Awesome Week

Like the title says, it's been a pretty awesome week. Back in June, I tested for promotion to E5, and after so many long weeks of worrying that I wouldn't make the cut, stressing myself (and probably Bethany) about it, the results came out on Thursday and my name was on it! I was so excited and relieved, I didn't know what to do or say but smile. Last night her parents took us out to dinner at Villa Europa to celebrate the occasion, and that was delicious as always. 

Just today, we finished up the Book of Mormon as a couple, so another great accomplishment to check off! We found a chapter tracker on pinterest back in June and decided to use it to keep track of where we were, and mark off if we read any away from home. 

On a different note, we have definitely been more appreciative of the love we have for one another. Some of our friends have recently been having difficulties in their own marriages, and we have tried to help our respective counterparts. It definitely takes a toll on your spirit when you try to communicate the severity and depth of choices that are being made in a spiritual sense. I have come home several nights emotionally drained because of how seriously I personally and spiritually take divorce conversations. I can not help but feel the pain of both parties in these couples during this time. But at the end of the day, I know that I have an amazing wife, and while she may say or do things that irritate or upset me, she is my wife, my eternal companion, and my best friend. I made a commitment to her to help make this marriage work, and I appreciate everything she does in helping to do the same, even if I don't readily recognize her efforts. Marriage takes two people working together. Soul mates are a myth. You have to make a marriage work. You have to learn to love and accept your spouse, faults and all. That is a true measure of your love for them. 

Off that darker note, all in all, I have grown more to appreciate that I have a loving supportive wife and family. I am so thankful for my chance to be selected for promotion on my first time testing. I won't stop moving forward in my ambitions for my Air Force career. Next stop, E6!

Hope all is well with you all!

Our fantastic reading tracker :)

Selected for promotion!

And my next goal 

So what's new?

This past week has been a bit hectic for us, but we thank God that we have gotten through it so blessed. On Monday, my lovely wife met me at the gym after I got out of class. However, both of us had forgotten to bring a towel to use (silly Army rules), so we decided to drive to the Commissary and the PX. When she got out of her car to ride with me there, though, she closed her door and then remembered her keys were in the ignition (the car was off, no worries). So it sat there overnight and thankfully her dad had given me a set of keys for her car so she rode with me the next morning and I dropped her off at her car and unlocked it for her before I went to class.
Tuesday she wasn't feeling well at all, and our home teachers came over and helped me give her a blessing. She felt great for the rest of the night and we got to enjoy the company of one of her close friends at our house for a bit. After she left, however, Bethany felt incredibly ill again and was running a fever and feeling chills, so I popped the thermostat up to 75 (I'd keep it in the low 60's if she'd let me, mind you) and piled all the blankets and towels we had on her, and gave her a cold wet rag to put on her forehead to try to break her fever. Even though I sweat the entire night, I was glad to be willing to do whatever it took to help her feel better. The next morning, I wouldn't have been surprised if her temperature was 100 or more. I went to work and kept worrying about her, and as I was emailing her, I felt more and more anxious to take her to a doctor, so I was allowed to leave class (it was a review day for our final, nothing huge) and sped home, talked her into going at least to the Urgent Care clinic near our house (she has an aversion to doctors), and took her there. They ruled out strep, and sent a couple samples off to be tested, and gave her a couple fun shots in the hiney and set her up with some antibiotics to treat any kind of infection she might have. Luckily her fever had broken by this time so that helped my feelings a lot. I'm thankful that I got to be there to hold her hand, make her laugh, and generally hold her and comfort her when she got squirmy. She is feeling much better now, and I know it is because of a mix of the blessing and the doctor's treatment/medicine that is helping her.
That same day, our youngest kitten Huey was scheduled to get his first round of shots, so he got a couple shots in the hiney as well, so he and Bethany got to commiserate.
We did get some of our wedding pictures back this week as well, so we have been ooh-ing and ahh-ing over those constantly :) I love seeing pictures of my gorgeous wife on our wedding day. Every time I look at them, I am reminded of the feelings of joy and love I had for her after we were married. It is my goal to keep showing her that I love her so much every day that I wake up next to her, and how eternally grateful I am that she said yes to my proposal on November 20th. She supports me and loves me and does so much to help me and I can't ever thank her enough.

Just catchin' up!

Just to catch up with my bloggin' cause I've been lazy about it!

On the 3rd, my gorgeous wife and I went to watch the fireworks with her parents, which was pretty fun. We had red velvet funnel cake (delish) and the rain managed to stop for an hour; just long enough for them to shoot off all the awesome fireworks. It took close to an hour to make it back home through all the traffic, but it was worth it. 

For the 4th of July, we went to Bethany's parents' house and had amazing ribs, baked beans, deviled eggs, potato salad, and my fantastic wife made a cheesecake with cherries, blueberries, and whipped cream on top in the form of the American Flag! I was sure full after all that. 

For the 5th and 6th, we went to Alabama to visit a bit with my grandparents and spend some time there. I took Bethany to Sumo for delicious sushi, then to World Market because she had never been to one before, and she practically lost her mind in there! It was so cute watching her zip from one thing to the next excited about everything in the store :) We got a chance to see the Birmingham Temple as well while we were there (it's right next to their stake center...lucky people :p )

We came back on the 6th and started cleaning up the house, especially the guest bathroom (previously known as the cat litter room), so we now have a guest bathroom! And I got to hang a sign on the door (that we bought from World Market) that says 'Water Closet.'

As I'm typing this, Bethany and I are listening to The Eternal Blessings of Marriage, by Richard G. Scott, and I highly recommend it!

Well, that should catch us up for a little bit. 

But I would like to take a couple minutes to say that my wife is priceless. She is more than I ever wanted and much more than I deserve in a wife and eternal companion. I am grateful every day for her being in my life and I thank my Heavenly Father for the opportunity to even meet her in this lifetime. I love you, Bethany :)

I have a few minutes

I have a few minutes to spare before I leave for work, and wanted to use them to say that I LOVE MY WIFE!!!

She is amazing, wonderful, beautiful, breathtakingly gorgeous, spectacular, my eternal companion, and my best friend. I am so very thankful every day to be able to say she is my wife. I feel lucky every time I wake up and she's right there next to me, being smokin hot as always. She supports me emotionally when I need it most, and is always reminding me that we should read our scriptures, because she knows I get so wrapped up in the day that I sometimes lose sight of what's important. Families are an integral part of Heavenly Father's plan, and I thank Him every day that she and I are together that we may one day start a family together. I love you Bethany, so very much, and appreciate you for all you do for me.

What is this "sleep" you speak of?

So a little bit has happened to my lovely wife and me since our last post. I started a refresher course on Monday, so I'm on this sweet day schedule for a few weeks, and loving the extra sleep I'm getting because of it. Not to mention I get a little more time to spend with my smokin hot wife!

Monday night we got to go over to Bethany's parents' house and have dinner with them. They made meatloaf (because I love it, and we don't get beef at our house...sadface) and it was amazing! I had the leftovers of it today for lunch. Last night we went to Outback to celebrate her mother's birthday a little early. Her mom and I both had the steak (awesome!) so beef, two days in a row...lovin it!

A few nights ago we decided to give our oldest cat Libby a little...haircut. She is a domestic long hair, so needless to say...it's an ongoing project. But, she does have a lion tail now (little poof ball at the end). It's pretty awesome looking. I laughed incredibly hard when I saw her walking around with it. Like, barely breathing because of laughing so hard. We love our kitties :)

Bethany found this awesome settee/vanity set at a local antique shop, so we have some beautiful home decor now as well. Not to mention the cats love the extra places to sit!

All in all, we are extremely grateful for the life we have together. We are grateful for each other, for our families, for our house, our cats, our income, and all the little provisions that we may overlook every day. We know it comes from our Heavenly Father, and we couldn't do anything without Christ being in our lives.

Of Splinters and Campouts

Wow, where has the time gone? I need to catch up a little bit here...
On Thursday, my lovely wife got the chance to go swimming with some church friends and their amazing children. She had a blast and wouldn't (couldn't) stop talking about the children! Later that night she also told me she had a hair splinter in her foot and needed help getting it out. Which is where I come in :) It took a good bit of time, and a lot of squirming, but we finally got it out (the next day, actually...) and she's right as rain! It's funny, I had never even heard of hair splinters nor had one in my life until she was talking about them a few months ago. Sure enough, a few days later, I got my first hair splinter. Not a pleasant experience, but that's just practice for digging splinters out of children down the road ;)
On Saturday, we had a nice little campout in our living room. The idea came up (Bethany's idea, she's the brains here) that afternoon, when we were playing Dance Central and had to clear the living room rug to have enough space. Bethany looked around and said it'd be a fun idea to camp out in the living room. Of course, I had forgotten that she had an air mattress, and assumed she meant sleeping on the floor...not on my top ten, but anyways...
We were doing our nightly reading and a fun list of suggestions for quality time listed "Have a campout in your own living room" right there in the book. So...we blew up the air mattress, made a blanket fort, and snuggled up to watch some Netflix and fall asleep. The cats enjoyed the campout as well, so it was fun for the "family."
Other than that, we had a good father's day and had Bethany's dad over for dinner, and got to chat with him for a good bit. I got to speak to my dad and catch up with him, and also got to speak to my grandparents and enjoyed a nice conversation with them.
All in all, it's been kind of eventful since I got back to work and have been playing catch-up on that front. Hopefully there won't be such a gap between our blog posts next time!

While My Wife Was at Dinner...

Tonight was pretty eventful. One of Bethany's missionary friends was in town today, so she went to dinner with him while I went to institute. I had just finished eating when I got a text from Bethany saying she had locked her keys in her jeep. Well...my set of jeep keys was at home, so I left and went home to get them, then soon discovered that there are two restaurants in the area with the same name, and the GPS decided it didn't want to give me the right location of the correct restaurant of Bethany's missionary reunion. Anywho, I found it, she got her keys back, and I got to meet the lad, before heading back to post to see if I could catch the last bit of institute. I got back just in time for it to have already ended.
While I was admittedly frustrated because I'm directionally challenged and couldn't find the restaurant initially, I did find a silver lining in that I now know where the restaurant is and that there are two in our area, in case I ever get a hankering. I may have missed the lesson but I did get to add a bit more to the blotchy area map in my head.

Earlier this week, we got the chance to go to Lake Springs here, and spend some time sitting and talking and walking in the water. It was good to get out and get some fresh air and kind of step away from the stressors that seemed to be encircling us. Nothing beats quality time with my beautiful wife :)

We've been married a week...

So as of right now we have been married for 9 days, a little over a week! All of our family already expects us to crank out babies, so that seems to be the topic of conversation. Today we went to Bethany's parents house for some low country boil (delicious!), and while we were there, Bethany subtly suggested that I go get her a strawberry milkshake. While I was out, her dad was asking if she was "craving strawberry milkshakes." She just smiled and replied that they weren't pregnancy cravings, just regular ones. I guess we have to get started on that project!
Tonight is also our first official family home evening as the Phillips family, and this blog is our project this week. We decided to start keeping a little log of our life together as a couple. 
So, a little about our wedding!

We got married (for time and all eternity) in the Columbia South Carolina Temple on May 25th, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. We were surprised at how quickly the process goes once inside. Words can not even begin to describe the joy we experienced in the temple before and after being sealed, and the happy expressions on the faces of our anxiously-waiting families outside! After we got some pictures taken on the grounds, we headed back to Augusta, Georgia to take part in our reception that we held so that we could see our friends and family and let them share in the joy of our matrimony. It was a great experience to see our friends and families partaking of the happiness we shared that day. 

This photo is courtesy of our photographer, Naomi Jennings

Well, I guess that about covers it for our first blog entry! God bless!