It has been ages...

It has been a long time.

So long in fact that my husband is no longer an active duty Marine. We live in South Carolina now. Will is 15 months old and the best thing I have ever done. I work at the State Library now. Ryan works for the DoT. We are ok. Life moves on after the military even if you miss it. We tragically lost my Poppy on the day Will turned six months old, December 29th. My other Marine in my life passed away after an amazing 94 years and I still miss him oh so much.

Ryan is considering going into the National Guard. If that goes through I may blog regularly again.

Consider this a hiatus.

I don't feel like I can truthfully blog at My Marine and Me when my husband is out... so for now this is a see you later. I don't want to delete my blog as their are things here I know people still use and read (aka my Do's and Don'ts of the Birthday Ball, Marriage Help, and dealing with Loss) and I will still answer comments and emails. My blog Facebook page is quiet but still there.

I am still around. If you need me.

Hopefully this next step works out and I will be blogging again, this time from a different perspective of military life.

Thanks for the journey dear readers. The friends I have made are amazing and I am so thankful to you all.

Until next time....

Love Always,

New Jersey Trip

Once my husband went on terminal leave from the Marine Corps I knew we had to take the chance to go to New Jersey for my Poppy's 94th birthday. My Babci is 91, so I really wanted Will to get to meet his great grandparents. It is a long drive, we broke it up with a few days at my mom's house, but it still took nearly 9 hours to go from their house to New Jersey since we had to stop and feed and change Will. But we made it, and surprised them! They were so so happy. Babci held Will as much as possible, she loves babies, and rarely ever put him down.

I am so grateful we were able to make this trip. Poppy is getting pretty frail and it is hard to see him so  weak, but he smiled big holding Will. Little Man is great grandchild number six and the fifth boy!

While in Jersey we tried to see as many people as possible and it still was not enough. On Saturday night we went to my old church, the one I grew up in and that Ryan and I got married in, so it was very special for us to have Will there.

I don't know if I will ever find another church like SEAS, but I hope we do someday! It still feels like home no matter how long we are gone and all our church friends loved cooing over Will in person instead of online! After mass we went someplace I never expected to bring my newborn and husband... my high school!

Our family friends we wanted to visit were there as their daughter had soccer practice, so we went and met up with them there. If you had told me ten years ago I'd be standing on the side of the football field with my family like that I would have thought you were absolutely insane. I was not popular or happy in my academic high school (my theatre high school was different) and my life only went up from there!

Sunday the 21st of August was Poppy's 94th birthday. Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins descended on the house and we had a giant dinner, lots of cake, and family time. I teared up more than once out of sheer joy. Poppy is playing the harmonica in the above photo to accompany our singing, which Will loved by the way!

All the present cousins (and spouses) with the birthday boy. The air conditioner was making Poppy cold, hence the blanket. The clock behind us a is a cookoo clock I bought back from Switzerland for them!

We also walked around the corner to where my brothers live so Little Man could meet his Uncle Sean and Uncle Shane! We even convinced Shane to hold him, which was impressive since he wouldn't hold our niece until she was nearly five months old!

Little Man also met his cousin Adrianna (and my brother's girlfriend Kelly, Adrianna's mom). They are almost exactly a year apart! Adriana was born on the fourth of July 2015 and Will was born June 29th of the following year, just five days shy! Naturally Will slept through the entire thing, but we took pictures as proof it happened.

On Monday Ryan took me in to New York City as an early birthday celebration. He hunted some Pokémon (and will never admit it) and we walked around a bit before stopping at Cabellas for lunch.

We shared a delicious plate of ravioli, since it is family style dining, delicious bread, and then cannoli. After we digested we walked to a place I always wanted to visit, the Museum of Modern Art.

For some reason in the two decades I lived in NJ I never made it to MoMA! I also really, really wanted to see my all time favorite painting, Starry Night. We may have gone back to that room two or three times before we left so I could glimpse again. Sure, I wish I wasn't holding on to some baby weight in this picture, but I am so glad Ryan forced me into it! There was a large crowd always gathered around it so it was a bit embarrassing to jump in front!

Ryan found Dali, so he was happy too. It was smaller than I expected! And Monet's Water Lilies took up an entire room! As did Jackson Pollock! When you only see it in books it is always surprising to see it in real life.

We also briefly met up with our friend Kim while she was at work. She was one of my bridesmaids when Ryan and I got married and went to my theatre high school with me, we have been friends over a decade now!

Four generations, one picture

It always breaks my heart to leave my grandparents, both my mother and I cried the first bit of the drive back to North Carolina. I am so grateful we were able to go visit and for the millionth time I wish I lived closer to them. It was an amazing trip and I think Will enjoyed his first visit to New Jersey!

Carrie's Wedding

The weekend before Memorial Day one of my closest friends Carrie got married. She was our neighbor when we lived in Alexandria VA as newlyweds and even after Ryan and I moved to North Carolina we all managed to stay in touch. I was extremely touched when she asked me to be her bridesmaid... and then momentarily panicked a week after I accepted when I realized I was pregnant! I called her up immediately and she laughed saying I would be one of two! Another bridesmaid was also pregnant and two weeks ahead of me and she was glad to have both of us if we were up for it. It was a little disconcerting trying to pick out the right size for a bridesmaid dress from afar and guessing on sizes and not wanting to alter until the last minute, but my dress fit and all was well!

Even though Carrie and her now husband Pete still live in Alexandria, Pete's family is actually from my home state of New Jersey, and that was where the wedding was to take place! Double score! Ryan and I drove up a day early (and had our engine overheat on 95 in Virginia causing a 9.5 hour drive to take 11 hours thanks to full on DC rush hour after we fixed the car) to try and spend some time with Babci and Poppy. Friday we drove "down the shore" as we NJ-ians say for the rehearsal and dinner in Pete's hometown. It was great getting to know the other bridesmaids better and of course the families of the bride and groom. The bride and groom gifted all the bridal party a hotel for the night, which was lovely, and we had a small, impromptu bachelorette party at the wine bar across the street  after the dinner. It was a quiet night though as we all had to be up early the next morning.

The top picture is the bay down the street from our hotel the night of the rehearsal, and those smudges on the horizon are actually of the New York City skyline. It was much more visible with the naked eye! In the morning the bridesmaids and bride all got up early and drove over to a nearby salon to do our hair and make up. The husbands all slept in knowing they didn't have to be at the venue (an hour and a half away) until the afternoon. We assembly lined through the salon getting our hair set, make up done, then hair pinned up... I thought it was great and felt extremely pampered. Especially when the matron of honor ran to the bagel shop for us! I got a sandwich called "the bomber" that the groom, Pete, told us about the night before; pork roll, egg and cheese with hashbrowns mixed in with the egg on a hard roll. Heaven! Pete's family also treated the bride and her bridesmaids to a limo ride to get us to the venue. Party animals we were everyone had maybe one mimosa (made with seltzer for us pregnant ladies) and then slept most of the way! At one point Carrie and I were the only ones awake in the limo! But we made it to the venue with plenty of time to spare and got checked in to our rooms. She got married at the Inn at Millrace Pond, a gorgeous venue with lots of historical buildings and it was so lovely!

We had some time for lunch and to relax before we went to the bridal cottage to all get ready. By that point all the men arrived and photographs started and we just all prayed the predicted rain would continue to hold out! It was cool but not cold and the sky was gray, but we were super hopeful the outdoor ceremony could go on! Carrie looked stunning in her dress and made us all cry as we helped her get ready. She had more gifts for us, touching letters and Alex and Ani bracelets with our initials, that seriously almost made me ruin my mascara. The groom, getting ready in another building, got a pretty great gift too... a motorcycle Carrie had picked out with the help of his brothers! I think I got Ryan a Taylor Swift CD (as a joke) and a binder of the emails we sent back and forth while he was deployed!

Unfortunately during the set up the catering truck delivering the tables and chairs backed in to our car and put a hole in our bumper! It was minor and mostly cosmetic, but the guy drove off without leaving a note or anything! Luckily there were witnesses so we filed a report and plan on getting it fixed since they were so dishonest about it. We tried to keep it from the bride, but she did find out, and considering there were one or two more issues with them we know she was not a happy camper! I felt bad adding to that stress for sure!

But luckily for us the rain held out and we had the ceremony outside. Ryan shocked me by taking a lot of pictures which he usually never does. I was the second reader during the ceremony (and I will not share those pictures as my mouth is open horribly in nearly every one!) and I was very honored she even asked. The ceremony was beautiful and it quickly rolled into the cocktail hour with pictures. The large meeting house in the background served as the cocktail hour headquarters but it was inside and outside. There was a massive tent set up for the reception and the rain held out until we all got inside! It was perfect.

I actually forgot to take pictures during the dinner and reception, we just had a fantastic time and I didn't bother. I danced and ate delicious food and Ryan and I literally stood guard in front of the sweetheart table so the bride and groom could eat! I don't know why people think the instant the bride and groom sit down it is time to go shanghai them, but don't! Most people at weddings are either already married or have been to at least one wedding, you should know how this works! It should not take a Marine and a pregnant lady threatening to belly bump you out of the way so the poor couple can eat! I was also on bustle duty as those darn things never want to hold up. Luckily the matron of honor was prepared with tape, pins and a sewing kit. Why make gorgeous gowns with big trains that are literally held up by a piece of thread?! My gown did it at my wedding too, as have most of the brides I encountered!

After the reception died down we went back to our rooms in the converted mill (over 200 years old!) with intent of going to the after party, but Ryan got horribly sick from something so we just called it a night. I was swollen and exhausted to boot so I spent the night in sweats trying to make Ryan keep something down. Poor guy. Been there! He was perfectly fine in the morning thankfully. We had a big wedding breakfast and then wandered the trails on the property for awhile.

We met my aunt and her boyfriend for lunch later that afternoon and it was so good to catch up with them! She is my biological father's sister and I honestly haven't seen her since my own wedding but we talk often. She and my other aunt and cousins chipped in and got a lot of things off our registry (our entire bedding set and bumpers) and she had lots of baby things from work (a diaper bag, outfits, bibs, blankets, stuffed animals and ultrasound frames) that she also surprised us with. We were so touched!

After we went back to my Babci and Poppy's house and spent the rest of Sunday and the morning Monday with them before we had to drive back. Ryan set up cable in the back room and helped shift furniture and do things that a big, strapping Marine in his 20s can handle with ease that made me so thankful for him. Anything he was asked he jumped to it instantly. We also went and visited my brother and niece that evening and she is getting so big!

Poppy seemed to be getting around a bit better since Christmas but is still more frail than I like seeing him. We got out his piano and harmonica though and he lit up! He said he hadn't played in ages and he did really well with them both. Ryan even learned a bit while we were there. Poppy learned and played both completely by ear so it is impressive to see at 93 for sure. Babci doesn't look anywhere near 90 and she was going up and down the stairs and cooking dinner (chicken popperkosh!) and refusing help left right and center. I did pick out a beautiful knit blanket for our Bean that Babci made that I cannot wait to wrap the little guy in.

Once again, these trips are entirely too short and Ryan and I had to drive back Monday to get to work Tuesday. It was a shorter drive back, only about the expected 9.5/10 hours, but it still was not fun to do seven months pregnant! I hope once the baby is born we can do another quick trip so Bean can meet his great grandparents! 

Christmas in NJ

Yes, I am behind, what else is new? :P

For Christmas this year we got to drive up to New Jersey to see my extended family for the first time since my best friend's wedding back in May of 2014. I was super excited to say the least! I hate going so long without seeing my family, and even though I didn't get to see everyone this time around, I did get most people, which is a plus. 

The Tuesday before Christmas we drove 2 and a half hours to my parents' house and spent the night before leaving early Wednesday to continue the drive to New Jersey. I got kicked out of my car and Stefan and Ryan drove together where I rode in the van with my parents. I see how it is boys! It took us about 8 hours with a long stop for lunch but we finally got to New Jersey! 

My uncle Dave was visiting from Florida and he had some home made chili and sourdough bread bowls waiting for us and many of my aunts and uncles and cousins came over, so we got family right away. It was so wonderful to see everyone it just made my heart happy. One of the big things about going to New Jersey for me is the food!

I have to get a taylor ham egg and cheese sandwich on a roll, it is a breakfast must that my mom went out and got for everyone the first morning. We also have to order pizza at least once, because lets face it, Jersey pizza is the absolute best! We had that as our last meal when we left. Then the bottom two above are our Christmas Eve and Day meals, which are always fantastic. Since we are Western European (Polish) we tend to do a meat free Christmas Eve with pierogies, fried fish and mushroom soup. Christmas Day we go crazy with ham, smoked turkey, lasagna, beef wellington, more pierogies and tons and tons of cookies. So many cookies! Ah the food. So thankful for such deliciousness!

Another big highlight for us was finally being able to meet our niece Adrianna. She was born on the 4th of July to my oldest half brother Sean and we finally got to visit and spend some time with her. She is definitely a little firecracker, like her fitting nickname suggests! I loved being able to snuggle her and spend time with her and my brothers and their family.

My heart was also happy to spend Christmas Eve mass at my home church that I grew up in. This is the church I attended from the time I was in about second grade on. It is the church I was a lector (reader) in, received my first communion, confirmation, and got married in. I have lived many places over the past ten years since I left home and none have had a church that compares to this one. I hope someday I find one that will, but until then when I return it is like coming home. Everyone still knows us and treats us like family and it is just a tremendous blessing. It felt like a second reunion being there. 

My best friend Sam met us at Mass and then all of us went to our good friend of the family's house afterwards to catch up. We were there until almost 3am on Christmas Eve! My parents ducked out around 2:30am and us "kids" followed not too far behind afterwards. We still had a long drive back to my grandparents' house after that. Needless to say Christmas Day we slept in a bit before the rest of our family descended on us for dinner.

When my extended family gets together every room looks like this. People are setting up and stealing food in the kitchen, talking in the dining room, and watching TV in the living room. Everywhere you turn someone is there and you bump in to a lot of people and it becomes a hundred degrees in the house but it is wonderful. It was a very balmy Christmas in New Jersey, in the 70s most of our visit and the 50s maybe when we left, so the windows were wide open the entire time! All the people tend to drive my husband nuts but he loves everyone so he tolerates being crowded for me!

I was flipping through some old albums and I found this picture of my Poppy (second from the right) from 1928, when we was about six years old. My Poppy was one of thirteen children, but only Ethel, Emil, and Grace are in this picture with hum. For some reason I just loved this picture and had to take a snapshot of it to have. 

I was a little concerned on how the Dup would do with so many people, but she was utterly fabulous. She only almost jumped on Poppy's visiting nurse once and my cousin's aunt another time. Oops. But everyone basically loves dogs in my family so she got a ton of snuggles and treats and food sneaked her way. She was very unhappy with us when we returned home. One, she hates the car and sticking her in there for ten hours made her miserable, and two she missed all the attention she got for three days straight! Rylie literally spent all day Sunday hiding from us and refusing any treats we offered her. 

As always, the trip was entirely too short. Ryan and I had to leave Saturday to get back to North Carolina. We both had work Monday and knew we'd need Sunday to get stuff done. I hate saying goodbye to my grandparents, it always breaks my heart, and I sobbed as Ryan and I got into the car. And continued to sob most of the way down the New Jersey turnpike. It was a rough, long drive back. We left around 3pm and drove through rain on and off and didn't get home until 1:30 in the morning. We stopped briefly for food and gas but had to take a lot of smaller highways as the 95 area and cities were just a mess.

So it was a really terrific trip and I am so happy we were able to go and spend time with my family. It truly was a wonderful Christmas because of that. Hopefully not so much time will pass before we can get up there again.

I hope you and your families had a great holiday season.

Tradition

My rings and my Babci's rings

My parents recently moved closer to us, so they are now two and a half hours away instead of six and a half! That definitely has its perks... especially since my grandparents are visiting. I haven't seen my Babci and Poppy since our last trip to New Jersey which was Memorial Day 2014 for my best friend's wedding. Too long. My Poppy is 93 and my Babci is now 90. I am so so blessed to have them around still and I hate that our visits are so infrequent. I call them every week at least. So my mom and dad recently decided to bring them down for an extended visit and I made sure the first weekend I did not have work we drove up there.

For years my Babci and I tried to plan a time for me to learn how to make pierogies from scratch, and this past weekend it finally happened! Ryan and I drove up Friday night. Saturday morning he and my dad went kayaking and fishing while three generations of women (and a Dup) took over the kitchen for pierogie making. My mom knows for the most part how to do it, so she was like our sous chef, while Babci taught me. There was no measuring cups or spoons... everything is done by eye and by feel. It may take me a few times on my own to get it right, but at least now I know. And I have this entry to coincide with this amazing memory.

First we started the mashed potatoes. I thought we'd have all these nice pictures, but my mom added her own touch. I know how to make mashed potatoes regularly, but instead of using milk for them we used sour cream. Next came the dough.

We started with about five cups or so of flour added an egg, then half a container of sour cream. It was worked by hand and feel. We also added milk and a bit more sour cream to make the feel just right. The dough then got worked and kneaded. My Babci showed me how with quick efficient movements that I then got to try. My forearms hurt after a few minutes but six or seven decades of doing this barely caused her to blink. I am a wimp!

After we worked the dough we let it rest for at least ten minutes under a glass bowl. This helps it rest and form and the bowl keeps the dough moist. It will stay under the dough the entire time, we cut pieces off to work it as we go.

While the dough rested we finished mashing the potatoes and added them to a separate bowl. This will be our filling. After the ten minutes or so were up we cut a small piece of the dough off the larger lump. A cutting board was floured to be our new work surface. At home my Babci has a giant wooden board that takes up basically the entire kitchen table that was once her mother's... you use what you have! Add some flour to the board to keep the dough from sticking and also on your hands. We then worked the dough in to a long snake and used a knife to cut smaller sections. Those small pieces were rolled into a ball in our hands then flattened onto the board. We then took a rolling pin and flattened the dough pieces. A few short rolls is all it takes, no vigorous quick back and forths, just make sure the dough is even all the way around. Then you pick it up in your hand and add a spoonful of mashed potatoes and make a sort of taco shape.

Using your fingers you mold and shape the dough around the potatoes so you can crimp the edges closed. This part was hard for me to get but by the end I was much better! Some of my pierogies were very stuffed, some not enough. Babci called one or two "hot dogs" and "pregnant". But she was a very good teacher! Much better than we she tried to show me how to knit/crochet and took one look at my work and said, "Oh honey, forget it. That is pretty awful. I'd just quit while you're ahead!"

But I got better! We made dozens and dozens of pierogies and by the end I was making them on my own. It is important to seal them well or when you boil the pierogies they can break open and give you potato soup. I used a fork to crimp the edges of my pierogies to ensure an extra seal. I am proud to say none of mine burst open! You put the pierogies in boiling water and once they float to the top they are ready. You can eat them then or do what we do... fry them in a pan with butter and onions! YUM. Dup Dup was on hand the entire time, keeping an eye on things. She may have been given a little bit of mashed potatoes for her effort. We placed our boiled pierogies in a long glass baking dish with saran wrap between the layers and fried them later in the evening. You can refrigerate them or even bag them up and freeze them for later (like we did to the three dozen or so I took home for a special occasion. So now I know. And I will make my own pierogies and hopefully pass that down to my own children someday.

I also learned how to make one of my favorite Babci recipes, string bean soup, which is pictured above... but I think I will keep that for a separate post. It is absolutely delicious!

I loved being able to see my Babci and my Poppy. Poppy is a lot weaker now. He needs a walker to go anywhere and spends most of his time on the couch. He watches a lot of tv, sneaks candy when no one is looking, and has his good days and his bad days. Most of our visit was great for him, I think having Ryan and I, then later on my brother Stefan and his friend Kenan, made a huge difference. When more people are around he does better. I was nervous about the Dup with Babci and Poppy, I didn't want her knocking them down! She hadn't seen them since she was six months old or so, Easter of 2012, which is the left picture above. The right picture is this weekend and you can see not much has changed. She was Poppy's buddy and loved to sit with him and get pet. Same with Babci. As excitable as she can be she did so well and it was never once an issue. I am proud of my little Duppy! We got Poppy to eat at the table with us all the meals and he even left the house to go to church with us.

My parents' house is surrounded by cotton fields and they harvested while we were there. It was pretty neat to see the giant machines going by and making huge rectangular pallets on the sides of the road.

Ryan and I also took Dup Dup on long walks through the neighborhood and saw some gorgeous sunsets over the river. Nights were getting cooler and sweaters were worn under borrowed jackets, but it was worth it.

This... this though was the most important thing. Time with my family. Time with my Babci and my Poppy. This was the first time in years and years my husband, brother, parents and grandparents were all together. The last few visits were either just Ryan and I, or my mom and I... but we all got some time together this weekend.

I hate saying goodbye to them. I always cry when I do... I have every time since I went to college basically. I know I am getting older and by default, so are they. But these moments are ones I cherish so so much. I am so blessed my family is close enough for me to visit and that we can make things like this happen.

My dad hates pictures and is rarely ever in them, but he was there too. Over in the office reading a new history book of some sort as soon as the cameras and phones came out... but we were all there.

Pierogies and family. You cannot get much better than that.

66 Years

Happy 66th Wedding Anniversary Babci and Poppy! Thank you for giving me an ideal marriage to aspire to and for being just some of the best grandparents a girl could ever ask for. I wish you many, many happy returns of the day. Love you!