47

We are indeed in the 40's. This week I am really excited about getting prepped to go to the beach with my family next week. It is rare that our family gets a chance to get together, much less for a vacation. We have not been on vacation as a family since the summer after I graduated high school- long time! ANyhow, it technically won't be the whole family since Jonathan won't be there and I am saddened by that. I am excited that I get to spend the week relaxing and having geniune family time for a whole week at the beach. It is a perfect vacation to have my last summer in Georgia for a while.

This week I am trying to get some major cleaning and packing done. Mama Na, Jonathan's mom, will be dogsitting for my sweet Cash next week so my mom is going to come up on Friday with the Durango to take some more stuff to put in storage at her house. Some more scheduled highlights for this week include another splash zone visit with Laura and the boys, pool time with Melanie, dinner with Bray, and lunch with Emmanuel girls Thursday afternoon, and vet appointment for Cash Friday morning.

Ok so I have been tantalizingly promising you some of the information that I have managed to dig up on Germany.
Here is the website for the elementary school that is on base. There is not a whole lot to it right now since school is not in session but feel free to browse:
http://www.mann-es.eu.dodea.edu/
This is the website for the actual base. Most of the stuff is seemingly boring to normal people but thought you might enjoy it anyhow.
http://home.mannheim.army.mil/
I was trying to put the picture in here of what might be our floor plan but it is not working very well. I will try to put it on facebook.

50

Down to the big 50!! So exciting!! YAY!!

This week I came back to Camp All American as a guest counselor and it has been fun but I know I don't have the energy to do it all summer like I used to. I had a group of 6 and 7 year old boys. They have been rowdy from day one and so much fun. Some favorite conversations:
::Playing a game where they were trying to guess Robert's favorite food::
Kyle: Pony?
Robert: Ponies are not in food, unless you are in Brazil!
::The church where camp is held is doing som remodeling and building a chapel::
Bryce: What are they doing over there?
Me: Building a chapel
Jack: What is a chapel?
Me: Kind of like a small sanctuary for church or for weddings.
Connor: Why would you want to get married at camp?
::Walking out to the pool::
Kyle: Emily, are the Beatles still alive?
Marc: Yea, my dad has their CD.
Me: Well, there ya go!

Haha! Good times. They have been a fun group. One more day to go!! Then back home to Cash! I miss him. Jonathan is doing well. Still ready to come home. We have a tentative date for departure- September 10th. So I need to see and love on all of my loved ones before then! I promised you some Germany stuff and I will deliver soon. But for now- I am heading to bed! NIght!

54

54 more days!!

This weekend has been a busy but good one. Saturday I spent with my family celebrating my grandfathers 90th year of life. He is such an amazing man and I am so grateful to have him in my life. I am going to miss that man so much when we leave. He said while I was over there he needed to have a talk with Jonathan because he wasn't supposed to be taking me away from my family- that wasn't part of the deal. He is so sweet. I love him so much. Cash jioned us there and everybody seemed to love him. Grandaddy even tolerated him in his lap when my brother-in-law abruptly delivered him to his lap without warning or notice. Haha.

Sunday morning I got up early and drove to Monroe to go to church with Tim, Jonathan's dad, and the girls. It had been a while since I had seen them. Church was good as always. One of my favorite teachers of all time is the pastor at their church and I just love to listen to him. After church we went out to lunch at a Japanese place. Jonathan was able to call and talk to Tim a little while we were there.

Cash is currently at grandma's for the week. Sunday night I drove up to the Tarulli's household to stay for a week while I visit camp for a week. Amanda happened to be coming up this weekend so it worked out pretty perfectly. It has been great visiting with her whole family. I just found a whole bunch of stuff on Germany and I will post about that soon.

56

Well as of today I get to mark it down to 8 more weeks. This weekend is going to be a busy one as well as next week. This morning I am currently relaxing with Cash before I get in the shower and spend the first part of the day when one of my best friends, Amanda- who is in town from Orlando, Fl.

After hanging out with her I am headed back to parental territory for my Grandfathers 90th birthday celebration. He is such an amazing man and I am so thankful for the impact he has had on my life.

Sunday morning I am going to go see Jonathan's dad, Tim, for father's day. Then back through Athens to see my own dad on father's day. Then back up to Amanda's house that night because I will be working at camp next week to help them out for a week. I am excited to go back and visit and hoping that some of my favorite campers are there!! Well I gotta get up and going so I can start this busy weekend! I will update as I am able next week.

57

57 days to go, we are almost down to eight weeks!! The time has flown and I could not be more grateful!!

Yesterday, I finally got up the will power to go through some of my teaching supplies that I had to clear out of the classroom and divide into what I know I will take with me and what I know I will leave behind. I still have to go through all my books because I have so many and there are so many that I know I can do without. Well I decided to go ahead and bring the first load of things that Jonathan's mom, Rena, will house in her basement for us. Yay for having family with storage space!!! :) Well I also pulled aside a few books I thought Jack might enjoy and asked Laura if she wanted to keep them for me so that they could enjoy them while I am gone. So I took those over to the their house and hung out with Laura, Jack, and Sam for a while. Then Josh got home and we all went to dinner where Jack made a boot with his chip! Haha. "I made boot!" So after dinner I came over to Rena's house and hung out with the girls. Cash was really hyper and wanted to play with Poohgen, Ashley's pug. He was running all around the living room and I am sure was seeing stars after running straight into the legs of the table a few times!

Right now I am the only one up, watching the US play Slovenia. Right now they are losing- big shocker!! ;) Maybe they will get lucky again but I kind of doubt it! Oh well. Plans for today are just to hang out with family. It is going to be a busy weekend.

58

58 days to go!!

First sunburn of the summer!! YAY! That means the rest of the summer should be sunburn free!! Cash and I met Melanie and Melissa at the Cape residence and went swimming. Cash went swimming for the first time and seemed to really enjoy it. He kept going to the edge of the pool and whining to get in. He was soo cute. It was warm but fairly cloudy so it was a good day. It was fun to hang out with Melanie and Melissa and we got most of the dogs together for a party as well. Cash got to meet his new friends Baxter and Hudson. He also met Molly, and while Cash made the sincerest attempts to befriend her, Molly is not exactly sociable! :) We had fun catching up and making daquiris, virgin in case you are wondering.

On the exercise note, I have not been running the past two days because of the rain that has started each day about the time of day I desire to run. Nature is working against me! However, I have been doing a little better about what I am eating. I stocked up on fruits and veggies to snack on instead of junkie food. I know this is something Jonathan will help me with too when he is here. He has become hooked on rice down there in GTMO so I see a lot of different kinds of rice in our dinner future, which is fine by me!

Well it is hard to imagine that I have a mere two more months before I get to see my husband again. The last time I saw him was January 2nd. This past year has flown by and I could not be more grateful. Don't get me wrong some great things have happened over the past year and I know that without a doubt I have grown as an individual as well as grown as a couple. I am very excited to see what this next phase will hold for us. We are blessed to have a love like ours and even more blessed to have this wonderful opportunity to go on an adventure together in our first few years together. Well, that is all for now!

60 Days to Go!!

Well today was pretty laid back. I watched world cup games with Jonathan, via webcam of course. Cash had a few sucesses today as well as a few failures. We had a good day and Cash was kinda bummy today. He kept wanting to just sit with me on the couch.

As my hubby persisted, I started running today. Now don't get me wrong, he does not force me to do anything. He just knows it's important to me to stay in shape and I have told him so numerous times. So he has agreed to push me when he knows I get lazy. I am so glad too because I know I would get severely out of shape if let to my own laziness. I am glad he is willing to push me like that and not just back off when I start making excuses. I discovered something today while running, worship music is the best running music I have ever listened to. It made me feel really good while I was running and it made me push even harder because I felt like what I was doing, I was doing to make sure my body-His temple- stays fit and healthy. I still have a long way to go before I can truly say I feel in shape. I was only able to run about half a mile and I power walked half a mile. Pretty pitiful, I have never been a good runner but it is so good for you and makes you feel great afterwards. I just got to get that eating healthy thing down!! It is so hard when you are eating by yourself all the time. It is just sooo much easier to heat something up or do something real quick- which is definitely NOT healthy choices. So, if anybody has any good suggestions about quick easy meals for one don't be selfish and keep them to yourself...share with the world, or just me!! ;)

61 more days to go!

61 more days to go until I get to pick my hubby up in Jacksonville. YAY! This morning I went to First Baptist Church Hartwell and it was a good service. I had never visited there before but it reminded me a lot of my church at home. It made me want to go there more and get involved. There are a few teachers from school that go there and a few of my players from volleyball and tennis. I picked up lunch on the way home and spent the rest of the day watching World Cup and playing with Cash.

I was so proud of Cash, he came up and sat in front of me and whined, so hoping he was catching on, I took him out. Three out of the five times he did this he tinkled right when I put him down outside!!! SUPER excited about that. All of the accidents are not behind us but we are definitely getting there. Haha!! Looks like both of the former Giles girls are blogging about potty training!! :) Aren't we just wonderful!!

I am going to try to do better about blogging in these last few weeks. Jonathan and I both are eagerly counting down the days and very excited about all that lies ahead. Now we are to the stage that I have to start making a list of the things we definitely need to take with us and figuring out how we need to get things done.