Merry Christmas from Colorado and from a land far far away!

Merry Christmas to all our blog readers from Colorado and from Logan in a land far far away from home! Oh the animals at home in Tennessee say Merry Christmas as well!

This past week has gone by rather quickly and slowly all at the same time. Days seem to pass quickly through the week but the hours in the day itself seem to drag by on occasion!

I am here in Colorado spending the week with my family and Logan's! So far I have completed 3 puzzles-2 1000 piece puzzles and 1 300 piece puzzle with my Mom and Rere. They tell me I have OCD since I can't seem to stop until I finish the puzzles! I have done some shopping, which after today I have several gift cards I can also use, so I will have to do some more shopping! I went to a work out class with Annie which killed me but I would definietly love to go back! Just goes to show how out of shape I really am! I can't wait to start school since I will get to use my student ID to get me into the gym at APSU and their free aerobics classes! Can't wait to start doing yoga again. I also had a lovely lunch with Logan's Mama and my family as well!

It has snowed a bit here in Colorado-I think about 8 inches, so its a lovely white Christmas here.

Christmas morning started off with a phone call from Logan which is a nice way to wake up! I talked to him for a few minutes and just made sure he was having as good of a Christmas as he could possibly have while being deployed and away from family! He wateched my Christmas video I sent him and they bbq'd for Christmas eve dinner. He said they tried to feed him a nice Christmas Day dinner-however the pork and stuffing he said was just ok! He received several USO boxes and some from churches in which he took the candy and tried to take a cup of noodles! He tried to hide the cup of noodles for later but someone found it before he got back to it! If I had known the food was so bad I would have sent him a box full of food for the remainder of his trip! I know he misses being able to be home with all of us in Colorado but he is there for an important job, so even though he is not here physically he is here in thought! I love you Logan, thank you for all that you do!! =)

As for the rest of the day-we have already opened all of our gifts here at my parents. We are going to be eating the traditional ham and scalloped potato dinner around 2 pm, and then I will head off to Logan's families house to visit with his parents for a while! Hopefully the rest of the family is still there also so I get to see them for a short bit!

I had back to Tennessee on Monday! I will have to grab Rusty early Tuesday morning and then its back to work! I am looking forward to getting back since that means I am one week closer to Logan getting home!

Ok off to ready!

Merry Christmas.

Love,
Nicki and Logan

Bad bad week...

Here lies my poor poor car! This was a very bad week. For those of you who don't know-I was in an accident on Thursday afternoon. I rear-ended a big ford truck. This is what happens when you run into something 3 times the size of your car and with a very large trailer hitch. The jeep had to be towed and then was taken to the Jeep dealership. They should be calling early next week with an estimate on how much it costs to fix. We will have to pay $1000 to the dealership but then our insurance will cover the rest.

My lovely friend Alena was nice enough to call Logan's work and they got a hold of him...however somewhere the part that I was mostly ok was lost in translation which ended up with having poor Logan frantic that I was not ok! This is like people's worst fear when they are gone and having something happen to their spouse! Hopefully something like this never happens again...

I had to go to the ER today, Friday. What a surprise-I can't go more than a month without putting some type of drug in my body...I have a severe case of whiplash which they tell me is just going to get worse. They said after 5-7 days they said eventually it will start feeling better-which puts us right at Christmas, what horrible timing for this!So I am on muscle relaxers and pain medicine. After tomorrow I should be able to take it more regularly. I have to work tomorrow-or more or less sit in the chair and not jerk my head around!

SO lets hope that this next week at home goes better....

I feel like the busiest person alive!

This week was insanely busy!

I worked 6 days in a row! I went the Nashville Symphony at the Schermerhorn-crazy name right? I can't exactly pronounce it! The symphony was wonderful! We had seats that looked to the back of the orchestra but were right next to the choir! There was a childrens choir, adult choir, and then the orchestra! The crazy conductor had long hair and a crazy vampire voice (Ashley is obsessed with Twilight-so she said he had a vampire voice)! I think he was German-but boy did that man enjoy his job! His hair shook with joy as he conducted the choir and orchestra! We even had group sing alongs that the entire audience would participate in. We had a great time...here are some pictures!













On Friday night I went to Logan's company Christmas party-it was held at the Convention Center in Hopkinsville, the same place where we had our formal in May. With Logan gone, I went with Alena and then met several other ladies whose husbands are also gone. The party was an ugly Christmas sweater theme! There was a contest of who had the ugliest sweater-a group of four of us went up with the group name of the Husbandless idols-pretty funny but sad in its own way! We had to tell about our sweaters in round one and then in round two we had to dance! Thank goodness we got voted out in the second round! My love called me while I was at the party! Made the night a bit better =).

Here are some pictures from last night at the party:

Today-Saturday-I worked, was left a horrible present by Rusty upstairs in the bonus room which required a carpet cleaner rental, had lunch with a friend, and began the process of painting the kitchen! I must have over worked myself today, because I got around one outlet with the paint and decided I didn't have enough patience to paint today! I am going to try to finish tomorrow!

Tomorrow, in addition to painting, I am goign to an open house at the Beach Haven Winery here in Clarksville. They have free wine tasting, free food, and vendors come from all around town to sell their items. I am going because it is free-but it should be a good time!

Well I am off to finish Julie and Julia! What a wonderful movie! I am making Logan watch this with me when he returns-I recommend everyone see this movie! Makes me want to go cook right now! Perhaps that shall be my next undertaking when Logan is gone-to learn to make fancy meals for when he returns! That way I can test them out on myself first and then if they are good I will feed them to him! I think its a wonderful plan!

Ok off I go...

Love,
Nicki and Logan (from a land far away)!

Only one week until I am home. YAY!

Week In Review!

Well this week doesn't really have much to report on. It has gone by pretty fast, which I am thankful for. I would prefer to just get this week behind me and move on with the next!

This week I painted our master bedroom-we painted it to match our duvet cover that we received as a wedding gift from Logan's Mom! We are still debating if we will paint another wall in the room-but I will have to wait for Logan to see it!

Here is a picture:
As you can see its a deep blue-the paint was called sapphire black-so you get the impression that it would be too dark-but it was exactly what we were looking for!

I am thinking in a few weeks I will be tackling the wall in the kitchen which will match the living room wall, so it will be a deep red.

On Saturday night, last night-I went to the Christmas parade in Clarksville, it was the 50th parade. With that big important anniversary you would think the parade would be great-WRONG. It was a freezing 28 degrees and then to wait two hours to see a few floats and far too many beauty queens was really not worth our time! We went back to one of the girl's houses after though and had chili I made and just sat around and talked. We came up with several good fund raising ideas for next year for the FRG (family readiness group) for Logan's company! So it was a nice way to spend my Saturday night!

Today I am getting ready to clean the entire house-it is dirty since I have been putting it off all week! Rusty and I have to run up to the base to check on some Christmas presents-so that will get us out for a while! Then I have plans to wrap all the Christmas presents after that-so we have a busy day! The dog park might even be an option if Rusty and I can brave the cold!

This next week is going to be BUSY BUSY BUSY! I have more holiday stuff going on this week! On Tuesday I head up to the base to make a movie for Logan as a Christmas Present-they will send this to him and make sure he gets it before Christmas! I am taking Rusty! Then Thursday a friend and I are going to Nashville to see a holiday symphony show. Then Friday is the Logan's company Christmas party. I have several "dates" since alot of my friends husbands are also MIA-so we are all going together. This Christmas party has the theme of the ugly holiday sweater party-my sweater is awful and my turtle neck to wear under it is just as awful. I will have pictures to post after this I am sure!

Well better get going to vacuum and finishing cleaning so Rusty and I can head out to get our errands done and hopefully get back quickly to our nice warm house!

Love,
Nicki

Busy Busy Busy

This past weekend we celebrated two holidays-Thanksgiving and Christmas! We went to Thanksgiving at one of our friend's houses in Kentucky and it was very nice! Friday we put up Logan's theater and proceeded to watch movies and play video games the rest of the day! Saturday we ventured down to Nashville to visit the ICE at the Opryland hotel, then saw the decorations and lights at the hotel, then went to the Melting Pot to top off our fun day! It was delicious-we love that restaurant! However, I still like the one in Louisville better! Sunday we celebrated our Christmas, decorated cookies, and then watched of course more movies on Logan's projector! As you can see we have had a busy busy weekend-I am just going to post a few pictures-if you want to see more visit my facebook page!

Love,
Nicki and Logan

Logan's "Man Cave" is ALIVE!

Well everyone probably already knows that I gave Logan his projector and screen last night that he has been wanting for over a year! He has been talking about having a home theater in our house since before we even left Hawaii-so I am pretty impressed I put it off this long.

Let me give you some back ground of how this came about. Logan has been looking at this very expensive projector for the last year. Pretty much since we bought the washer and dryer and HHGreg, he has been looking-that was in March. Well this week I was on best buy's website and thought I would look into the projectors a bit more since this want of Logan's didn't seem to be going away! Much to my surprise it ended up being on sale! Well the Best Buy in Clarksville doesn't carry projectors, so that is how I ended up at HHGreg. I knew they carried them in the store and had the one Logan wanted. Of course I had to double check with Logan which projector it was he wanted, but I had to come up with a plan of how to get this information without blowing the surprise. My friend Holli at work was talking about buying a tv for her husband for Christmas, so I just made a huge lie up to Logan that the tv was going to be a projector and Holli didn't know anything about them so I told her I would get the info from him! Well I thought he was on to me for a little while, but then I just told him no Logan you are NOT getting a projector for Christmas because we are too poor! So I crushed his dreams and had him convinced the information was for Holli!

Well after work on Tuesday I went to the store and began to look around. 30 minutes later we were proud owners of a projector and a screen! We got a great deal-so I guess it is better than paying full price. I stashed the projector and the screen in Sadie's rooms closet since I know Logan doesn't go in that room. I then wrapped the receipt in a box and tossed in some batteries to confuse him. He is too good at guessing presents-so I went to trick him ha ha! Well we had to open them last night because we only have a few days to deal with this until his trip-so I wanted to make sure he had enough time to exchange and talk to the people about the install!

Here are some pictures of last night!

On Friday we have someone coming out to look at how much it will cost to set everything up for us-I am worried about how much this will cost! We need to test paint the room so we can also get to painting. Once we start on a project we seem to end up doing it all at once vs. waiting to do it over time...maybe we need to work on that!

More pics to come sooon....

Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Love,
Nicki and Logan

Our crazy amounts of presents!

This is our little tree corner-or too many presents corner! This include both sets of parents gifts, my gifts for Logan, and the babies presents! I hope that Logan can find room for my gifts under that little tree! Guess we will have to plan better next year =)

More to come in a few days...

Love,
Nicki and Logan

Week in review

This week was busy; this seems to be the new norm for us. I guess I can't complain, however I would like that if the month of November would slow down a bit. I should only hope that December goes that fast as well so it will be soon be time to go to Colorado for Christmas to see the families!

I worked mostly days this week, which of course means Logan worked almost every night this week! So in between seeing each other an hour at night and then for a few in the morning we both have been spending alot of time apart from each other!

Tuesday however was one of those special days where we did end up with a day off (or at least a good part of the day off) together! We spent this day running errands, but Logan suggested we go out to breakfast! If anyone knows Logan, he would pick breakfast over PT any day in the mornings he goes to work at 7 am. His friends often times show up for PT and then end up at the Waffle House a short time later. I personally, had never been to the Waffle House so I was pretty surprised when Logan suggested we go to breakfast on Tuesday! We were already out dropping Logan's car off to get it's new tires so it just made sense we try the Waffle House. It was pretty good, these little places seem to be ALL over Clarksville, so we didn't have to drive too far to find one! After breakfast we went to get my oil changed, about 1,000 miles overdue since our trip to Colorado! We had a good day on Tuesday even with just running errands-I guess people appreciate the time you spend with your spouse especially when you don't see them all that often even if you are just doing errands =).

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. Yesterday, Saturday, Logan ventured to Nashville to Christmas shop for me! Yep, I was pretty impressed. He even has informed me I have presents not on my list ha ha. Let me fill you in on how Logan Christmas shops for me (and other people I am assuming)-Logan made the rule LONG ago-that I will receive one present a year for any holiday that he had to come up with himself. Other than that I MUST tell him exactly what I want-if not I probably won't get anything at all ha ha! SO I was pretty impressed that he came up with some things on his own. I am pretty excited for next weekend when we get to celebrate our Christmas! We also went out to dinner to Olive Garden last night. We love that restaurant, however it seems to be one of the most expensive in Clarksville-oh well at least Logan got to bring home lots of leftovers! We then ventured to Petsmart so we could get our children (the animals) their Christmas presents. Rusty got several toys and a new mat for him kennel. Lola and Sadie got this giant feather toy-however Lola found that in the bonus room as soon as I put it up there and then proceeded to get bright read feathers everywhere! Not to leave out her white on her face was a nice shade of pink! I think we will think twice if giving this toy to her is a good idea!

Well that pretty much sums up our week. I promise we will have more pictures to post next week with Thanksgiving coming, our trip to Nashville, and our Christmas!

Ok off to be productive-cleaning and laundry today.

Love,
Nicki and Logan

Christmas Lights

Here are our Christmas lights on the house-front and back.

My own Soldier =)

This week we celebrated Veterans day! I had to work for a few hours that morning, but I scheduled myself off the rest of the day in order to spend it with Logan, a veteran of two wars! I am so proud of him and what he does of our country. If it was not for brave men like him our country would not be what it is today!

In addition to Veterans day this week-it has been busy and hectic, but boring all at the same time (if that makes sense). As most of you know I was bite by some sort of spider this past weekend (Sunday)! Well by Tuesday I looked like I had a golf ball under my skin and then a huge red ring surrounding the bites....so the doctor put me on antibiotics for a week, taking 8 pills a day. YUCK. For someone who doesn't want to take medicine, its hard to take that many pills a day. Four more days of pills and then I hope I stay healthy for a while!

We both have worked alot this week-I am hoping this weekend gives us some time to spend together since we have both been so busy! We started putting up Christmas lights on Wednesday and will finish this weekend! Granted we will not turn them on until Thanksgiving, so another few weeks, but I figure we should take advantage of the nice weather we are supposed to have this weekend! So I will post a picture when we finished!

I also registered for my classes this week for school: I am taking two night classes and then one online class. I also found out that I am eligible for a teaching grant through the government, that will give m up to $4000.00 to go to school a year. I just will have to teach for 4 years in a low-income family school within 8 years after graduating. Even being with the military this is possible since I don't have to work with the same district for all four years. So I am pretty excited about this!

Well that is pretty much all we have to talk about this week! Stay posted for fun Christmas pictures!

Love,
Nicki and Logan

Busiest Week of The Year!

Wow, I can't begin to tell you how glad I am last week is over! I honestly can say that of everything that has happened this year, the last week was by far the busiest I have been! Of course that means if I was busy it was a slow week for Logan at work ha ha...go figure!

Since Halloween I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Monday through Wednesday last week I actually worked 6-3:30 pm shifts at Curves, which most of you know is unusual. I usually work either 4-6 hr shifts, not 8 or 9! We had the National Curves Convention in Nashville this past week. I worked M-W at the club since the other person who could normally work was in Nashville. Then Thursday and Friday I went to convention in Nashville. It was very fun, but it's safe to say I have never been in a room with that many women before (around 2000). It is also safe to say that I never thought I would be doing the macaraina dance at the age of 24 lol...I guess it's how they motivate their owners, managers, and employees to pay attention during all the different talks we heard! I will have to say though I learned a ton and have a new found joy with my job. Curves is not only for working out but the new message they are proposing is for promoting wellness-working out can help women prevent certain disease, i.e. diabetes, cancer, obesity...you get the point. I enjoy working for a company that promotes the healthiness of women! Stronger-together and 1,000,000 women stronger by the end of 2010! Let's hope they meet this goal!

Here is a picture from the convention this week-sorry poor quality, it was taken on my phone!

As for other things this week-I attended a military spouse support group this week through Grace Community Church. It is held at a lady's house who is in the army herself and then her husband is a pilot. I am not sure if there are any other wives who are in Logan's unit, but I didn't really ask either. There are about 10-15 wives that attend-I was a late joiner, but they were very welcoming. I found out about the group from the lady who cuts my hair and I went with her. Basically, it is Christian based but what happens is they take a verse from the bible and then apply it to real life, usually associated with the military. This past week the verse summarized was those who walk with the wise are wise, however those who walk in the company of fools suffer. One of the questions asked was how do the people you associate with help or hurt you and then help or hurt you as a couple. I spoke with Logan about this and we agreed we need to hang around other couples who are going to help our marriage and not make us fight or jealous. We went down this path in Hawaii with a couple and it definitely led us to some problems-so we know that it is important for us to socialize with couples who have the same morals and values as us!

Logan and I have not been able to spend much time together this week with my crazy work schedule and other activities. Then the one day I have off, he had to work-go figure! So on my one day off I have accomplished many things-I finally put up the Christmas tree and finished wrapping some presents! Here is Rusty posing in front of the tree! It is a bit weird having the tree up this early but it is for Logan so he feels he can get his fill of Christmas! So here is our tree this year! Its pretty-I love Christmas time. Makes me wish is were cooler outside right now rather than 75! I also did some Christmas shopping, cleaned, gave stinky Rusty a bath, and am now updating the blog! Rusty's friend Riloh left last night since his owner was back from a trip! Rusty had a good time but made both Logan and I realized we are by no means ready for a second dog ha ha. They drove us crazy with constant playing and running around the house!

Yesterday, I worked the inaugural Clarksville half marathon (13.1 miles). Curves had volunteered to work a water booth! Here are the volunteers (members and employees plus a few randoms from schools in the area- I believe). That is my car in the background which was used to hold balloons and the Curves banner ha ha. This was taken before the fiasco of the water started. There was about 1300 runners and walkers-well needless to say those two jugs of water and cups lasted about 5 minutes, which then led to angry runners and walkers. So we will see if we volunteer to do this again next year! I am betting Clarksville will get a wrath of angry people about how the water and cup situation went over-I am just hoping Curves does not get a bad name since we were handing out the water! I mind you we didn't organize this, just showed up to hand it out and help out!

Here is one last picture I will leave you with: Our beautiful tree!

Love,
Nicki and Logan

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all!

We have had a REALLY slow day-so slow that I even started pulling Christmas decorations out to start putting up in a week or so! For those of you who don't know-Thanksgiving and Christmas will be celebrated in days of each other at the Brokaw house this year (enough said)!

Here are some Halloween Pictures of the family (some just taken on Halloween-not dressed up)

Pumpkins-Logan's is the left, mine is on the right!

This is Rusty on Halloween day posing in his costume!

This is little Lola napping on the climber-she is not much in the Halloween Spirit-we will see how she is for Christmas!
This is Rusty and his final costume posing with the awesome pumpkins outside!

This was post pictures and him decided that he wanted to be bad and pay us back for taking so many of him!


Our one attempt at a Halloween picture!

In other news today-we ran around and got things for Logan for his trip. We also went to the PX (on the army base-kinda like Walmart) and got his only requested Christmas present. If anyone knows me well, I am horrible at keeping surprises from Logan. As with all the other ones, I gave this one away as well. He convinced me to give him his present now and then wrap the box-so that's what I did!

Here is a picture of the little bird helicopter!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Love,
Nicki and Logan

Update of the last 3 months to catch everyone up!

So much has happened in the past three months. We were married in our official wedding ceremony in Colorado on September 4th, 2009 at the Red Lion Restaurant. Our ceremony and reception were everything we had hoped for! To see more pictures please see my facebook-this is just one of my favorite pictures that Wyoming (our sister-in-law) took of us!


For those of us who couldn't joint us I am going to post our vows and ring vows that we recited to each other. Aunt Rere and I pieced together the vows from different examples that we had seen until we got exactly what I wanted. The ring vows were done similarly but in the end I feel we wrote them to fit us as a couple and what our rings represent when there is a vast distance between us!


Vows:
I (Nicki/Logan) take you (Logan/Nicki) to be my (husband/wife),
my partner in life and my one true love.
I will cherish our union
and love you more each day.
I will trust you and respect you,
laugh with you and cry with you,
loving you faithfully through good times and bad,
regardless of the obstacles we may face together.
I give you my hand, my heart, and my love,
from this day forward for as long as we both shall live.

Ring vows:

(Logan) Nicki, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and faithfulness.

As I place it on your finger, I commit my heart and soul to you.

Let it be a reminder that I am always with you

and will carry your love in my heart

when I am called

away.

(Nicki) Logan, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and faithfulness. As I place it on your finger, I commit my heart and soul to you. Let it be a reminder that I am always by your side when we are apart and will be waiting always when you return.


In other news-we have just been back enjoying married life-again for the second time! I got a promotion at work, to manager. My life has doubled in business, but in a good way-also helps up in the financial department! Logan has been keeping busy with work and training-he loves his job!

Recent home projects include painting accent walls in the house! Here is the first room that we completed-our living with a deep red/maroon accent all.

We have plans to paint the bedroom a steel blue color on one wall, a red accent wall in the kitchen, then Logan has big plans for his bonus room/future theater.

Starting in January I am headed back to school for a Masters in Teaching program at the local school, Austin Peay State University. I will be in school full time for one year and then have 6 months of student teaching to complete. I am excited to head back to school and even more excited that I will soon be able to start teaching my love of chemistry to students!

I think that about catches everyone up in the last few months! I will try to keep everyone updated on our lives better than I did before!

Love,

Nicki and Logan