...holiday...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

In Colorado Springs

Greetings from Colorado to everyone!
Yep. I'm in Colorado. Have been since 1730 central time. It's really nice. It only reached 65 as a high yesterday. The mountains are even MORE gorgeous than I remember. I'm kinda enjoying my time up here. I have the day off today, so I'm going to do as much sight seeing as I can. I'm hanging out with my battle buddies Grady Kersh and Dennis Kerr. They're loving it here, too.
I miss Matthew, but that's nothing unusual. I'm anxiously awaiting this Friday and this up-coming weekend. Oh, and I wasn't trying to "dis" anyone with tat's on my last blog entry. I was just joking around. Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings.
Well, I should get to enjoying my time here. Later!

ParTy pOopeRs

Today, I'm heading up to Fort Carson, Colorado. Yay for me! I'm going by bus, so it's going to be a long ride...but there's tv's with VHS on the bus, so we'll be able to watch some movies to help pass the time faster. Matthew is going to have some much-needed time to himself. He doesn't have to be back to work until Monday, so he's got the whole weekend ahead of him. I won't be back from Ft.Carson until the 4th of November. He'll have plenty of time to hang with his "homies". He says he's going to help one of his buddies fix their truck...maybe work on the Supra a bit, and give my car a tune-up and an oil change. He's getting more time on his hands now that his unit is closer to getting all their stuff ready to go.
We ended-up not going to my buddy's gig last night. We've been working too late--needed sleep. Curse you, Zzz-Monster!! I heard that it was pretty wicked, tho. Wish we could've gone, but Matthew and I passed-out as soon as we got home from work. DAMN!
I'm looking at getting my first tattoo next Friday. Matthew's getting one too. I'm going to be getting a celtic cross tattooed on my lower back...Matthew is getting something of celtic design on one of his arms. He hasn't decided, but he's going to decide before Friday cuz we're getting tattooed together! We're going to be Tattooed White Trash!!! Yay!!!----I think.
The weather is getting colder down here, and a lot of people are catching colds now. Matthew and I have been getting some serious nasal congestion. We're not lucky enough to be sick enough to get out of work, tho. I suppose that could be a good thing. Just chugging away one day at a time. C'est la vie. So on goes life.

Friendly Farewell

Denise left this morning at 0600...and what does the "o" stand for? "O, my God, it's early!" Yeah, we had to get up at 0345 to make sure she'd be at the airport plenty early to catch her flight. We've had some good times while she was down here. We did a lot of much-needed catch-up. I'm so glad she was able to come down here. Who'd have thunk that I'd miss people so much, eh? Yeah.
So, I'll be heading up to Fort Carson, Colorado Saturday night. My band has a gig up there. We're casing some colors and doing a retirement ceremony or something like that. Colorado Springs is really nice and a pretty fun city at night...we (the band) always have a good time when we TDY up to there. I'll miss Matthew bunches, sure, but I'll have a lot of time to myself and I'll get to actually DO the job I signed-up to do!!! How about that?! I think it's pretty righteous myself.
Other than all that, it's been the norm lately. Matthew is working late tonight. UGH!!! I've just about had it with this whole working-late thing. My unit is starting to make me work late too. Although, they say that once everything is gone and heading on it's way to Iraq, we'll have a lot more time to spend with friends and family. I just wish we could get done with this work stuff faster so that I can go back to having fun on a regular basis!!! Heh heh heh
MY Halloween night is tomorrow. YAY!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited. I'll be going as a PUNK ROCKER. I've got the funky-colored hair extentions and everything. I'm so pumped. Matthew is going as...well, I don't know what to call it other than a cross between a wolfman and a zombie. It looks kewl and scary-as-shit all at the same time!!! I'm still working on trying to put pics on my blog site, so, as soon as I figure that out, I'll be sure to post some pics of the halloween shindig. Can't leave my crowd-of-adoring-fans hanging, now can I? That's what I thought.
Thank you to everyone who has been looking in on this site from time to time and especially to those who love to leave comments. It's nice to know that people are actually somewhat interested in my thoughts and experiences. I love you all!!!! You are a great asset to this blog and you will go far.

Gotta love Mike's

Hi All!
Oh, yeah...I only had to be at work until noon today, so I was able to hang with my girl, Denise, a lot today. We went to Bennigan's Irish restaurant/pub for a small lunch. We hung there for almost 3 hours! Good times. After that, we went to the movie theater to see "Domino Harvey"! HELL YEAH!!! That was SUCH a great movie. It was as good as "Fight Club". It's a must-see. It was so good. It's one of those movies that you can just totally lose yourself in. I'll probably see it again if I get a chance.
Now, we're back at the apartment. Matthew was home--he picked-up some more Mike's and some Shiner Bock and my favorite...Disorrono. Mmmmm. Mix Disorrono with some Coke or Pepsi and it makes the soda taste like cherry soda--only better! Heh heh heh
Yeah, so we're all just chillin'. Matthew ran to go and get some pizza. Denise and I are sitting on the couch watching "The Longest Yard" and just enjoying time together. We've only got 2 more days left together. She leaves from here Thursday morning at 0600. I'm really going to miss her. She is making me feel so great. I remember what life was like as a civilian since she's been down here...life is lookin' up!
I put a new bumper sticker on my car. It says, "It's all fun and games until they open the trunk." I put it above the bumper sticker that says, "My other car is a hearse." My car is beginning to show a personality. Yay for me!!!!
That's about all for now. Talk to you all later. *kisses*

Friends

My friend, Denise Hagen, has been down here, in Texas with Matthew and I since Friday afternoon! We're having a lot of fun together. I didn't realize how much I missed her until I saw her. She's still sleeping right now. We had a late night last night. Didn't really "party hardy" or anything like that...just sat up all night and chilled. Speaking of "chill", I think that Denise might have brought Minnesota's cool weather down with her. Since Denise came down here, it's only reached a high in the low 70's, which is a nice change.
Thank you, Josh for bringing the "annonymous commentors" thingy to my attention.
It's Sunday and there's not too much to talk about. Denise and I didn't DO too much yesterday. We just mostly talked and caught-up with each other. We're thinking of going to Waco today...maybe we'll do something interesting up there, eh? Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Party like it's 1699...

Hooah Everything!
Matthew and I have spent the majority of the day checking out the paints that we might wanna put on the Toyota Supra that we're restoring. Haven't made any final decisions as to what we're going to have as a major design on it...so if you have any suggestions, I'm open to them. After looking at car paints, we went to Fuddrucker's for lunch. Mmmm...Fuddrucker's...it's the tastier way to add hundreds of calories to your diet. After lunch, we headed to the Killeen mall to look for Halloween costume ideas. We got our ideas AND our Halloween costumes. They're great...but I'm gonna hold-out the drama a bit more and tell you what (or show you) what our costumes look like. We're going to a Halloween concert (my battle buddy's band "Under the Gun" is having a Halloween themed concert on 28 Oct.) and that's where we're going to dress-up. I'm going to be on my way to a gig in Colorado Springs on Halloween day, so no partying for ME that day. It's all good, though. The concert is going to be fun enough for me.
"I just wanna rock & roll all night...and party every day!"
Hell yeah! Now we're sitting on the couch, drinking Mike's, and watching "Dumb & Dumber". Good times. We're just chilling. Dreading tomorrow as we'll have to go back to work with slave drivers disguised as sergeants. UGH!!!! Work sucks.
To those of you who are regularly checking out this site, I will be adding pictures to it sometime soon. Don't fret. I'm going to get all the pics from the Halloween concert put onto a cd so that I can post them on here. Oh, if you guys find any good websites that I can add to my "links" list, please let me know. Love you all. Miss you, too! **PEACE!!!!!!!!**

Payday!!!!

That's right! I got paid last night (electronically), and so I went shopping today while Matthew had to work. If I had any of my girlfriends down here, I would've taken you all with me, but instead I had to go alone. It's okay, though. The mall was really crowded and loud. It was so much easier to just move around with my minidisk player and headphones and shop in a world of my own. I bought some more sweet pea body spray from Bath & Body Works, and 3 books from Borders (Portrait of a killer: Jack the Ripper Case Closed, Vampire Kisses, and The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore), and I bought a skeleton hand lamp from Spencers. I thought about buying a shirt or two from Hot Topic, but I resisted the temptation. I had fun though.
I've been reading a really good book titled Even Cowgirls Get The Blues by Tom Robbins. It's really good. I'm only half-way through it so far, but I can't wait to finish it.
Speaking of finishing things, I finally finished writing in my journal. I had started a journal while I was in 11th grade, and I finally filled in the last page of my journal book this morning. It was a momentous occasion that should have been accompanied with fireworks and music and everything else you can think of to celebrate this long-awaited day! I guess I'll have to go out and find another one and start filling that one out. It's so fun to read through some of my journal entries from back in high school and see how my life changed. There's a lot of good memories that I'd almost forgotten had I not written them down in my journal. It will become part of my legacy--if there is such a thing.
Anyways...if anyone has read any good books lately, please tell me so that I might try and find them while I'm out in Iraq. I'll have ample opportunity to read while I'm out there, so if you could suggest a few titles or authors, that'd be great. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

HOORAY for WEEKENDS!!!!

Thank GOD the week is finally over! I need a break!
All week I feel like I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off! My unit is doing a lot of packing, unpacking, and the packing again. It's really exhausting. And to top it all off, I've been forced to do PT (you know, that "exercise" thing?) TWICE a day! Today I felt like I was going to DIE when I got off the eliptical at the gym after only 30 minutes! *OOFTA*
And after the eliptical, it was weight training time, apparently. This all happened AFTER work, mind you. Before work, my platoon did sprints. Two block sprints for 45 minutes! Talk about a WORK-OUT!!!!
I suppose I shouldn't complain. At least all this exercise is helping me to fit my big butt into my pants again. I know this'll all pay-off eventually...it's the thought of all the work that drives me up the wall!
Keeping so busy at work has helped me to not miss home so much. This is a good thing. Last week I was feeling pretty homesick. This week, I haven't had time to really think about missing home too much. I'm kinda anxious to hurry up and get back from Iraq so that I can go to another Minnesota Renaissance Festival! I miss that fun place. And to add to my anxiety, I know that the next time I attend the Minnesota Ren Fest, it'll be for my wedding CEREMONY! YAY!!! Hopefully everyone will be able to att

HUZZAH!!

Hello Everyone!
Welcome to my first blog site. My purpose for creating this site is to help keep friends and family informed of what's going on in my life--especially when it's going to be difficult to write to EVERYONE about EVERYTHING that's going on when I'm deployed. This will be much easier to allow my crowd of adoring fans to get info faster!
So please, sit back and enjoy what you can and endure what you must!
Love you all,
Crystal