Missing People This Christmas . . . and my biased recommendation of Skype.

So I realized that I haven't done any real personal posting for a while so I decided to do a post on some of the people that I missed over the Holiday season. And to also sing my praises about Skype and how it's kept me in touch with my family. I don't know what I'd do without it!

This is my pretty wife Beth. I don't have any pictures of my other wife on this new computer but I will get them up I promise!! (I have not forgotten about you Kristyne, all my pictures of you are just on my other computer.) Anyway, this is Beth and she is my bestest good friend and I miss her terribly. Every time I see anything to do with "Pride and Prejudice" or Food Network I think of her. She lived on base too and we used to hang out all the time and got to be really close during a long stretch when both of our husbands were working graveyard shifts and we hardly got to see them. We spent so much time together, and it happened to coincide with her actual wedding anniversary, that she said that we should just be married to each other and we have been ever since. We are coming upon our 2 year anniversary now and I couldn't have found a better friend. Our other wife Kristyne is the sweetie of the bunch. She's a little more soft spoken than either me or Beth but she is just like us in other aspects. Get us all together and within minutes our sides hurt from laughing and crying and having a great time. I miss them both so much.
This is my pretty wife and her husband Jason. I kinda miss him to because he was like a brother that would pick on me constantly. It was pretty fun.

Mark and Megan!!! Out of all our Mtn Home friends we've known them the longest. I met Mark right after Dave and I started dating. In fact, Dave asked Mark to join us for lunch and a movie one weekend (it was our 3rd date, I think) so he could get Mark's opinion on me. :) Megan was deployed at the time and I didn't meet her for a couple of months, and when I did she couldn't talk because she had laryngitis. Mark checked up on me when David was deployed (which was awesome) and the last couple of years we made a ritual of going to Utah to the haunted houses in October. It was fun to have the annual Lyon-Farley Halloween weekend, we had some great times. They are currently in England, which sucks because they were supposed to be in Germany with us. Oh well. We miss them though and plan on visiting them as soon as possible.

This is Dustin and Tara. They're proably going to kill me for posting this picture but this is the only one I could find of them on this computer. Tara looks gorgeous as always but Dustin appears to be non too impressed with whatever chocolate he is consuming. This was from our trip to New York for their wedding and we were at an amazing restaurant called Max Brenner. Chocolate galore!! When you walk in there is a vat of molten chocolate in front of you and you want to be like Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and stick your hand in. Anyway, I digress. I've known Dustin only slight less time than I've known Mark and Megan and Tara danced into our lives about a year later. We've been so lucky to have them as friends because they are amazing, fun people that make me laugh and be happy. They are in Japan right now and we miss them terribly too. Hopefully we'll all be able to get together for a reunion and just spend a week together just like the old days.

See that's the thing about being married to the military that I never realized would be so hard. You form these attachments to friends and then are thrown in different directions from each other not knowing when you'll see each other again. But the silver lining in this is that these friendships are usually for life. I can't imagine not ever talking to any of these people ever again.

Now on to family and the wonders of Skype!

This is my mommy. I miss her alot. She hates her picture being taken, but I snuck one in while she wasn't looking :). I usually talk to her every day even though she's at work. When I was back home we would talk on the phone, usually at least twice, and text throughout the day. I was wondering how we were going to keep that up because we've become extremely close over the last few years. So, she downloaded Skype and we chat every day! It's not the same as being able to text her whenever I want but it still keeps us in contact. Since she's at work she doesn't have the video capability and she doesn't have a microphone, but that's ok, we'll sit there and chat when she's got a free minute and then we do the video thing on the weekends. Skype really is a god send for people who have family far far away.

This is my little sister and my nephew. She's got Skype too which is so awesome. When we initially got our orders I was so bummed about not being able to see Owen grow up and that he wouldn't remember who I was when I would come to visit. Again, Skype is a God send because I talk to them at least every weekend and he's getting so good at giving me high fives and he's even started blowing me kisses. ♥ The video calls really help because instead of hearing just my voice he can see me and know who I am. Annie called me on Christmas morning and I got to see him running around like a wild man for a little while. Mind you, since he's only a year and a half he has no real concept of Christmas yet so it was just his normal self. It was pretty stinking funny.

And this is my Daddy. He's not big on words but I love the fact that he makes time to call me as often as he can. Usually we only talk for 10 or 15 minutes but there are the rare occasions we find something to talk about for half an hour. It's great :) Mom says even when he doesn't get a chance to to talk to me he's always asking how I am. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Apparently he's making plans to come out and visit us at least once a year while we're stationed here, twice if he can manage. He really wants to go on a motorcycle ride over here and I think that's awesome. I want to do everything I can to help him out with that.

Another cute picture of Owen - the kid is just too damn cute for words and I miss him immensely. He's growing up so stinking fast I can't believe it. The little booger will be taller than me in no time!
There are many other people from Mtn Home that I miss like Hutch (FIESTA BOWL!!), Matt, Kati, The Roberts and most of our group from the lab. I'm sorry I didn't have pictures but I miss you all so much. And of course I miss other members of my family it just seems like there's never enough room for this stuff.

Coming Soon: The Farley's adventure to a castle.