New Blog for the Time Being!

Well...I haven't updated in a while because I have been blogging on a different site...not that I really update my blog that often anyways.  I will return to this blog at a later time, but if you wish to continue following the Carlsons please refer to this link: http://welcomebabyc.blogspot.com/

That's right, we are expecting a new addition to the family!!

Wow, What a Year!!

I can't believe that in two days Brian and I will have been married for a year.  It was filled with lots of new experiences, some hard times, some incredibly happy times, and lots of new friends.  I don't know where to even start while recapping this spectacular year.  I suppose I will start with the beginning.

On January 30, 2010, in the midst of a blizzard (in Raleigh, NC of all places) I married my best friend, my hero, and the man that I love so dearly.  Brian was fresh off of a plane from South Korea when we boarded the plane in Ft. Lauderdale to head back to Raleigh for the big show.  Some very special friends and family made it into Raleigh before us and it was nice to visit with familiar faces prior to the hustle and bustle that comes with a wedding.  As more friends and family arrived in Raleigh (where is was 70 degrees and sunny) the energy escalated and the fact that we were getting married became more real.  Everything was so relaxed until Thursday before the wedding.  While we were visiting with friends and enjoying lunch I began receiving phone calls from vendors trying to cancel or telling me that they would do their best to make it on Saturday (?!?!?!?!).  You see, even though it was 70 and sunny, the forecast for Saturday was SNOW.  I simply replied by telling them that their statements were unacceptable, yes the wedding is still on, and yes you will be there (then I hung up, cried, and delegated the tasks of threatening each and every vendor).  It wasn't until Friday at the rehearsal that Raleigh began its transformation into a winter wonderland.  We entered the church with a clear and starry sky and exited to a beautiful blanket of white.  The snow continued all through the rehearsal dinner and made for absolutely beautiful pictures.  Upon returning to our hotel (close to midnight) we discovered that I was allergic to the laundry detergent that the hotel used, causing me to break out in hives all over my back and along my collar bones, it was lovely.  Since we had no car there I had to call my mom to come get us and take us home.  What a Wedding eve!

Saturday morning I awoke to the same beautiful snow that was covering Raleigh, took off to get my hair did, rushed over to the hotel to get my make-up done, and then myself, along with my seven lovely bridesmaids piled into our limo and took off for the church.  For those of you that were there and participating, you know that it wasn't quite that smooth, but I will spare the details!  Once arriving at the church I caught a glimpse of some of the groomsmen (who looked dashing!) and saw my adorable ring bearers and flower girls.  I had issues waiting to get ready, I wanted to get the show started, but tried to at least wait until the photographer came in to take pictures.  The ceremony was wonderful, I did not make it through without crying, but everyone commented on how confident Brian sounded while taking his vows and sweet that was.

First Dance

The reception was even better.  We entered kicked off the night by dancing to It Had to Be You (the version from  When Harry Met Sally) and I have never felt such a surge of energy and happiness while dancing with my man!  The entire reception was a blast, the food was great, and the company and energy in the room was even better.  We concluded the evening by taking over the hotel bar and I took shots with another bride!  Too bad there are no pictures :-(  The next morning there was a spectacular brunch that my mom had planned and we got to say goodbye to family and friends that traveled from afar.  It was such a magical weekend and it went so quickly, I wish we could rewind and do it again!

Downtown Raleigh

Disney World

Brian and I returned to Ft. Lauderdale and spent the next weekend in Disney World, just to get away from my roommate and celebrate being newlyweds (I will clarify that it was NOT a honeymoon, we have yet to take that, but that will be in Tahiti).  Our time together seemed to fly by and before we knew it Brian was on his way out to Ft Lewis, WA.  I spent my weekends flying out to see him until he deployed to Afghanistan in March.

Brian in an MRAP in Afghanistan

That was such a difficult time for me, definitely the hardest goodbye for me.  While Brian was gone I made some wonderful friends that I would not have survived without.  I don't know how I am going to handle saying goodbye to some of them this summer when they leave and the rest in September when we leave, but that's getting ahead of things here.  After a long and painful 4+ months Brian sent me a text message from Germany saying that he was on his way home.  The next several days were a blur of cleaning, organizing, cleaning again and trying to keep myself occupied while I waited.  Brian returned from Afghanistan in mid July and I have never felt joy like I did with that first embrace and kiss.  We held onto each other and could not let go.

Picking Brian up when he came home from Afghanistan (He was in Korea for a year prior to that)

In the next months we discovered that several of our good friends were expecting babies, many are due soon through this summer.

We also bought a boat...crashed the boat

 traveled a bit, celebrated my first birthday with Brian at the Space Needle, celebrated our 5th Thanksgiving together (we have yet to miss one since meeting!),,

bought our first season snowboard passes,

Cut down our first Christmas tree

celebrated our first Christmas together,

did a polar plunge (well, I did) in the first hour of 2011, Brian started playing soccer with me,

attended a historical Seattle Seahawks game,

Sunrise on New Years Eve morning

 and now we are about to celebrate one year of marriage!  What a year it has been!

We plan to celebrate our anniversary by attending a Seattle Thunderbirds hockey game, getting a couples massage, and then having dinner at a nice restaurant in Tacoma.  We will drink champagne from the glasses we drank from at our wedding, eat the top of our cake, and simply enjoy each other's company.  I raise my glass to saying goodbye to a wonderful year and welcoming the new one, the experiences that it will bring, and the places that it will take us!  To my friends and family, old and new, from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for your lasting love and support!  You've helped us through the hard times and celebrated the happy ones with us!

I promise I will try to update the blog more often, especially with our new adventures!


Marianna

Here Come the Holidays!

Marianna's small pumpkin

We have officially entered the holiday season and excitement is in the air! We kicked off the holiday season by celebrating my birthday a few days early with a group of friends at our favorite bar, Ale House. It was great fun and no one threw up, so all in all it was a successful night! The following Tuesday Brian took me to the Space Needle's revolving restaurant for an intimate, romantic dinner. It was delicious and a great time, I would highly recommend eating there to anyone living in or visiting the Seattle area. Wednesday, October 20th is my real birthday, I spent the day riding bikes with my friend, Rachael, and then returned home and sat in a bubble bath with cake and champagne and spent a few hours catching up with my mom. Brian had to work an insane day, so we did not spend hardly any of my actual birthday together. I'm hoping next year I will get to spend at least some of the day with him.

The big news from October 20 is that my cousin, Kate, had her baby boy, Jack! He is a cute little booger and I am so happy for her and her husband (also named Brian).

Brian's small pumpkin: Darth Vader

Next up was Halloween, which was kind of low key, but still fun. We went to Ale House the night before...of course in costume...and enjoyed a few drinks. We took off before the costume contest, but we are confident that we would have won. Brian and I dressed up as Mario and Luigi (we made our costumes) and everyone was excited to see us! We were really excited about having Trick-or-Treaters for our first Halloween in our first house. It was great, we bought just the right amount of candy and even have a little bit left over for ourselves! We dressed up as Mario and Luigi again and every time we answered the door we were greeted with "ITS MARIO AND LUIGI!!! TRICK OR TREAT!!" Another highlight of the night was the number of compliments we received on our pumpkins. At first Brian was just going to carve a face into his, but I gave him a lesson on how we will be doing Halloween. We picked out some intricate patterns and carved them into the pumpkins, coming away with only one stabbing to a thumb. Here are a few shots of the finished products:

Marianna's large pumpkin: Mario

Brian's large pumpkin: Autobot

Brian's birthday is coming up on Sunday, I have some plans for him, but those are for the next post!

In other news, I have been working on the FRG basket for the holiday bazaar. I was supposed to get donations from members of the FRG, but no one except for 3 people wanted to participate, so I ended up spending quite a bit of money to make our basket the best. It looks great, hopefully it will bring in some big cash for the Lewis Community Spouses Club (LCSC). I also found out that one of my very best friends is going to have a baby boy sometime in March! I'm so excited for Franny and Christian! Seems like everyone is having babies, getting pregnant, or trying to get pregnant. That is still a ways down the road for us, so no worries Mom!!

Well, that's all for now!

Marianna

Recent Happenings

Well, I suppose its been a while since I last updated, so here we go!

Last I wrote we had just dropped the boat off for repairs and I was battling the broke elbow. The boat has been fixed and is good as new. We have enjoyed several awesome days on the lake and are both improving our wakeboarding skills beyond belief. I have started jumping the wake and Brian is doing all sorts of cool stuff. We have some friends that come out pretty regularly with us, so its fun to see them improving as well.

My elbow is healed and almost as good as new, although it does lock up from time to time which can be very annoying. My body apparently hates me though because last night I got my pinky toe stepped on and it is definitely broken...oh well.

Brian has taken over as Platoon Leader and is loving his job, I think his soldiers like him a lot too. He has been planning PT and even planned a fun day of "training" for them at the airsoft complex here. It was a huge success and most of the guys couldn't get over the fact that they were getting paid to play airsoft all day.

Speaking of airsoft, Brian has picked that back up and goes on a fairly regular basis, often coming home looking like he has chicken pox from being shot.

I am still playing soccer and have taken on the roll of Point of Contact for the 2-17 Bravo Battery FRG. I am basically in charge of keeping all the spouses or primary contacts up to speed with what is going on in the Battery. I also joined the Officer Spouses Club and am in charge of the 2-17 basket for the holiday bazaar silent auction. Its fun to be involved and its nice to know information about what Brian is/will be doing before he knows ;-) Other than that, I am still on the job hunt (FML), that could be going a lot better, there is just not a lot on the market right now. I am over educated and under experienced for just about EVERYTHING. I have faith that something will come up, I just have to be patient.

I think that is about all for now, I promise to update more regularly!

Marianna

Murphy's Law??

Well, life has been a bit of a whirlwind since Brian came home. Its been awesome having him here to help with everything and, of course, to enjoy his company!! His reintegration was pretty smooth and easy once he went back to work. When reintegration was finished he went on leave and we took off for a nice 12 hour drive to Alamo, CA. We arrived and were able to spend a couple extra days with his parents, which was really nice. We enjoyed the beautiful CA weather and the refreshing pool in his parents backyard (and don't forget his mom's awesome cooking!). We were really excited to catch one of our favorite bands in San Francisco, Mad Caddies, who we saw the night after we got engaged 2 years ago! We met the band and got autographs, it was a blast. The best part was still yet to come, though.

I was awoken the next morning by a very excited husband, urging me to come outside and see the boat that we would be using during our trip to Lake Tahoe. When I went outside to find a sick (and Carolina Blue) wakeboarding boat he started to explain that we had the rental a little longer than originally planned. He then proceeded to tell me that we would be using this boat FOREVER! My sneaky and awesome husband sent his friends on a mission to find us the perfect boat while he was in Afghanistan and surprised me with it! I seriously have the best husband ever!!! I then went into a frenzy to get ready to go wakeboarding (with my broken elbow...) and after breakfast we headed out for the Delta. BAD IDEA. After getting on the water and all of the guys getting a chance to wakeboard it was then my turn. Of course, having a pretty freshly broken elbow, it was next to impossible for me to pull myself up out of the water so I decided to try and surf behind the boat instead. To make bigger wake to surf on you can fill the ballast in the boat, so Brian and his buddy were working on that as I was climbing back into the boat to wait...upon my ascent into the boat I noticed that we were drifting towards some rocks and brought this to Brian and John's attention. Well...all the rookie boater energy started feeding off of each other and next thing I knew I was laying on the floor of the boat watching John freak out about a cut on his chin.

In our attempts to get out of the rocky area we got hit by the wake of 2 boats that were significantly bigger than ours. The wake then pushed us closer to the rocks and just as I decided that I would probably be safer INSIDE the boat we hit a rock that launched me into the middle of the boat after doing one and a half flips through the air. It was definitely a 10! The sudden stop sent Brian's head crashing into the rear view mirror once and then a second time when his friend, Rob, made contact with the back of his seat. John face found the glass windshield...or his chin found it, cutting it open. We all only suffered minor cuts or bruising and were able to take the boat back to the launch ramp. Turns out we would not be boating in Lake Tahoe...bummer!

We returned from CA with the boat in about 13 hours...not too shabby...and dropped it off at the boat doctor. It needs some minor surgery and hopefully we will have it back sooner than the projected 2 weeks. Although, I'm sure my elbow could use the extra two weeks before it takes another beating.

Our trip to Lake Tahoe was pretty epic, but that story is for another day! Stay tuned!

Marianna

Reunited!

So Brian made is home around 10pm on July 12. He flew in on a civilian plane into Sea-Tac where I greeted him with a huge hug and sobs of joy. It was so wonderful to see him I can't even put it into words. We made it home around midnight and he fell asleep almost immediately and slept through the night. He woke up around 7am the next morning and it was a beautiful, sunshiney day so we decided to ride bikes all around Lacey and Olympia. We have enjoyed beautiful weather since he arrived and have just been taking advantage of the awesome Washington summer by cooking out and having beers. Its been great.

There is one downfall...last Sunday Brian was watching me play indoor soccer and I happened to break my elbow. Who does that?! yeah so we spend a good chunk of Sunday afternoon/evening in the Madigan ER. Thankfully they didn't cast me and I have been gaining mobility as my pain level decreases. I'm hoping that I will be good to go by the time we make it down to Lake Tahoe to go wakeboarding. We are going to head back in for another round of x-rays on Monday, so I am hoping for good news. Anyways, that's all that is new in the Carlson world! Just thought I would share the recent news!

Marianna

He's on his way!!!

So, I just can't contain myself! Brian is finally on his way home and actually back in the United States! I will get to see him in about 8 hours and I'm absolutely chomping at the bit. Since Brian graduated from FAOBC in January of 2009 we have spent VERY LITTLE time together. He departed for South Korea only a few days after graduating and 4 months passed before I was able to make it out to Korea for a week. The week flew by and I started school and did not see Brian again until Thanksgiving when he visited me in Florida for a week. Shortly after Thanksgiving I learned that Brian would be leaving for Afghanistan almost immediately upon reporting to Ft. Lewis, WA. I tried not to think about it though, because we had such fun times awaiting us in January after his tour in South Korea was over. He returned from Korea January 25, 2010 and we had our wonderful wedding on January 30, 2010. We then were able to spend 20 days together before he left Florida for Washington and a few weeks later he was on his way to Afghanistan. The return date got pushed back about 3 times and I was so pleasantly surprised about 3 days ago when Brian called and said that he would be getting on a plane a few hours later to start his journey home! It was the best surprise of my life! So now, here we are, he is somewhere between Dallas and Chicago and I am sitting by the clock willing time to pass faster. I absolutely can not wait to have him in my arms again! After 16.5 months of separation we will finally be together again! We will actually be living in the same state for the first time! I am so excited to finally begin this journey with him!! Now...what to wear?!

-Marianna-