I'm back!!!

WOW!  I didn't realize it had been so long since I last posted!  Thanks to all of my followers who are still around!  My life's been so crazy the past few months that blogging simply got put on the back burner.

My husband retired from the Marine Corps on April 30 (officially) after twenty years of service.  Congratulations, baby!  You deserve everything you've earned, and I am SO proud of you!!!  As a result, we were required to move out of base housing at Camp Pendleton.  Adrian (my husband) and Joseph (my youngest son) left for Oklahoma at the end of April, while I stayed in Oceanside to finish out the school year teaching at Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad, California.  I was very fortunate that Karen Kelly and her husband, John, allowed me to stay in their second home in Oceanside for about seven weeks until school was out.

Adrian and Kennedy (my oldest son) took the Amtrak from Oklahoma to California the first week of June, and they LOVED it!!!  Who knew train trips could be so exciting???  We love a good road trip, so we left Oceanside on June 12 headed for Arkansas.  We stopped at the Meteor Crater in Arizona and took a ride on the Sandia Peak Tramway in New Mexico along the way, and we made it to Edmond, Oklahoma (where Adrian's mom lives), on Friday, June 15.  It was so good to finally see my little Joseph, as he stayed with his MeMe when Adrian and Kennedy took their train trip.  We drove to my parents' house in Batesville, Arkansas, on Saturday, June 16, and we've been here ever since!

I was fortunate enough to get hired to teach tenth grade English at Batesville High School (my alma mater!) the Monday after arriving in Batesville, so our priority ever since then has been house hunting!  I think we've seen five homes already, we're scheduled to see three more in the next two days, and we have about six or seven more on the list that we're waiting to have scheduled.  We just haven't found the right one yet, but we're confident that we WILL find JUST what we're looking for!

I hope we find it soon, too, as I RRREEEAAALLLYYY miss being able to create layouts, cards, and projects regularly!!!!  There are a few design teams having DT calls right now that I've thought about applying to, but I think I'm going to wait until we're settled in a house of our own first.  Wish us luck on the house hunting this week!  I'll be back soon to keep everyone updated!

~Ashley