Man…I love this boy!

What is one thing that every missionary girlfriend looks forward to getting from their missionary??

HIS NAME TAG!!!!

Mike is doing simply AMAZING! He has transfers on Thursday and he is…staying in Warsaw as Zone Leader! Yay :) And he gets to be companions with Elder Tingey again! He is one of Mike’s favorite Elders. Mike is just so excited!

Mike got both mine and his mothers packages for his birthday and it looks like he had fun playing with everything in them!

My handsome birthday boy!

Mike wearing all 6 of the ties I sent him! Hahah!

 

 

Digging in to his birthday cake!

On exchange with Elder Tiner

Mike’s tag to celebrate 1 year!

 

Miss that face!

Poland looks absolutely GORGEOUS! I can’t wait to go visit there someday :)

 

 

My love for him grows daily and I cannot wait to hear his voice on Mothers Day!

Supercross

For the past 3 years I have gone to Supercross with my sister and brother-in-law. I always looks forward to it! It’s so much fun!

2 years ago Mike came with us…

Me and my cute boyfriend

And last year Mike had already left on his mission so he wasn’t able to come…

Tommy, Carson, Sean, Ash, Kami, Brad and Jamie

And this year we went with Jamie, Tommy, Brad, Kami, Melissa and Greg…

We had dinner at Café Rio (YUM!) and then went to the race which was so much fun! We were so close we could taste the dirt! Haha. Finally, for the first time, the weather was great! We didn’t have to bring coats, hats, gloves. All we needed was a light jacket. Almost everyone in the group wanted either Millsaps or Dungey to win, I was the odd man out and picked my man, Villopoto. (Two years ago when Mike and I went for the first time, we decided that Villopoto would be our guy, mostly because his name is funn to say! Haha). Well, it’s a good thing that I don’t follow the crowd. VILLOPOTO FOR THE WIN!!!! :D To end a great night, we stopped for milk shakes and fries at Sconecutter! Such a fun night :) Missed having my boy there but only 11 1/2 more months!

 

 

 

My man Villopoto won the main event! Whoop!

My sissy and I. Love her guts!

Hey look! We got on TV! Oh yeah, we’re famous. Haha.

And ya know what I just realized?? This will be THEE LAST Supercross without Mike! WOOHOO!!! :D

See You Again

This song is perfect

Halfway to Home!

Is this real life? Like seriously…are we really half way done with Mike’s mission? How is that even possible? It seems like just yesterday I was standing in Michael’s driveway waving goodbye as he was driving away, on his way to the MTC.

 

 

 

And it seemed like just yesterday that I was crying my eyeballs out…Heartbroken, sad, mascara running down my face, wishing that I could be put in a coma for 2 years.

 

 

 

But one whole year later….

Happy happy happy day!

You may not be able to tell…but I may be just a wee bit excited!

I’m not used to being “single” (if you will). For 3 1/2 years (my whole high school experience and the year before his mission), Mike was by my side. He was there for the ups and the downs that came with life. However bad it seemed to get, he was always there to make it better. Even though I do miss him like crazy, I feel like I needed these two years to be on my own.I now feel like a strong and independent person. I know that I needed to go through daily life without constantly being with my boyfriend and when I wasn’t with him, texting him every minute of everyday. This has been the hardest year of my life but it has also been the most rewarding. I have learned things that I know will help me with my future.I know that Mike and I need to go through these trials to make us better people. Mike deserves the best, and I need this time to make myself a better woman… for him.

  

I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since I’ve hugged him…I cannot wait to hug him again

The last picture taken of the two of us.

Miss that boy

 

1 year   12 months   52 weeks   365 days

+

59 letters     41 emails    3 packages    1 postcard   

1 teddy bear    1 lock of love key

1 jewelry box    2 scarves    More tags than I can count  

2 leaf flowers    2 shirts

Quite a few knick-knacks    2 bags

=

One Elder on a Mission & One happy MG :)

 

Have I really been away from Mike for that long? Sometimes it feels like it’s gone by in the blink of an eye and other times it just feels like it’s been even longer since I’ve been with him. I read from one of my fellow MG’s blog, "do not look at what is left but look at how far you’ve come. Thanks Kota :) I needed to hear that. When I tell people that my missionary has been out 1 year, they look at me and say “You still have a long way to go.” Well yeah…I do. But look how far I’ve come! It’s amazing! :)

Celebrating the downhill “slide” of his mission!!

I decided that in honor of his one year mark that I would take the giant paper off of “the wall”.

 

 

This is me saying “WHAAAAT??” in a really surprised voice

 

He made a giant tag of my name with cute little things written in the circles :)

He’s amazingly adorable

Cardboard Mike

Me and my main man (for one more year)

365 days until Elder Michael Raines returns!!!!

That’s me!

In only one more year I will be reunited with my best friend in the whole entire world! I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to that moment. For now, I will enjoy my time without him but you best believe that when he gets home, we will be inseparable :)

I love my missionary! He makes me smile even though he’s half way around the world.

ONE YEAR DOWN! ONE MORE TO GO!

See ya later bestie!

Wow. I never thought that this day would come. The day that I would have to say “see you later” to my bestest friend in the entire world…Janell Ann Snarr.

She is the most amazing friend that I have ever had in my entire life. How could I be so lucky as to have this girl in my life for the past 7 years? We might not have always seen or hung out with each other as much as we wanted to. But even if it had been months since the last time we’d seen one another, when we did finally get together, it was like we hadn’t even gone a single day without each other. She is honestly so similar to me in so many ways. We are the same height, same weight, same size (except for shoes-either I have ridiculously big feet or she has freakishly tiny feet…still not sure which), we have the same ideas, opinions, and the same likes and dislikes…we’re basically the same person. Haha. She makes me feel like I’m not alone in this world. Ever since I was little, I remember watching movies that had old ladies that had been best friends since they were young. I always wished that would happen to me. I know without a doubt in my mind that will be us. We will be sitting together in our rockers laughing and saying, “Remember when…” We already have it planned that we will live right next door to each other and that our children will marry each other. Haha. She will also be my maid of honor at my wedding (which she will come home 6 months after Michael gets home so Janell already has it planned. Michael and I can date for 3 months, then be engaged for 3 months and then we can get married the day that she gets home :) hah) and I will be her maid of honor at her wedding. Haha. It’s hard to explain how much someone means to you in words. She’s more than I could ask for in a best friend and way more than I deserve.

When I was putting this together it made me feel like I was making our wedding video. Hahah!

I’ll see you soon Sister Snarr <3

Wow…I already miss her…

Happy 20th Birthday Elder Raines!!!! :)

Today is Mike’s birthday!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

If you wanna wish Mike a happy birthday though, leave a comment! And I will be sure that he gets the message!

This was us exactly one year ago celebrating his 19th birthday :)

 

Happy birthday my dear Elder! I’m so proud of you!

LOVE YOUR STINKIN GUTS!!!

XOXOXOX

                                   -your girl Ash <3

Birthday/One Year Package!!

On Monday April 8th I sent Elder Raines another package :)

Birthday Portion…

Things to help him celebrate his big day!

Fun little gifts for him

A missionary can NEVER have too many ties! ;)

Just some things that he can play with. A paddle ball, hacky sack, yo-yo, a ball, silly putty and a Coca-Cola key chain :)

We love Batman <3

My favorite thing about this package was that I send him an SD card with some people saying happy birthday! (I’m super sorry if I didn’t get you on it, it was very poorly planned on my part…next year!) I will post a video later though :)

 

One Year Mark…

Once missionaries have hit their one year mark it’s called “Hump Day”.

I sent Mike this awesome poem comparing missionaries to camels and I also sent him a little toy camel to remind him :)

Mr. Camel

Small Easter Portion…

Part of this package I also included some stuff for Easter

Reese’s eggs are his favorite! Has to be the eggs though :)

Plastic eggs…I’ll explain more about those

A picture of Jesus. This picture is my absolute favorite picture of Jesus :) I also included something very personal and special to me, my testimony. I’m not the best at sharing my testimony, so I thought that it would be a perfect thing to share with him

I found this cute little thing on Pinterest! It’s called “The Easter story in eggs”. In each egg there is a piece of paper with a scripture on it and then an object that goes along with the scripture. Example: Egg #2 has the scripture Matthew 26: 48-49 and inside is a chocolate kiss. I just wanted to include something that would help him remember the true meaning of Easter (even though it was a couple weeks ago)

 

 

Packed up and ready to go to Poland!