Friends and Family Cookout: Our Version of Mandatory Family Fun Day!

When the weekends approach my husband and I try and find fun things to do that don’t always encompass the bars. Since most of the poker runs we ride in to raise money for different things include said establishments, we decided we needed new events that exclude going out. We have an awesome community that we love to spend time with, however, we are burned out on the same places we constantly go to. That’s how the monthly family cookout was born! 

At least once a month someone hosts a cookout. Each family attending brings a dish and what they are drinking. The host provides the main course. This keeps costs down for the host and incorporates a variety of food for everyone! When attending we get everyone together and decide who is hosting next month's cookout, and so on. This concept reminds me of the good ole Marine Corps Mandatory Family Fun Days (the camaraderie that is 😉)

This concept is nothing new but it’s something we all love to do. We figured it’s a potluck with a fun spin on whose house it will be at each month. Next month the family hosting is doing a Mexican theme, so we are all bringing Hispanic dishes! We enjoy looking forward to choosing a dish to make and cook together. 

At our first cookout, we had over 30 guests, and it was a blast. Our guests were amazed at the amount of food and options since everyone brought a dish! We kindly remind our guests of our curfew (you may have read my last blog talking about our Cinderella Liberty -- 9 pm) that way we don’t get stuck entertaining past the time we prefer. 

Knowing that we have a cookout to attend every month keeps us excited about the weekend and the friends we get to spend time with. It’s a positive change of pace. We used to be the only ones doing the events and cookouts which was costly and stressful. Once we came up with the idea of all of us rotating each month, it took the strain off us feeling obligated to be the only ones making the effort. It’s something everyone was open to and excited to participate in! 

Some of the themes we have discussed and done may inspire you to create your own family and friend cookout rotation: 

• Bring your own steak night

The host provides sides and you cook your steak your way on our grill. 

• Family and friends brunch

The host provides an omelet bar. We put out our camping cooktop with a table full of things to put in your omelet, made to order of course! 

• Build your own kabobs

The host provides veggies & protein. Guests bring a dish and build their kabobs while my husband tends to the grill (the kids loved this one!)

These are just a few ideas we have done that hopefully inspire you to start your very own cookout rotation. We try to come up with simple ideas that are fun but take the stress off of hosting and help bring down the costs. Whether it’s a cookout with 2 families or 20 families, it’s still a great way to spend your Saturday with those you care about and of course chow down on some awesome food! 

National Marriage Week: Love is Worth the Work

The Coalition has been with us since very early in our marriage--- when the invisible wounds of war dominated our young love. Without faith in God, I'm not sure how we would have been able to make it through. The days were tough, and the nights were long. I was only beginning to learn what it meant to be a wife, a caregiver, and the biggest cheerleader and advocate for my husband while preserving his strength and dignity as the leader of our home.

We were not the only ones navigating marriage with both visible and invisible wounds of war. We attended the Coalition's Road to Recovery, where I discovered I was not alone in my worries, fears, and daily struggles, and neither was he. With our faith at the center, healing started after several years of swimming upstream and trying to do it without the wisdom and support of our veteran community.

Fast forward almost a decade, and we are still learning how to outdo one another with honor by loving each other well, listening, responding, and growing our intimacy. One thing that's helped us is intentionally working on our marriage. It's too easy to go through the day-to-day: the appointments, work, maintaining a household, family, and friends, and end up exhausted not giving my best to the one God has blessed me with to do life together. We combat the struggle with complacency by seeking ways to invest in our marriage: from coffee/tea dates to snowmobiling to eating a meal together to gardening to a kiss good morning and good night to talking about our hopes and dreams as well as our biggest fears. We still have a lot to work on, but being purposeful with our time has helped.


And while this post is intended for Marriage Week, I also know the reality of a broken marriage as I have been there before. Whether married, single, dating, or engaged, I encourage you to find ways to love those special people in your life: your spouse, significant other, kids, family, and friends.

Back to Marriage Week---

One of our favorite ways we chose to cultivate our marriage was in 2022 when we attended the Heroes Freedom Weekend in Virginia. This retreat was designed to strengthen and nurture marriage with every well-planned detail.

There were ample opportunities to learn ways to communicate and love well through interactive presentations by Dr. Johnny Parker and his amazing wife Lezlyn.

Having fun together is a MUST! And boy, did we have fun. From delicious meals and tours of historic Colonial Williamsburg to enjoying the beautiful hotel grounds to playing a "How Well Do You Know Your Spouse?" style game--- we laughed and smiled more than we had in a while!

Bonding with other veteran couples was one of the many highlights of this trip! Making lifelong friends to help support and encourage our marriage is vital to making our marriage veteran strong! Surrounding yourself with good people is yet another way to protect and refuel your marriage.

We can't thank the Coalition enough for making veteran marriages a priority. In fact, without the tools we learned that weekend, our trip home may have ended in tears, an argument, and PTSD flare-ups. Instead, we were able to implement the skills right away when after boarding and attempting to take off, our flight was returned to the gate and canceled. We were faced with being stranded in New York for days, but we worked together, used our strengths and got a rental car to make it home by the next day!

How will you be intentional in strengthening your relationships this week?

Written By: Tiffany Steinmann, Caregiver, America's Little Helpers Program Manager

Finding the Balance and Blend

This is the first time I've ever been asked to write about what it is like to live with a Veteran and become their caregiver.  I truly had to think about what direction I wanted to take with this. Let me first tell you a little bit about us both; my name is Tonya and my husband is Joe. 

I am a disabled Navy Veteran, but I never deployed. After I got out of the military I started working for the Department of Defense as a Police Officer. I served for 15 years. In 2007 my mother passed away and I became the caregiver of my sister, who was almost 25 at the time. My sister relocated from Texas to Connecticut to live with me. A year later, in 2008, we relocated to South Carolina, trying to get closer to home.  Then in 2010, I met my husband - he was still on active duty at the time.  We married a short time later, on April 1, 2011 (yes April's Fool's day!) We had our first baby in Jan 2012.

Throughout the first year, we struggled with his drinking. While we dated, I knew he drank but because of my work schedule and the long shifts, he was able to hide the amount that he drank from me. Then after I became pregnant and my work hours changed I realized the amount he was drinking. It truly scared me because my dad was an alcoholic and both of my parents were drug addicts. I refused to have my sister or my children be raised around an alcoholic. We never argued or fought about it, but we talked about it. I explained my reasoning and he would explain his.  He slowed down but would always have an excuse to grab a "six pack 24 oz" on his way home. Finally, when our son was just a few months old, there was an incident where Joe was holding him while he was drunk and almost dropped him because he "tripped". I flipped a lid and put my foot down. It was agreed upon that he would drink only on his birthday, and he would go get the help he needed that following Monday.

Well, that choice started us down a long road that we never expected. The medications he was put on about a year later caused him to be medically discharged from the USMC in April 2013. He struggled a lot with his PTSD/Anxiety but he truly had an amazing Psychologist while we were in South Carolina. Then we decided to relocate to Texas in January 2014, to be closer to our families. Then, we struggled with getting him the proper treatment needed from the VA psychologist clinic in our new town. It seems like every time we turn around he ends up with an intern, who wants to try the same medications he has already tried, so we know it does not work. But because "they are the doctor so they are right" regardless of what the veteran is telling them. I, as the caregiver, have to deal with the aftermath.

As a caregiver and spouse, you deal with a very upset veteran when they get home from their appointments... the mood swings they go through as their medicines are getting changed out, or when they are simply overwhelmed because they are not able to get a doctor for any permanent length of time that listens to them and what they are feeling and/or what they would like to happen. 

My husband does not suffer from any visible physical injuries; the majority are mental and emotional but have given him a form of Tourette Syndrome. His ticks have changed over the years. As his caregiver, these are just as difficult because you have to learn his triggers and watch for his signs. Overall we keep our communication line between us open. I know most of you who are caregivers know that being able to talk to one another is very important. He and I had a hard time in the beginning because we had two children and my special needs sister, who suffers from short-term memory disability and a slight case of cerebral palsy, which is only getting worse as she gets older. All of which just added to the stress, but we all have our trials and tribulations that we deal with daily.

After almost 12 years of marriage, making sure we keep our communication line open between one another and finding even just 30 minutes of alone time throughout the chaos of the day really makes a difference.