Currently

It's October, but it's somehow 70 degrees. I've got a military ID and a new last name.  Stuck in an empty house in the South, I'm ready to share with you all the musings that are currently going on during this changing time in my life.

Trying to revive this blog. It's been awhile and a whirlwind of things have happened between the last time I posted and now. I finished my thesis, graduated college, planned a wedding, spent time with friends and family, got married, and moved down to Florida. Now that all the thesis writing and wedding planning are over, I'm finally finding the time to breathe again. I'm ready to come back to this blog and share with you my life as it happens right now. Where have I been while I wasn't blogging? Instagram. I'm always instagramming my life.

Living in an empty house. The day after Gerred and I got married, we packed my car with only a few summer clothes and headed down to Milton, Florida. At the time, Gerred's two other roommates were living with us (every newlywed's dream.) But they've since moved and the house is completely empty of all furniture. No tables, chairs, couch, plates, or cookware. All the furniture we have is still at my house in Maryland and we won't have that until our next move. In the meantime we like to pretend we're urban camping while we use paper plates and plastic forks for our meals.

Proud of Gerred for finishing his last flight of flight school. After 2 years, he's gone from API to Helicopter School with his nose in the books and his head in the sky. He's studied hard and tackled some difficult tests and flights. Well done Gerred, can't wait for your winging on November 7.

Moving to God knows where? Seriously, it's killing me. I'm so ready to move, find a job and a home, and finally settle in. Gerred put in his preferences yesterday so it's not even in our hands anymore. It'll only be another 2 weeks to find out where we're going, but oh do I want that time to hurry on by.

Missing my house, family, friends. I miss the familiarity of waking up in my own room. But love that I get to share this one with Gerred. I miss walking around the house and seeing my Mom, Dad, and Grandma downstairs. I love that they all call, text, and Facetime me as much as possible. I miss a furnished home one with chairs and pots and pans. I keep tell myself I've only a month before I'll have everything moved into our new home. I miss Danny coming over for wine and documentaries. But I'm glad we still Skype in for our movies. I miss Katie since we're in the same boat with all this Navy business. I am grateful she calls me everyday to make me laugh and reassure me that everything will be ok.

Forgetting what Fall is like. The Florida Panhandle is a hot swampy place. This week the temperature is clocking in the high 70s and I can't even fathom it. I'm sorry, but October to me is supposed to be cold enough that I shouldn't be wearing shorts and flip flops any more. What even is Fall? Pumpkin Spice? Leaves? Cool weather? I don't recall.

Working on my fitness. I may have neglected working out after the wedding was over so I'm ready to run again (It's not ungodly hot anymore,) lift weights, and try some classes at the gym. Like tonight Gerred and I are going to try the spin class. I'd also like to add that I love that the gym on base is free. It's a great transition from the free (well it's included with tutition) gym at Washington College.

Exploring as much of Florida and it's surrounding areas as I can. Despite my distrust of the weather and lack of stability between moves, I do actually like Florida. Gerred and I try to spend our nights out in Pensacola at Gerred's staple bar, World of Beer or visiting different restaurants for our food passport (more on that later.) We've even been able to take weekend trips to Disney World and New Orleans that have been absolutely fun. I cannot wait to continue to explore more exciting spots and events during our limited time left in the Florida Panhandle. If you have any suggestions let me know.

Loving the time I get to spend with him. It's great to finally spend more than just a weekend with him again. We cook dinners, do chores, cuddle, watch shows, and go on dates and it's wonderful. I love the comfort of knowing that he's next to me and not on the other end of the phone. I love that my long distance relationship is over with my cat. Oh, did you think I was talking Gerred. Oh yeah I love Gerred too.

There you have it, my Florida life up to the minute. Get ready for this blog to explode again.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

I really enjoyed our spontaneous trip to Ocean City this weekend. I know it was a lot of stress with me looking for jobs and crack house apartment rentals for 10 people, but I had a great time being by your side. My favorite part was when we woke up and walked out to the beach right before the rain hit. I love you so much and I am glad we got to spend time together.

So happy mother's day to my mom and all the other moms out there like my grandma, aunts and my soon to be mother-in-law. Hope all the mom's out there have a great day and are showered with love from their sons, daughters, and grandchildren.

Jenn & Ryan's Wedding

My brother and sister-in-law, Ryan and Jenn Kirby, were married February 17, 2013 in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Their wedding was beautiful, fun, and incredibly special. We spent the week at the beach, banana boating, clubbing, dancing, swimming, and snorkeling all up to their big day.

When Jenn walked down the aisle to The Bright Eyes "First Day of My Life" Ryan was in tears, so was I, so was everyone. Jenn was lovely. After their ceremony, the wedding quickly turned into a party. They had a photo booth, cigar rollers, and fire dancers there for entertainment which really had everyone going. And when the music started everyone jumped on the dance floor and didn't stop dancing until midnight. It was so much fun.

Kataya Nova's pictures are up on her blog now. So go take a peek at Ryan and Jenn's wedding! 

P.S. If you see a man with a tie around his head and white hair, that's my Pop Pop. He's crazy fun and I really hope he gets like this for my wedding.

Ireland 2008

Four years ago my family traveled to Ireland on what must have been our best family vacation. We had a car and just drove around exploring whatever we could find without a tour or guidebook. If we saw something on the side of the road we were going to explore it whether it was blocked off or not. Since I've been in Ireland I keep thinking about all the hilarious stories from that trip. So I thought I'd dig up the pictures and tell some of the stories.

We stopped by a lot of Cliffs. The ones that they generally let you see like the Cliffs of Moher are beautiful, but completely railed off. No, we liked finding cliffs on the sides of roads and just climbing to the very edge (my mom hated me getting too close to the edge though) where we could sit and watch the waves crash into the rocks. 

While I was in Dingle, we were eating in a restaurant and I found a cat sitting on the windowsill outside. I excused myself and headed outside to see the cat and it started to walk away and I followed it. The cat lead me through some bushes and onto a beach that was blocked away with this colorful boat. 

Also, the picture on the right is of Foxgloves which my Dad and I found on a walk. We then decided to have a photography competition to see who could get the better photo of the flowers. I was just getting into photography at the time and snapped away with my super thick point and shoot until I got this.

Great family bonding trip. I think this is one of the best photo of my brother and me.

Coolest castle we ever trespassed upon. It was definitely about to crumple underneath of us.

I mentioned before that we were exploring everything we could see, well we were driving through hills and hills when we saw a castle on the highest hill. We decided we'd drive up and check it out, so as we got up to the top there was no sign of the castle, just a stampede of cows coming our way.  Behind the cows we saw a farmer waving his hands above his head and shouting. So my Dad backed the car all the way down the hill chased by these cows until we were safe on the road surrounded by all the cows.

And here is my favorite photo I took on that trip of Dingle of all the colored buildings right on the water.

I'm glad I got to travel to Ireland with my family four years ago and even happier that I got to come back and see this great country again.

Shannon

Easter

I really enjoyed this year's Easter since it was hosted at my house for one of the first times and everyone seemed happy. There were practically two Easter celebrations there that night, my Mom's side in the morning and then Aunt Sue and the kids came over at night. What I really loved is the fact that I have little cousins that can enjoy the egg hunt part of Easter.

Gerred and I hid eggs in the backyard in some tough spots and Jesse (4 yrs.) found all the eggs. The best part was that he kept saying "That sneaky Easter bunny!" whenever he was having a difficult time finding an egg.

Oh and Ilyssa, my baby cousin is just the most adorable baby. Here she is taking a nap with Grandpa after a long day of being held by everyone and doing flips in the air.

She was happy the entire day which qualifies as a pretty amazing baby if you ask me.

And here's an odd picture of Gerred and I.

Then some normal-er ones

briefly

Before we all went crazy.

Now my brother, Ryan, gets in the picture and we start doing some seriously weird photos.

Like this...

So this is just to say that getting the family together is a weird occasion.

Shannon

Organizing Old Photos

Yesterday when I visited my Grandparents house, I volunteered to help my Grandma organize all of the old photos she had kept away in boxes for years. She needed to gather some photos together for a family reunion by August and I thought going through them all would be a great idea. Well it was actually a really fun experience with my family as I got to see tons of old photos as well as interesting records, postcards, booklets, and trinkets.

We got to work by first covering the dining room table with plastic table cloths and adding post its that marked each decade from 1910-2012.

As we started going through the photos the timeline started to fill up.

I love this photo album. It has great black and white as well as color photos that document the early life of my Mom and her siblings.

After awhile we had to create individual years for 1992-2012 and overlap pictures based on events.

Here's an old photo for you all. I'll have to check with my Grandma who these people are. I know she wrote their names and the date on the back since that was our process.

More of the older photos and newspaper clippings.

And that's how much we got done from just one of the three boxes. We still have to go through the other two and then go to Michaels and get some photo albums.

Going through all these photos made me start to think about printing out my own photos and making my own album.

Shannon