The boy who keeps me company when my husband is away..

Duke, yeah he's grown since I last posted about him. He's officially 30 lbs of 4 month old German Shepherd.  He is the man who keeps me company while Tim is away. He greets me in the morning, snoozes at my feet while I work on my homework and lays behind me in the kitchen while I cook and wash dishes once the kids are in bed. Duke and I, we're gonna have one heck of a strong bond by this time next year.

I love this puppy, he's stinking adorable.

God Bless America...and berries.

Man oh man, I'm horrible at updating this thing now.

Life is pretty busy lately with everything going on. Tim has been in training for his MOS and is working long days. He loves every minute of it and is actually doing better than most of the upper ranking soldiers in his class. They keep asking him if he's had the course before, which he hasn't. He leaves for field training on Sept 20th and then will be in the field come October 22nd, for a month. The military life isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be, or maybe we haven't been in long enough. Besides the deployment factor, it's pretty normal. He works his job 9-4 with PT early every morning and he is off every Thursday by 1430 (2:30).

Can I just say again how much I LOVEEEE hearing all the songs they play over the loud speaker and how much I love hearing the planes and helicopters fly over my house? Cause I do, I love it! Yesterday, my walls were shaken twice by C-130s flying so low that I thought they may land in my drive way. A couple weeks ago I kept getting on to the girls, who were playing up stairs, to stop kicking my walls. Mackenzie ended up being right behind me and said 'mom, that's not us...that's the soldiers'. She was right..they must of been doing some training in the field because I could hear the 'bombs' going off. Quite crazy.

So I am in a book club, I know I know..someone alert the media. One of my friends up here, Jennifer, started a book club and a group of us wives meet together on Sunday's and have our book club meetings. Now before you laugh at us..we spend about 20 minutes discussing books then the next couple hours just talking. All of our husbands will be deploying together..so when they do so..we plan on also having weekly drinking nights and such ;) I love these girls, they are amazing and have made this so much easier.

So something in me must have clicked, I feel all wifely. Everyone who knows me, knows that I don't cook. I just don't do it, I don't like it. This works in my house. I raise the children, do the laundry, clean the house and all that jazz..Tim works and cooks. Oh he also mows the yard and takes out the trash and kills bugs. That's what men are for, right? Anyway..I've started cooking. Nothing fancy, I don't want to burn the house down just yet, but it's progress. Cooking from scratch get's expensive though..

My college classes are going well, thanks to my life saver. I was having some difficulty with my Macroeconomics class til I called my best friend, Ryka, who saved the day. I sat infront of the computer screen for a week straight, feeling like I was reading another language..and after sitting down with her..it all makes sense now. When I try it by myself, I just can't turn my brain on but when she explains it, a light switch just turns on. Ryka, you should become a teacher..seriously. I'm averaging a B so far, but hey, it's passing! Plus, everyone thinks I'm crazy for taking Macro instead of Micro or plain old Economics..but hey, if I pass this..I can definitely pass those.

Last week we were hit with an ass load of rain, like I mean TONS. That damn hurricane pushed up this massive wall of rain and it just poured for two days straight. I'm not sure how much we got here at Hood, but home in Round Rock (an hour South of us) they had 14 inches. The two roads leading to our community were completely flooded because some genius thought it'd be a bright idea to make the only entrances, ones that dipped low over a creek. So needless to say they were flooded and when the water finally went down, huge tree branches were on the road. I even had flooding come up into the front of my house. Thank goodness downstairs doesn't have carpet!


So Duke will be 12 weeks tomorrow and this dog has exploded. Last week he got ahold of one of Charlie's flea pills and suffered an overdose which resulted in us having to shell out $70 to make sure he wasn't going to die or have organ failure. I had given Charlie his medication, which was for an 80-120lb dog and Charlie spit it out and before I grabbed it, Duke had swallowed it. Duke weighs less than 20lbs. Within 20 minutes he was vomiting everywhere and refused to stand. Pretty scary stuff. Anyway, he has doubled his size and we're starting to believe he may be that 100lb German Shep we were expecting when we bought him. His feet are huge and his ears are too. I'll be happy when he is out of the puppy stage..we've seen a few people in the neighborhood eye balling him through the fence when they didn't realize we could see them. He now goes everywhere with us and won't be outside at night. He's such a good dog, can't risk someone trying to make him their own.

Oh, I also got my first tattoo..

Oh and one more thing..God Bless America...and apparently berries too.

I keep putting this off

I keep putting off writing this blog update, because I'm lazy.

Everything is FINALLY unpacked in our house and it feels like home. The only thing we have left to do is put up curtains in our bedroom and our living room. To me, a home doesn't feel like a home until those generic white blinds are covered, plus it adds life and color to a room. Madison's room is complete and all that is left for Mackenzie's room is her letters over her bed. Tim went out and bought a new tv for the living room, it's huge. It's a 50 inch flat screen LED-LCD and I love it. Next month I'm going to buy a new washer and dryer, a lawn mower and weed-eater, that's all we lack for the house.

Our life up here is a nice one. Our street is quiet and we don't have nosy neighbors or anyone who speeds down the roads or plays their music loud. If you walk outside after 9pm, it's silent. It's nice that all of the neighbors have kids so they understand and aren't loud or obnoxious around bedtime.

Today was Mackenzie's first day of school, I'm anxious to pick her up at 3:15 and ask her how it was. The school is half a mile from our house so I'm able to walk her to and from it every day. Kindergarten and Pre-K have their own hallway and entrance so they don't have to mingle with the big kids, which I like. This morning there was someone waiting at the door and the parents told their children goodbye and the staff would personally escort each child to their classroom. Mackenzie told us bye and gave us kisses and ran through the doors, she was so excited. I saw a few moms crying, but I'm definitely not that type. I can't feel upset or sad when she is so excited and eager to go.

Speaking of school, I'm officially a college student, again. I dropped out of college back in 2005 when I was pregnant with Mackenzie and I'm finally going back. I am taking online classes through Temple College, working on my associates. They always told us back in H.S, just go to college and you'll figure out what you want to do when you're there. Well, I hate taking classes if I won't need them so I have waited til I knew what I wanted to do. I've decided I'm interested in being a History teacher, so that's what I'm pursuing. I'll be able to have my summer and winter breaks with my children and won't have to work 12 months a year, my kinda job! Plus, I love History. My game plan is to take three classes a semester and two classes in the summer, in the beginning and then eventually go to four classes a semester. This will have me out of school with my Bachelor's when Tim is leaving the Army. I'll be able to have my job while he finishes his degree in Intelligence Operations (he already has 3/4 of it) and then we will both have our careers.

Everyone told us we did this backwards, having children, getting married and then school. To me, we did this the best way. When I'm forty, I'll have my degree and my job, but i'll be able to relax while my two girls (20 & 18) are in college! The ones who did it the 'right' way will be 40 with their careers and college educations with children still living under their roofs! See...I did it the right way, I'll be sipping margaritas on the beach ;)  ::this is how I justify it, haha, totally kidding of course!!::


On a different note, Tim is deploying. We don't know specific dates but it will be after Christmas but before the end of February. He has a two week field training coming up and then he'll be gone for a month starting at the end of October. We know where he will be going but we don't know how long he'll be gone for. Could be 6 months,12 months or 18 months..we're hoping for 6 months, but expecting 18.  With the Military, you hope for the best but prepare for the worst. I'm thankful he'll be here for Christmas but bummed that he'll be gone for our 5 year wedding anniversary. Every five years we plan on renewing our vows in some weird way. Five years was suppose to be married by Elvis in Vegas..guess we'll put that off til our 6 year ;) Such is life in the Army.

Well I know there is more to write about..but frankly, i'm too tired to keep writing..so The End.

Oh, an update on Duke. He is now 9 weeks old. He rarely has accidents in the house and his bark sounds more like a cat meowing than any type of noise that should come out of a dog..we love him.

Meet Duke

This is Duke. 

Here are his parents.

On our way home!!

Side note: He is Tim's dog, Charlie is still my main man :)