I wonder if I can find out where they film Coro.na commercials ...

At 1:30 this morning, I got a phone call from K. I hadn't heard from him since Monday of last week, so it was really nice to hear his voice. Amazingly nice.

Things have gotten a bit hectic near where he is. There were a few casualties, although none of them were from his battalion, and it didn't sound like they were too near him, but there was a commun!cation bl.ackout as a result. K tried to make it sound like things were fine for him and his area, since the attacks were not quite where he is and since in both cases, the in.surgents had specific targets that K wouldn't have been a part of. Still, though, hearing that he was close enough that the military felt a commun!cation bl.ackout was necessary (to avoid the spreading of rumors and to allow for appropriate notification of family members) for his area makes me a little nervous.

Like I've done many times before, I had made a list of things I didn't want to forget to tell K about or ask him. It's funny how the moment he calls, my mind blanks on everything I wanted to tell him because I'm excited to hear from him. It's kind of the highlight of my week.

We caught each other up with what's been going on in our lives since we last talked eight days ago. We talked about the April Fool's Day care package I sent him and the silly goodies I put inside (a whoopee cushion, water balloons and other silly toys). He wished me a happy anniversary-of-our-engagement day and apologized that he hadn't been able to call to catch me on the actual day, but he was only an hour and a half late. (I actually just realized that I forgot to tell him that we had passed our six-month anniversary. It's kind of funny that we both remembered the one-year mark of our engagement and forgot the six-month mark of our wedding, but like I said before, a year is obviously a bigger milestone than six months.)

We talked a little more about possibilities for our vacation. We decided we don't want to do a cruise because we don't want to be crammed on a ship with hundreds of other people. I looked up Sand.als Resorts, but their website said their required dress for dinner is elegant. That's nice for one or two nights, but sometimes I just want pizza and beer in shorts and a tank top, ya know?

K doesn't want to go somewhere "too exotic" like F!ji or something, but he doesn't want to just go to Flor!da either ("I can go there anytime."). However, he doesn't want to go anywhere too non-U.S., since he'll have been gone for 10 months by then.

What we want is warm weather, gorgeous beaches where we hope to sip on ice-cold alcoholic beverages (with fruit garnishes for me!), plenty of touristy activities (a bar or two, cute shopping areas, unique sights and activities), and plenty of fun shore excurs!ons (snorkeling, places to run or ride bikes, maybe even horseback riding on the beach).

It'll be fun to do research on all these romantic getaways. I've certainly been thinking about potential destinations a lot more lately. Places I'm going to look more into: Hawaii (probably Maui, since neither of us have been there and since we went to Oahu last year), Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, and the Turks and Caicos (specifically Providenciales, I think).

I realized when K and I were on the phone that twice in the last week (that I know of) I've had dreams about K and R&R -- in one dream, I was picking him up from the airport at the beginning of R&R; in the other, it was within the first couple days he was back home, but before we were leaving for the vacation. If the result of ramping up on the planning is such sweet, pleasant dreams like that, then that's more than enough motivation for me to get to researching!