We hung out with friends!! In Virginia!!

The last few days have been pretty hectic. I have been doing contract work the last couple weeks with the company I worked for in Dallas. Things slowed down there in the office, so they were able to cover things for themselves at the end of the week. That left me free to get a lot done in the house!

I got our office (that's what we call our small 3rd bedroom) taped and ready to paint, so and I did that Thursday night. The room had been a bright blue, but it was a bit scuffed, and there were a lot of holes in the wall. We chose a different blue to repaint it -- slightly darker, and with a little more of a turquoise shade than the crayon blue that the room was. I LOVE the color now! It looks great! Plus, that room is our Army/OU room, so the blue really looks good with all the shades of red in K's Army stuff and my OU memorabilia.

Friday, I was able to organize the office a little more (although there's still a long way to go). It's been our place to stash random stuff as we've been getting settled. I finally got the nerve to start putting holes in the walls, so I hung pictures in the living room and in the hallways. It looks like people live here now!

I was able to scrub the bathrooms and get things set up in our guest bedroom. Saturday morning, we had visitors arrive! Some friends of ours from Louisiana got sent to VA for training, and they live just a little over an hour away. After they arrived, we went to post and showed them around, and then we headed to watch some boat races.

We went for drinks and then for dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise. When I ordered my drink, I asked the waiter which had the most pineapple. He wasn't sure, so I did research myself. Since it was clear I'm a huge fan of pineapple, he made sure to show me some love.

When he saw how excited I got over Willy Wedge (evidently this cute fellow has a name), he brought me a couple other friends!

After all that, our friends told him it was my birthday weekend. At Cheeseburger in Paradise, that gets you ice cream WITH sprinkles and a cheerful song! Score! (This is my reenacting blowing out the candle, since K missed it with the camera.)

Today, we went to the beach and relaxed for a bit, then had lunch and browsed around the shops.

It was a nice, relaxing day. It was good to have some time with friends, since K (and our retired neighbors) are the only people I know here. What's funny is that after just two days of visitors, it was nice to have it be just the two of us again. Funny how quickly you can get used to that. :)

Tomorrow is my birthday. It'll be the 5th birthday I've had since I met K, but it will be the first we've spent together. The first year, he was in the field training. The second year, he got sent to Afghanistan, only to be stuck in Baltimore for TWO 24-hour layovers, which put him departing the U.S. for his deployment on my actual birthday (awesome). The third year, he was in the field training ... again. Last year, he was in Iraq.

Needless to say, it'll be awesome to finally celebrate my birthday with my favorite person on the planet.