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.

Paint!

So we've painted the living room and the girls rooms to make it more 'homey'

Here is the living room. We painted it a color with the words 'mocha' in it. Whatever, I like it!

Here are photos of Mackenzie's room. We did a single dark pink accent wall and the other walls were painted a light pink shade. Mackenzie was able to help paint it and she LOVES it.

This is taken with my cell phone, so the colors don't look their true shades.

Here are the actual colors.

We painted Madison's room two shades of purple with a dark purple being the accent wall and a lighter shade on the rest of the walls. **The paint looks uneven due to the fact that it was still wet and drying.**

Now all that remains to be painted is our bedroom and the downstairs bathroom. Everything else will keep the ugly eggshell color.

Photos of our home.

So we signed our contract and received the keys to our house!
Here are a few photos..

This is the front of the house. We plan on doing some landscaping around the front so it doesn't look so boring!

Here is the living room front just inside the back door.

Here is the living room from the other corner.

Here is the kitchen from the living room

Another view, from the entrance by the front door

Here is mine and Tim's room. I forgot to take photos of our bathroom and HUGE closet.

Mackenzie's room.

Madison's room

Here is a shot of our backyard from the patio

Here is from the other direction

We're getting a house!

So to all my stalkers..that is our new house! Housing told Tim this morning that we will be able to move in by July 28th or possibly sooner. It's crazy how we went from a 5 month wait, to a one month wait to a week or less!

We are very excited about this. On his lunch break Tim drove down our new street, but they hadn't given him a house number so he just snapped a photo of this house real quick. Since it's military housing, all the houses are the same but they are new, as you can tell from the photo.

After living with my family since April 2009, we're very excited to finally be out on our own again. It wasn't bad living with my mom but it'll be nice to be a family of four again.

I'm very thankful to be as blessed as we are, especially with Tim's upcoming deployment, it's nice to have a few perks!

The housing ball is finally rolling..

So after a phone call with on post housing and a phone call with our Realtor, the housing ball is finally rolling.

As soon as Tim comes home we will go look at some homes in the Fort Hood area and find one that is perfect for us. Our Realtor is retired military and a friend of Tim's mother, so he told us he'll take care of us. We aren't very concerned with the number of rooms or the square footage, it will be a temporary living arrangement, we are most concerned about location. If I have to pay more for a two bedroom in a safe area, compared to paying the same for a three bedroom in a less safe neighborhood, you best believe I'll let my children sleep in the same room. Shoot, I'm not even against having all four of us in the same room if it means we won't be having the cops circling our block countless times a week!

I have heard from many individuals that Killeen can be a VERY iffy place to live and to make sure the neighborhoods are nice. Thankfully our Realtor works with military families up there on a regular basis and knows all the good places from the bad.

The housing wait for a three bedroom on post is 3-4 months. Tim can't apply for on post housing til he reports and he won't be reporting til a week after he comes home. The shortest lease up that way is 6 months, so we will be finding somewhere to live for 6 months and at the end of our lease we will move on post. The woman that I spoke to earlier today told me that the government has set up an arrangement with the property owners in the surrounding area that they won't allow families to break their leases early to move on post. So if a house was to become available before the end of our lease, they would hold a house for us so the day our lease ended, we could move in.

It's nice that things are falling into place. Now..we just need to get my husband home!

236

It has been 236 days since I dropped my husband off at the recruiting station in Georgetown and drove away with a heavy stream of black mascara and eye liner running down my face. My lovely husband had bought me new makeup and failed to buy waterproof but I still wore it, even though I knew what would be the end result. 

I can't believe that by the time this is over..he will have been gone over 8 months. I look back and honestly..it flew by. I can only hope and pray that I get the same fast results with a deployment as I have with training. Honestly..we are ONLY 4 months short of a deployment. The major difference between the two is that during a 12 month deployment he'd only be home for 2 weeks for RR, unlike our multiple visits during training. So yes, I realize that they are nothing the same..nor is the stress that comes along with the two. But time wise...wow, it's flown by.

I'm eager to have my husband home and get our family back to functioning as a complete set, rather than a family separated. I have heard stories and have experienced it a bit myself, how different it will be at first. It may be hard but then again it may not, we'll just have to play it out and see. I've gotten use to flying solo while he's gotten use to not having to worry about the little things..like leaving a pen laying on the desk..or leaving the toilet seat up. ;)

I'm excited for us to finally move to Ft Hood, to finally live in our own place again. I'm ready to function as a family of four and be able to go to the pool on the weekends or to the movies, I'm ready for the family activities. It's the little things you don't notice until they are taken away..the simple things. I'm ready to be able to wake up next to my husband and have our girls crawl into bed with us like they use to do on the weekends. I'm ready to be able to sleep through the night, without having to roll over at 2am to make sure I haven't missed a phone call or text. I'm excited that one of the first things we will be doing when he comes home, is going to Sea World with the girls. Sea World allows military families a free one day pass every year, and we can't wait to use ours!

I know deployments are looming in our very near future, we expect him to be deployed before February, but I am trying to not think about that just yet. I want to be able to relax and enjoy the time I have with my husband, before he has to leave again. I want to make as many memories with him and our girls, as we can before he has to leave again. Those memories are what you cling on to, because you know that the loneliness won't always be there.  I know that God has a plan and I'm trying to trust completely on that. 

Tomorrow will be 11 days and a wakeup til Tim graduates and we drive back to Texas. I'm ready!

sometimes doctors are stupid..

So Tim had that evil test again last week, and he passed it!

I didn't want to write about it on Facebook or talk about it in blog, because I'm a weirdo and didn't want to jinx it. So I kept my mouth shut and prayed like crazy for good things. Well, good things happened.

Tim passed the test with a 90! Besides the test that he failed, then kicked its ass, he hasn't scored beneath a 90. Go Tim! He has only 3 tests left to pass in order to graduate. Think good things for me... :)

He also went to the Dermatologist today for his trench foot since it wasn't getting better. Want to know why it wasn't getting any better, the freaking doctors who saw him are dumbasses. Yes, I'm calling 8 different doctors, complete idiots.

It's not freaking Trench Foot and that is why what they told him to do, isn't making it any better. He has a bacterial infection on his foot. The dermatologist told him that he must have really bad luck, and just happened to cross a disgusting bacteria that attacked his feet. So they prescribed him an ointment and told him if it's not better in a week to come back. Hopefully this will work and his feet will get better.

So, in my excitement I have started trying to find out as much as I can about Fort Hood. Tim and I had talked about renting a house off post in the Copperas Cove area, but decided that living on post will be more convenient. I have checked out housing and it's not bad, especially since Fort Hood has a '1 bedroom per child' rule. Also, taking into consideration that it's the largest Army post(population wise), it'd probably just be easier for Tim to not have to fight traffic getting on post in the morning on his way to work.

Our issue at hand currently is that we need to buy a washing machine, dryer, lawn mower and a weed eater. YAY! We also have to wait to see if our house will have a fence for our dog. If it doesn't we will either pay to have one built or we will invest in a dog run for the backyard. We plan on keeping him indoors the majority of the time..but we will need somewhere to put him in the backyard when we leave for a long amount of time. After all...he's been an outdoor dog for 6 years, it won't kill him.

We have to be put on the wait list for housing, hopefully it doesn't take too long because I am eager to get moved in and situated in our own home. I love my mother, and appreciate her generosity, but we've lived here since April 2009, and I am ready to be in my own home again.

Our duty station, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

So this morning, Tim and I were talking and he was about to leave for class when I got this strange urge to check his AKO account to see if his duty station had been posted.

Last Friday on his AKO, he went from a Rule 4: student status, to a Rule 5: assignment instructions. Word was, that once that happened..a duty station should be posted within a weeks time.

So in hopes that a duty station had been posted, I checked. The next thing I saw had me jumping up and down and dialing Tim's number as fast as I could.

When he answered, I screamed CHECK YOUR AKO!!! The entire time it took for him to pull open a browser and get to the ako..I was telling him how great it was, how happy he'd be. Then he said 'no way...you're effing shitting me!'

FORT HOOD.

We got mother freaking Fort Hood. After the past year of mentally preparing ourselves, along with our families, that we'd be moving far away..we got the nearest duty station to us..45 minutes away. How does that happen!?

Not only did we get Fort Hood, but one of Tim's very close friends that has gone through basic and AIT with him, also got Fort Hood. Tim's close friend, Kris, has a wife, Nicole, who I am also very close with. How awesome?!

Tim's report date is August 8th, 2010. Yay for finally knowing, and another yay for being happy about it!