Just Beginning

Welcome to our blog!

Please pardon the look of things; its a work in progress.

Here's a little bit about us!

My name is Mara. My husband, Zack, and I have been married for about two and a half years. We didn't have a wedding, but one day we hope to. We live in a small town by the border of Mexico in Arizona. There's pretty much nothing here but dirt, jets, and a few great people we've met along the way!

We recently welcomed our first child, Aubrey, into this world. She's the most beautiful and sweet baby I've ever met (call me bias)! She's our whole world and better than we could've imagined (most of the time haha). We're so blessed to get to watch her grow up into a beautiful woman many, many years down the road.

I'm currently a stay at home mom and love to make crafts in my free time, although I don't have much free time these days! I admit, I'm addicted to Pinterest. Its like a clutter-free online bulletin board that I can always go back to for a recipe, DIY tutorial, and fashion advice! Who knew the world wide web was so great?
I was born in Arizona, lived in Texas and New Mexico, and have been back in AZ for years now.
My husband is currently in the Marine Corps, but he's in the process of making a career change to city police in a bigger city. I'm very proud of him and all his hard work!
He was born and raised in a small town in Ohio that borders Pennsylvania and West Virginia. I found myself my own country boy.

I can honestly say that the first year of living together was the hardest for us. I think that we're typically told that the first year of marriage is the hardest presuming you will be living with your spouse immediately. For us we didn't move in together until we were already married for three months. Anyway! About seven months after moving in together he left on his first (and last) deployment. I'm not looking for sympathy and I'm not writing a sob story about how hard it was, and it was hard. There are people I know personally who have gone through harder deployments with very little communication, had their babies and raised them alone (for some, multiple times), and have gotten used to their spouse being gone half of the year every year.
Our experience made us stronger, closer, and more grateful than ever for each other! I will never forget what it was like to have your other half across the world, not knowing where they are or if they're okay. Thank God we were able to Skype almost every night, we were very lucky! I'll never forget that first embrace and sweet kiss when I met him at the airport after six long months!

Photo by: Jared Dort/Yuma Sun (click to read article)

And I thank God each and every day that my husband has been here throughout my whole pregnancy, was there when our daughter was born, and never went on the deployment he was supposed to this year. I look forward to the huge changes coming up in our lifelong journey together! We'll continue to keep our faith that God will guide us in the right direction on our journey. :) That being said...

WELCOME

to our little journey