Apple Cider and played the Alphabet game.

To play this Alphabet game we went back and forth naming things we love in the other person like..
Kristyna;Affectionate
Matt:  Beautiful
You get the idea, and then when we went back to the start of the Alphabet we started naming other things we liked and got creative with it. It even brought up some funny stories from our younger days that we didn't know about each other and it was a lot of fun. We came home and we wanted to watch a movie that started with A, and decided on Anchorman.

I am so grateful for my family and the time they took out to spend with us and guide us. Thank you SO SO Much for everything that you do and I appreciate all the love and sacrifice that they do for us. We are so very blessed with our loving family and I am so grateful to my husband and all that he does for me. I love our date nights and learning new things about him still, we are coming up on two years and I can't believe it! Well I think that is it for now, until next time.