personal update

I want to apologize to the faithful readers that I have. I’ve been MIA for about a week. I should have forewarned you a little better. Im in Raleigh, NC now and have been here all weekend staying with Jennifer. Life is pretty darn wonderful for me right now. Everyday I spend with her, Im more convinced that she is indeed the one that God has for me. She has such a fiery personality and that is one of the many things that I love about her. What also excites me is that I have the temperament to handle this strong personality. We were talking to a counselor a few weeks back, and he said Women get into relationships hoping to change the men, while men get into relationship hoping the women won’t change. I think that is case with us as well.

Im really having a great time here. Jennifer has a beautiful home in a very wooded area in North Carolina. Her two dogs (children) also are a lot of fun. Ellie, likes to go to the park to play soccer. You kick the ball to her and she dribbles it back with her nose and paws. Its pretty funny to watch. It’s “those amazing animals” type of video. My parents are arriving tonight. They really want to meet Jennifer. So it will be nice the next week hanging out with my dad while Jenni works during the day. They are so excited about my marriage to her. I think they saw the depths of my despair and pain with my divorce and for me to be happy again really brings them a lot of peace and closure. Really my mother never got over the divorce. So I think she is looking at this marriage as a second chance for me as well as her. My sister will be driving down tomorrow as well with two of my nieces. I think her main priority is shopping but if she can throw in a dinner with me, that can’t hurt.

You know I was thinking about this blog and when to wrap it up. Its not like I really wanted to start writing the blog nor become obsessed with it. God told me to write my book in Bahrain and the book has been in the form of this blog. Not sure if I’ll get it published, not sure if anyone would want to read it. But I’ll leave those types of details to God. I had to continue to write in the blog until I had an ending. Well..now that Im marrying Jenni, I have that ending. I really believe its going to be a “Happily Ever After” ending. So I don’t want to just continue to write to say…”Look how happy I am.” Nor do I want to write about the marital struggles that Jenni and I surely will face. Those of course should be kept private. Jennifer and I are aware that struggles will occur but we have already formed a game plan to combat that. That is complete 100% honesty. Nipping problems in the bud with communication before the argument mushrooms out of control. Jennifer and I have a saying…whenever eruptions of conflict occur, “Its never about the drapes.” Meaning unresolved tension builds then eventually finds an outlet like leaving the cap off the toothpaste, not picking up clothes, leaving the toilet seat up, then an eruption occurs of a minor circumstance. Venting turns mountains out of molehills. So we have a plan in place and its working. We’ve already had some potentially big disagreements that were quelled with reason and communication.

So where does that leave the blog? Im not really sure at this point. I do want to continue to write about God’s faithfulness in my life. I still want to write about my amazing adventures in the Middle East, my career, and life. So we’ll just have to wait and see. I haven’t been writing this past week…because all of my energy has been put into Jennifer and savoring each moment we have together. Im only here for two weeks then we’ll be separated again for an undetermined amount of time. Im not sure when we’ll be able to live together as regular man and wife. She has so much to resolve here and my career is in a state of transition. But we both know we will be there for each other. Its just very nice having someone to care about no matter where there present locale is.