A Sad Day

Well, I haven't written in a few weeks since I haven't had a computer available and honestly haven't had a clear head with all thats happened. I figured since I had a computer available and somewhat of a clear head I could handle doing a post.

Most of you already know about what has happened but for those of you who don't here it goes.

January 11 I came home from vacation at my dad's in New Mexico. My mom picked me and the kids up from the airport and we had lunch together and I changed clothes before going to my friends house. Later that night I got the worst phone call in my life. My mother had been killed. Her boyfriend of over one year shot her at least twice and she died. I can't get into many details because it is an ongoing investigation. They do know that he did it and he has been charged with murder. My dad flew out the next day and Shawn the day after that. Rachelle and I had to plan her service and get her things and handle other details that no 21 and 24 year olds should have to do for their parents. None of it makes sense still, there was no sign of anything that we could see, nothing that we were told by mom to give us some kind of warning. I'm still waiting for her phone call, still waiting for her to show up to surprise me and the kids with a visit.

I think thats about all I can handle for today. It helps to talk about it sometimes but gets to be too much sometimes.

To update on other things quickly, Shawn leaves for Kentucky on Thursday. Me and the kids will follow when he has housing secured. It depends on availability of housing mostly. I'll keep everyone posted and let you all know whats going on.

Fun with the Family

Well, I realized I hadn't posted anything in a few days and since I missed my flight out of Albequerque this afternoon I figured there isn't a better time than now to do one. I don't know if I had the wrong time in mind or the airline changed the flight time (like the agent told me) but either way I missed the flight and they didn't charge me (whew!) and I leave early in the morning instead.

This has been a really great visit with my family though so I don't mind it being extended a few hours. I can't put up any photos this time around because my thingy that hooks up to the computer and allows me to download photos from my camera is packed away. I'd rather take the time to write while Michael is entertained and Lydia content than pull the thingy out. So I'll do another post one of these days with recent photos of the family on there for all who know them to see. We've played board games (as customary) and I've won about half so that's fun. Two of those being risk games - yay for me. Michael and Hannah have had a lot of fun learning how to share, Carrie and I have had even more fun trying to teach them that sharing does not equal 'mine'. Josiah is a little lovebug to Chloe and now Lydia also - always giving kisses and hugs and being sweet to both babies. Caleb is a little smarty pants learning his alphabet sounds and starting to work on spelling. Chloe is almost one year old and starting to balance herself, I'm sure she'll be walking in no time. Christian is getting bigger and dose really well on the trumpet and with helping out with the little ones. (I keep saying I need to get me an 11 year old - though he's 12 now) Anyway we also had fun snowplay at the park, went out to eat a few times, watched 'open season' at the dollar theater, and today went to the zoo and road on a train. Michael loved the trainride, he's really into trains right now.

So far I'm getting great feedback on this thing so I guess it's working out like I had hoped. Like I said in an earlier post I probably won't be posting for a while until we move since I don't have much computer access. So until then thanks for visiting and check back every so often for updates.

Oh, a few things I found out from Shawn after he went back to Missouri. First, he's not getting hometown recruiting like we were hoping so he will be going straight to Kentucky. Second his MOS (job) is being phased out and reclassified so he will have the opportunity to change his career. He mentioned that he was thinking of becoming a medic but nothing is set yet. Changes to his job may also mean changes to his contract and our location. But I'm fairly certain we'll still be going to Kentucky, at least to start out. But this is the Army and nothing is certain except for the fact that nothing is certain.

I'll be sure to keep everyone updated on what's going on and may even do a post via my mom or someone if I find out anything big before we move.

Until next time, God bless.

Our Recent Ventures

To end Shawn's visit home we were all going to fly out to New Mexico and visit my parents in Los Lunas, which is near Albequerque. After many flight cancellations, re-routing our trip to Phoenix and driving about 7 hours we finally made it later than planned; just a few minutes into the new year. On the flight to Denver Shawn took a great photo of the view we had. We were between two layers of clouds and there was light from the sun breaking through the top layer. It is so pretty I want to enlarge and frame it on my wall. The whole trip was such a fiasco - I still don't have two of my bags - but we were spared of more unfortunate circumstances, like being stuck in an airport for two days with two kids or being separated on differant flights and stranded in separate airports. At the time of cancellations and mistakes on the airlines part I was very upset but looking back it was a blessing in disguise. Just a reminder that God's ways are higher than ours and we don't always understand the "whys" of it all but it will always work for good, even if we don't see the good result. This time we did get to see the good result.

The day after finally arriving we took a trip to the snow. In years past we've had to drive two hours to Mt. Jemez (sp?) for some snowplay. Thanks to recent snowstorms we only had to go a few blocks to the park which has hills great for sledding down. All of the kids had a great time going down the hills on the intertubes, toboggans and snowboard. Shawn and I even tried out the snowboard and went down an intertube together. At the time I still didn't have any luggage so Michael and I pieced together snow clothes from my parents' supply.

During our visit Shawn and I were given the opportunity to go on a lunch date. We took advantage and had a great time. We went to Chili's for lunch then to Starbucks for coffee and almost a whole game of scrabble - then the baby needed to eat so we headed home. It was a lot of fun. He is back at Ft. Leonardwood now :( but it will only be a couple weeks until I see him at graduation and hopefully within a month of that the kids and I will be on our way to live with him at our new duty station.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Family Day Out

With Shawn home for Christmas break during his AIT training we took advantage of the time and had a fun family day out. The four of us went to the bowling alley on base, which is a steal compared to the one in town and not nearly so crowded. It was so much fun. Michael just loved it and was so excited everytime he bowled and told us 'good job' no matter how good we really did. Shawn bowled 175 which is lower than he usually does, I had a score of 88 and Michael wasn't too far behind with 77. Keep in mind he had help from daddy and we had the bumpers up the whole game for him. The last part doesn't make our scores look so good does it? Well I know Shawn didn't use the bumpers except for maybe twice on accident. I didn't try using them either and trust me, I could have a few times. This was such a fun day and we decided to make it our family 'thing' at least twice a month once we are together at our new duty station.

Michael bowling with daddy

Lydia with daddy

Michael loves to bowl!

Still Learning

Okay, so I think I'm getting the hang of this thing. One thing I learned so far is this: Always check the box to resize photos to fit - at least when posting them to the main page. I had a pretty funky looking thing when I didn't and then the 'edit' option on photo wasn't there so I thought it was stuck like that. I did end up figuring out how to fix it though I'm not exactly sure what I did. But it's fixed.

So now I can put pictures with my stories, or rather now I can put pictures on here therefor I can start telling my stories. "You know you're a scrapper when blogging just doesn't seem justified without photos to share..." ;)

Anyway, I'm visiting my family in New Mexico now so I won't be doing too many blogs but while I have some time to kill I figured I would. It's been a great visit so far and I'm glad we were able to make it. Shawn and I and the kids were almost stuck in the Denver airport for two days due to problems resulting from snow at the Albuquerque airport. On New Years Eve we ended up taking a flight from Denver to Phoenix and drove 7 or so hours to Albuquerque. It was very fortunate because being in the airport on new years eve wouldn't be fun let alone being stuck in the airport on any two days with young children and running out of diapers and wipes for both. That would be cruel and unusual punishment. But we made it here and had a great trip. I'll do more posts later with photos and stories of our visit if and when I have time and a computer available.

Thanks for visiting and listening.

here goes nothing...

Or something I hope. This is all new to me but then most things of current technology are. I've had a cell phone for just about 2 years and a digital camera for about 2 months. Until now the only thing I used the internet for was checking my e-mail, playing the occasional game and searching for scrapbooking ideas. So please bear with me.

This all started when a friend of a friend moved away and started her own blog to keep in touch with people. My friend created her own because she liked it so much and now I am following suit. I hope this accomplishes the task I have in mind which is keeping more in touch with everyone I'll miss when we move away. People always say "we'll keep in touch", but it rarely happens, at least not as much as before you leave. There's something about not being around for the mundain day to day activities. Even though it's not one exciting thing that may happen, the accumulation of all the little things is what gets you 'out of touch'.

So please come and visit whenever you have time and see what's going on in our world. I'll do my best to keep it current and you can leave a comment or two as you desire.

P.S. There may be a long stall in posts until we get settled into our new duty station: Ft. Campbell, Kentucky as I don't have a computer readily accessible until then.