Movie Reviews

Ian and I had the pleasure of seeing two good movies recently. Well, we've seen more than two good movies, but the last two I wanted to comment on.

Wanted: A good action movie over all, but prepare yourself for a few gorey secenes. The plot was pretty decent, and the actions sences were top notch. If you are a James McAvoy is as hot and steamy in this film as he is in any other film I've seen him in. Though his character at first is weak, when he gets "strong," you won't be disapointed by his performance. If you're an Angelina Jolie fan, she's certainly won't disapoint in this movie. The scene you see in the previews with her walking away with all that tattoos on her back is the same secene where she shows some full rear-end nuditiy. Other than her rear, you don't see anything else, the rest of the movie is pretty clean on the nudity front. (Minus a scene in the beginning with two people 'getting it on.' And again, you only see a guy's butt I believe. Another draw back to the movie was the language. If you don't mind hearing the "F" word quite a bit, then it won't bother you. But if you don't particularly like the gorey violence, mild nudity, and horrible language, I suggest you go see Get Smart!

Get Smart: All in all, Get Smart seemed like the "clean" version of Wanted. Both movies share similarities on low levels (assasins, double agents, spies, etc.) but the story lines are completely different. I personally enjoyed Get Smart much better. It was clean, no nudity, mild violence, but not very gorey, and there was still quite a bit of very entertaining action. Steve Carell made the movie not only funny, but down right hilarious! Ann Hathaway was just as good as she's been in any other movie I've ever seen of her. I'm growing rather fond of her movies actually. To date, I haven't seen one of them so far that I didn't like. "The Rock" adds an interesting twist with his character, and yet agian, does another good performance on the big screen. Yet another person I didn't expect to like, but so far out of all the movies I've seen with him in them, I've yet to find one I didn't like.

Ian and I also saw the Incredible Hulk and Iron Man a while back. Out of the two, I prefered Iron Man, but both were equally enjoyable. Both good and entertaining movies! However, Get Smart by far takes the cake on any movie that I've seen in a while. Yes, to me, it was THAT good!!

Enjoy everyone!

Ashley

Germany Here We Come

Hey Guys,

Well it's official! We are going to GERMANY!! Well, it's official that Ian is going to Germany, and we are about 95% sure that once he gets over there, I'll be able to join him shortly. We knew going into this that we probably wouldn't have a definite answer on whether or not I would be able to join him. So we're okay with the way things are working out. I feel very confident that God wouldn't have brought us this far if I wasn't meant to go with Ian. Either that, or God has something better in his plan for us, and maybe my path is to temporary separated from Ian to work on finishing my degree. Either way, we know that God has everything under control and that's good enough for us right now.

Now the most important things we need to worry about are finding out what to do with our apartment and spending time with friends before we leave. Some friends have mentioned that they might want to take over our lease (which ends in August) and sign a new lease of their own for another 6 months. But we need to talk to our landlord first and see what happens. This would be perfect for us, because then we wouldn't have to worry about having to pack up and move our entire house right now. Nor do we have to pay for a storage unit. (Which honestly isn't too horrible at like less than $150 a month.) But we'll see.

We're very excited though, because timing couldn't be better for us. All in all, God has been very good. It's been tough learning to trust Him through out this whole process, but as always He has prooven to be forever faithful. A few praises to account for; Ian will be leaving early August and he WILL be able to attend our friend's wedding! (Dawn and Marcelo-August 2nd.) I am a Matron of Honor in the wedding, and Dawn and Mars are very good friends to us, so we really wanted Ian to be able to attend the wedding. Thankfully, God is so good that he worked out that little detail for us. Another praise is that our lease just "happens" to end in August, which is when Ian will be leaving any way. So whether or not our friends take the apartment and hang on to our stuff, or we put it all in storage and end our lease, the timing of it all couldn't be more perfect! Another praise is that the original numbers for Ian's pay while he is in Germany were good, but when we did some final checking we found out that he'll actually be making quite a bit more than what we originally expected. Effectivly turning our "good" pay into "GREAT" pay. Which we are so grateful for.

Thanks so much to the family and friends that have been praying for us through this whole thing. Ian losing his job very suddenly was quite a shock for us. But God being so faithful as He always is has showed us a better path to walk down for now. For that, we will forever give Him all the Glory.

Ashley

Starting Fresh

Hello All,

Since most of the people that I know and see on a regular basis use this particular form of communication in the cyber space realms, I think I'll be a "crowd pleaser" and follow the yellow brick road to this blogging home. I've never been much on blogging, but we'll see how it goes. I'm much more interested in going places, seeing things, taking pictures and then writing about those things. I suppose it makes me feel most accomplished. Like I've actually done something for the day, week, month, year, & life in general. So I suppose now I'll have to come up with something more to write about.

Ian, my husband, uses his "blogging" spot for his political outlet. He says that rather than talk to me about it, which I'm not at all interested in 95% of the time, it makes it a nice way for him to vent about his opinions. I suppose if you just HAVE to tell people your opinions, this is a good way of doing it. Whether they agree with you or not, it easy to delete their comments, ignore them all together, or if you rather, respond in a matter befitting your personality. Me, I figured half of the time people never really read or care about what I have to say. I suppose that's probably why I've never really bothered with "blogging" in the first place. But alas, perhaps this blog will be different.

As opposed to my rather favorite website-myspace- I feel as if this one is rather, cave-manish. That isn't to be insulting to the people that feel the gmail blog here is The Almight Force in blogging establishments. It's very simple and easy, but has no, shall we say personality or style of it's own. Perhaps I just haven't given it proper time and attention to find it's personal style. I like that on myspace you can add music to your profile, pictures, slides shows, blogs, videos, comments. Though you can add videos and images to your blogging posts here, it's just on one long "page". Which seems, if nothing else, to imply that your whole life is just one long run on sentence. Instead of pages, chapters, links and etc. your stories and blogs just continue one after the other. I have to confess that I also rather like the artistic and interesting back grounds that you have to choose from on myspace. You can create something yourself or choose from hundreds and thousands of designed pages. Some more dark and graphic than others, but all most creative. There's a background design for almost every personality or mood. Which I tend to prefer since I feel my mood tends to be a reflection of the music and background that I add to my myspace page.

Just things to think about. I suppose to have this in chronological order, I should have posted my "previous blogs" from other pages first before writing this "introductory" blog into the new world of gmail blogging. But oh well, you'll just have to scroll down through the previous blogs to get to this original one. At the end of each blog here, I'll encourage you to check out my "other" website on myspace. It's open to the public, so you shouldn't have a problem accessing it, and as far as I am concerned it's by far the superior page to look at. Most of the information I put up here on this blog will also be put on the myspace blog as well. I'm not sure at the moment which site I'll be updating more frequently. I'll have to give you that information as I find it out myself. Hey, I'm not opposed to having the gmail blog grow on me in a way that transforms it in my own mind into becoming a superior site to myspace. Though, I severely doubt it. Now if at this point in time, you decide my style of writing or sarcastic nature is too unbecoming, please don't leave a comment, just don't come back. I feel that I should also mention that my writing style changes with my mood. Today, Sarcasm Abounds. :o)

Ashley

Tired of Waiting...

Tired of Waiting...

Okay so here's the deal. I'm tired of waiting on the military. All these confusing parts of a moving machine that never seem to get you where you need to be or want to be.

Ian and I have been waiting on a few minor details to be cleared up before we tell every one that we're moving to Germany. Yes, I did say moving to GERMANY. As in the country, where they speak this language called German. It's a short trip though, so don't go thinking that you're getting rid of us that easily. :o) It's a temporary duty for 6 months. Ian's main job would to teach and train the new kids that are just getting out of school. He would also be responsible for updating and changing their current programs and systems on how to train the new guys.

Since this is a TDY (temporary duty) it's basically being treated as a deployment for Ian. However, since it's a TDY to Germany, I would be able to accompany him. Currently we're looking for a place off post for us to live for the short 6 months that we would be there. That's not as much of a problem as getting permission to live off base. Ian has housing provided for him at no cost to us, but that housing situation doesn't allow me to be with him. So in the process of asking if we could have off post housing, the first time we asked we were turned down. However, this was due to the fact that they thought we were asking for the military to provide and pay for off post housing. That wasn't the case. We were asking for formal permission to live off post on our own, paying for it out of our own pocket. We have tried to clarify and are still waiting for a response.

Our Commander, that is doing all the negotiating in a sense for us with the Germany base, is just as confused about the situation as we are. We're getting a lot of conflicting information from different parties. Though I find it incredibly dis-heartening and frustrating, Ian assures me that it's like this every time when he goes on a deployment. So I feel a little more reassured by that.

So the long story short is that we're still waiting to hear about our housing situation. Please pray for us. Please pray that if this is God's best for us, things will fall into place they way they are meant to. Or that if this isn't God's best for us, it would be screamingly obvious that this is the wrong choice and God would open another door. Right now we kinda feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. June is winding down, and we still don't have any real answers or clear directions. If Germany isn't the right path, I'm afraid we don't know what the right path is.

Ashley

Unfortunate News....

Unfortunate News....

Hello Family & Friends,

As of Friday May 30th, Ian is no longer employed at his job in downtown Chicago. It was a bit of a surprise and shock, as we weren't expecting such a sudden turn of events.

The truth of the matter is that Ian and his boss didn't really see eye to eye on some things, and it eventually lead to the termination of his employment. In many ways, Ian is very happy to be done with that job.

Please pray for us as we're dealing with this stressful time. We know that God has everything in His hands, and we just want to be patient as we wait on the Lord to tell us what our next move should be. We have a lot of options infront of us, now we just need God's guidance to make the right decision.

Thanks for the support and prayers. We appreciate it very much.

Love,
Ashley & Ian