christmas morning breakfast.

We were so thankful to be able to open up our home and share Christmas breakfast with 12 other single Marine officers. Brian and I both grew up eating big breakfasts prior to opening gifts with our families on Christmas morning. We knew we wanted to make a huge breakfast to carry on tradition, so who better to help us eat it than hungry Marines? We were far from our families for the holidays and so were they. We love taking the opportunity to get the Marine's out of the barracks every once in a while. To serve them a home cooked meal, give them a comfy couch to sit on, and some good conversation around the dinner table.

It wasn't anything fancy, but it was fun and none of us spent Christmas morning alone. For us, it was so nice to have a full, loud house instead of the quietness that would remind us how far from home and family that we were. 

On the Menu:

 blueberry muffins

egg, bagel, sausage casserole

hashbrown casserole

monkey bread

fruit salad

loads of bacon

tons of coffee

orange juice

Simple, and delicious. 

happy belated birthday marine corps

This weekend we got the honor and privilege of attending two birthday balls to celebrate the 237th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. To say we are thankful to be a part of the USMC would be an understatement. We don't know right now how long the Lord will have us stay in this military life, but we remain thankful for this season that we get to experience all that it has to offer. We have been to some awesome places (hello, we live in Japan.), met amazing lifelong friends, and have been grown in stretched in so many ways.

The birthday balls were both a great time, and it was so fun to meet all the guys and girls that Brian works along side and the marines he gets to lead everyday. He truly works with some quality men and women and we are well aware of what a blessing that is.

Luckily, I happened to throw two long dresses in our first shipment of stuff and had a dress to wear to each ball. And luckily, my sister in law has the BEST taste and picked this one shoulder blue chiffon beauty for her bridesmaid dress. A bridesmaid dress that you can actually wear again? Hard to come by. Thanks Emily!

my hairstylist and sweet friend, Sarah // my awesome next door neighbor, Lily

Doesn't my husband look dashing in those dress blues? Gotta love a man in uniform.

It's tradition each year at the ball to have this amazing huge cake along with a cake cutting ceremony. The oldest and youngest marines present are served the first slices of cake. The oldest marine present was born in 1963, and the youngest marine present was born in 1994. 1994! Isn't that crazy? Seems like yesterday it was 1994 and now people born in that year are old enough to be serving in the military. 

Happy Birthday Marine Corps, and thanks for the paycheck. 

when your best friends come to town

You know those friends that you can just be you around? No stress, lots of grace, love you in your good times and your really bad times. These are those friends for me.

My two best friends/maids of honor in my wedding, Megan and Molly, came to Charlotte to spend one last day together before Japan. It was so much fun with lots of laughter, reminiscing, and only a few tears. 

I love that Brian loves them as much as I do, simply because they love me well and are such great friends to me.

My friends in college and I had this awesome tradition of making up songs and dances for people to celebrate major life events. Yes, we are really cool and I know you want to be like us. Honestly, it usually ended up in big fights and tears shed-- but this one was good clean fun for all and I greatly appreciated the personalized version of N*Sync written just for me. 

Also, my friends are very white. I love them anyways. 

Enjoy this little gem.

 Also, they wrote me a card that didn't really make any sense and contained a lot of misspelled words. And it was a Happy Birthday card. Except it wasn't my birthday-- I'm just moving. 

THEN, just when we thought life couldn't get any better our BEST marine corps friends rolled into town and we got to spend the day with them like old times. These are the friends that we prayed for before moving to Virginia-- and the Lord answered our prayers in a big way. 

Luke and Kate are life friends and more like family to us. 

Hanging out with married couples is such a tricky thing. All of the sudden making friends isn't so easy when you get married. It's this whole new 4 way road where the wives need to get along, and the husbands need to get along, and the wife of one couple needs to get along with the husband of the other couple and vice versa. It gets complicated, you know? 

Brian and I feel like that problem would be solved if we could just only hang out with Luke and Kate everyday. That's how easy our friendship is. Simple, stress free, refreshing, and we pretty much laugh nonstop when we are together. We love these two (and their unborn baby).

Good friends are a good, good thing.

the last of Lejeune

Yesterday, we said goodbye to Camp Lejeune and to dear friends we have made over the past 3 months there. It was a little sad for sure, but we are READY for what is ahead. Japan! 

Out biggest prayer throughout our Brian's time in the Marine Corps has consistently been for community. We just want to be in community with people growing and learning and getting to share the good news of Christ. We are absolutely blown away by how God has answered our prayer each place we have been. See, we were moved to Lejeune for 3 months. 3 months is such an awkward time and we felt certain that it would simply be a place of transition, no where to put down any roots. But man, God had a different plan. We made some of the deepest and most sincere friendships of our life during these past 3 months and were reminded that our God is not constrained by time. He works when He works. And oh, how thankful we are for that. 

Some friends of ours prayed for Brian and I on our last night in Jacksonville and spoke these two specific scriptures over our lives, 

"May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples."  Genesis 28:3

"I will give you every place where you set your foot.. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous." 

Joshua 1:3-6

So this is what we are believing for our time in Japan-- that God would provide community, that he would give us favor with the people that we meet, and that He would be with us through every step.

///

Now we are back home in Charlotte, trying to make the most of the next two weeks-- seeing every friend and family member possible one last time before we head out on this adventure. 

the graduate

Brian graduated yesterday from the Basic School, the 6 month long officer course that brought us to Virginia. I could not be more proud of how hard and diligently this man works to be the best he can be and bring God glory in all that he does. His work ethic and determination challenge me to be better. 

We were so blessed to have BOTH sets of our parents here to celebrate with us along with Brian's oldest brother, Evan. We all got a glimpse into Brian's crazy days of TBS during family day.

 

After shooting guns and being awesome all day, we got all spiffied up for graduation. And let's just be honest with ourselves, there is nothing better than a man in uniform.

So proud of you Brian. You are going to do huge things for God's glory during your time in the Marine Corps. It's an honor to be your wife and stand beside you through this journey. You are the real deal.

konnichiwa

Well, here we go. When we got married we asked the Lord for an adventure and He answered. Big time.

Back Story: Tuesday morning Brian called me and said he had gotten web orders online for our next duty station. After the previous shock of receiving Ground Supply, we were really hoping and praying for an awesome duty station. Brian's first words to me were, "it's God's will," and my heart sank. I knew "it's God's will" meant North Carolina. See, we got to rank our duty stations and we ranked East Coast last. Now, before all our lovely east coast friends and family get angry about this you should know this-- we did this because we are pretty sure that one day we will settle back down in North Carolina. For the time being we just wanted to GO. EXPLORE. Figure out life and marriage and adventure.

So we spent about 24 hours thinking we were going to be back in NC for the next three years. We weren't angry, but we weren't excited. We were just trying hard to believe that it was what God had for us.

So that brings us to Wednesday night. I'm walking through Target to get QTips and garbage bags (obviously really important to the story) and Brian calls with a super excited voice. He's all, "BABE, I HAVE GOOD NEWS!" And I'm all, "FINALLY!" He continued on to tell me that his web orders were wrong and we would no longer be moving to NC.

So here is our news: We are moving to..... OKINAWA, Japan! Japan ya'll, JAPAN! Three years; more specifically 36 months. And you should come visit. Cause it's a tropical island. And beautiful.

We will be here in Virginia until the middle of June, and then will move to North Carolina for 8 weeks while Brian in in supply school. After supply school we will be off to the land of sushi and cherry blossoms (seriously, this is all I know about Japan). We are so excited and are ready for the adventure that will come! We covet your prayers as there is so much to be done before we leave. Pray that God would go before us and prepare the way. That he would provide strong community and relationships for us and that our marriage would grow exponentially as we learn to lean on one another. And that He would continually calm our hearts and remind us that this truly is His plan.

And please. Come visit.

And because I have no other pictures to share of this momentous occasion: here is why you should come visit...

we're getting there

Seems outrageous to already be talking about what's next for us considering we've only been in Virginia for 4 1/2 months. Somedays it feels like we just left North Carolina to embark on this journey, and somedays I feel like we've been in it for years.

We found out a week ago that after Brian's May TBS (the Basic School) graduation, our time here in Virginia will be over and we will be headed to Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, NC. You may ask, are you excited about this? And I would answer you by saying: We are getting there. It's not at all what we expected, but the Lord is doing a major work in both of our hearts, and we are getting there. So here we go... (Sidenote: forgive the excessive military acronyms. I swore I would never give in and start using them.. but alas, I now speak in letters instead of words...)

Brian has been doing very well all throughout TBS, ranking high in his platoon and company, and we thought we were sitting pretty when it came time for MOS (his job/specialty) selections. We didn't say it out loud, but we pretty much had the next phase of life planned out; thought we knew exactly where we would be, what Brian's job was going to be, etc. But you know, like the good Christians we are, all along we were praying Proverbs 16:19 "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand." So we were praying it, but remember, we already "knew" where we were headed.



And then, BOOM, humbled. We find out Brian has been assigned the job of Ground Supply Officer. Not even on the radar of jobs he was thinking about. Not at ALL what we thought he would get. And in that moment, God clearly spoke to both of our hearts, "Do you still trust Me? Do you still believe My way is the good way? Even when it isn't what you wanted?" And to be honest, my first reaction was to say WHAT? This isn't FAIR. Brian worked HARD. We DESERVE what we want. And my husbands response without batting an eye, "This is God's will for our lives. It's going to be a good thing." (And that right there is why I married him.)

You see the more we think about the situation, the less and less we understand it. Why would someone ranked so well in the company receive a job ranked so low on their list? In the way of the world, it doesn't make sense. But then again, we are not living for this world. So in all the confusion and the lack of understanding in our small human minds, we realized something: this could only be the Lord. Romans 11:33 says "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!" I, for one, am thankful to serve a God who's wisdom and knowledge is beyond my comprehension.

So our time in the Marine Corps is going to look a lot different than we expected, but how sweet to know that we are walking down the path that God has paved for us and not one that we laid for ourselves. And we are believing Him for big things down the road ahead. And one thing I know for certain is that I will follow this man anywhere...