Fast and furious...

Would be an apt description of the months following my birthday until the present day. So to fill you all in, here goes...

I had an unexpected belated birthday gift fall into my life the day after my birthday in the form of a boy... A man rather. I wasn't quite sure I was ready for it, but after a little freak-out on my part, and a week of wondering what he was doing, if he was thinking about me, if he almost called me as many times as I almost called him, and missing him, I snapped out of it and just allowed myself to be happy. His name is Michael and I am beyond lucky to have met him... I spent much of October traveling. I took three or four trips to Phoenix to see Michael, and I went to Wisconsin to see Sarah and Larry get married! It was a perfect fall day, and a beautiful ceremony. Other than that, I just worked, worked and worked.

Novemeber was a little more eventful... I kicked off the month with a promotion to Captain... Every Lieutenant's dream! I was feeling a little blue because none of my friends or family were there, but Michael sent flowers to the ER and that made me feel better. I also continued the "funny cake" tradition started by myself, Tas and Maggie back at Ft. Benning. I had a very cool dinosaur cake. It was a big hit with the ER staff, but you would be surprised at how hard it is to find toy dinosaurs in this town! I went to Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree and Dollar General before finding them at Target. I kept my favorite dino off the cake and now it hangs out with the Apache helicopter from my First Lieutenant promotion cake. In mid-November, I ran the first San Antonio Rock and Roll Half Marathon in 1 hour and 50 minutes. Pretty good for not really training that much, but I was hurting pretty badly for a few days after that! Ha-ha. This picture is at mile 12 in the race... Only 1.1 miles left to go! Notice that I am still smiling. What made the weekend even better was my mom taking a few days off work to fly to San Antonio to cheer me on and get a little mother-daughter time in. We had a great time on the Riverwalk, ate at some great restaurants, shopped and visited The Alamo. Funny that I spent three months in San Antonio in 2005 and never visited The Alamo. I tubed drunk down the Guadalupe River, and went to the mall a lot, but never visited The Alamo... Un-American, I know...

December was also quite exciting... I got to see Michael several times and he had Christmas arranged for me a few weeks early since I was working on Christmas. We had a great time getting a tree, decorating it, drinking, wearing silly hats, watching Buttercup (the cat) play with the ornaments, wrapping presents and then opening them. However, the highlight of the month was visiting Michael's parents in Yuma, AZ... On the 20th, while we were just about asleep in his parent's office, Michael told me that he couldn't imagine living another day of his life without me, and asked me to be his wife... I was shocked and stunned to say the least, but very happy. It took me a few moments and I actually think I heard him exhale in the dark when I said "Yes!" I rounded out December with some leave time. I spent New Year's with Michael in Phoenix, where we took our engagement photos in a park in downtown Chandler. At first we weren't sure how they would turn out, since the park wasn't that big, but we got almost 150 shots and they were great! After going to a friend's New Year's Eve party (where I got to show off my GORGEOUS ring and make girls jealous) we stayed at the Squaw Point Hilton right outside of Phoenix where we slept in, relaxed in some great weather, took silly pictures and enjoyed the grounds. We plan to go back and spend more than a couple of days next time!

January started out with two weeks left of leave... Nashville for a few days to see Misty and Chris, then it was on to San Jose to see part of the family. Michael came out to California for a few days, meeting a couple of my mom's friends in the Bear Valley area, and then meeting the majority of my dad's family at my Auntie B's birthday party... Here we are being silly in the back of Ginger's car on the way to Murphy. January 18th found me back to the grindstone and preparing for the GRE. Michael also decided to pack up his life in Chandler and Buttercup (the cat) and move to El Paso. A big adjustment to say the least, but it is wonderful to have him here! I rounded out the month by doing well enough on the GRE to apply for Long Term Health Education through the Army. Yeah!

February flew by fairly uneventfully. Michael and I celebrated our first Valentine's Day with a little mini-golf and go-karting at one of the local amusement establishments. Here I am next to one of the many water hazards, where my ball spent most of the time we were out there, so of course it had to be digitally documented... Ha-ha. The one question we kept asking all night was, "Why did they put blue dye in the water?" It was very strange...

So there you have it... The last few months in the life of this Army Nursey! Thanks for tuning in again!

66HM5 out...