Wedding Adventures!

I will apologize now that there are not many pictures in this post. I promise I am working on collecting them from the various sources and will share them as I get them.
Well the wedding weekend started on Thursday for me. My bfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff Ashley drove with me to Gulfport on Thursday, May 24th. We awoke at the crack of dawn and got on the road. Ashley is not a morning person and she let me know it very quickly upon waking her. However, soon she was her normal quirky self and we had an absolutely fantastic 10 hour drive. We spent our time making a list of every state license plate we saw (no multiples) and soon set a goal for ourselves to have a list of all 50 states in one day. We made really good time, though I may have been attempting to time travel occasionally... We reached Gulfport around 1530. After waiting at the gate entrance for base for 15 minutes while they took my license, insurance, and registration for my car and finally gave me a pass onto base, we cruised around base wasting some time until Garrett was out of school and trying to complete our mission. Finally having only two plates missing from our list, we went and checked into our hotel, which was conveniently just across the street from Garrett's dorm! I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried. As Ashley and I were still waiting, we collapsed onto our inviting bed and soon discovered that it was more comfortable than any bed I've ever had at home... Down comforter and amazing pillows; I immediately knew I could get used to it. Ashley fell asleep almost instantly, I was much too anxious to fall asleep. Finally I got the call from Garrett that he was ready. I hopped out of bed, grabbed my room key, and left Ashley sleeping nicely.
I walked quickly across the street and parking lot and stood waiting outside of the doors to Garrett's dorm. I was wearing my 'Future Mrs. Bowen' jersey and people kept coming out and telling me he was coming. I met Garrett's roommate before I even saw Garrett... Finally, after taking his dear sweet time, Garrett emerged from the building. We pulled each other into a nice good hug and kiss. We then learned that people were ready to head to the movie that we had planned earlier. So I ran back to the room to grab my car keys and see if Ashley was interested in coming still. Ashley had seen the movie before, so she opted out of going to continue sleeping. So I headed over to the dorm with my car and found Garrett and a friend of his, Michael Levison, coming in our car. Garrett wanted to drive, of course. So we headed to the theater following another truck full of people. We were seeing The Hunger Games. It was Garrett, Levison, and I, as well as three other classmates of Garrett. After the movie we went to eat at TGIF. I had told Ashley to call me if she woke and wanted to come hang with us, but still hadn't heard from her at this point. I knew we still had sandwich stuff from our drive and that she at least wouldn't starve. Finally around 2300 I believe, Garrett had to be back in his dorm. I quietly snuck back into my room. The blinds were still open, and especially because we were on the ground floor facing the hotel parking lot, I tried to quietly close them before getting in bed. BAD idea... All of a sudden a loud crashing sounds and I find the blinds falling on top of me, bruising my shoulder, and waking Ash. Though all I get out of her is a mumbled 'If you wanted to wake me, you could have just shook me.' and she turned over and fell back asleep. I was cracking up, but decided not to make even more of a ruckus by trying to put them back up where they belong.  So, I crawled into bed, Garrett called, and I was out like a light.
Friday the 26th dawned early, but I was excited. Ashley woke, saw the blinds on the floor, and said 'They got you too?' I soon learned that they had fallen on her when she had tried to close them earlier while I was gone, and she had just put them back up. So yes, we were a pair of winners in our hotel room. We showered and dressed and were pressed to hurry by a hungry man who was soon to be my husband. We walked across the street to meet Garrett and Levison at McDonald's for breakfast. Levison was coming with us to New Orleans for our big shin-dig. So we eat, Levison and Garrett head back to the dorm to pack, and Ashley and I put all of our stuff back into the car. We finally head out of Gulfport about 1030 or 1100. Garrett makes the drive to New Orleans (a little over an hour drive) and we get all the way to the Parish office where we are to purchase our marriage license. When Garrett comes around the car and opens my door, he looks at me and says 'Do you know what I forgot? ... My birth certificate.' First words out of my mouth, 'You're kidding, right?'. But no, he was not. So the four of us piled back into the car at 1215 or so and headed BACK to Gulfport. By this time Garrett had been hitting the rumble strip on the side of the road quite a bit and Levison and Ashley were joking and complaining about the driver. They even filled out a complaint card to be filed with the 'Future Mrs. Bowen'. We reach Gulfport and Garrett runs up to his room. We switch, so that I am driving BACK to New Orleans. The judge's office had called me Thursday to see when we were coming by to pay and to give the marriage license and everything. I told her that we would bring it by Friday. But the office closes at 1500 on Fridays and there was no way we were getting back to New Orleans, getting our marriage license and making it over to the office by then. Although, I'm pretty sure I made it back to New Orleans in about 45 minutes flat... In my defense, I was still one of the slowest people on the road. We made it back just before 1500 I believe but by the time we went up to the marriage license office, it was too late to go over to the judges office. Luckily I called as we were first heading back to Gulfport to tell her the situation and she totally understood and said we could just do everything on Saturday, just to make sure we brought exact change. So after the few minutes it took to get our license, the four of us were pretty hungry. We headed to Taco Bell to eat and kill some time before Garrett's friend, Gabe, came in on the Greyhound at 1730. We soon realized that we would not have enough room for all of our stuff plus the five of us in my little car. So we got permission from the hotel we were staying at to take our stuff and have it held behind the counter until the people who the rooms were actually under came to check in. Thus freeing up a lot of space in my car. After picking up Gabe from the station, we headed back to the hotel to check in and hang around for a bit. After not too long, my family showed up including my parents, brother Dathan, sister Shalynna, and my Aunt Judy. Everyone was rather hungry except maybe Levison, Ashley, Garrett and I since we had eaten not too long ago. So we headed around the corner to this little Italian place that at first looked a tad sketch to me, but we soon discovered was actually surprisingly good. Garrett and I, being ourselves, after finishing eating what we could of our shared spaghetti plate, got up and began dancing near the back, out of the way. We had no music, but just danced and talked some. Our waitress spotted us and told us we were going to make her cry if we didn't stop. The rest of our table was quick to point out that we were getting married the next day, and wasn't it rather obvious? She was extremely happy for us and offered many congratulations. After dinner Garrett and the guys left for their super secret 'Bachelor Party' in which they went to see Men in Black 3.
I found it almost hard to fall asleep, even though I was so tired from everything. Ashley and I stayed up talking about everything. Finally I managed to fall asleep and woke early to begin getting ready. Soon after doing Ashley's hair however, I realized it was not good that I had decided not to bring hair spray...

So my aunt found Garrett and asked him to run to the store to pick some up for us. It was soon discovered that my future husband was extremely forgetful this weekend. He had already been to the store to pick up socks and shoes, which he had also forgotten in Gulfport, along with his flight cap. So Garrett could not stay outside long on this day. Garrett and the guys left for the judge's office in my car and I went with my family in the van. After we arrived, the judge was not there yet, Garrett and I were still unable to see each other in proper wedding tradition. After the judge had arrived and Garrett had gone in to pay and to get things going, I waited outside with my Dad and Shalynna and Ashley to get the okay to walk in.

After walking in, being handed off by my dad, it sort of turns into a blur of just staring into Garrett's eyes, shedding tears of happiness, repeating what I'm told, and yearning for the day we are bound together for eternity.

 Every promise I made 'until death do us part' was made in my heart for eternity. I hope that Garrett was able to see that in my eyes and feel it in the death grip I had on his hand. Garrett didn't cry, but I definitely saw those big brown eyes of his feeling the same thing I was, he just didn't let the tears spill over. I promise that I am also working on getting the digital copy of the recording to add to this blog eventually, and if I don't make it before September, we are going to show it in September at a BBQ on the 14th.
After lots of pictures and signing all the official documents, we headed out to find a place to eat. After some brief miscommunication and frustration on the part of the bride and groom, we finally set up camp at the Clearview Mall across the highway from our hotel that had this wonderful restaurant called  Zea's. While waiting for them to get the table ready, I found I had an amazingly sweet message from my best friend Kirstin congratulating me and wishing us the best.

THE best strawberry lemonade I have ever had. It was so incredibly good! If you ever go to New Orleans, I highly recommend this place. The food was excellent as well. Though my sandwich was MUCH larger than I had anticipated. I was only able to eat half of it. We enjoyed ourselves a lot eating great food, having family and friends with us, and wishing more could have joined us for this small shindig.

This is the small cake that I had my manager at work make to bring along. I love the cake topper so much because it is Garrett and I exactly. He is always dipping me into a kiss and dancing. The hair colors were not correct when I ordered it, but I had no inclination to pay $7.50 per head to change it and be disappointed that they didn't come out right. However, my Aunt Alice happened to be in town when my cake topper came in the mail. She being the artist that she is immediately volunteered to correct the color and make it as real as possible. She did a superb job! Garrett and I proceeded to put napkins down our front and cut the cake. Both of us wary when we finally got our piece because we knew what was coming.

I think I did a fantastic job though. I got it up his nose and all over. :) Hopefully pictures I collect will have some non-blurry ones of the outcome of this palm-to-face moment. 

After cleaning up from the cake mess, we all headed back to our respective hotel rooms to change. After changing and hanging out for a while Garrett, Gabe, Ashley, Levison, and I headed to the French Quarter. After finally finding atrociously expensive parking we wandered over to Cafe du Monde for beigneits. They were rather good and not very expensive to get a plate of three. After eating Levison wanted to get a picture of the 'Bourbon St' sign. It was getting dark by this time, and Garrett was not exactly stoked to be around so many people getting drunk on a Saturday night of a long weekend. He was very tense and protective the whole time; walking behind Ashley and I constantly with one hand clenched on my shirt and the other in a fist over his wallet. Needless to say, we did not stay long. 

Well that about sums up the days leading up to our wedding. We had many more adventures the following days, but I will save those for another time. We love you all, and wish those that couldn't make it, could have. We look forward to celebrating with you September 15th when Garrett can come back to San Antonio.

Basic Military Training Graduation

So as many of you know, Garrett has been in basic for the Air Force for the last 8 1/2 weeks. Although it's been hard for both of us, we have made it through! I sent him a letter every day he was there... when he added up pages (front and back) I sent over 160 pages worth of letters, not too shabby. He was pretty good at sending letters too, I think on average about 3 a week. It was nice to keep up with each other so well after he said before he went in that he didn't want to. I even wrote one of his other buddies, Nathan McGowan, a few times.
Well, Thursday April 19th started the celebration of Garrett's graduation. I headed out to Lackland Air Force Base at 0545ish for a briefing that was going on at 0700; even with some gate traffic I was still ridiculously early. Could you tell I was anxious? After the short briefing about what our Airman could and could not do, we were sent out to line the 'Airman's Walk' to watch them run by at 0800. I kept searching for Garrett's family, but I couldn't seem to find them anywhere. So standing alone on the road, I got to talk to the people on either side of me. One mother just about freaked out when I told her I came on my own, she thought I'd come from somewhere far away, but was relieved when I told her I was from in town. After a 40 minute wait, the Airman finally came through! The first time past us I spotted Garrett right away and couldn't help but just stare, totally forgetting about the camera in my hand... The second time was pretty much the same, though this time I recovered in time to take a picture of the back of his head... I know, I know, not my best reaction speed ever. After the run, I headed back towards the BMT Reception Center, still waiting to give Mama Bowen a call to find out where they were at. I went through the gift shop, looking for a silver Air Force emblem car decal, coming up empty. As I went out the other side I pretty much literally ran into Brandee, one of my awesome sisters-in-law-to-be. We were both about to say 'Excuse me', when we looked at each other and were like 'HEY!'. It was perfect timing. We still had plenty of time to kill until the Coin Ceremony was to begin so we set out getting Brandee lots of 'Proud Air Force Sister' memorabilia. She also became determined to find me an 'Air Force Wife' shirt. Can you believe that store didn't hold ONE wife shirt? They had ones for the girlfriends, but not wives! I'm just a little bit more than a girlfriend at this point... I said I would just look for one at the BX later and we went to get in line with Garrett's Dad and Grandma and Grandpa Bowen to leave a message for Garrett in the graduation video. After this we staked out our spots in the stands to be right in front of Garrett's Flight for the coin ceremony. By this time we were hungry and had over an hour to kill until the ceremony was to start. Brandee, Christina, and I went looking for food and had a very successful trip. We found a bumper sticker for me that I had been wanting, the Air Force Wife shirt, and food for all.

The ceremony was so great. First the honor graduates were presented and then all the flights came marching in. It was so good to see Garrett out there. We all made comments on how funny it was that his hat was so low compared to everyone else's. I couldn't help but stare the entire time(which Garrett made note of). After the coin ceremony Garrett's family sent me down to fetch him. At first I just wasn't sure what to do. I knew that we could not show PDA and I was a little unsure about what to expect from him. It turned out to be great though.
The rest of the day was spent wandering around base, spending time with Garrett's family, and going to the base museum. We first went to lunch at Godfather's Pizza, and because everyone only had base liberty it was packed! But we got to talk and meet a number of Garrett's flight buddies and find out where they were all going to Tech school at. It was great to go through the museum and have Garrett explain everything to us and relate the different things to his experience at basic. After the museum Garrett's family left us to have some 'alone' time, where we just went to the mini mall and walked around and talked and ate dinner.

Friday, 20 April - Graduation was early in the morning and I met Garrett's family to ride the bus over to the Parade Grounds. We did not have as good of seats as on Friday, but it was still great to see him in his Blues! While we were waiting for them to get into formation and begin the ceremony I was kept entertained by Alex and Ivy (Garrett's nephew and niece) as they played with Brandee's camera and were so excited to see Uncle Garrett since it's been 8 months since they've seen him. Alex is quite the photographer, he loved the air planes surrounding the field. The ceremony consisted of the Airmen reciting the Creed and saying the oath. Again, we were able to go out to pick up our Airman. Ivy and Alex accompanied me as I went to get Garrett again. We are extremely lucky people to have the family we have. The kids were hugging and hanging on Garrett as much as he would let them. Though, again it was not a lot. There were lots of hellos to be said on Friday for at the graduation was myself, Garrett's parents, three sisters, 3 nieces and nephew, Bowen grandparents, Grandma Sellers, and my parents and brother. Garrett is one loved man. After the rounds were made, we went to find Garrett's favorite plane and took some pictures with it.

After lots more picture, courtesy of Brandee Bagshaw one of my fabulous sisters-in-law, we headed out to Red Robin to treat Garrett to non-cafeteria-food. Garrett and I have a 'usual' at Red Robin. We love the Royal Red Robin burger because it has a fried egg on it. Garrett, however, saw the build-your-own menu and got a massive burger with probably about 13 things on it, including a fried egg of course. After receiving our order he continued to snarf the thing down as if he had two minutes to eat and was done well before anyone else with half the size burger. No small feat, since my brother was present at this point. :) When we were all stuffed, we headed back to Garrett's house to hang out, play games, and watch the Basic video that played clips and pictures from the training in the last 8 1/2 weeks. Garrett explained what was going on in each picture and gave us more in depth details of what he did. We finally drew to a close our visit and I drove Garrett back to base. We had some time to kill, because we left extremely early to make sure to avoid traffic and being late for his check in. We ate dinner and purchased Air Force gifts for Alex, Lily, and Ivy. Garrett was set on getting Alex a pilot's jumpsuit in addition to the Navy NWU's that his dad had bought him. We bought the girls teddy bears dressed in a pilot jumpsuit and ABU's. Dropping Garrett off to check in was extremely hard. I knew I still had two more days with him, but they seemed far too short.
Saturday, 21 April - I picked Garrett up from base, and we went to give the gifts to Alex, Lily, and Ivy first thing. After hanging there for a bit to chat, we had promised to go see Aunt Kathy, Uncle Mark, and his cousins Ryan and Jake. We sat and talked to them for a while. Garrett telling stories and giving details on Tech school. Around 1200 we went and picked up our good friend Richard to head back to my house for a game party with our friends. At 1500 I kicked everyone out because it was time for Garrett and I to have a date of our own. I had arranged it with my mom, and while we took Richard and my sister to work, she set up an indoor picnic in our living room. We had fruits and vegetables and candles and popped in a movie. It was so nice to be at ease with him. Our date ended all too soon when we had to leave to get him back to base in time. We became very familiar with the mini mall at Lackland that weekend. It was our 'go-to' place to kill time.

Sunday 22 April - Bright and early Sunday morning I headed out to Lackland for our last day together. I picked Garrett and another guy that happened to be from my ward at church, Todd Hagey to go to church. We enjoyed two hours of lesson and sacrament then Hagey needed to run a few errands at the BX. We went over there, were treated to brunch by Hagey, and spent the time talking to Garrett's buddies. We then browsed around until we were told that a few of them were going to a movie at the theater and decided to join them. I took Hagey back to barracks so that he could do some packing and things. We went to see John Carter because the actor is one our favorites from a TV show, Friday Night Lights. After the movie, Garrett's mom and sisters had been trying to reach us because they were back from their Girls' Weekend in Houston and ready to meet up with us. Brandee had offered to take some more engagement pictures for us with Garrett in his Blues and looking so sexy(my words, he used 'bald and buff' I believe). So we went to do that, and I am so impressed with how they turned out! Our first set taken with my cousin, turned out great, but these were a fantastic addition!

Possibly one of my most favorite.

Aren't they all just amazing? I only posted a few from the day, and these are the unedited copies, but i am totally in love with them. Funny story time: So as I said earlier, Garrett is unable to show a lot of PDA in uniform, which can be problematic for engagement pictures since the idea is to show how in love you are, right? I didn't put any up, but every time we went to take a kissing picture, Brandee would accidentally hit the wrong button and not actually take the picture on the first go. So we ended up doing a lot more PDA than we had planned. She kept promising it wouldn't happen again, and then it would. Kind of amusing. 

After beginning to melt in the sun with pictures, we headed for the mini mall food court to play some games to kill more time until it was check in at 1800. I'm sure it was quite the sight to see one Airman with 6 women around him at one table playing games. It was fun though. I just love his family so much and am so excited to become a part of it. 

I will sign off for now, I'm sorry this is a few weeks late. School started and combined with work and my family in town, it's been a little crazy. But I hope you enjoyed this first post featuring Airman Bowen and the future Mrs.