One reason why I love spring...

Trevor and I just finished a wonderful dinner date... on our back porch. Trevor grilled salmon and we had a wonderful dinner together outside. The weather is perfect... just cool enough to need a jacket in the evening. There is a perfect breeze and everything is blooming! The moon was incredible and we loved getting to sit and visit and enjoy the wonderful evening! Spring is my very favorite season! Not only is my birthday in May... but our anniversary is also in May... and it is absolutely beautiful!! It has been a while since we have experienced a spring in Memphis. This is our first spring in our house, so it has been so fun to see things start to pop up and bloom! For about two weeks it seemed like everyday we had a new "surprise" in our back yard. It is SO fun to see how much has bloomed and how wonderful everything looks in Spring!! One of my favorite things are flowers, so it just makes me smile to look out the window and see our yard blooming... or to drive home from work and see the flowers I planted in the front start to bloom! What a wonderful season.... spring!

Our porch!! (please excuse the make-shift curtain in the window... shades are on order!!)

Let the Weddings begin...

Yesterday, Trevor and drove to Jackson, TN to be a part of Kristen Currie and Jeremy Hunt's wedding. Kristen was a very sweet friend to me during college. She was in my pledge class and in some of my very first classes at Samford. She was very encouraging throughout Trevor's deployments... and through the challenges of nursing school!

We were so thankful to be a part of such a special day! Their love for Jesus Christ was very evident through the whole evening! Kristen was a stunning bride and it was wonderful to see how happy she and Jeremy looked! Here are a few pictures from the wedding....

Sadly, this is very blurry... but all the Chi O's singing shades!

It is very fun to go to weddings when you are married. At this wedding in particular, the love of Christ was particularly evident. It was really neat for Trevor and I to be reminded of the vows we took almost two years ago. Those words are so much more meaningful to us now. Thank you, Kristen and Jeremy for sharing such a special day with us!

New Beginnings

Well, it has been over 6 months since I have written anything here... and it is so hard for me to believe that I have really been in Memphis for 6 whole months now. Its amazing how time flies! So much has changed in these past six months. Trevor and I are both settled here in Memphis... finally! Trevor said goodbye to shipboard life and hit the road in mid- December. He started his new job in Millington at the Navy Recruiting Command. I am really LOVING that he comes home every night!! We have gotten to spend so much more time together than we did while we were in Norfolk... and we are so thankful for that! I started my new job as a nurse in the Cardiovascular ICU at Germantown Methodist hopsital. I truly feel like the Lord opened this door for me. It is an incredible unit and I work an amazing schedule... no more nights or weekends. I absolutely LOVE my job. The people I work with really are incredible. I just can't say enough about how thankful I am for such a wonderful job!! We are getting settled in now... finally... and life seems to be settling down a good bit. We are loving feeling like we have some sort of routine!

One of the greatest blessings of being in Memphis is the gift of being with family. Trevor and I are both really close to our families and we both felt that it was very difficult to be so far away from the people we love most. We are so thankful to be here... with family. We have particularly enjoyed spending so much time with Trevor's brother Ethan and his wonderful wife Grace. Grace and Ethan have been one of the greatest blessings of being back in Memphis. They have selflessly welcomed us, included us and loved us. They have been such an example of Christ's love to Trevor and I. They both have meant the world to me. They have gone absolutely above and beyond to reach out to us and include us. We are so thankful for them!

Trevor and I have spent MOST of our free time working on our home... we have many many projects still to do... but we are excited about the hard work we have been able to put into our home. I can't wait to share some of our "home improvement projects"... coming soon!

For now, here are a few pictures of this place we now call home.......

Snow?? In Memphis?!? We were blessed with multiple pretty snow days in Memphis!! This is one of my favorite pictures of the front of our house!

Come visit.... we are ready for visitors!!!

Changes

Its hard to believe how much has changed these past few months. Just as we felt like we were getting settled in and established in Norfolk, it was time to move. Thankfully, we are moving home and upgrading from an apartment to a house! We are so excited for all that Memphis holds. The closer we got to leaving, the more we realized that we really would miss Norfolk. We will miss our wonderful friends and neighbors- Jay and Amanda & Stephen and Melissa. We will really miss our evening walks down to the water and sitting and looking at all the lights and the ships from downtown Norfolk... there aren't many things that are more peaceful that absolute still, glassy water at night. We will miss walking to the numerous restaurants that were only about a 3 minute walk from our apartment. We will probably never have the luxury of living 30 minutes from the beach ever again. We will miss our favorite pizza place that became a staple in our weekly meal planning, Cogans. I will miss being able to ask for a military discount almost anywhere I go. We absolutely loved the festivals that they held at the big park downtown, about a 5 minute walk from our apartment. It took a while to get adjusted to Norfolk... but it was an incredible place to spend our first year and a half of marriage and there are so many things we will miss. It truly was a bittersweet goodbye. We have so many things ahead of us that we are so thankful for and so excited about, but its hard to leave something you have come to call home. Norfolk was our first home together and we have many wonderful, sweet memories there.

Our Street Sign

View from our night walk... Portsmouth Naval Hospital

Another view at night... Pagoda

Town Point Park

Mermaid

Our Apartment

Trevor and Rusty on one of our walks

The Lone Sailor

Early this week I said my last "real" goodbye to Trevor and I can tell you that I am SO excited to be leaving goodbyes behind. We have spent a large portion of this past year and a half apart. For someone who refuses to say goodbye, I have said more goodbyes than I ever dreamed I would in a lifetime. One of the most exciting things about moving to Memphis is that there will be no more goodbyes... at least nothing like we have been doing. I can NOT wait!

Trevor, my amazing mother and I spent the past few weeks working on packing and moving. Its amazing how much stuff can accumulate in a year and a half. It felt like the more we packed, the more stuff that appeared! Thank goodness for my amazing husband who worked so hard to get us out of our apartment on time!! We moved into storage and are waiting for the military to come and move all of our things to Memphis. 

Trevor and I are enduring our last long (but only kinda long compared to all the other deployments) separation. This time apart is giving me lots of time to reminisce and think back to all of our wonderful memories in Norfolk. We are counting down until we can both be in Memphis and start this next stage of life together!

Memphis Bound!!

A few months ago Trevor and I made the decision to sign up for another 2 years with the Navy. We had not originally thought we would stay in the Navy for a shore tour, the Lord made it clear to us that this was the best decision. A day later we submitted our choices for our next set of orders. For those of you who aren't familiar with all this Navy stuff... Trevor is about to complete his second "sea tour." A sea tour literally means you spend your time on a ship and are in and out of port on that ship. On his two sea tours he has already completed two very long deployments and has another short one to go. When you go to your "shore tour" you work more normal business hours in an office and so you are not spending any time at sea(usually). We waited for what felt like an eternity to see where the Lord would send us next. About a month later we learned that we got our first choice and are headed to MEMPHIS!!!!!!!! Trevor broke the news to me by putting Irises in a bouquet of yellow roses. Trevor carries on a tradition started by his mentor of bringing home yellow roses with every new move or change in orders. I was ecstatic to learn that we were moving to Memphis and impressed by Trevor's creativity. I think those flowers were the most meaningful flowers I have ever received. 

  We are so thankful and we are so so excited. Trevor will be working in Millington and I am going to be job hunting soon! As things look now, I will be moving in September and Trevor will join me a few months later after his short deployment! We are so excited to be returning home. While this year(almost) away has been a huge blessing we are eager to be back with our families. We are so thankful for the Lord's provision and for His perfect plan!

Welcome!

Trevor and I have decided to join the blogging world. We are currently living in Norfolk, VA where Trevor is a Naval Officer and I am a nurse. We have enjoyed starting out here and are thankful for the many memories made here. We are excited to share a little bit about our life with you!