what happened.

What happened to November? - Better yet - what happened to 2009? I mean really, it's December already?!? I can't believe it!

A year ago today we had no idea about England. We had a 5 month old Great Dane and Jery had just re-enlisted and bought his dream truck. This Friday will be exactly one year from this - a few prizes. Oh the things that can happen in a year!

It's been a year of amazing blessing, breathtaking experiences, and dreams come true. Although it hasn't been without difficult times I am in awe of God's goodness.

So here's to November - because it was an incredible month!:

On the spur of a moment {and boy do I mean spur} Jery and I decided to take a trip here. And yes - it is as breathtaking as it looks. It is an Army Lodge and Resort - any of our military friends out there we HIGHLY recommend it if you're gonna be in Germany - or need a reason to go to Germany!

Here we are sitting in the subway station! Our first time to mainland Europe!!!!!

Classic picture opportunity with the sign..

The lodge's lobby - beautiful. perfect. amazing. pictures don't do it justice.

This is what we woke up to every morning. AAMAZZZING!!

My cute husband and I our first morning in Germany- getting ready to go see the castle! It was snowing!!!

Our first stop along the way - a German wood shop.

Our second stop was this church. Which has an incredible story behind it and was beyond beautiful. It's called Wieskirche.

From the road..

Just a glimpse inside..

And our final stop. Neuschwanstein Castle. For those of you who don't recognize the name of this castle, maybe the pictures will help. It's a castle we all know and love.

Neuschwanstein was built by King Ludwig who has a very unique story, his family's castle was Hohenschwangau. You can see them both from this little German town.

This is for my brother. This is said "Yager House" and my brother's friends call him yager.

Our friends - Sharron and Chris - with Neuschwanstein in the background. King Ludwig couldn't have chosen a more beautiful location.

Between the tops of the mountain on which the castle was built Ludwig's father built his mother this bridge as a present. A pretty incredible present if you ask me.

Jery and Chris made it out first.

Sharron and I standing in the middle of the bridge.

Looking at the castle from the bridge.

Looking over the side of the bridge.

Jery and I with the castle in the back ground.

We stopped for a group photo while we walked down to the castle..

The front of the castle.

Here we are standing just inside the castle's gate.. in the far background you can see the bridge. Breathtaking.

Our second full day in Germany we spent exploring Garmish. This is one of the number one tourist attractions available - besides skiing of course! This is the ski jump arena for the 1936 Winter Olympics. One of my favorite things about it is that it is still being used today! A pretty neat thing to see.

One of the highlights everyone told us about this arena was that Hitler attended the events that took place here. Not that I am a fan of Hitler, but to stand where he stood was pretty spectacular. Here I am wondering which seat was his.

Once we left the arena we set out to see this gorge that we were told about. We were informed it was just a bit up the road from the arena... it was much longer than a bit, but worth the hike!! Here we are standing at the edge of the gorge wondering how we convinced ourselves to walk this far!

And here is my handsome husband inside the gorge. I think it was ready for me to stop taking pictures at this point.

After our long day of walking we decided we needing some drinks with our dinner..

The boys thought they needed some too..

The next day we decided to venture to the top of the highest mountain in Germany. We took a train up most of the way then jumped on a cable car to take us the rest of the way. Here's Jery and I on the train. Please take note of what you see out the window.

And Sharron and I in the cable car.

The view was pretty cloudy, but incredible. Jery and I with the Zugspitze sign!

Jery and Chris took pictures of each other on the top!

We took a cable car and down and walked back towards the hotel, but stopped to take this amazing picture!

And here's the side of the lodge with the mountains in the back ground.

That pretty much captures everything we did during our five days in Germany. For those of you who didn't recognize the castle.. does this help!?

Walt Disney choose King Ludwig's castle to model his castle after. Here's another look..

While this was a huge part of our month, we also celebrated Thanksgiving. Our first Thanksgiving in England!! We had our friends Sharron and Chris, Quiana and Craig, and four of the guys from Jery's shop over to our house! My amazing husband deep fried some turkeys for us while the girls took care of all the sides. We ate turkey dinner a total of four times before all the food was eaten. It was a great time of fellowship with friends!

This year I am thankful for the goodness of our God - without it we would be nowhere. I am thankful to have an incredible family that supports me in all I do. I am beyond thankful to be married to such an incredible man who loves me no matter what. I am thankful to have the opportunity to live in England and experience all there is here. I am also thankful for the friendships we have in our lives - for those we've known for years, and for the new friendships we've made since we moved.

These are just a few pictures of our Thanksgiving Day.

Sharron and I busy making some potatoes!

Will carving the turkey!

Harlii waiting for someone to drop something!

Samson was very tried.. be the center of attention is hard work ya know.

Sharron and Quiana!

Jery and I about to break this wishbone.. too bad he won!

Here's the second turkey.. boy they were yummy!!

And now it's December...

blessed people.

This week marked our fifth month of living in England. That's five months without:

our families,

the majority of our friends,

a walmart,

a target,

a bed bath and beyond,

good Mexican food - wait - good food period,

normal television,

American roads,

or American time zones.

BUT I have to say we're blessed. In these five months:

we have been on more road trips than we have in the four years we've known each other,

we have seen amazing places,

we have learned to rely solely on each other,

we've figured out how to drive on the other side of the road,

we've memorized British currency,

we have mastered bringing our dogs into the UK (with some help from my mama!),

we've learned what a Tesco's is,

we have laughed harder than ever before,

we have cooked at home more often than not,

we've fallen more in love with each other,

we have made some fabulous friendships,

but most importantly we have seen the faithfulness of God and the importance of a prayerful heart.

We have discovered that there is alot to living in the UK that no one warns you about. No one tells you how inconvenient life is without a Walmart. Everyone leaves out that fact that traveling on a British economy is rather expensive. They don't want you to know that in the summer time your house will be infested with flies and it will seem as though you live in a third world country. You wouldn't want to know that in the winter time there is only 6-7 hours of daylight. If they told you how annoying not having closets is - you wouldn't want to leave yours. They could even forget to tell you how a day trip to London makes all this seem petty - I've figured that out on my own.They probably won't mention that leaving all your friends behind sucks - but it's only God's way of opening doors to new friendship. The best part is, you can keep all your old friendships!

So when I get home sick, annoyed at the inconvenient way of life, or just bored of the four walls of our house I do something like this:

I take the Tube to London to stand in front of the Towers Bridge to let my husband take a picture.

Then of course, I take a picture of him.

I convince myself to get on something like this..

to see a view like this....

I definitely take the cheesy phone booth picture with Sharron [my friend I met because God is good in England too!]

I feast my eyes on Buckingham Palace..

Then do a Charlies Angel's pose on its lawn.

I discover that there's a China Town in London.

That these are being replaced by newer, uglier, not nearly as cool, more modern buses.

And I use my cell phone's "Sat Nav" to find this..

Then I take the Tube back home, and am thankful for our cute little bungalow we call home. I can face the world again, and am thrilled to be living in the UK.

"He never said it would be easy, He only said it would be worth it."

Our God is an awesome God, and He has shown Himself to us in a whole new way in the last five months.

We are blessed people.

Mr. and Mrs.

I stole this from Amber! But think it's totally cute - all you could ever wanna know about me and my wonderfully amazing hubby! :)

1. What are your middle names?
L and Denise

2. How long have you been together?
Since April of 2006 - Married in April of 2009

3. How long did you know each other before you started dating?

A little over a year

4. Who asked who out?
He said he really liked me, I said I really like him - wow that seems cheesy now, but at the time it was life changing!

5. How old are each of you?

He's 24 and I'm 23

6. Did you go to the same school?

Nope

7. Are you from the same home town?
Nope - He's from IL and I'm from TX!

8. Who is the smartest?
We are both brilliant in our own areas.

9. Who majored in what?
He has majored yet, and I majored in Communication Sciences and Disorders!

10. Who is the most sensitive?

Me - hands down.

11. Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
England!

12. Who has the worst temper?
I think we're pretty equal in that area - both pretty hard to make mad, but once we're mad - we're mad.

13. How many children do you want?
He'd be happy with one, I'd like 3/4 please.

14. Who does the cooking?
We both cook - depends on who is home!

15. Who is more social?
Me probably. He can come off as shy when he is around people he doesn't know.

16. Who is the neat freak?
Neither of us can stand a dirty/cluttered house.

17. Who is the most stubborn?

Me - for sure.

18. Who wakes up earlier?
Right now we get up about the same time, but it depends on what shift he's on.

19. Where was your first date?
Going to Clerks 2 and dinner.

20. Who has the bigger family?
Our families are pretty close in size, but mine is closer in proximity so I see all mine more often.

21. Do you get flowers often?

I've gotten several bouquets, but dead flowers make me sad - so he normally sticks to something else.

22. How do you spend the holidays?
Being military makes that interesting. Being military overseas makes it even more. So far we have spent them with my family for the simple fact that they were closer. But now it'll be just us and friends for several years.

23. Who is more jealous?
Me. I don't think he has a jealous bone in his body. He's the most trusting person I know.

24. How long did it take to get serious?

I'd say about a year.

25. Who eats more?
He does.

26. What do you do for a living?
He's active duty Air Force, and I'm on the job hunt!

28. Who's better with the computer?
He is way more knowledgeable, but I have more patience with them.

29. Who drives when you are together?
Since moving to England - me. He drives a British car and doesn't care to much to drive my America car.

30. What is your song?

"Who I am" by Wade Bowen.

I love him with my whole heart!

Texas.

Oh how i miss your

wide roads,

yummy restaurants,

fabulous stores,

and america currency.

I miss every family member that resides in the United States of America. I miss driving four hours and being in the city I call home. I miss being in the same time zone. I am ever so ready for a trip home.. and am looking forward to enjoying everything Texan.

In the mean time.. We'll continue to make amazing memories as a couple. We'll drive on roads no one in Texas would believe two cars could fit on. We'll go to London for the day - to lay our eyes on things like Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London/the Towers Bridge, the London Eye, Big Bend, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Hard Rock Cafe - London - just to name a few. We'll eat at pubs, drink pints, and enjoy ourselves. We'll shop at markets for delicious teas and fresh fruit. And pay pounds for everything British.

traveling huddlestons.

hi friends! I hope that you are all doing well! We are wonderful! Fall is here, and I couldn't be more thrilled to actually live somewhere with four seasons! It's beautiful! Jery completed his FTD course last month, which helped him become more familiar with the plane he's working on! And I am applying for a new job! I really do enjoy my job, but it has nothing to do with my career field. So when word got to me that they were hiring at the school, I jumped on it! I won't know until sometime next month, but I am looking forward to hearing back from them! Now for the pictures.. because lets be honest - that's the fun part anyway!

Our squadron held their annual spouse's day and took us up on one of the planes!

Here's our chalk getting ready to go!

We were flying over water so we had to wear life vests and on top of that it was flippin cold! So here we are all bundled up and strapped in!

I mentioned before that I had seen the Dover Cliffs twice, this was my second time! They opened up the back hatch of the plane and let us crawl out to the edge and hang our feet off as we flew over the cliffs and the channel at 10,000 feet!

It was such an awesome experience!!

Mid September our friend had her baby boy and this little girl became a big sister! We got to watch her for the two days her mom was in the hospital.. and had way to much fun spoiling her!!

And here's the precious baby brother!

We embarked on our first overnight adventure to see the city of Bath and Stonehenge! Here's the Roman Baths - where thousands of years ago the Romans took their baths..

My sweet husband standing above the main bath.

Directly behind the Roman Baths was the Bath Abbey.. another beautiful cathedral!

The Romans discovered a natural hot spring and used it to create this incredible bath house.. this is the hot spring - still today you can see the water bubbling to the surface.

Jery and A standing in front of the Romans' drain.. incredible engineering given the time it was built in..

Here's A and I on the Bath level..

And us standing in front of the main bath..

We left bath and headed back to the hotel.. and stopped at this little pub to eat dinner! Jery and I's first pub experience! And it was so yummy!!

Here's Miss A at Stonehenge talking on her "phone".. they gave us all audio devices to listen to as we walked around.

Here I am standing in front of the stones.. completely incredible! This was also where I learned I need to invest in a winter coat!!!!

Here we are standing in front of the stones..

Stonehenge.. in all it's glory!

Jery and Tank in front of Stonehenge..

Here we are with all of Stonehenge in the background!

The girls (and baby A) in front of Stonehenge.. I stole Jery's coat I was so cold!

We are beyond blessed to be living in such an incredible part of the world. There are endless possibilities, and we look forward to our next sightseeing adventure!