Resolutions, and other random thoughts..

Seriously?! ANOTHER year has gone by???? Someone please tell me where it went! (Side note: That made me think of when Sydney was playing with her baby dolls this week and getting frustrated with her stroller, yelled "ARE YOU KIDDIN' ME?!" 

But really... are you kidding me?! The past year has completely flown right by us! What an amazing, monumental, and crazy year it has been! 

Here is a re-cap of our past year's events:

1. Nick flies to Newport, RI for 3 months of Officer Candidate School for the Navy in January.

2. We spend a week in Newport in April, surprising Nick with our arrival, as he is commissioned as an Officer. We also receive orders for San Diego.

3. Nick comes home for a few weeks then goes back to Newport for 3 weeks of SWOS in May.

4. I prep for our big move, house-hunt and find us a home in San Diego, and wrap things up with my personal training in Memphis, April and May.

5. We take an awesome 4-day vacation cross-country to our new home in San Diego, June.

6. We get settled in San Diego, find a church home, enjoy our time going and doing and seeing all we possibly can, June and July.

7. We have a month full of visits from 4 sets of family and friends in August.

8. Nick sets out on a 7-month deployment in August.

9. I dive in and get involved in church, Heart2Heart military spouse group, Surface Officer Spouses Club, Compass, hosting a church lifegroup, spending time with great new friends and their kids, and doing as much fun stuff with Sydney around the area as I can, September through November.

10. My dear Granddaddy passes away in October and we make a last-minute trip to Memphis for a week.

11.  We fly home for the holidays and Sydney's birthday, for a month and a half, November through January!

Of course, there is also much in between, but this was overall the main events of our 2010.  

In 2011, I most of all, look forward to re-uniting with my lifeline! How I have missed him!!! I cannot imagine the emotions I will feel on the day I get to see him again. I can't imagine the emotions he will be going through seeing Sydney and I again. 

This has been the best first deployment experience I could have possibly hoped for, but nothing is easy about being away from half of your own heart for 7 months.  No, it's not easy, but I know it will be rewarding. Some people go their whole lives and never "get" to experience what it is like to be away from their spouse, and I'm not talking about for a week because they go on a business trip. I'm talking about months and months. Months of waiting, missing, going through emotions of sadness, independence, loneliness,  jealousy of couples who are always together, excitement, butterflies just hearing their voice twice a week, helping your child cope and understand it all as they are missing their daddy, and most of all, longing for and anticipating the day you will see them again. It has ups and downs, but I consider it all a BLESSING! Thank you God that my husband has a stable, successful job. Thank you God that because of your provisions with this job, I can stay home and raise our daughter how we see best. Thank you God that we have this opportunity to see all over the world. Thank you God that we have this opportunity to live in such a beautiful place. Thank you God that we have this opportunity to make lifelong friends around the world. Thank you God that I have this amazing man you created as my lifetime partner, to even miss. Thank you God that this time away from him has made me love and cherish him that much more. 

I will try to share my thoughts and (most of) my emotions throughout this time leading up to Nick's homecoming, and more about military life so far for us, in my future posts. I never knew how very different the military life is, but it is certainly incomparable to anything else. However, to close this post, I thought I would share my "New Year's Resolutions."  I don't go crazy with these, but I feel it's always good to have, and note, a few main aspirations or goals for myself. Unlike a common New Year's Resolutions list, you will not see a ton of health or fitness-related goals, because those are embedded in my life everyday.  In fact, I could probably narrow it down to the just the top 2 and I'd be good,  but of course I felt I needed to set a few more than just 2. So, here they are: 

1. Be consistent with my quiet time every day.

2. Be consistent with our tithing.

3. "Phone call Sundays"- use Sundays as a day to make calls to family and friends to keep in touch.

4. Keep our family traditions going and start some new ones.

5. Send out a seasonal, or bi-yearly letter with pictures and updates to close friends and family.

6. Keep Sydney on her schedule, including wake times, "homeschool-preschool" learning activities, bedtime routines which include Bible stories, and naptimes.

7. Do a fitness competition.

There they are. Of course, I have small goals and to-do lists I make daily and weekly, but when I look back on 2011 after it is over next year, I want to see that I accomplished these main goals listed above. I'm excited for this new year and the memories we will be making together as a family, experiences we will be sharing, and the changing and growing we will continually be doing. Change is good. And the military life is sure full of it. God wants to constantly change and renew us, to where we can grow closer to Him, know Him a little more, and become just a little bit more like Him as our time goes on. I'm hopeful that us, the Allen family, are constantly in a season of this kind of growth and change not only in 2011, but in all the years ahead for us as well.