4 Months Stronger

Dear Army,
Boyfriend and I defeated you! Our four month seperation is almost complete. My baby will be home in 4 days, count them, 4 days!! I am beyond excited! I can't wait to see him, and kiss him, and just hold him. He is my absolute best friend, and we made it through this little adventure so easily. I've had my ups and downs and so has he, but we came out of this stronger then ever. The statement, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder", is such a true statement. I just can't wait to see him, and see where the future goes :) Wish us luck with him getting this job opportunity and us hopefully moving!!!

The Story of Us!

Josh and I actually went to grade school together, a little Catholic School named Christ the King (which is now North Akron Catholic). He was a grade below me, the same as my god-sister and best friend. I didn't like him when we were little, I thought he was annoying and stupid, haha sorry babe! We never really hung out much or talked for that matter, only when we absolutely had too. I left Christ the King to move onto high school. I don't think I seen or talked to him anytime after that. Well we had been friends on good ol' Facebook because lets face it, everyone adds everyone if they knew who that person was just to have friends, but we never talked to each other. I had a status up on Facebook one day, it was the end of April of 2009, that said something along the lines of "Playing beer pong with the friends" well he randomly commented on my status saying "Win one for me." I just thought to myself that was random, but went with it like "okay." About a week or two later, mid May, Josh popped up in my Facebook chat asking if I had won a game for him? We ended up talking for a few minutes and he gave me his number and invited me to a party he was having at his house. For whatever reason I actually saved his number in my phone, but I had no intentions on going to this party he was having.

A couple hours later, I went to my best friend Jenner's house to pick her up and go do something. I don't remember if we actually had plans and they fell through or if we were still trying to find something to do. And just an FYI this was back in my alcoholic days, all I did was drink. But we were sitting on her front porch, and all I remember saying is "Oh, this kid I went to elementary school with invited me to his party." And she asked who he was and what not, all I remember her saying is "Umm..Lauren, a house full of Army dudes, were goin!!" So I called Josh up and told him we were gonna stop by, he gave me his address and we were on our way. When I found the street, of course I drove right past his house, WITH my GPS because thats just what I do, haha. After all was said and done, we got out of the car and the only thing I remember thinking was "What the hell is going on??" Josh was walking around smoking a cigarette and had a gun on each hip. All I kept thinking was, "WTF did Jenner get me into??" haha.  The night turned out to be not to bad. I started to see alot of him within the next couple of weeks. He has this amazing comfy chair on the front porch of his house, that I always threatened to steal, but we spent many long hours in this chair.

He accepted me for me. After I told him all about my past, he still didn't care. He liked me for me, and I didn't know how to react to that. So many people get scarred off when I tell them that I have been married and have a son, but not Josh. It took me a while to open myself up and to be able to actually trust him, but he never showed me that he couldn't be trusted. We had this on again off again romance going for a while. We actually started to "date" for a couple weeks, then he told me he was still talking to his ex-girlfriend and he didn't know what he wanted, so we "broke" up. I am not gonna lie, I was a little messed up about it, here I was putting all this effort into him to just have it thrown back into my face. We didn't talk for about 2 weeks after that. I went on with my life as if he never existed, then he called. And ever since then, we have pretty much been inseperable.

I gave up on being in love, the idea of love, the idea of getting married and having babies. I was convinced I would be single and alone forever, then along comes this amazing man who treats me like a princess. It was almost as if it was too good to be true. Josh coming into my life is a blessing in disguise. I really couldn't ask for a better man or a better best friend. Through all the ups and downs he is always there, and is usually always on my side. For that I am forever grateful. I love you baby!

Such A Great Cause!

I felt this deserved to be checked out. Mrs. P is a fellow blogger and the information in the post that she posted is incredibly useful and all such great causes.

 alittlepinkinaworldofcamo.blogspot.com  <----check out the links she has posted!! Its for a great cause!

Missouri Trip Number Two

August 6-8, 2010: On August 6th, I flew into the Lambert-St. Louis Airport to spend the entire weekend with my love. I left Cleveland around 6:30pm and got into Chicago around 7:30pm. I thought for sure I was going to miss my connecting flight to St. Louis and I was freaking out but then I realized the time went back an hour so I had just enough time to get to my next gate. Well I made it right on time to my gate, only to find out our plane is broken and has been delayed. After waiting about 35 minutes they finally let us board and were on our way to St. Louis. I was supposed to land in St. Louis at 9:15 and Josh was picking me up from the airport. I finally landed around 10pm, only to text Josh to tell him I made it, for him to tell me he was not there yet. He said he had started drinking and was about 20 minutes away from the airport. I couldn't be mad because I was actually the late one getting in because he said he didn't leave until I left out of Chicago. Only to see him standing at the end of the exit terminal waiting for me, with open arms of course :) We picked up my luggage and started making our way back to the hotel room.

While were in the car driving to the hotel he tells me about the moment that he had. He went to check into the hotel only for the girl to tell him they couldnt find his reservations, ended up getting a room anyways. He goes up to the room only to realize he drove to the WRONG hotel. I was cracking up. Luckily he used to Army as an excuse and got out of his other reservations at the hotel we were supposed to be at. He then decides to break to me that he is trying to take someone else in his classes spot on a deployment, that is half way through the tour already, and that he would be leaving literally two weeks after he graduates from BOLC. I was NOT a happy person, at all. Luckily though someone else got picked to take the spot. He isn't happy about it, but I am. We make it back to the hotel and go swimming in the pool outisde for a little bit and eventually went and got food.

The next morning we were up way early to go to Six Flags. I was pumped because my trip to Cedar Point with my friends turned out to be horrible. Josh made sure that I actually had fun this time around, he is such a doll baby. As we were waiting in line for a ride called the Superman, a little girl passed out in line and Josh came to the rescue because no one else bothered to do anything. I had a proud girlfriend moment. We rode every rollercoaster except for one and that was only because it was miserably hot and the line was crazy long for the last ride. So we headed over to the waterpark, but ended up not staying because it was packed. We got some lunch, went and checked into a new hotel and took a nap. He took a really long one, while I showered and watched Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. I finally woke him up, and we went and got in the pool for a while. I had already did my hair, so I didn't want it to get wet at all. Well I apparently made some friends, a group of little boys who were between the age of 8 and 10 maybe. They all had the hots for me, which I found amusing. Josh was getting jealous, haha. After swimming, we went back to the room and got ready to go out to dinner. Ended up eating at a legit Mexican Restaurant. I wasn't very impressed with their food. But my margarita was great. After dinner we ended up going to this local bar in town. It was probably one of the best nights ever. They had a band playing a variety of music and they were good too. The environment was so diverse though, you could it was the only decent bar in town. We ended up closing the bar there and went back to the room and crashed out.

Sunday we went and toured the Aneheuser Busch Brewery in St. Louis. Sweetest thing ever, not only was the tour itself free, but they gave you free beer before and after the tour. We got to go through the entire beer making process from start to finish. We even got to witness a baby budlight. Bud has a born on date on each bottle or can, and well that can was born that day (hence, a baby budlight). It was a once in a lifetime thing to see something like that. I throughly enjoyed it. We then made our way back to the airport because I had to leave to come back home. This is not our first time we had said "see you later" to each other, but I still manage to cry everytime I have to leave him or he leaves me. And this time being no different, I of course was crying my eyes out walking into the airport after having to leave him. I hate having to see him walk or drive away from me, but this time I was the one walking away from him, but it didn't make it any easier. Especially with having to go back to reality the next day with work and school.

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Apparently the Clysdedale was excited to see me. haha

Baby Busch's :)

Me and Boyfriend before going out <3

The Wagon the Clydesdales pull

Me and the boo outside the building!

My First Visit To St. Louis

Warning: this may be long :)

So 2010 has probably been one of my best but worst summers ever. The worst because my boyfriend has been gone literally alll summer long and is still gone. But the best because I got to travel a lot!! I got to see and do some of the best things that I would have never done in a million years. Here is my first trip of the Summer, I have a couple more to document, since I got behind and just been really busy.

July 31, 2010 I got off work early that Saturday afternoon, I was supposed to work until 6 but got to leave at 4 because we were just standing around doing absolutely nothing. I texted Josh, just joking of course, if I leave now i'll make it to St. Louis by like 3am and could be there for like 4 hours. He comes back with 4 hours is better than no hours, so I spontaneously got in my car and drove all the way to St. Louis. I made it all the way to St. Louis just fine, even though I-70 is a 400 mile long drive with nothing but cows and corn to look at. Once I got into St. Louis, the address Josh had given me for the hotel turned out to be an address of a legit house in the hood, and when I say hood I legit mean hood. So here I am driving around in circles trying to get back to a main road, found a BP gas station. I had this bright idea that I would stop and ask for directions, mind you its a Saturday night around 11pm Central Standard Time, I pulled into the parking lot and I was the only white person probably in the next 5 mile radius. I can usually handle my own but I legit feared for my life rollin through the hood in downtown St. Louis. It was definitly an experience. After arguing with Josh about where I was at and driving in circles ten different times I finally found my way back to a main road. Josh ended up meeting me on the corner of the road I was coming down and ended up driving to the hotel we stayed at. We were both irritated with one another but I hadn't seen him in 3 weeks. So once I calmed down and changed my clothes and made myself somewhat presentable, we went out to the bars in downtown St. Louis. Let me tell you how underdressed I was, I had on jeans and a black tank. Everyone else around us was actually dressy dressed up. I wasn't expecting it to be so formal like. We went into this first bar that was packed and was playing techno music, the wait to get a beer at the bar was outrageous. Me and Josh were looking around and they no shit had gogo dancers in cages. Josh looked at me and was like, Let's Go!!! I couldn't help but laugh. We ended up going to this Irish bar that played country music, and in Missouri you can still legally smoke in bars and restaurants (I don't know what Josh is gonna do when he comes home). We both had a shot of Jack Daniels and Jack and Coke, then we went back to our hotel that just so happened to be the old Union Station. Like, the very first train station ever invented, they turned it into a hotel, but left alot of the structure still up, it was really neat. I enjoyed it!! We ended up going to this bar that was in our hotel and eventually went back to our room and went to sleep in the biggest most comfortablest bed ever. I fell in love with this bed.

Union Station, St. Louis, Missouri

The old roofing from Union Station that they kept up

The next morning we woke up real early, got breakfast in the shopping plaza inside the Union Station. We then went and visited St. Louis. We drove down to the Mississippi River and the Arch. The Mississippi was raised up high that day, it was flooding out into the road and sidewalk. As we were walking we noticed a parking lot entrance and a set of stairs that led right into the river. We were both highly confused about this, and then we see and random fire hydryant just chillin in the river. We then came to the conclusion that it had to be a parking lot at some time before and the Mississippi just raised higher and higher over the years, but why wouldnt you block it off or something?? It was just random as can be. We drove all around St. Louis, saw a bunch of neat things and then it was about time for me to get back on the road to come home to good ol' Ohio. All in all I was there for like 13 hours I believe. So my spontaneous drive to see my baby was definitly worth the 9 hour drive.

The steps leading into the Mississippi River

The Arch :)

Me and My Babe

Im Backkk!!

After forgetting my password foreverr, I am finally back!! Expect some updates laterrr :)