The mysterious hand

It appears that this building really is haunted. Can you see the HAND between Jeremy and Daniel?????

Sneaking around the "haunted" building

Kim & Chuck take a break while on the Ghost Tour

Park your phone at your own risk

mid-party clean up....

Eddie Visits Hinesville!

Memories of a Happy Day

2 years ago today I was anxiously driving up to St. Augustine and I was probably just arriving now (11:45 am) or I was fairly close to arriving. I was wearing jeans, a pretty sweater with black,white, pink, and red on it, boots, and I had some Leggos in the trunk of my car and a knot in my stomach. I was on my way to finally meet this guy named Daniel. I had been speaking to him on the phone for about a month and a half and I had totally fallen for him. He was so supportive, clever, and fun to talk to. He had been through some crazy stuff with me in those 45 days and had stood by my side every step of the way. I remember asking him if he was sure that he wanted to meet me. I was afraid he'd be disappointed with me in person.

It was raining and very cold. I had never been to St. Augustine so I was excited to finally get to know this historic city as well as finally meet this person who I admired so greatly already. After driving around for some time trying to find the restaurant that we had planned to meet at (La Pentola), I finally landed a spot just outside the restaurant and then I nervously got out of the car and tried to calm down. There was an amazing mixture of feelings bouncing around in my body. I was excited, worried, nervous and anxious.

I remember walking through the door and seeing that the restaurant was quite empty (I believe it had just opened) but as soon as I walked in, I saw this tall man stand up in the back and I immediately knew it was Daniel. He had recognized me (from all the photos we had sent each other) and I approached him and we awkwardly hugged and kissed briefly. I remember being very nervous as we sat down but Daniel was so warm. He held my hand at the table and looked into my eyes. Shortly I started to feel relaxed and very comfortable. We then exchanged gifts ( I gave him some leggos and he gave me the perfume/lotion that I had wanted) and then we set out to tour St. Augustine. I was still struggling to walk in boots since my surgery that I had been recovering from, but he was so gentle and made sure to hold on to my arm when we walked up and down any stairs.

After finishing our tour we found a random place to park my car and then we drove up in his car to his place and then went out to Savannah that evening. We had an amazing time and I immediately felt comfortable and happy with him.

I am so happy to have these memories to cherish every year on this date for the rest of my life.

Thank you, Daniel for loving me and for being so wonderful!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Daniel's View of The Kitchen

Our Weekends Are Always Wonderful

Yum! Vanilla Souffle Was The Specialty This Weekend

"I Have ALL The Dogs!"

The Doggies Love Daniel

Morgy & Daniel

Morgy is so needy! He was constantly coming over to both of us for attention, but he does seem to prefer attention from Daniel; as you can see in this picture, he has his head on Daniel's leg.

Weekends With My Daniel

This weekend Daniel drove down to spend barely 2 days with me. We have done the long distance thing for some time now. Actually, 2 years and 2 days from now (Feb 14th of '04) we were both driving up to St. Augustine to finally "meet" in person after speaking on the phone for a month and a half. After that I drove many, many miles to see him and shortly thereafter he than drove many, many miles down here to see me. Then the army whisked him away for all of 2005 and there was no amount of driving that either one of us could do to bridge such a gap.

Thankfully technology kept us as close as could have been possible. Kind of ironic considering that's how we met. It's too bad that Valentine's Day falls on a Tuesday, because it is our 2 year celebration of meeting in person, but we celebrated this weekend.

Daniel brought me a surprise for Valentine's Day: The Cheat! A stuffed animal version of that lovable yellow toy from Homestar Runner. He even talks! I'll let Daniel do a post about how this stuffed animal tortured him for 5 hours in the car!

Daniel took me out to dinner to a very nice place, as he mentioned in the previous post, and it was quite delicious. We have been very pleased with the food and the service both times we have gone there, so it's now on our list of favorite places to go.

Saturday was somewhat of a busy day; I took my car in for it's service, Daniel had a massage, we went grocery shopping for dog food and San Pellegrino (at Sam's) and then again for the evening's main menu: Focaccia with fresh mozzarella and tomatoes with vanilla souffle. Daniel worked on doing a complete reinstall on my computer as well, which was a little troublesome and had to be finished this morning. We had fun, and so did the doggies, as you can see in the pictures.

I am so happy to have my Daniel home and I love spending the weekends with him! It will be so nice to actually live in the same city some day!

All The King's Horses

A couple months early, for sure, but I have recently moved the entire contents of All The King's Horses (my web log from Iraq) to this site. It was a cumbersome task, but one which was inevitable and inescapable.

I read through some of it. It makes for rough reading now that I'm home. It stirs uncomfortable memories that I have so far successfully repressed (once again). But it is healthy, I think, for me to go through them bit-by-bit. Since coming home a month ago, I have been dealing with Iraq dreams. They are not traumatic in the sense that stuff was blowing up and whatnot. More so, they are tedious. Many of them have me sitting around, waiting. Others have me queued in some line or another. Perhaps I haven't shellshock, but the boredom drove me closer to insanity than bullets or mortars ever did.

When I stop having the Iraq dreams, I'll hopefully be ready to "come home" for real. Until then, it's repression all the way. I have a Guinness and an XBox 360 to serve the purpose for tonight. Over the weekend, I'll be down in Tampa with Holly again. We are going to Restaurant BT for our Valentine's Day dinner (since I will be back in this crappy Podunk hovel for the 14th). We found this place through Zagat's Survey. If you like dining-out & spending lots of dosh on nice meals, you ought to look into a membership.

We'll put some pictures up over the weekend, no doubt. I'm allergic to the camera or something. I hate to "accessorize". I don't even carry my mobile phone around with me. The burden of journalizing photographic episodes of our lives falls to Holly who, by default, always has her purse (and thus room for a camera). In any event, stay tuned.

The New Leaf

For Holly and I, this is a new blog to keep our family and friends up-to-date on our new life. There will be pictures, recipes, stories & much more. Here, for example, is a picture of a very pretty leaf:

To the fans of All The King's Horses (my blog from Iraq), I will be posting a link to the site - along with an history of the events that led to its demise - shortly following my emancipation on April 30th. Although I imagine La Nouvelle Feuille may yet bear some of the scars from last year's negativity, the theme will be more positive. Hard-core fans of the darkness spawned from my misery in Iraq may find more enjoyment in other sites.

A final note of thanks to all those people who had been so super to Holly & I over the last year. Despite a promise to the contrary, I left a lot of letters of support unreplied-to. I apologize for that, but please know that my gratitude is deep, and my thanks ever-lasting.