Feeling Adventerous...and a little crafty!

Okay, so once again it has been a while since I blogged...almost two weeks.  This is because I was kind of waiting to have enough things to put in the blog to make it worthwhile.  The last two weeks have been a little more uneventful, which has turned out to be a good thing for us to relax a little and get our house back into order.  Two weekends ago, we went to Fairhope for the wedding of my old coworker, from my Clothes Rack days, Kristi Reid. In the interest of slowing down the hustle and bustle of our traveling every weekend for a month, we decided to go to Fairhope the morning of the wedding and return the next day.  We wound up regretting our decision, because we did not realize that Fairhope was just a 3.5 hour drive away (closer than Auburn) and that it would be such a cute, fun town.  I am still glad that, by not leaving until Saturday, we were able to attend an assignment night that Friday night, where we got to see a class of pilots get assigned their planes and bases.  People were stationed in planes everywhere from Japan to England to Charleston to another 3 years at Columbus.  Some guys were happy, some not so happy.  I hope we are part of the "happy" group when we finally make it to Chris' assignment night, which is well over a year away.  However, I feel confident that we will make the best out of any situation.  I feel that we both have proven to ourselves that we can adjust well to a new situation and...maybe, even enjoy the adjustment!

As a testament to our love of trying new things, we went out two Fridays ago to a nice restaurant in Columbus (The. nice restaurant.  The only one haha), called J. Broussards and decided to try some escargot.  It was great! What's not to like about anything covered in garlicy butter? My family has always been avid lovers of raw oysters, which is honestly what they reminded me of...I would recommend giving them a shot if you ever get the chance!

We found a cabin to stay at in Fairhope at the amazing price of just $68 with Chris' military discount...we were walking distance from the Mobile bay and downtown Fairhope...and best of all, we were able to bring Mason! Saturday, after making it to Fairhope earlier than expected and enjoying a great lunch at the cutest Italian restaurant downtown, we went to Kristi's wedding.  I love weddings, and we had a great time...it was so wonderful to see some of my Clothes Rack girls! I have always been really close to my coworkers and I miss them all the time.  Here is a picture of us at the wedding:

This week, I finally got a chance to look at my wedding pictures, which I have had on a C.D. for over a month now.  Just for fun, here is another wedding picture of me and my Clothes Rack family...

And even that's not everyone, but it's a pretty good representation.  That job, and all the people I became close to while doing it, really meant a lot to me over the years...I get kind of sad when I think about how I don't work there anymore, so moving on!

On Sunday, after the wedding, I walked down to the bay with Mason and let him have his first experience with the "beach".  He had an absolute ball!  He jumped around in the sand and looked like such a little spaz.   And he kept picking up the nastiest things to chew on them.  But he's a dog, so he loved it.  The funniest part was trying to get him to go into the water...Mason's doesn't really love getting wet.  Chris finally was able to get him to go in by throwing a stick out there, and he finally (reluctantly) went in.  I'm glad Mason likes the beach, because I sure would like to move there one day!

 Okay, I couldn't help myself, I had to take a video of Mason's first beach adventure.  If you can bear to listen to how awful my voice sounds (I hate hearing it...I mean do I REALLY sound like that?) take a look and see how much fun he had.(Tip: If you click the icon in the bottom right corner, it will make it a full screen.)

We got to have lunch with Gayle (my old Clothes Rack boss) and her husband, Clint, before heading home. We walked around in the park a bit and Mason met another Pomeranian who had so many of the same mannerisms as he does. It was interesting and funny.

Some of you who read this may remember a month or so ago when I said there may be some changes coming about in my job.  As most of you knew, I was making a 45-minute commute to Starkville, MS, daily which was very tiring and took up a lot of my free time.  With recent changes at the bank, which includes a merger with Superior Bank, our corporate headquarters moved from Starkville, where I worked, to Birmingham.  As part of the credit administration, the work I do has also moved.  However, instead of moving to Birmingham (which would not have worked for me), the bank has allowed me to instead move my office to Columbus.  Since I'm not going to be working at the corporate headquarters with everyone else anyway, it doesn't make sense for me to drive all the way to Starkville when I can work here in town.  So I'm really excited to be in a bigger office, with some natural light, and close enough to drive home for lunch! Here's a picture of my new digs:

Yeah, I've got a lot of empty space in here...but I think there will be a file cabinet and maybe a bookcase moving in here soon.  The location is so nice.  Downtown Columbus is much more centrally located than downtown Starkville, so it's easy to run quick errands if necessary, and also near a lot of good places to pick up lunch.

Last week, I was pretty devoted to the task of FINALLY choosing wedding pictures for the album.  We have had our C.D. of photos for a month now, but it's just hard to find time to sort through almost 800 pictures when traveling every weekend.  What makes it even harder is wanting 700 pictures for the album, but only being able to choose 100.  We have asked the photographer if we can have 125 pictures in the album, and are still waiting back on a price.  I hope it is affordable, because I don't know how I will narrow it down another 25! Here are some of my favorite pictures of Chris and myself...I can't even begin to post all of our favorites, but if you want to see them, they are still on the photographer's website (http://www.infinity-photographers.com/) and on my Facebook. For the record, I would recommend my photographer to anyone and everyone planning a wedding, because my pictures were fantastic and I got everything from the posed pictures, which of course you want so you can remember what everyone looked like 20 years from now, to the more artsy, modern kind that "tell a story"...which I am more inclined to like.  Also, I don't like pictures that are TOO artsy and don't show anything important...a lot of photographers do that these days, I can't figure out why.  They didn't take any pointless pictures, so I was more than pleased!

This is actually one of my bridal portraits...I had them done in April (or was it May?), right before it got too hot.  It is my favorite because it shows the bottom of my shoes, which were hot pink.  The day of the wedding, I lost these shoes, and was devastated because it was hours before pictures began and I knew I would never find another pair.  I went to the mall because I had to find some wedding shoes, and actually did find another pair with hot pink soles (the whole shoes weren't hot pink...they were ivory.  Only the bottoms were pink). They were on sale, so I bought them, but I never liked them as much as the original ones I had.  It was the only time I cried on my wedding day! Anyway, the show had to go on, shoes or no shoes...and I wound up finding the original shoes in a box when we were unpacking in Columbus.  I gave them to my sister, because they would never be good for anything other than a wedding...so hopefully one day she will marry someone at least 4.5 inches taller than her because that's how tall they are! And if anyone out there needs a beautiful pair of wedding shoes in size 8 in the near future, let me know because I have a pair that I hate to see go to waste!



This picture and the two above were made between the ceremony and reception at Samford Hall on Auburn's campus. We had a lot of great ones made out there. 



Leaving the reception...the sparklers were the PERFECT send-off for photos!

This is the picture we are putting in the paper.  If anyone wonders why our wedding hasn't been announced in the paper yet, just know it's MY fault, not my mom's! She has been on me for 2 or 3 months about choosing my picture for the wedding.  I know it sounds bad, but choosing one picture amongst the 800 was a daunting task, and I admit I procrastinated, until last week when I finally told her this was the one I wanted.  I don't really know why I chose it over others...I guess because we look good in it, you can see my dress, and I thought it would crop to a small enough size for the picture than some of the ones of us standing up.

Whew, I am SO glad to have all that done with! All the wedding pictures reminded me of a little art project I had planned, so this weekend, which was a long one thanks to Veterans Day, I finally got around to making a shadow-box with some of our wedding mementos.  I was going to have a lot of this preserved along with my bouquet, but to be honest, by the time the wedding finally rolled around, I remembered about purchasing a bouquet preserving kit at the last minute...and, well...I just couldn't handle one more thing to plan, ask someone to help with, wait for a box and read through directions (not to mention pay for)..it doesn't sound like that big of a deal now, but trust me, 2 weeks before the wedding (which was when I finally thought of it) EVERYTHING is a big deal.  My mom still has my bouquet, so when I go home I will probably take a dried flower from it, along with the monogrammed ribbon I had tied around it, and add it in.  But I'm pretty proud of it! It contains our program, invitation and reply card, a napkin, the matches we gave out as favors ("A Match Made in Heaven"), our Save-the-Date, bridesmaid dress swatch, and cake topper.

Being a "shadow box" it was kind of hard to take a good picture that wasn't..well, in the shadows!

I'm so happy about how it turned out, that I think I will make others for our engagement that will include all the pretty invitations people made our parties, as well as some other mementos I saved, and one for our honeymoon, too.  I don't know if I have room to hang all that at the second, but they will be nice to have and I figure we eventually will.  Besides, if I don't do it now, I will probably forget later down the road.

I was feeling so crafty after completing that, that I also made a Christmas wreath.  I had bought the supplies a while back, but was waiting for a relaxing weekend to do it.  I'm pretty happy with it!

I guess all this craftiness inspired me to go one step further and use the wine glass painting kit my parents got me a few years back for Christmas to make a Thanksgiving wine glass, since I don't have one and couldn't find one anywhere.  I kind of collect different glasses for holidays/events/vacations/etc, but didn't have a Thanksgiving one...and of course I need one, given the big feast coming up! Here is the one I made.  I might add more later, but I'm pretty satisfied with it for now.

Okay, in the picture, he kind of looks like a bad cartoon.  But I promise, in real life, I actually think he looks pretty good! I blended a bunch of different colors together for his feathers, and I really am excited about it!

Chris must have been feeling adventurous this weekend, as well...funny how a 3-day weekend has that effect on you! Thursday afternoon he bought us an X-Box Kinect and we spent the whole weekend playing games on it.  Those who know me know that I despise video games, and I don't even have a single game on my phone, which most people find odd.  I just don't like to sit in one place and play games, I'd rather be up doing things. I guess that's why a Kinect is perfect.  For those of you who aren't familiar with it, a Kinect doesn't require a controller.  You clear out a space in front of your TV, and the Kinect detects your movements.  We played golf, football, and tennis (you go through the motions of swinging, catching the ball, etc, and the video game detects your movements to score you).  Also, we have this great dancing game where you get scored on how well you match the moves of the dancers on the screen.  We also got a fitness game, which has a personal trainer and various classes to do.  Chris was actually sore after doing it on Saturday.  The technology is pretty amazing....it can estimate your heigh and weight, and even recognize who you are when you stand in front of it.  For those who have heard of a Wii, it's kind of like that, but you don't have to hold on to anything.  Pretty fun.

Chris and Jon started their second batch of beer last night, and flavored it with some cinnamon and nutmeg.  They  have never flavored their beer before, so it should be interesting to see how it turns out.  Check out how huge Dubs has gotten...can you believe he was the size of Mason when they brought him home in August!

Dubs looks like he is about to eat Mason in this picture...no worries! We monitor their play time carefully! :)

Poor Dubs...he went to Mason's lair and tried to lay on his bed, but he's waaaay too big!

Flashback...this was Dubs 2 1/2 months ago...

Right.  He's grown exponentially.

Well, I don't have much more to share this week.  This weekend we are headed to North Carolina for Chris' old roommate's wedding.  I am looking forward to being on the road again after having some time to catch up at home.  We are looking foward to catching up with some of his old friends, including Dow, who we will be meeting up with on Friday night on the way to the wedding. 

On Wednesday we are hosting a "Thanksgiving Feast" for a group of people, and I'm so excited to do a little entertaining! I've already started cooking and I can't wait to post some pictures next week. Tomorrow there is a spouse "Trivia Night" social.  Also, Chris and I joined a local gym today.  It is actually really nice and we already visited it once we got off work.  So I guess you could stay we are staying busy this week! Wow, doing this blog after 2 weeks reminds me that I can come up with stuff to talk about whether or not the week has seemed eventful...I mean, it is me we are talking about here.  I should probably go back to my weekly posts so that these aren't so dang long.  I mean how many people ACTUALLY even make it to the end of this...probably a little too lengthy for most!

xoxo,

The Becks

Are we finally...almost...done with the house??

I don't have much to share this week...just another week with us both at work, coming home exhausted, going to sleep early...etc. Wow, has life changed since college! My job is finally starting to get more interesting since I have gotten trained to do more work.  I stayed busy almost every day this week.  Also, I started carpooling, which requires me to get up even earlier (right now, 5:30) to be able to get in a short workout and meet in Columbus by 7:20.  But, it saves gas, and makes the commute pass by much quicker. Chris has started to like his job working with the fighter pilot trainees, and usually comes home with an interesting story or two.  He does everything from arranging the flight schedules to working at the bar (yes...each squadron has it's own bar that they drink at after being done flying for the day.  I thought it sounded crazy too!)

Friday night Jon and Autumn came over for dinner, then we adventured out into downtown Columbus where I partook in my favorite pastime, Karaoke. I sang Gunpowder and Lead by Miranda Lambert and Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood.  The place we were at was filled with other pilot students, and it was actually a lot of fun. Here is a picture Chris took of me with his phone (which I can for some reason not rotate to be upright...so turn your head...), taking my singing career very seriously.

Saturday morning, Autumn and I went to the local Farmer's Market and got some super fresh produce.  I got some green tomatoes, and took a shot at frying one that afternoon.  Chris and I REALLY enjoyed them, and I think I am going to  fry the other one this morning.  I am definitely going to return to the farmers market, they had all kinds of good stuff.

Last night we checked out a new restaurant, called Huck's Place and sat right next to an Auburn flag, which made us fill at home (they have flags from all the SEC teams there). Our food was delicious and the atmosphere was really nice.

Today we are FINALLY almost finished up with the house...and I say almost because I don't know if I will ever really be done with it.  I mean, it seems like the more we do, the more we realize we could do.  And I swear, every time we set foot into Lowe's, we wind up with so many home-improvement ideas, organization ideas, patio ideas, yard ideas, stop the invasion of spiders/insects ideas, etc...well, I just don't know if we will ever truly finish! And it's not just me...I have been very pleased with the interest and pride Chris has taken in turning our house into a home, and he has been very helpful with coming up with ways we can improve it.

Well, we are off to run errands so we can finish up today...one of which is going to be ordering prints of the professional pictures taken of us on our honeymoon.  Sandals had these people who walked around (kind of like Zaps at socials, for those of you who know what they are) and took "professional" pictures on the beach and at other places. We had a hard time finding any souvenirs we really wanted from Jamaica, so we wound up ordering a CD of some of our favorite pictures that were taken that week (we had about 60 to choose from!).  Here they are:

Next week we head home to Auburn with Jon and Autumn so we can pick up their Great Dane puppy and go to the Brewfest at the Event Center.  We look forward to seeing friends and family again, one last time before the craziness of football season begins!

Hello, World!

FINALLY, I am able to post! Chris and I are moved in, pretty much completely, with the exception of a few boxes full of my shoes.  This is going to be a lonnng post, as I have been dying to update everyone with our lives. It has been rough living in a black hole of technology, but things are finally looking up, as we got internet and phone service last week.  I will start from the beginning of the move....

We have been here for 2 weeks and one day now.  The move=work work work! Let's just say my husband had his first lesson about the benefits of listening to his wife...the day we got the U-Haul, I told him, "ummmm...my stuff won't fit in there".  Chris insisted that there was no way I had enough stuff that it wouldn't fit inside a 20 foot U-Haul.  I guess he momentarily forgot who he married, because everyone who knows me knows I have a weakness for stuff.  Well, about 11PM on the night before the move, he came to the admission that the stuff...definitely wasn't going to fit.  He had to go to U-Haul at 6:30AM the morning of the move to get another small U-Haul. Here's two pictures of the big one:

Well, I'm sure there were many doubts as to whether all the stuff in these two U-Hauls would fit into our 1100 square foot duplex/house.  I am proud to say that not only did ALL of it fit...but there is room for more! So no reason to hold off on the Christmas gifts! (haha) The military does a great job of building houses with LOTS of storage.  We have 10 closets!

The trip to Columbus took about 4 hours.  My parents came down with us 3 Fridays ago and helped us paint.  This was a pretty big job since the walls were what I refer to as "armpit stain gray". Yes it sounds nasty, and it was. Also, I probably didn't buy nice enough paint because we had to use 2 coats everywhere except in the kitchen, where we used 3.  On Saturday, the troops came down in full to help, which consisted of Tammy, Greg, Warren, Lisa, Chris Sr., and Trey...as well as two paid move-men. Everyone was such a huge help, and I would go as far as to say we all actually had fun moving in and spending time together. When everyone left Sunday morning, I cried...it was hard to believe that now, it was just Chris, Mason, and me. It's scary when you have the realization that grown up life has really begun...and I miss my friends a LOT.  Not having internet or phone service made it worse. But we have had so much fun doing "married stuff" that has taken my mind off of it...on our first night alone together in our house, I made dinner and we ate off of our fine china and crystal.

Chris and I have AT&T, so on the Monday after the move, we went to the AT&T store here in Columbus to try to get out of our contract.  Instead, they offered to give us a $200 device for free, which allows us to use our phones within our house with 5 bars of service.  Internet is necessary to get it to work, so AT&T told us they would come install the internet for us on that Thursday.  Long story short...didn't happen! We FINALLY got internet this Wednesday, and now I'm much happier because I can call and text people without having to drive off the base, and they can call me. And I can post to the blog!

Chris and I spent the rest of the time we have been in Columbus fixing up the house, and doing some exploring. We discovered a cool art gallery and a LOT of cute shops in Columbus.  Columbus really has a lot more than I thought it did initially.  There are even some bars downtown that we have heard are pretty fun, and we went to a great restaurant called J. Broussards for dinner last weekend.  There is an amazing sushi place in Starkville called Umi that was voted best sushi in Mississippi that is opening a location in Columbus.  The other day when I was getting a pedicure, I discovered an adorable dress shop that sells a lot of the things that shops in downtown Auburn sell.  There is also a farmer's market and a riverwalk that I hear I need to check out. And, sometime, I want to make a trip to the Harrahs Tunica, about 2 hours away, to experience the Paula Deen buffet! Chris and I have been socializing some, too...it's hard to make as many friends at the moment because we keep hearing that you really get close to the people in your pilot training class and their wives, and Chris won't start that til April.  But I went to a wive's club potluck the Tuesday after we moved, and there is another social this Tuesday that I am going to attend.  I met some really nice girsl there.  Of course, we have our friends Jon and Autumn (Chris knew Jon from the Academy, and they got married the day before us), and we hang out with them a lot, and across the street there is an Auburn couple that we have had dinner with a couple of times. So things are really looking up, and even though it was hard at first, I am loving this new stage of my life. Being married is so much fun, and I like living on a military base way more than I thought I would!

We had 2 Mexican nights where we invited other couples over...yay fiesta!

On the first night, we had a taco bar...which wan excuse for me to use practically half our wedding gifts!

Our friends, Jon and Autumn

 Here are some before/after pictures of the house...the before/after idea was a little difcult because they just did not want to arrange the way I wanted them to...so they are out of order:


Hutch with our fine china on the top, then Christmas china on the bottom...pretty much everything in/on it, besides the Christmas china, were wedding gifts.





This is our curio cabinet.  The top shelf has an Auburn theme, the next down is Air Force, the next down is wedding memorabilia, the next down is mostly stuff from our travels, and the bottom shelf is mostly wedding gifts.











Chris and I painted those at Sips-n-Strokes!



Entrance hallway after

Bathroom after...not very good pics because it is teensy!

Bedroom after

Entrance hallway after...there will be a runner here when it comes in! We ordered one for the den and living room,  but it came in the wrong color so we are waiting on the correct one, which matches the wall...

Our kitchen table that we got cheap from Angel's Antiques...I hated it at first, but now that I have it fixed up with a rug underneath, I like it okay!

Wine rack and fridge (next to the curio cabinet) with a picture I painted at Sips-n-Strokes

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

Bedroom after...not quite finished with this one

Bedroom before

Our patio area/part of our fairly large backhard

Entrance hallway before

Shower curtain in our barthroom...bathroom is just too small to take good pics!



As I said...very out of order! I just couldn't figure out how...never mind.

Anyway, on Thursday I started my job, which has also proven to be a difficult adjustment.  Chris really hasn't had to do anything but check in and go to a couple of hours of meetings a day, so it is hard being at work knowing that he and Mason are at home.  Be Chris has been awesome about keeping the house clean while I have been gone, and even cooked dinner last night for me. I don't know if I will like my job yet, but I know I am going to stick with it while we are here...I just hate training! It's so boring! But I know once I get trained and have my own work to do, the days will pass a lot faster.  I have my own office that we are going to today to hang up my diplomas in, and I found out that I will be doing some travel to Birmingham.  My official job title is "Portfolio Analytics and Reporting Specialist".  I am okay with the commute, althit is a bit boring, but someone offered to carpool with me and I think I will take her up it.  It is a 35 minute commute each way. Also, there is an office in Columbus that I may be able to work some out of once I get trained. I have just got to get my body adjusted to waking up so early!

Anyway, this extremely long post is all I am going to share for now.  I hope to be a lot more current on my blogging now that we have common technology! We miss everyone and are looking forward to coming to visit the week of August for the Event Center's Brew Fest, as well as for the first two home football games.  That is as far ahead as we have planned for now.

I will leave y'all with two extremely cute pics of my men!

Love,

The Becks

P.S. Our wedding pics are up at http://www.infinity-photographers.com/  Go to Enter Site, then Gallery, then Amanda and Chris.  They are great!