Road Trip!!!!

Yeah!!! Richard and I are going on a road trip! He's got drill with the National Guard this weekend, but instead of going to a regular drill, he's been invited to attend a conference type event in Austin , TX for potential OCS (Officer Candidate School). I'm so very proud of him. The great thing is, I was invited to go as well. Apparently they are suppposed to have briefings for the spouses as well. So after scrambling to find babysitters, which is a challenge in itself since I only have as many friends here as I do fingers on one hand, we're going on a road trip to Austin. I hear it's a beautiful city so I hope to bring back lots of pictures and stuff to talk about. Wish us safe travel and I'll see ya later...

The Trouble with Santa

The trouble with Santa is that the only one you can blame is yourself. "Santa" thought it would be a good idea to give my 4 year old Silly Putty in his stocking this year. Aaron thought it was great fun "decorating his toys with it, which is fine, Silly putty cleans off of plastic fine. It's the silly putty that is ground into his jeans that's the problem. Brand new jeans...aaagggghhhhh. I've Googled how to get it out and I've seen GooGone and rubbing alcohol. Has anyone tried these remedies and if you have which one works? Boy, I sure would love to have a talk with Santa, but I'm sure they'd lock me up for that conversation!

Happy FAll Ya'll

I'm still here. I just got a new computer! yeah i'm so excited. As soon aas i get the boys halloween pictures loaded, i'll get them on here. I just wanted to let you know that i miss everyone, and i miss the fall weather. I found some pictures of fall leaves from a couple of years back and i really started missing north carolina this time of year. Just wanted to post a quick hello and let everyone know i'm thinking of you.

Sue the Dinosaur

Today we went to see Sue the T-Rex. She's the largest, most complete t-rex skeleton ever found. She was found in south Dakota i think and her actual bones are in chicago. the display we saw today was a replica of the actual skeleton, well at least we think it is. I can't imagine the actual skeleton being on a traveling display. So anyway, Andrew was so excited to see it and aaron was more excited to play with the displays that were interactive. all-in-all we had a good time.

i'm back!!!

i bet you thought i was never coming back? well ... i did. the sad thing is there's really not a lot to write about because nothing exciting happens here. so I've included some misc. pictures of things that we have done and hopefully things will be more exciting from now on.


this was the funniest thing. i think all kids put on their dad's shoes at some point and it's always so adorable, but Aaron put on Richard's work boots which are really heavy and he could barely walk.
we visited king ranch in kingsville, TX a couple of weeks ago. all we got to see was the welcome center because when we got there, the tours of the ranch were over. needless to say we are going to go back, probably when karleene comes in December. and of course Andrew found a tree to climb.

then we met daddy for lunch one day at a park near the area he was patrolling. Andrew has been wanting a picture with his dad so we took this opportunity to take some picts.



like i said not much happening here. i think things are starting to get better though. yesterday the boys and i went to the park next to the library and there was another lady there with her kids. she started talking to me by saying what a nice day it was that the breeze was really nice and it was a great day to take the kids to the park. i responded yes it was...theN she said to me "you're not from here are you?" i told here no that i was from nc. she replied that neither was she. then she asked me how long i've been here. i told her only a year. she said she remebered her first year here, how depressed she was, how she had no friends, how click-y the women here are and how they make you feel like and outsider and how she cried nearly every day. it was like looking at myself in the mirror. i truely believe God sent me an angel yesterday. we talked for about two hours why the kids played, and theN she invited me to come hang out with her and her girlfriends every friday at the same park after school. she said the kids all play and the moms just sit and visit. you know...girl time. i truely felt blessed to have met her. and i thanked her for talking to me and inviting me to meet her friends. she was very encouraging and said all you need are a few good girlfriends and you can handle anything. and you know, she's right. so to all my girl-friends... i love you and imss your support and friendship.

Gramma's visit to South Texas

It occured to me that i never put anything on here to tell you about my visit with my mom and Jonathan. We had a great two weeks, and even though we didn't do a lot, we did see some cool things and had a great time.

We went armadillo chasing! Literally! we went to a park that has a large open field and it was full of armadillo's. we were trying to get close enough to at least one to get a good picture and ended up chasing several. We laughed and had a great time doing it. i'm just glad the park rangers didn't see us.

Then Richard took us to see this really cool tree that he found on one of his patrols. it's over 900 years old. It's not real tall but it's really big around. Andrew, of course, tried to climb it, but it's not as easy to climb as the tree in front of Clinchfield Baptist.

And of course we had to go to South Padre island! This is my favorite part of being where we are. it's only a little over and hour to get to the beach. The kids had a great time even though the water was cold. Aaron played in the sand and got a little wet, and Jonathan and Andrew ventured out in the waves and had a great time. Mom and i just kicked back on the beach and relaxed. i have to tell this story though. Jonathan is going to kill me. He forgot to take his wallet out of his pocket before he got in the ocean, so needless to say, he made a donation to the "save a whale foundation of S Padre Island"!!!

By the way, this was the best was to spend New Years Eve .

i know, i know, i know

i know i need to put stuff on here more frequently, but give me a break, there's not a whole lot of exciting things happening right now. we're getting back in our routine after Christmas break. well, what routine we had. With Richard's crazy schedule it's hard to do too much planning. This week and next he's on days, then it's back to nights. i don't think i'll ever get used to it.

Andrew is doing a lot better. he's finally making friends here in the community. We actually had a play dat the other day. Madison and Darren were here most of the day and what a great time they had. i think the boys would have had a better time with out madison, but i was babysitting for the neighbor so they didn't have much choice. School's getting better for him too. he made the a-b honor role this 6 weeks. YEAH!!! he's really excited about that.

thanks for all your support and prayers. we really appreciate all you've done for us. we love you.

p.s. i'll try to do better and get more picts on here.

Hello again. Not really much to talk about here, not that much going on. Richard is on a swing shift now which means he goes in at 3:30, is supposed to get off at 12:00 but has at least 2 hours over time so it'll be 2:00 or 3:00 before he gets home. this new schedule really sucks for all of us. i'm so used to getting things done during the day while he's gone, but now he's home and usually sleeping in so i can't really do too much during the day since i don;t want to wake him, then in the evening it's homework, supper, play and bath and bed. so then the boys are in bed and i still can't clean. uugghhh. i'll figure something out, i used to manage a teller line, surely i can manage my own household.

anyway, andrew is doing okay. he had to get a vaccine yesterday. Apparently it was either missed or never required when he was little (at least not in NC). anyway, the dr went ahead a did a physical on him. he's very healthy except he may need glasses. he's not very happy about that, just one more thing to make it harder for him to fit in, at least that's what he thinks. He'll be fine, i'm sure of it. His daddy even told him he didn't have to get big ugly brown ones like I had when i was little (i know Mom, i wanted them to be just like yours. he just likes to give me a hard time). say a little prayer for him if you would.

aaron is funny as ever. his newest thing is that there are monsters in the potty and he won;t go pee-pee unless someone goes with him. i'm not real sure where that came from but it sure was funny when he asked his daddy to fix the potty to get rid of the monsters. Richard didn't know what the heck he was talking about.

As for me, i'm hanging in there. i miss home, family and friends. and as i think about my mom-in-law getting ready for her annual tree-trim party, i realize how blessed we have been to be surrounded by so much love for the past thirteen years. i'm really gonna miss Christmas in NC this year. As much as i am loving this warm weather (you know how i hate the cold), it just doesn't feel like Christmas so i'm having a hard time getting in the mood. hey Karleene, do you think you could send some snow if you get any? on a brighter note, my mom and my nephew are coming for christmas and i am so excited about that. so is andrew. he and jonathan are pretty close despite the difference in age, so i think we'll have a great time.

well, i guess that's about all. like i said, there's not a whole lot of exciting stuff happening right now. hope you all have a great day/evening. may God bless you this Christmas.

Torture Tuesday & Halloween

I learned a valuable lesson today...don't do laundry during the day. You see, the community we live in has 12 buildings each with anywhere from 8 to 18 apartments in each one, you do the math. there is only one laundry facility (which i am thankful for since both my washer and dryer died when we got here) that has 5 washers and 5 dryers, one of which is broken. Apparently, not many residents here have their own washer and dryers, because the laundry room was BUSY today. someone actually took my stuff out of the dryer to use it. luckily it was dry, but still, how rude.

any way, enough complaining...

I'm a few days late getting these on here but what can i say, first i had to find the ubc cord for my camera, and i have a very taxing job now...it's very demanding!

Just to clarify a few things, Andrew was a Ninja and Aaron was a scary, mean, red pirate. he wouldn't let me put a mustache on him and he wouldn't wear the earring that came with his cosutme, but all in all he was the cutest little pirate i have ever seen!

Come Monday...

Good morning to all. Hope everyone had a good weekend, and for those of you who partied without me, I hope you had fun and missed me!

Our weekend was pretty uneventful. Actually, it was very uneventful...absolutely nothing at all happened. Richard's days are getting progressively longer so when the weekend comes he just vegetates and relaxes. i can't blame him for that.

Andrew is feeling a little home sick and like he's not going to fit in and make friends, so please remember him in your prayers. I think he misses his friends and teachers from PG. I know he had a really great teacher this year and we hated to lose her. i' called this morning about getting him involved in some sports and clubs, so i think we'll go register for basketball this afternoon.

any way, i guess that's all for now. I'm gonna work on getting some pictures posted of different things in our area so you can see what it's like here.

ta-ta for now...