Packing it up!

I have come to discover that my mom is right. Packing gets harder the older you get. I have come to the conclusion that I really need to throw away a lot of stuff, which if you have see what I have been doing in the last few months you will know that I have probably thrown away 30 pounds of paper (Yes I did recycle) and proabably equally that much collectable garbage.
But throwing away memories hurts me more than it does my attic. As a matter of fact, if you go to the back of my attic where all of my stuff is, you can actually lie down and take a nap. Wouldn't suggest it though. A box might fall and hit you.
Right now I am going through my boxes and totes and saying, "Need now, need later, need when I have kids, probably need to just plain throw away!"
I have gotten rid of many boxes that way.
I've actually almost forgotten what it was like to pack up my boxes and move. Nine years is a long time to stay in one place and traveling back and forth to school doesn't offically count. I have to admit though I am feeling just a little bit like I am packing for school. In this case I have to pack as if I am going to school. Take only what you need without the school books. Thank you Lord!
Things that you own become your friends over the years. They are familiar to you and when you have to give them up it can be like you are in morning for the death of a dear friend. Sometimes it is all I can do to let that item slip out of my hands into the garbage can or even into the pile for the garage sale. I put it into a I'll think about it pile and then when I am not thinking I will just throw it away and not realize I did it. That works with me!
Isn't it funny? One minute you see something you had forgotten even exsisted anymore and the next moment you think you have to keep for some odd reason because you think you might need it again. I do that all the time, but who knows why!? Seriously am I really going to use it someday or is it going to continue to clutter up my room and attic?
So I suppose I should really stop writing on my blog and go do some packing. Maybe say good bye to a few good "friends".
I have to admit I am really looking forward to this move. Going all the way across to the other side of the country, a part of the country I have never actually been to before. To be like the pioneers of old who said "Go West, Young Man, Go West!" Okay so in this case it is "Go West, Young Woman, Go West!" I'm going, I'm going!
Well back to debating with the boxes.
Watch out Texas, here I come!

Come Check out the Website!

Reagan and I are very pleased to announce that you can now go to www.reaganandalicia.com and check out our wedding website.
It will answer any questions you might have and more.
Have fun, enjoy and leave us a note in our guest book.

Reagan- My Love Story

I love to read romance novels! I have to admit that I am a sucker for a well written, well beloved romance writer. If you give me a good one to read, I more than likely will have it read in less than a day if not in an afternoon.
Since my first real romance novel, The Bluebird and the Sparrow by Janette Oke, I have dreamed of what my love story would consist of. Of course tall, dark and handsome are kind of the normal when you first get started. Hey you have to start somewhere, right?
I dreamed of the million different ways I was going to meet him. On the street, at a party, while in college, even at church when his family walked in for the first time and introduced themselves.
Yes, I even dreamed of the dashing young prince coming along on his large white horse, sweeping me off my feet and carrying me into his castle where we were wed and lived happily ever after. Okay, so I knew that dream wouldn't come true, but it was a fun dream. And if you are a girl, you've had similar dreams. Don't go denying it either.
I had days when I would look at someone and think to myself "Could he be the one?" Scratch that. I seemed to have this criteria for what it was I was looking for and at my every look, it went splat like a water balloon, spilling out all over the sidewalk as he walked by. Definitely not the one!
And then my brother did a strange thing. He found a wife on Eharmony! Go figure! My brother find a girl, and get married!!!!!????? It sounded crazy, but it really happened.
I figured if my brother could find someone like that so could I! So I tried.
You don't know how many matches I had. As a matter of fact I don't know how many matches I had. But one right after another came up and one right after the other got scratched off the list. No way!
Around July I was getting rather discouraged over the whole thing. I almost gave up, but I decided to give myself three more months. Maybe, Just maybe something would come up.
Then it happened!
In September I got yet another list of names and started going through them closing down yet more that I really had no interest in or that had no interest in me. Then I came across this one match. It was
everything I hadn't planned on. Worst of all he was far away, like Texas far away. Right away I had my pointer on the close button. Then I stopped. I went back up to the top of the page and read his profile. It intrigued me. I decided to wait to hit the close button. Maybe later I would, but today from some reason I wasn't ready to do it.
Then a few days later I got a communication from him. I was stunned. I seriously did not expect anything to come out of me not closing him down. But I was so intrigued by this that I had to answer him. That was extremely dangerous!
We asked and answered many questions before we started talking about our families, likes, dislikes and everything else under the sun.
Then we told our families! That was fun! I don't know about his parents, but when I told my family that I had met someone named Reagan and he was from Texas they were all in a little bit of shock.
I let the name Reagan sink in for awhile, but kept back a very important characteristic about him that I had told only one person.
At Christmas I finally revealed the one thing that I had held back from my parents, Reagan was blind.
It surprised my parents, but for me it was never an issue. Since the day he told me, I was very fascinated. To me it was adventure.
Slowly and over time I would reveal this fact to more and more people, but I still didn't tell everyone.
Valentine's day was the beginning of a change for Reagan and I. He sent me flowers. It was like a light had turned on and a door had opened that had been just beyond our sight. We started talking literally every night. It was easier during that time because Reagan was in Arlington, VA and in the same time zone as I was. I knew there was something somewhere along the line that had changed between us so I went into my dad's office and pulled off a book from his shelf that I knew I needed to read, The Five Love Languages. I told Reagan about the book and discovered that he had actually bought the book and was about to read it. So over Easter while he was flying back from Easter brake, but he read the book.
That night we knew God had put us together and that we were meant for each other.
We started making plans in earnest. We already knew Reagan was coming in June, but we both realized after many long discussions that he wasn't just coming to meet me, he was coming to propose to me.
In April I got sick and the next day discovered a bouquet of beautiful flowers waiting for me at the front door.
Then one night I called Reagan on the phone, and knew instantly something was wrong. He had fallen down the stairs and for the next two or three hours I kept him saine as he battled the utter pain that he was in. I would have gone instantly to him if I could have. I was even more positive about my decision to marry him.
30 days before he was to come, I recieved two dozon roses at work making my coworkers jealous.
On June 19, as I watched the plane touch that Reagan was in my heart began to race. I asked myself what in the word I was doing. My heart was smashing out of my chest so hard I was sure everyone could see it.
As I got my first glimpse of Reagan coming out of the gate every emotion was running through me. But as soon as we had hugged and then started away from the gate walking with him was as natural as if I had been doing it all my life.
June 20 found us on our first date. In my mind I thought it was a disaster just simply because it was pouring rain and I couldn't find my way to where we were going. On the way home it was a rather quiet ride. I knew in the back of my mind that Reagan was going to ask me to marry him that night. Call it woman's intuition, I just knew.
We got home and I was very disappointed because it was freezing cold and Reagan thought it best we didn't go for a walk.
Reagan went up stairs and I followed him a few minutes later. He pulled me into his arms and began to quote something beautiful to me. At the time all I could think about was the beauty of the promise he had told me.
And then in the dark in the middle of the room, Reagan got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. All the words I was going to tell him when he asked me disappeared. To this day I can't remember what I was going to say. All I could say was Yes!
That night everything seemed to go wrong, and yet in the end I wouldn't have changed anything. It was so amazing as he slipped the sliver heart shaped ring with a gold cross onto my finger. I knew I had made the right choice.
And so on April 25, 2009 Reagan Lynch and I will be getting married and starting our own love story that is even better than any romance book anyone could ever write.

Jump!

A young boy went with his father to a swimming pool. The little boy was not a very good swimmer and so his father very lovingly and carefully fastened a life jacket around the boy so that he would feel safe.
The father then got into the water and started swimming around. After a while he looked up and noticed that his son still stood at the edge of the pool looking in. Being the loving father that he was, the father swam over to the boy and held out his arms.
"Jump to me. I won't let you drown!"
The little boy stood there for some time listening as his father continued to tell him to jump and that he wouldn't let his son drown. Then the boy made a decision. Instead of trusting his father and jumping, the little boy turned around and bolted from the side of the pool, got as far away as he could, and refused go in.
How do you think that father felt? That Father felt like a failure because his son didn't trust him enough to know that if he jumped, dad would catch him.
The little boy had an irrational fear that his father wouldn't catch him because he was blinded by the fear of the water. Nothing his father said to him would change his mind about the water. He refused to trust.
How are we with trusting God?
So often we try to figure things out for ourselves. We go from day to day worrying about where the money is coming from and going. We worry about things on the news. We are natural worriers. It's in our blood. We pass it down from generation to generation without giving it another thought. But let me ask again. How are we with Trusting God?
I have recently been challenged by this true story that I have just told you about the little boy and his father, and trusting God.
I heard on the radio this morning an interesting statement. Most everyone believes in God. It is very easy to believe in God. It is much much hard to believe God.
God, our Father, stands in the pool of life His arms out wide calling to us to jump because He will catch us and won't let us drown. We, on the other hand, stand at the edge of the pool with our life jackets on and shake our heads before turning around and high tailing it out of there.
We refuse to believe that God will catch us if we jump, but instead that He will watch us jump and then get out of the way so that we will go splat right into the water and drown. We have lost our trust in God.
Are we willing to put our faith back in a loving Father who would never under any circumstances let us drown? Are we willing to jump into His arms and let Him do the rest?
May we all be instead like the small child who stands on the stairs and sees his father walking by and shouts "Daddy, catch me!" before jumping into the waiting arms of a father he knew would catch him and wouldn't let him get hurt.

4th of July Inspiration

I got a little patriotic today. Sat down at the piano and started playing. I haven't really sat down and played the piano like that in a while and I was in the mood to play so I did for about an hour or so. After awhile I decided to prepare for the 4th of July tomorrow by playing "Battle Hymn of the Republic", "My Country, 'Tis of Thee", and "American, the Beautiful".
I learned to play all of those songs as a girl taking piano lessons, and I loved every minute of playing them. Milking them for all they were worth every year in church. But there is one song that eludes my fingers. Time and again I have tried to play the song only to stop because I can't get those four flat to come out of the keys. Maybe some day the National Anthem will be a breeze for me to play, but for now I will have to attempt to sing it, high notes and all.
So I stopped trying to play the song, because once again I thought maybe I could try, and sang it.
We are all familiar with the first verse. It's song at all the popular sports games, and the high school games. We get tears in our eyes every time we hear the song, while men, women and children alike screech out that very high E that no real mortal can hit.

"O Say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

But did you know there is a second verse to it?
I guess I knew, but I never really paid attention to it. For that matter I couldn't quote you the words like I can the first verse, but I found it interesting that we leave that part of the song completely out of the mix.
Maybe it is because the words are kind of hard to fit with the tune so we think "No big deal, it's the first part that matters." But once you have read them, you may think differently.

"O thus be it ever, when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just;
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust!"
And the star spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"

How timeless that verse is! You can't tell me that it is not. We need to be screaming this song from the roof tops and yet here we are totally forgetting everything that this verse is saying.
You've probably seen the saying that I have seen recently. It says "Real Freedom isn't Free". How true can that statement be?
Everyday our freedom is being fought for and despite that our cause is a just cause and so we must conquer, we hear nothing but complaining about the fact that there is a war. When has there not been a war somewhere?
In order for our star spangled banner to wave triumphantly over the free and the brave we must be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the freedom of others.
So the next time someone complains about our wars remind them that with out our wars, we would not be free. Also remind them that despite the fact that we try to take God out of the picture these days, we should "Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation" because without Him our flag and all our freedoms would have been a distant memory, if a memory at all.
May God Bless America Today and always and may we never forget that our Freedom, whether it is political, physical, or spiritual, is never free. Someone has to pay the price.

A Week of Cruising- Saturday

May 31, 2008

Disembarking

Friday night into Saturday morning was a very long night. Because of where we were situated on the 4th floor we could hear crew members working all night long for when we got into port. Things were rolling and thumping and pretty much just too loud.

To make matters worse people were coming down the hall at all hours of the night, laughing and talking loudly. Stumbling along as they head off to bed to get rid of their hangovers. This went on well into the morning and I think I heard the last one sometime around 2 am.

Saturday morning started bright and early. Laura was determined to see the sunrise so we got up at 5:45 am because the captain said the sunrise would be around 6:15. By the time we got up to the top deck the sun had already been in the air for awhile. I still got some pretty pictures before we went back to our room and fell back to sleep.

We would have stayed in bed had it not been for the noise that once again started up. Not only that, but for some reason the Steward thought we were out of the room so he started to come in.

I don't think I have actually mentioned our Steward. His name was Joel. He and his partner were amazing. They kept our room so clean and neat. Laura and I would go off to breakfast or something and we would come back to find our beds made and everything neat. Ever time we walked out the door and he was there, Joel would say hello and ask us how our days were going. He even remembered our names. We were pretty impressed simply because he remembered our names despite the however many hundreds of people he talked to every day. He made us feel like queens.

I finally knew that sleep was not going to happen for me so I got up. We had our last meal on the deck while watching New York City come into view. I got more pictures of Lady Liberty, Ellis Island, and the Empire State Building.

We also watched the tug boat The Cape Cod pull us into port and the seagulls flying behind us before heading down stairs to gather our stuff and prepare for Express Disembarking.

We seriously expected Disembarking to take well over and hour, but from the time Laura and I hit the line to the time we walked to the Taxi it was all of 45 minutes.

Our taxi driver this time around was a Much better driver and this time we really got a New York City driver. He weaved in and out of traffic so fast and he got us to where we were supposed to go in less time then the first guy. Laura and I tried not to pay attention or we might have had a heart attach just watching him drive.

We checked into our respective airways and while Laura was checking in, I was entertained by a pigeon who had gotten stuck inside. No one really seemed concerned. They just pointed and laughed and went on their way. Poor thing! Not sure he knew which side was up at that point.

We had about half an hour before I needed to go through me line and get to my gate. We stopped at Subway and had subs. It was rather a subdued conversation. Finally around noon we said good bye and I made my way through the line.

All morning we had been watching the weather. The sky was very cloudy when we got into port and it was progressively getting darker as we went along. By the time I sat down and was writing in my journal, I knew that we were in for a nasty storm and not twenty minutes before We were supposed to board our flight we had a nasty Lightening storm. The sky was very black and the rain came down in sheets. I called dad and warned him that I may be delayed, but by the time we were to board, the storm had stopped and the sun was out again.

What a fascinating ride that was: )

If you ever want to learn about the steward or stewardess on the plane, sit in the bulk head or the very first seat. I struck up an interesting conversation with the stewardess the entire way home. That was fun.

This time around I actually got to sit by the window and that was just amazing! I took a bunch of pictures out the window. Mostly of the clouds. Do you know how many dreams I have had of being above the clouds? Not only that, but we were going into big Fluffy clouds. We had a bit of a bumpy ride as we had a draft while going through the clouds. That was really neat because all I could see was white out the window.

I was so grateful to touch down. As the wheels came down on the runway I was grateful that my journey was finally over. I loved the trip and I loved the adventure, but it was so good to know that I was almost home.

Mom and Dad met me and together we got my suitcase before heading for the car. It was heavy. When I left on Sunday my suitcase weighed somewhere around 35 pounds. When I got home it weighed somewhere around 42. Where did I get all that stuff? :)

When I got home we had show and tell before I headed off to have my water cameras developed.

I also made a phone call at that time.

Saturday was the end of my journey, but it took me several days before my body realized that I was no longer on the ship. Every once in a while I would have to grab hold of something just so that I could balance myself. I felt like I was drunk or something : ) Sometime around Tuesday or Wednesday my body became used to the swaying of the ship to the point where my body was compensating for it. Now I know why Pirates really swaggered. It wasn't because they had too much rum, but because they were at sea for so long their bodies had started to compensate.

If any of you are thinking about taking a cruise, Do it! If you don't have the money, start saving up a little at a time. It is so worth every minute of it. I can't wait to do it again.

A Week of Cruising- Friday

May 30, 2008

Heading home

"8:20 PM

'Oh Lord, my God, when I in Awesome wonder

Consider all the world Thy Hands have made.

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,

Thy Pow'r thro'out the universe displayed.

Then Sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee;

How great thou art, How Great thou art!'

There are no better words to describe what I have seen today.

You don't know the meaning of "as Smooth as glass" until you have seen it for yourself on the ocean. Tonight the water was so smooth it looked literally like glass. The sunset was spectacular with the sunlight shimmering off the water. Laura and I spent from just after supper until just after the sunset out on the deck. It was warm at first, but by the time the sun was gone, we were freezing.

We started the day a little late. Laura was going to see the sunrise, but set the alarm wrong. By the time I woke up and looked at the time, it was quarter after 8.

We went out to the Promenade this morning after breakfast before going to the meeting for disembarking. I got to be the time keeper because Darin said he wanted everything to go quickly. He said no more than 20 minutes and was done in 10.

We went final day shopping before lunch, then I sat out and got a suntan. . . er. . . um. . . burn. Oops!

Then we watched ping pong, ate ice cream, and talked.

We even saw a large sting ray swimming near the surface of the water. Really Cool!

Today we honestly did nothing but sit around and read. I can't tell you how relaxing it is to do nothing, but sit in the sun, read and watch the water while listening to the waves hitting the sides of the ship. We did walk around the ship.

I have pretty much everything packed now. Just a few odds and ends of stuff still sitting on the nightstand. I am so ready to go home.

Laura says she could live on the water. Now me, I love the cruising, but I know I couldn't live on a ship in the middle of the ocean for a long period of time. I'd miss too much of the world."

It was the last day on the ocean. It was rather bitter sweet. Laura and I both knew that in the morning we would be saying goodbye and going our separate ways. The week had gone by really slowly, but for some reason on that last day it felt like we had just gotten on the ship. I have to admit that at certain times of the day I had to catch the tears from forming. Laura and I had had such a wonderful week of feeling like queens and not having to work.

Sometimes there are no words to describe things. I was so thankful I had my camera because without it there are certain things that I have talked about in my blog that wouldn't have made any seance at all. Sometimes even the pictures don't do it justice. Sometimes you have to experience the winds blowing your hair, the smell of the ocean, the sounds of the ship, and the little things that make the ocean, the ocean to understand everything there is on here.

So close your eyes and smell the water, run your hand against the railings and feel the salt build up, face towards the wind and a little over the rail and feel the salt spray on your face and feel the wind. Taste the salt as it slips onto your lips. Listen as the waves slap slowly and methodically on the sides of the ship. Go to the back of the ship and watch as the ship makes waves and turns the water into a green foamy color and listen to the noise of the motor. Look out and see the strange creatures such as flying fish and stingrays as they swim beside the ship.

There is nothing like it. I was so blessed with the opportunity to celebrate God's creation out on the ocean. God must have used a very special paint brush when He created the ocean because He made sure you could see the curve of the horizon so that you know the world is round. He played around with every color of blues and greens and swirled them together to make the water. And every night He takes that delicate paint brush up in His hands and splash the beautiful colors of orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, grey, and white and makes an ocean sunset. How much more beautiful can creation be then that!