I'm OK Y'all

I got so many sweet emails and messages of encouragement yesterday in regards to my last post!

It felt so nice to hear from other military wives that they've either gone through what I'm feeling or are going through it themselves.

I've always said my blog would be a place for me to share my life and thoughts.

Obviously, I keep certain things private, but I try and be as open as possible when it comes to challenges my family and I go through being a military family.

I want it to be open and honest because one day, when my kids are older, they'll get to read about our life.

I want them to see the happy times, and I want them to see the struggles.

I want them to see how we overcame certain struggles to be where we are.

I feel like yesterday's blog was the first "real post" that addressed the title of my blog, "Domesticated Combat Boots"....

"Taking off my combat boots for a lifetime of domestic bliss..."

I really addressed the struggles with transitioning from active duty to civilian (taking my combat boots off).

It's ironic, because being "domestic" is far from blissful most days, right?

That's just life.

A lot of people have either asked my husband or me if "everything's alright?"

I just wanted to address it, because a lot of people are starting to worry about me.

I'm ok.

Trust me.

I am just in a bit of a rut and a "funk", and it's something I decided I needed to get out of.

I was living life constantly in this routine, and I just woke up and said, "wow...I need to do something different cause the way I'm living is so monotonous and starting to wear on me and has been negatively affecting people around me."

Other than that, everything is ok.

I've spent a lot of time this week in prayer, and it's been extremely calming.

I know God has certainly been working his wonders in my heart and soul this week, and putting everything in His hands has taken the burden off of me.

I feel 100 times better and a lot more confident in just this week about where my"identity" is.

I actually felt pretty good after writing my thoughts down yesterday, and having so many women relate to me.

I've had a few people tell me  how we are such a "picture perfect" family, and they can't imagine we'd ever go through struggles.

That's just CRAZINESS!

We're not "picture perfect"....no family is.

My "picture perfect" family has been put through the ringer with Marine Corps life....just like every other "picture perfect" family in the military.

People sometimes have rose colored glasses on as they look at homecoming photos, adorable screenshots of a family facetiming together, photos of our loves in uniform, military ball photos, exciting new duty stations, videos of surprise homecomings to a child's classroom, etc. etc. etc.

People start thinking this life is a glamorous fairytale with "Prince Charming" in his dress blues.

It's not, y'all!

 

Life isn't all rainbows and unicorns, and it certainly isn't in the Marine Corps either!

Thank y'all for all the sweet messages, emails, comments, and love!

My husband and I went out for appetizers and oysters on the half shell last night without the kids!

We seriously realized we had not been out on a date together without the kids in almost 4 months!

That's crazy, right?!

When we lived in California, we used to drop off our daughter at our neighbor's house ALL the time to go out for "date nights".

I feel like after being in this rut for so long, we just forgot how important it is to a relationship to just "date".

 It was seriously soooo nice to hang out with my husband, and talk about grown up things with no interruptions from a quizzical 4 year old, or a hungry baby.

We dropped the kids off at a friend from church's house.

I was a little nervous since it was Mattis' first time really being away from mama in so long.

 He is going through stranger anxiety and serious attachment issues to me.

But when we went to go pick him up, we got such great compliments on how good he was.

It also made my heart so happy to hear from someone else how polite our daughter was, and how she was such a joy to watch.

It made me feel so much better about doing this again in the near future.

These are the photos sent to me from our friends of the kids while we were away!