Honey, We've Got Orders...

Honey, Our Orders Have Changed!!!

So We aren't pcs'ing to Fort Bragg..
We are pcs'ing to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Kentucky!?! Kentucky. Oh the joys. And it just so happens that there isn't a Paul Mitchell School within 100 miles of there... Awesome. =/
But there will be another base, and another school in the future. So for now I will put my career on the back burner and try to enjoy Kentucky. A friend of ours used to be stationed there, and says there isn't much to do, but we are going to try to make the best of it. I have to get back to packing the house, as we are leaving tomorrow.. I really don't want to leave the good friends we have made here, but it is all part of being married to a military man. You move where he moves. I love my husband :) Back to packing, will write more after we get settled =) <3

Atomic City Festival- New Ellenton, SC
We wanted to find something to do today, so I looked up things to do in Augusta, and came up with this festival. There wasn't a whole lot to it, but the kids found a train ride, and for a $1 per kid, it was worth it. The kids had a blast and they rode for about 10 minutes. We were afraid Hunter was going to climb out but he was a big boy and rode with Chrissy, smiling the whole time :) If he could form sentences, he'd be asking daddy to build him a choo choo and make him ride him around =) lol  Matt chose the black Cadillac car to ride in, gotta ride in style haha =)

Chrissy, Hunter, & Matt

                                            

Army Friends, Reward Charts, & Birthdays

We are so thankful for Army friends! Everywhere you have to move, you make new friends, and when you move again, you have to leave the "old" ones behind, but you will make new ones wherever you go but the old friends will always have a special place! And one day the Army will cross your paths together again =) The Army is a small world!!  On Friday we all went out to dinner with our usual group (Shelby & David, & Kevin) + 3 of the guys from their company, and we had a lot of fun. We went to a mexican place called Kioso's, which was really good. The kids enjoyed themselves & the guys all had huge beers. lol On Saturday Kevin went with us to venture out into Augusta & see what was around to do. We ended up downtown and came across a car show, and the river walk. The car show had a lot of vintage cars, and newer ones too. I was more interested in the Camaros' & Mustangs' from the 60's, but the guys wanted to look at the new Mustangs'. go figure.. =/ The kids played at the park on the river and we got rained out, but we were able to see the train coming by before we had to go. They thought it was really neat to see an actual train that up close. You could have literally hopped on it from where we stood. Hunter screamed "ch choo!" when he saw it. "Ch Choos' are his new favorite thing, thanks to his Thomas the train big boy undies. :) He is starting to use the potty now, he doesn't tell you when he has to go, but if you put him up there, he will go eventually. He loves clapping his hands when he does :) Have I mentioned I love my iPhone?? The apps don't get any better! I found an app that is called iReward Chart, which gives the kids stars for tasks they complete, like chores, or responsibilities, and behavior. Then they can choose a reward to "buy" with their stars. It seems to be doing really well so far with Chrissy, but Matt just wants to earn them, but doesn't care much when he gets a bad star for doing something bad. Hopefully he will catch on! My birthday is three days away.. where has the time went? It seems I just had one not too long ago.. ugh.. lol Hunter will be turning 2 in November, he is growing up so fast! And Matt will be 5 in January! We are working on registering them tomorrow with cyss, so we can have a little break here and there, and use the date night to go out once a month =) We are counting the days until our pcs to Bragg!!

Airborne!!

Jeremy had some problems with shin splints since basic, so they did a bone scan to make sure it wasn't spider cracks. If it came back as cracks, he wasn't going to be able to qualify for Airborne school, so we would be PCS'ing to Korea. We got orders for Fort Bragg for his Airborne station :) He had the bone scan done and everything came back clear, so we are all set for Airborne Training in October! =) He will be in the 82nd Airborne, the same as my Poppy was during WW2! I plan to go to the Airborne Museum when we get there, so I can see if I can find anything out about when Poppy served. I wish he was still around to talk to and pick his brain about the Army when he was in and how it's changed since back then. Hopefully they can tell me a lot at the museum. We are excited about Bragg, as it was one of our top picks for duty stations. I loved living in North Carolina, and I'm sure the kiddos will enjoy it too. I want to visit the places I went as a kid, and show them so they have memories of it too. I can't wait for the first snow. It will be Hunter's first time seeing snow, the kids saw snow in Alabama at the first of the year. I haven't seen snow since I was about 12, so it will be fun for all of us. I want to save up and go to Dollywood again, because we got rained out the last time we went, when I was about 12. The scenery up there is something else, and I want the kids to be able to experience it first hand, not just from pictures. Hopefully we can find a pre-k that has room for Matt, as they were all full at Gordon. He is looking forward to school. I have been working with him at home on his numbers, letters, shapes, colors, and matching, and he seems to really want to learn. He is picking up on things really quickly, and is learning to write his numbers. He can write "Matt" although sometimes it looks like "Mott" :) But he is trying hard to learn new things. Chrissy is doing really well in 1st grade. She likes her teacher a lot, and we do as well. She is young, so she likes her more than the older teachers. lol She takes music & p.e.. She is making all A's and has a 100 in conduct :) She has made a friend on the bus and one that lives in our complex, who also rides her bus. She has mixed emotions about moving so much and having to change schools, but she is excited to have a house with a yard when we get there. Plus we will be living on post, so she will have a lot of girls her age there to play with in our neighborhood. Matt is still at the age where he just goes with the plan without a why, and Hunter is just along for the ride, grinning. I am planning on getting into college and finishing my nursing once we get there. I want to find a part time CNA position at a dr.'s office somewhere, hopefully in a pediatrician's office. Hopefully they have a CNA to LPN bridge program close that will allow me to do part of the work online. Jeremy is wanting to take a few classes so he can earn promotion points and work up to an NCO. We have talked about making a career out of the Army, and it seems like a good thing to do if he keeps moving up in rank. =) We have decided on on post housing at Bragg, so that he can be close to work, and we will be close to him. We will try it out and see how it goes. There are some really nice houses off post for rent that we may look into if we decide we don't like living on post. Jeremy goes for 2 weeks for Airborne Training in October, then he has leave until his report date. We are planning on doing a DITTY move to Bragg, so we can visit with family before our move. We are hoping for new adventures, new friends, and to keep in touch with our old ones we have made along the way. The life of an Army Family. Crazy but definitely an Adventure.

AIT: Advanced Individual Training

We made it to Fort Gordon :) We found an apartment in Augusta, Georgia and made the long haul up here, with none of our furniture but our bed, and hunter's crib. No table, no chairs, no couch.. just some borrowed pots and pans, clothes, hunter's sippy cups, silverware, some utensils, glasses, and toiletries. We didn't realize we had no shower curtain, no plates, no bowls, no colander, not a whole lot of anything.. But we managed to pick up what we needed and make do. We got to go visit Jeremy in the afternoons after formation, and have dinner with him in the chow hall =) Hunter was such a cutie and waved and said hey to all of the soldiers, who of course said hey little guy back. He is such an attention hound and rotten to boot! He got phased up and was able to ride in the car with us and was allowed to go off post with us. Then he put in his off post packet, and now he is allowed to live at home with us :) I went and picked up Chrissy and Matt from their mom's house, and now they are living with us again. He gets to live at home with us, and only has to report for the morning formations, and gets to spend all weekend with us, and he goes to class all week, but is home in time for supper :) It has been an adjustment, but we are glad that he is home with us and that we get to spend time with him. We should find out soon where we will PCS. We have made some new friends, who are guys who are in his company with him. They seem like really good people, and are fun to be around, and they love the kids, which is a big plus. We started going to the library and letting the kids pick out books, and bring them home. They always get excited when we tell them we are going that day. We also found a playground that is on base, that is really big. The kids love going there too. Hunter screams "play" every time we pass it :) They will play for hours until you tell them it's time to leave, then you hear the aww, can we stay?? lol They are enjoying being here with their daddy, and Hunter likes having someone to play with other than mommy =) lol

Graduation

It took us a while to straighten out how we were getting to Oklahoma for Jeremy's boot camp graduation, but we finally decided that we were driving. His mom, me, and Hunter all piled in our truck with all of our stuff on Tuesday morning, and set out for Jackson, Mississippi where we were staying the night. It was an interesting trip to say the least. We brought tons of snacks and food so our stopping at jiffy stores and fast food joints was to a minimum, and Hunter was hungry every 5 seconds. haha he ate everything from cheetos to gummy worms (which I am still trying to get unstuck from the floorboard) to raisins. We made a few potty stops, and diaper change stops (some off of exits that had nothing but the side of the road to pull off on and do a quick change in the truck). We made it to Jackson in good time, and after we lugged everything inside the hotel, we then realized we were hungry and didn't want pb&j's.. So I found a cracker barrel and picked up dinner. We took showers and hit the sack. The next morning we were out of there early, not as early as planned, but early enough. We made the haul to Oklahoma the long way, to avoid Dallas traffic, but we made good time. When we got to the gate at Fort Sill, I had to declare my firearm, which turned out to be a big ordeal, but funny when we look back on it. They had me pull over to the side and two guards came and asked me where it was, and to take it out. Slowly. lol I forgot to unload it before we got there, so then I had to step out, point it to the bushes, take the clip out and clear the barrel. Then I had to show them my concealed carry permit, and my military id. They started looking for the serial number on the pistol, which they couldn't find and I had to point out to them on the underside of the barrel. LOL The female officer said she didn't blame me for having it, being two women traveling by ourselves with Hunter. Then I had to back around the building to get back to the road, and the male officer said I've always heard people from Georgia are better drivers, now I believe them! =) haha Then we were off to find our Army lodging hotel, which is hard in the dark when they all look the same.. we finally found it after going into two different buildings, and got inside and got settled. It was like a small two bedroom apartment with a eat in kitchen, living room, and tv's. We stayed up and watched some tv, had sammies for dinner & went to sleep, knowing that we would get to see Jeremy in the morning! We woke up bright and early, got ready, and headed to Family Day to see Jeremy. We got there and went to the field first, which we weren't supposed to do, we were supposed to go inside the hall to listen to them give an overview of the day. We were then told to go back to the field, and we did early to get a good seat. That's when we saw him. He was standing in a formation to our right, about 10 feet from us. Hunter finally saw him and kept waving and saying Daddy, which made me start crying. It had been a long 9 weeks for all of us. They called us to the field to stand behind our soldiers, and they gave Hunter his daddy's new rank patch to put on, he did it perfect, with a little help from mommy :) We made it back to his barracks and waited some more for them to unload the trucks, and change into their class B's. Then they went into formation and said the soldier's creed and were released to us! Hunter was a little weary of going to him at first, but he soon warmed right back up to daddy. We went to lunch at a steak house, and came home and napped until it was time to take him back. His dad called and asked him to come by their hotel that there was something he needed to see before he went back to his barracks. We walked in and they had picked up Matt & Chrissy from their mom's house on the way here. He was surprised to see them, and glad they had come. I took him back to his barracks, and picked up the kids so they could spend the night with their Granny. We went to bed after I finished Jeremy's laundry, and got up early the next morning and took the kids back to his dad. We all got ready for graduation, and headed to the theatre. Graduation was neat, and very patriotic. I was very proud to see him chant the soldier's creed with his fellow soldiers. It gives me chills every time I hear it. He came to the stage, and I could tell he was nervous as he stepped to the microphone to state his rank, name, and hometown then he walked across the stage, shaking everyones hand. After graduation, we went back to the hotel, and got ready for lunch with Bruce, Tracy, John, and the kids. We went to another steakhouse and had lunch. It was pouring by the time we left. We made it back to the hotel and took another nap until it was time for dinner. We all went to a mexican restaurant that was really good. Hunter enjoyed the rice and made a huge mess. lol We had a good time, and took Jeremy back to the barracks for the last time. He would be flying out to Georgia the next morning, and it was hard knowing that you would have to be separated once again. We packed up and also headed out the next morning around 9 or so, and made the haul for home. Jeremy called and said that he got a pass that weekend if we could make it there in time. So we drove straight through from Oklahoma to Georgia, only stopping once to take a nap for about an hour. We made it to Augusta at 0700 on sunday, and he had to be picked up at 0800. So there was no time for sleep, only to check in, get our things to the room, and get lil man asleep so I could pick up daddy. I got lost once I got on base, but I finally found him, and brought him back to the hotel. We slept from 0900 to 1300 and then he had to go back, but I think the drive was worth getting to see him, and take a nap with him. =) We moved to Augusta on the 15th, and we have been here ever since. It was a crazy trip, but we had fun, and made memories along the way. We are so proud of our American Soldier :)

BASIC TRAINING: IF WE CAN EVER MAKE IT THERE...

Basic Training got off to a..well, odd start. If you can even call it a start. We drove to Jacksonville and dropped Jeremy off at his hotel, and after stopping at my dad's for a visit, we made our way back to Brunswick. I woke up the next morning feeling awful, and it made it worse that Jeremy wasn't here to help me, or to talk to. So after countless, painful trips to the bathroom, I checked my phone, and I had 2 missed calls and a voicemail. It was Jeremy calling from MEPS saying that he was sick and needed me to come pick him up. That was an interesting trip. I won't go into details, but when walking makes you nauseous, you can only imagine what driving does for your tummy. :/ So, I got down there and he was upset because they wouldn't let him ship to basic training sick. They put a medical hold on him, and he had to start the entire process over. He had to pick his job again, and his original job (25Q) was no longer available. So he picked 25F instead. He did get airborne this time, which wasn't available when he first chose his original job, so he was excited about that. His training station got changed from Fort Benning to Fort Sill in Oklahoma, so now we all have to fly to graduation, which isn't a bad thing, but it will be interesting seeing how Hunter will do on his first plane ride. His ship date also got pushed back to the 26th of April, and airborne school added another two weeks, so he will have to miss Hunter's 2nd birthday. We are going to talk to the recruiter and see if they will let him stay off base during airborne school like they might during AIT. So hopefully he will be able to celebrate his birthday with us. We were able to get the house ready for him to leave, and for us to go to my dad's, so that was a plus, because before I would have had to do it by myself. So the house is ready for move out, and we have most everything packed up and ready to go. We put our couch out by the road the day before he left because we didn't want it anymore, and someone took it, so now we have no couch :( But we laugh about it now.. so we are making our days together fun & spending time together while it lasts. We are excited to see what the future holds for us, and to see where the Army will take our family :)