New Year!

Wow....2013!  It just doesn't seem right, did we even have Christmas yet? 

The holidays FLEW by for me.  My family was given a special Christmas present this year which was a tornado that hit 3 of my family members homes on Christmas night.  It is still heartbreaking to go out to the country and see what the tornado did to our land.  50-100 year old trees were uprooted.  What used to be beautiful is now bare.  Going out to my Grandparents was like going to my own little oasis.  I love the outdoors and absolutely LOVE watching the sun set over the pasture.  My grandparents and Aunt were lucky with the damage to their homes.  Some rebuilding will have to be done but that is nothing when you are so greatful that everyone made it out alive.  My Uncle William and Aunt Nell weren't so lucky, their home was destroyed.  I would show you some pictures but it's not letting me upload any.  I will try again later!

Tanner had to work New Years Eve so we celebrated the new year the following day.  Last year we celebrated in Atlanta and spent a fortune on Chinese food.  So we decided to make that our little tradition and got Chinese food this year too.  I know the little guys that cooked our food thought we were crazy for ordering so much.  But then again they do give you alot of food so maybe eating that much is normal?

I thought long and hard about my New Year's resolutions.  And here they are:

1.  I want to be a better wife.  I mean I'm already a great wife but there is always room for improvement! :) haha  One way that I am doing this is by starting our "love" journal. (get your mind out of the gutter...)  This journal is something that we take turns writing in.  This is a place that we write something appreciative, encouraging, etc about the other person.  It can be thanking your spouse for taking the trash out or that my hubby's tooshy looks sexy in his new pair of jeans.  It literally can be anything positive.  Nothing negative.  It will make us each feel appreciated and help us notice the small things.  Because it really is about the small things in life!!

2.  Finish School.  I would have already been finished but classes are expensive and once Tanner got his new job there was no way we could afford it any longer.  He took a major pay cut when he got hired.  Police should definitely get paid more!

3.  Get back into doing the things that I love.  For example:  Running-  Nothing makes me feel more relaxed than going on a nice run.  I used to run everyday, sometimes multiple times a day.  I stopped when I got a respiratory infection and once I got better I tried to start running again and ended up with another respiratory infection!  I told myself that apparently God didn't want me running anymore! haha  BUT I know that's not true! 

4.  Be better about keeping up with my blog.  Even if it's only for my family.  I know that my mother, sister-in-law and Tanner all read it!  And it's always fun to look back at old posts and see what was going on in the life of the Hensley's.

A New Journey:

Tanner graduated from the Police Academy this past Thursday and I have never been more proud of him!  This is definitely an exciting yet dangerous journey that we are about to embark on.

For the past 3 months I have had a small glimpse as to what becoming a Police Wife will entail. I have spent numerous days and nights by myself, done the "manly" duties around the house, planned dates around his schedule, etc. I've had 3 months to get used to the idea that everyday that my husband walks out the door, may very well be his last day.  Well.... I can tell you that I will NEVER get used to that.  Of course, that has always been the case, no one is guaranteed tomorrow.... but now he's chasing people that hate him.  This is a sacrifice that Tanner and I, as his wife, are willing to make to protect others.  Everyday that Tanner puts on that uniform, is another day that he is risking his life.  I am honored to be his wife.

 

Officer Tanner and me

 

Waiting on the Graduation Ceremony to begin!

 

 

 

Taking the Oath

 

 

 

Getting his Diploma!  WOOP WOOP!

 

 

 

 

Tanner and his grandparents!

 

 

 

Tanner's favorite quote which is appropriate for my new Law Enforcement Officer:

 

"It is not the critic who counts;

not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,

or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,

whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;

who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,

because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;

but who does actually strive to do the deeds;

who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions;

who spends himself in a worthy cause;

who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,

and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,

so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls

who neither know victory nor defeat."

-Theodore Roosevelt



 

 

 

The Bahamas!!!

We got back Saturday from a very relaxing cruise to the Bahamas!! We left last Monday morning at 2:00AM.... I wasn't looking forward to that, but everything worked out and we made it to our ship around 12:30. 

After we checked in and went through security and all that, we explored the boat.  It was HUGE and what's crazy is that it isn't even considered a big boat.... it's actually one of the smallest that Royal Caribbean has.

My most favorite thing was the absolutely BEAUTIFUL views.  The water is amazing.  I could definitely move down there.  I would want to live on paradise island in one of the colorful houses that has a boat dock.  Tanner and I decided that we would just rather have our own private island, you know like Isle Esme... from the Twilight Saga... Anyways, we did some looking around and we could definitely purchase us our own island, but we need $8 million first, so no big deal!! haha... maybe one day.....

We went to the pirate museum and that was pretty cool.  They had a bunch of old artifacts from forever ago that the pirates actually used.  Tanner loves history!  We did alot of shopping, I say "we" but it was really just me.  I window shopped for the next time that we go to the Bahamas.  We had no idea that diamonds are so much cheaper there.  We will definitely be going back in the near future, for let's say an anniversary present! I saw some gorgeous earings!

My second favorite thing would have to be the all you can eat, anytime you want, soft serve ice cream machine!!!!!! Tanner and I were constantly in line with the little kids. I LOVE soft serve ice cream.  I had ice cream for breakfast and for lunch and for snack and for dinner and for middle of the night and anytime I wanted it!

That's all for now!  I'll post the 4 pictures that we took later! (yea, I know, we aren't very good at taking pictures....haha)

LATEST HENSLEY NEWS:

The day that we have been so impatiently waiting for has finally arrived!!! Tanner will start working for our local Police Department August 23rd!  We are beyond excited.  Everyone keeps telling me these horror stories about how I will never see my husband, etc.  But anything is an upgrade from what he was doing.  I was only seeing Tanner for a rushed 30 minutes a day, during my lunch break.  Regardless of which shift he actually gets, I will see him more than I currently do and thats a plus!!

We decided that we wanted to celebrate his quitting, the new job, our anniversary and we might as well throw in my birthday... And what better way to do this than go on a cruise to the Bahamas!!!  That's right, we are going to the Bahamas in just 2 weeks.  We like to be spontaneous and booked a last minute cruise! :) We will celebrate our anniversary on the second night and my birthday on the third night.  I wonder what they will give/do for us?

So that's the latest news in our life!!

Our view in just a couple of weeks!!

Date Night/ Near Death Experience

As you know, Tanner and I have been going on at least one date every month.  These dates were planned at the beginning of the year.  If we don't do anything else during the month we have to at least go on the dates that we planned.  Especially since most of them are already paid for!  But since we love each other soooo much we make it a weekly habit.  I know, you just threw up in your mouth a little! :)

Last month we went to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery and saw 39 steps by Alfred Hitchcock.  The play is about a man in London trying to help a counterespionage agent. (I don't know what that means...so I googled it.... it's government activities designed to detect and counteract enemy espionage) But when the agent is killed and he stands accused, he must go on the run to both save himself and also stop a spy ring trying to steal top secret information.  We laughed throughout the play!  It reminded me a little of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  We definitely enjoyed it!

I bet you are wondering about the "near death experience" part of our date.  Well on the way back from Montgomery is was raining cats and dogs.... I wonder where that expression came from?  And who decided on cats and dogs?  My animals hate the rain....  Abby will hold her business for 2 days if she has to... she will not go out in the rain! 

Anyways, it was raining so hard that we could barely see.  The roads were full of water, the wipers were going so fast that I thought they might fly off the car, and we were driving very slow for 231.  Well before we know it we start to hydroplane.  I have hydroplaned many times but never like this.... we did a 180 through the median.... At this point I thought we were going to flip, I was in the passenger side and was picturing my head smashing against the ground!  Pretty scary, but we made it through the median without flipping.  The only thing I can figure is that it was so wet that we just kept sliding and God was definitely watching over us!  So we made it through the first hoop but we are still sliding and are now on the opposite side of 231, sliding sideways accross oncoming traffic.  At this point I grabbed Tanner's hand and was pretty much saying my goodbye because I just knew that this was it.  I just knew that all those cars coming at us were going to crush us.... at least me anyways, they were headed for my side of the car.  BUT we made it through that as well.... and then comes the hill.... we are headed for the trees now...  Tanner was finally able to gain control of the car again and was able to slam on the breaks before we went for the trees. 

We just sat there in silence for a minute in awe that we were still alive and that we made it through the whole ordeal like nothing ever even happened.  Molly Mazda's axle was full of mud and chunks of grass.  Also, the tire weights were knocked off but other than that eveything was fine.

In the movies you always see the person's life flash before their eyes but all I felt was peace.  I wasn't scared, I was content.  I don't have regrets in my life and am happy.  I have always been someone who is thankful for everything that God has provided me with and rarely take things for granted. I say rarely because everyone takes things for granted!  I absolutely hate negativity and try to find the positives in everything that life has to offer.  The good and bad.

Looking back on our little scary adventure that lasted about 30 seconds but seemed like 10 minutes.... I think about something that Abraham Lincoln said:

"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count.  It's the life in your years."

This is an absolute fact! :)  So make sure that you are really living your life because you just never know what can happen!!!!

A New Journey

So I was looking back, and apparently I must have deleted the post about our soon to be, hopefully to be new home!  Tanner and I woke up one morning and decided that it was time to buy a house.  That we just couldn't live in our mobile home any longer!  So we went on the websites that show all the houses that are listed.  Within 2 weeks, we got pre-approved for a loan, found a house, AND made an offer!  Our first offer was accepted, we are super excited.  2 weeks from Monday we will be closing on the house, as long as everything continues to run smoothly.  Keep your fingers crossed!  There are many things that we want to update.  Our first major project will be the kitchen and we plan on doing that in a couple of years! Here is a sneak peek as to what our future home looks like:

The family room:

The dining room:

The very blah kitchen:

Hunger Games and Fishing

I'm sure by now EVERYONE has heard of the Hunger Games, if you haven't then you need to come out from under that rock you have been living under!  Tanner and I read all 3 books a while back and absolutely loved them!  It took us less than a week to read the whole series, yes, they are that good.  We have waited and waited for the movie to be realeased.  It has been one of those, that there had to be complete silence everytime the previews played.  We went and saw it Saturday afternoon and LOVED every minute of the movie.  I thought they did a pretty good job at following the story line.  They did show something that you don't find out about until the second book but it worked out just fine!


We went furniture shopping this weekend, mainly for a recliner and finally found the best one in the whole world.  This chair was like being on a cloud.  It was by far the most comfortable thing I have ever sat in.  If I had closed my eyes when I reclined, for longer than a blink, then I would have gone right to sleep. 

Yesterday, was an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day.  One of the prettiest days in a while.  Of course, it has been pretty nasty here lately with all this rainy weather and storms!  Since it was such a nice day, Tanner and I decided to go fishing.  We picked up the bass boat and went to Lake Point A in Andalusia.  There was a small crowd but we were able to get away and go to the little cove that Tanner likes.  Out of the 6 hours that we were on the water, we caught 0 fish!  But that was OK, we still had lots of fun.  We enjoy anytime that we are able to spend together.  We came home with some wonderful tan lines!  My left arm got way more sun that my right arm.

Bridesmaids and Bird Nest

So it's been awhile since I've posted something on my blog!  I have been super busy with school and work and organizing everything in the house for our future move.  Yes, we will be moving in the very near future! Not out of Troy just out of our current house.  We are super excited and are in the process of gathering all of our information needed for purchasing a home.  This past weekend Tanner and I went to the lake with his parents.  The weather was absolutely horrible so we were pretty much stuck inside the majority of the time.  We watched movies basically the whole weekend.  We ran to the Talladega Wal-Mart and bought Bridesmaids.  It was a great movie and funny!

We did manage to go fishing a few times.  I recently bought a new bait caster.  I have always been a spinning reel kind of girl.  I have never liked bait casters.... more like, I don't have the patience for them!  But, Tanner wants me to learn so we went out and bought me a reel with an anti-backlash system.  Well everything was going good with it until.... I decided to catch a tree.  Needless to say, I got a bird nest.  The bird nest of the century as Tanner called it.  There was no coming back from this, we had to cut the line.  And guess what?  About 2 hours later, I was fishing in that same spot from before, caught the same tree from before, and bird nested again!  It was also another one that I was not coming back from.  After that, I gave up that spot and went back to my spinning reel.  All in all it was a relaxing weekend.  Very much needed before I started my 20 PAGE case analysis that took 15 hours total!  Anyways, I hope everyone has had an amazing week! Make sure you come back and see how I transform our boot mat!

Happy Valentine's Day!

As everyone knows, yesterday was Valentine's Day.  The day you show your special someone just how much you love them.  You should do this everyday in my opinion but it's nice to celebrate anyways!  Tanner and I celebrated Valentine's Day this past weekend by going on a little shopping spree.  I say little, but whenever we go Bass Pro Shops we always end up spending WAY to much money! We also exchanged gifts.  I got a watch and Tanner got a new fishing reel.

After a fun weekend, I wasn't expecting to actually do anything on Valentine's Day.  I had a doctor's appointment and Tanner had to work late.  While I was on my way to Enterprise, my car (Molly the Mazda) decides she wants to quit working.  My gas pedal got stuck and wouldn't budge.  I was going across an intersection when this happened.  So, I called Tanner and he came and switched cars with me so I could go on to my doctor's appointment.  I was so frustrated and just ill because I was going to be super late.  Then I got behind someone who refused to even drive the speed limit.  When I was getting blood work done the nurse lady had some major difficulties.  First, she got a needle that was the size of my vein if not bigger.  My vein was not wanting to participate and just kept rolling around, well she just kept trying and trying.  After my face turns white, I suggest that she try the other arm AND get a smaller needle, before I get sick.  She got the "butterfly" needle and finally got my other vein to work but then my blood just didn't want to flow into the tube, so she gave up with only 1/4 of the amount she was supposed to have.  I'm sure I will have to go back and get it redone.

I ran home to eat before going to work.  When I walk in the door, I have some beautiful roses, Breaking Dawn, and a bottle of wine waiting for me.  All of my frustrations left at that moment.  Like I said, I wasn't expecting anything on the day of Valentine's day.  When Tanner got home we drank some wine and watched Breaking Dawn.  Despite everthing that happened yesterday, I had a wonderful Valentine's Day because I got to spend it with my wonderful husband!

Gnomeo and Juliet Afternoon

Tanner and I spent the afternoon babysitting our precious nephew so my sister-in-law and her husband could enjoy some time together.  We started off watching a cute movie, Gnomeo and Juliet.  My sister-in-law, Whitney, has decided on making Landon's 2nd birthday a Gnomeo and Juliet themed party.  So, of course I had to watch it, so I can help come up with some fun ideas!  Landon and I layed on the floor, played with Buzz Lightyear and enjoyed the movie.  After the movie, Tanner and I had to tag team on the whole changing the diaper thing.  As soon as business was taken care of, we played chase, threw the ball, and took a ride on Aunt Jessie's shoulders.  We took quite a few rides and showed Aunt Jessie how out of shape she is!  Tanner and I have been doing Insanity for the past couple of weeks, but nothing beats toting a young-in around!  I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Looking Back

     As I look back on this past year, I can't help but feel so incredibly thankful.  I got engaged, married, went to Disney World, and received a promotion!    
     Last January, I got engaged to my high school sweetheart and best friend.  We have now been together for 6 years!  Tanner proposed to me in front of my ENTIRE sorority.  It's a long story on how he proposed but by the time he put the ring on my finger there was not a dry eye in the house!  I was excited, happy and every shade of red.

My BEAUTIFUL ring!

Tanner and I were engaged for 6 months.  Which is MORE than enough time to plan a wedding.  The ceremony was held on July 23, 2011 at 4pm in a little country church.  The day did not go as planned but I didn't let that get to me because I was there to get married! 

     After a little celebration with family and friends we were headed to Disney World!

 

     We came back from Orlando, started back to school, and a job opened up at the bank where I work.  I had always thought that if the position could just be available when I graduate then that would be perfect!  I talked everything over with my now husband and we decided that I should go ahead and take the plunge and if I got the promotion then I could finish classes online.  Well a week after the interview, I received the phone call asking me if I accept the position and of course I said yes!  Online classes are not ideal but I wouldn't change anything. I am very blessed and cannot wait to see what this year has in store for me!