Christmas Day!

Christmas is here! Austin and I went to both of my parents houses. We went to Benihana's which seems to always taste even better each time i visit. I'm just glad i got to be with Austin. I'm trying to spend as much time as possible with him. I don't know what i'm going to do when he leaves. We took pictures at my mothers house. Austin got to experience the reindeer head bands and Christmas hat tradition we always have! This was our first Christmas together and i'm very excited for more to come!

Me & my Mother.

My mom & sisters

Michelle and I

The Family.

Me, Sarah & Michelle

Christmas Eve 2010!

Austin opening his Christmas Present!

My beautiful heart necklace!

Austin and i went to his family's Christmas Eve dinner. I gave him his present even though i showed him the FIRST day he had been home. I could not hold it in anymore. I was just too excited. Anyways he loved it, which made me feel really good! His whole family seemed to like it too. He got me a pretty heart necklace which i'm probably never gonna take off from now on. I really love him. I love his whole family too. They all seem really nice. I wish my family was like that. Austin is really lucky to have a big family. When i finally settle down...i wanna big family like that.  Austin met my mom too! She seemed to like him from what she told me. He hasn't met my sisters yet so that's the next step. 

We did good, boy. :)

Until next time. 

Only You.

I don't care what anyone else thinks. It's going to be you. I'll always have my eyes on you. I'm not going to bother talking to someone else. Why would i waste my time being with someone else when i have you right in front of me? You're the only one who can genuinely make me smile, and i can't ever get you off my mind. I want to be you and only you.

He's Home!

So guess what?! My soldier is HOME! Thank god. I was getting pretty desperate for a while. He kissed me and it was like a sign of relief. The best moment for sure. I was starting to forget what it was like to kiss him so i needed a refresher. It was perfect. Almost like a scene in a movie. What can i say the boy sure does know how to make me feel special. Also, before i forget. I got him the most amazing Christmas present ever. Seriously. I get major brownie points for this one! Ever since i first noticed Austin i was always reading on his Facebook about how much he misses Deny. Deny? Who's Deny? I asked him about him and he told me it was his little pup in Iraq. He told me all about dog handler school and how much he loved it. Needless to say he was crazy about this dog. I thought it was cute. Anyways, he had to give him up and i could only imagine how hard it was and what he felt. I ordered a throw blanket with a picture of Deny and Austin on it. It's not cheap either! It is a gorgeous blanket and I hope he likes it. I thought it would be a good gift to remember his dog by. Not to mention i really had no clue what to get him. The damn thing was so expensive. He better love it otherwise i'm out a lot of money. This guy means a lot to me so he's worth every penny. I just can't believe he's here. This is gonna be the best two weeks of my life. Not really looking forward to the good bye though. But we'll cross that road once we get there.

Losing My Mind...Slowly...

I'm going crazy! It's only been two and a half weeks since Austin left for Washington and i'm seriously losing my mind. I need him to come home now. I can't keep falling in love with him and him not be here. It's like i fall more and more in love with him every day. I never knew it was possible to love someone this much. And the limit hasn't even been reached yet. He's my life. I can't imagine my life without him now. He's the first thing i think about when i wake up and the last thing i think about when i go to sleep. I hope he loves me the way he says he does...I hope he means it. I wonder all the time what it's gonna be like when he gets out of the army. If we'll be together and if we'll be okay. I just wish he wasn't in the army. Things would be SO much easier if he wasn't. These two years better go by fast...i need the love of my life. And i need him now.

Skyping each other is all we do these days. There isn't a day that goes by that we don't talk on Skype. Although that's a relief, i hate living this way. I keep telling myself..."Two years, Stephanie. Just two years and everything will be okay. You have to be strong for yourself, for him."

Missing Him.

I don't pretend to know what love is for everyone, but can tell you what it is for me; love is knowing all about someone, and still wanting to be with them more than any other person. Love is trusting them enough to tell them everything about yourself, including the things you might be ashamed of, love is feeling comfortable and safe with someone, but still getting weak knees when they walk into a room and smile at you. There is no feeling like this. And everyone wants this feeling. I think the best part about love is that it's the closest thing to magic. I love this guy with all the little pieces. He's the only one that i can actually be myself with. I can be a totally dork and he doesn't judge or think anything different about me. I wish i knew him in high school. It probably would've saved me a lot of drama and heartbreak. I guess timing is everything.

"It doesn't matter if the guy is perfect or the girl is perfect, all that matters is that they're perfect together."

And So It Begins...

Today i Skyped Austin for the first time since we started our journey. It really stinks that we have to go back to Skyping. Saying i hate it...would be an understatement. I wish i could have spent more time with him while he was home. I love this guy and i'm not quite sure how to tell him. Well...at least i think i love him. He gives me a feeling no other guy has before. He's the type of guy that i have been wanting to showing off to everyone. And the type of guy i can see myself happy with. I hope he knows how much i like him. I do a really bad job of showing it sometimes. Maybe it's because i'm scared to get attached to someone again. Clint and i lasted three years and look where we are now. But all in all i would say he's a keeper. He never fails to amaze me. I'm proud of him. He's good for me. I really think we can make it. I also hope i can stay sane until he comes home. Long distance relationships are an experience i'll tell you that. I don't know how Military couples do it. I'm in the process of learning it all and this lifestyle so hopefully i can tell you more about it later on. 

Roses Are Pretty.

I woke up this morning and my step mom tells me that there was a rose on the door step. Needless to say...this guy is a keeper. A real keeper. He's good. Too good. He's gonna make me fall for him if he keeps this up. Actually, I think i already did...

Who's this guy you might ask? Well let me tell you a little bit about how we met.

Let's just say we dodged each other throughout our lives. Not intentionally but i guess fate had another time planned out for us to meet each other. We went to the same elementary school, junior high, and even high school. We never heard of one another before. His mother used to live a few blocks away from my mother, so once i found that out i was even more amazed at how we didn't know each other. His best friend Matt used to live a house away from me, Austin was apparently there all the time. Yet we never once saw each other. We spoke once in August 2010 a few days after my 18th birthday. He posted a status and he seemed upset so i asked him if he was okay. I had always checked his Facebook out and semi stalked him. Not hardcore stalked. But i still stalked. I thought he was really really cute and the thought of him in the army made me really attracted to him. Yes, i'm weird. But really, who doesn't like a guy in ACU's?! We ended up Skyping somehow and basically started talking about life. I admit it. I was acting a little retarded. I don't know why! I guess i got really nervous talking to him. He seemed so serious and straight faced the entire time. At least in the beginning. He started making funny faces towards the end of the conversation. His personality instantly caught my attention. I wanted to know more about him. I wanted to understand who he was as a person. We ended up ending the night kinda early. Well, for him it was early, he was in Washington and i was in Texas...that's a two hour time difference.

This was a photo i snapped during our Skype conversation.

I ended up running into him at the state fair. It was completely random and totally not planned. He recognized me and called my name. At first i didn't hear him, the second time i didn't hear him, the third time i heard him and turned my head. I instantly recognized him. How? Oh, i don't know...maybe it was the fact that he was super cute and i had thought about him a few times after our conversation. It was crazy to me that he was actually there. Especially since it was the state fair, with a ton of people, and only a couple months after we first talked. At that time i had been dating a guy i was with for 3 years, that ended because of lost feelings, so we broke up. I wasn't single for very long, just enjoying life and moved along with mine. I was always trying to talk to him, according to him he didn't recognize it. So i guess i was either really bad at showing interest in him or he was really blind and oblivious. I personally think it's the second one. Anyways, i wrote him little random comments on his Facebook, quoting funny lines from our previous Skype conversations, commenting on his status' and his videos and liking his pictures. Trying to show some interest in him. But of course none of that worked. And honestly, at that point, i wasn't interested in a relationship. I just wanted to get to know him...and i wanted him in my life somehow. I even tried giving him my number. I used the line, "you know you can text me if you want." And nothing. It's like he had no idea what that meant. I mean anyone could see that was me trying to give my number to him. Anyone. But not Austin. I had to actually message him after several failed tries, "Here, i gotta go, you can text me if you want ***-***-***." I just left it open, i figured if he was interested he would text, if not i would say screw it and move on. SURPRISINGLY he did text me. And as shocked as i was, my heart started racing. We started texting back and forth and he asked me to hang out. Now normally when people ask me to hang out i have to tell them where i live. I lived with my dad at the time and he lives out of the way. Most of the time people bail on me because of the long drive. So i told him i lived in Irving and he said he did too. So i was expecting him to live on the opposite side of Irving. But it turns out he lived only a couple minutes away. I was amazed at how close he lived. Only because i didn't know anyone else who lived over there. He picked me up that day. I was extremely nervous. I heard his truck outside and my heart instantly sank to my stomach, a good feeling though. I had no idea he had a truck either, but i heard it and instantly knew. He rang the door bell and i was trying to you know, "take my time" and act like i wasn't in a hurry. But really was behind the door for the whole two minutes while he waited outside, fixing my hair, trying to stay calm, not act all little girl-ish. I opened the door and was pretty much amazed at how gorgeous he was. I had saw him before but this time it was different, he had the most gentle eyes and seemed like he was really shy. I tried to act cool and slick but i could feel myself becoming more and more lame by the second. Go figure. We didn't have anything planned so we went to his dad's house. A whole 3 seconds away. I was a little concerned about him taking me to house not even being near him a full 5 minutes but i played along. He gave me the tour and asked me if i wanted to play guitar hero. I remember him getting a beer, and honestly now that i know him so well, i don't think i will ever understand that. (He isn't a big drinker so the fact that he grabbed a beer the first time we hung out is a little strange.) Anyways, we started playing guitar hero, and naturally i was kicking his ass! He was alright, i tried to make him feel better by telling him he was good...but...i was better. Now, for some reason, guys believe that if you start tickling a girl it breaks the ice. It's smart for sure but it happens a lot with every guy. So we start the whole, he tickles me, i tickle him back, he tickles even more, and suddenly he's on his back and i'm leaning over him. Now generally, you would think this would be the perfect chance to have a first kiss. WRONG. At the exact moment where this was about to happen, his dad walks in. Talk about super awkward, i mean this is the first time i have met his son, and i meet his dad, on top of his son. We sorta played it off, but i'm pretty sure his dad wasn't stupid and just pretended not to notice. Afterwards, we played a little more guitar hero before i had to go home to watch my nephew. He asked me go to Kush later on, i was entirely into him so i blew off my friend Will who i had made plans with earlier to hang out with Austin. As the day dragged on i kept thinking about how bad i wanted to see him again. He picked me up and even met my step-mother. I have no idea why THAT day was "meet the parents" night. We left for Kush, i had never been there so i didn't know what to expect. It has a black light throughout the room and you get to write on people with high lighters and smoke hookah. I actually learned a lot about him that night. It's like we were around a bunch of people and all i could see was him, my entire focus was him. He started drawing a snake on my arm and i drew my random shapes (because i have no art talent what-so-ever). He even signed his name on my arm, which at the moment i was a little confused. Until he told me he was going to be famous for playing football. He doesn't even know it but that night was without a doubt one of my favorite nights i have had with him. Only because i have never been so focused and interested in anyone's life as i was with him. We left and stopped at a gas station and all i could think of was. "Oh my god, this guy is amazing. What am i doing? Do i really want to pursue this?" I ended up staying at his house that night. I had no intention of doing anything sexual with him, although i wanted to. We ended up watching his favorite cartoon show. A grown man watching cartoons? Sounds awesome to me. I was laying down on his arm and he sorta did this slick move where he rolled me over to him. At this point i am once again on top of him. We kissed. It was perfect. Considering we missed our chance earlier that day, this kiss was just way different. It was more passionate and i can barely put it into words. It was amazing. 

"That thing, that moment when you kiss someone and everything becomes hazy and the only thing in focus is you and this person and you realize that this person is the only person that you're supposed to kiss for the rest of your life, and for one moment you get this gift, and you wanna laugh and you wanna cry because you feel so lucky that you've found it and so scared that it will go away all at the same time."

 It's an amazing feeling that i wish i could replay over and over again. Over the next couple days we were texting, not as much as i would like but enough to keep the conversation going. He kept calling me his "cuddle buddy" which i found really really cute. I heard from a stranger that he had been talking to some other girl, and at that point i wasn't surprised. Guys these days seem to be players and i barely knew anything about him. I tried to distance myself from him because i didn't want to get in the way between him and the girl he was talking to. He thought i wasn't interested, which wasn't true at all. I told him all of this and ended up ditching a friend to come see me. I was actually really shocked he did that but felt really special. He met me at my friend Adrian's and she could tell i liked him. I even had to go upstairs because the more i heard him speak the more i liked him and i realized that he wasn't going to be here for a long time. 

I went upstairs and texted Adrian. I did this for a reason, one because i knew she would show Austin because the woman doesn't know how to keep secrets, and two because i was too afraid to tell him myself. I basically told her that i was scared to like him and that i was upset he was leaving and that i missed him already. I could hear them talking about it, although i acted like i didn't. I'm not really sure how it happened but at some point we started talking about wrestling. He tried to show me some of his little moves and i agreed to it. After almost killing me every time i found myself on top of him, not exactly the position he intended for. Whoops. It was kind of an awkward, what the hell just happened moment. I walked him to the parking lot where he started to dance with me in the street. I mean really, what kind of guy does that? An amazing one that's who! He just did things and said things that made me fall for him. We ended up going to a Berkner football game to see a friend of his play, and it was freezing! I'm wearing flip flops like a retard because i didn't get a chance to get knew boots and Austin is next to me is sitting like 8 feet away from me in his warm little jacket. I was like really...there's room for me in there!

 After that night i started paying more attention to him and we decided to hang out with each other on Halloween. It was the night before Halloween. We went to a little party that his friend Ryan invited him to. It was LAME, semi entertaining, but lame. We ended up playing beer pong, and yes, i sucked. He kept making a stupid little joke to pick on me the entire time. It was along the lines of, "Man, my back hurts from carrying this team." As annoying as he was, it was cute. He knew exactly what to say to make me laugh. He dropped me off at home and we promised we'd see each other tomorrow before he left. We went to eat at Olive Garden the next day and he asked me to be his girlfriend. I wasn't expecting it at all but was really happy that he did. I had always had an idea about what it was like to be an army girlfriend but i never expected it to be as hard as it is. I went to his house afterwards, only because he was leaving the next day and because i knew it would be hard. We ended up having sex, yes i know we had been dating for about 5 hours, but i figured i'd let myself take the risk with him. I took a risk not knowing what would happen afterwards. He took me home and it seemed like i would never be able to finish saying good bye to him. We stood outside my house for about 30 minutes not wanting to let each other go. I wanted to kiss him as much as i could. I didn't know if we would actually last as a couple only because i had never had a long distance relationship. I didn't know what it would be like or what to expect. He ended up kissing me goodbye and he left. I stood looking outside of my window watching him leave and it killed me inside. I fell to the ground crying like a crazy person. I could feel my heart breaking. It felt like someone stabbed me in the heart and i had never felt that way before. It was a completely new feeling for me. I wanted him to stay forever, i wanted to get to know him better. And this feeling that i had was both so wonderful and painful at the same time. It wasn't until the next morning that i woke up to a rose on my door step. No note, just a rose. I took the rose inside and instantly started crying to where my step-mother came to see what was wrong. She told me she saw the rose that morning and that she thought it was really sweet of him. She saw me crying and started crying herself. She just kept saying, "You fell for him." or "You're falling for him Steph, this is love." I never thought about love that early in the relationship. But ever since she had put the thought in my head the more i started to believe it. I wasn't sure if it was really love so i didn't just want to come out and say it to Austin and possibly freak him out. So i waited. 

So there it is. That is how i met Austin. I'm excited to see where our journey takes us!

What Is Love?

"I have been going on throughout all my high school years, imagining what love is. I thought i knew what it was and how to recognize it. The truth is that i don't. Clint was the only one i thought i actually loved. I used to consider him my first love. We thought we would get married and have a happily ever after. Of course right? We're only in high school and thought we had it squared away. I think everyone has that one person they think they love. My high school relationship was only meant to only work out in high school and nothing more. I've always looked past love. Throughout high school...I think i love someone and really i just like them a whole lot. I don't know what love is. I think when i find the right guy ill know. I think the day that i find the guy i want to marry is the day i can say i know what love is. The day i tell a guy i wanna marry him and start a family with him. Until then everyone is just a crush. And who knows if ill ever find THAT guy. I do believe in soul mates...I believe that the person you can't go a day without talking to or thinking about is your soul mate. I believe that if someone is willing to die for another person or take their own life for them, that that's love. Because unless you really love someone, i don't see anyone dying for a random crush. I wish i knew who that person was. With my luck right now he's in another country. I'm not really sure but when i find him. I'm holding on tight. Never letting go. I've grown up since high school. I think i'm better."

I'm back dating this post to 6-29-10. Because that's when i wrote it. Everything previous to that has been deleted.

I have a new life, a new boyfriend and a new adventure. I want to erase all of the bad stuff that has happened and write a whole new chapter in my life. This is where it starts.