12 years and counting!

Zach got me 12 roses, one for each year we have been married, while I was battling the line at Toys R US! Come to think of it, it wasn't so much the line as it was Cody. He get the older two to deal with. I didn't know and he said he couldn't beleive I didn't smell them in the van on the way home. I put my nice table cloth on the table and my pretty roses so I could take a picture of the dining room since it's one the few rooms that we have decorated. It's not finished, but at least has curtains and things on the wall. And it was somewhat clean! Cody didn't like the table cloth being back on and said "Mom Thanksgiving is over, take it off." He wanted to play playdough!

It often feels like longer than 12 years that Zach and I have been married. We've had our ups and downs, but it's been a great adventure and I can't wait to see what comes next!

Cody Sayings

I was just called to be the primary chorister at church so as I sat my first Sunday in primary this was what I heard. The kids were learning about being good examples.

Teacher: "If you are out on the street do you think other kids still watch you to see if you are being a good example?"

Cody: "Nooooo, if you in the street you will get run over. You shouldn't play in the street!"

I about died of laughter! And just now this was the conversation.

Cody "Mom I need batteries for my gun."

Me "We are out of batteries Cody and the stores are closed for Thanksgiving."

Cody "Dad, I need batteries for my gun."

Dad "I will go to the store and get you batteries for your gun....(Cody gets excited)...tomorrow. Today is Thanksgiving so the stores are closed."

Cody "Man I hate Thanksgiving." He walks away with his head down and dragging his gun.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Once again we are spending Thanksgiving just the 5 of us, but it's kind of fun to hang out in jammies and not have to worry about the house being clean. I am sooo happy to have a nice big oven after three years of a tiny german oven! I made two pies at the same time! SO much easier! The turkey smells great and I can't wait for dinner later today. Zach is happy he can acutally watch football live and not a recording or stay up really late! Since it is Thanksgiving I asked each of the boys (Zach included) to name 5 things they are thankful for! And they couldn't copy each other. And they thought watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was torture!

Cody
1.Turkey
2.Pie
3.Dad
4.Lucy
5.Playdough

Ryan
1.Family
2.Friends
3.House
4.Food
5.Clothes

Tyler
1.School
2.Commisary
3.Toys R Us
4.Bed
5.Church

Zachary
1.Big Red Chevy Truck
2.The wife who let me by my big red Chevy truck
3.House
4.Thankful I am not deployed.
5.Thankful work gave me the day off.

Marie
1.Three boys that drive me insane!
2.The Air Force for providing us with a house and steady income.
3.The crazy guy who has stuck with me for 12 years!
4.The freedom we have.
5.The gospel and a loving Heavenly Father who knows what we need before we do.

We miss all of our family and friends, but are grateful for the technology we have to communicate with them even when we are miles apart! At least this year we are on the same continent as most of them!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Leave cancelled so no Thanksgiving trip to Florida

This week seems to have a theme.......bad. Zach went to fill out leave paperwork just to find out they cancelled it. I guess they had two others already taking the time off and they requested first so they get it. That is the hard part about moving this time of year. Leave around the holidays is already taken up! I had thought about going on my own, but 16 hours is quite a distance and the idea was to have a relaxing getaway, not a stressful week with the kids on my own. Soooo now I need to make a list for Thanksgiving dinner. Zach will have to work so we will have a late meal with just the five of us. I know there is still plenty to be grateful for, but we have had so many hopes crushed with this move that it just seems like everything is working against us right now. We will try and make it to Florida for Spring break in April and he has the month of July on the calendar to go to Cheyenne so we hope that works out. When we got here they said to plan on Zach being deployed next Septemberish so I would hope they wouldn't take our leave away for July. Usually they are pretty nice about getting guys time off before deployments. We won't know for a while if he really will go next year since he still has a lot to learn on this new plane, but when they feel he is ready he will take his turn.

Fishing on Fort Dix

Zach's weekend is Friday and Saturday and this week the boys were out of school Friday so he took them fishing on Fort Dix, the Army post connected to McGuire AFB. There are several lakes and the guys at work told Zach they keep them stocked so it's a nice place to take a day to fish and would be good for the boys to learn. They wanted me to come, but I have been trying to get Zach to do things with just the boys so I refused! I knew Cody wouldn't last too long, but thought it was worth a try.

They forgot the camera so Zach called me from the cell phone and asked me to bring it since Cody had just caught the first fish. Unfortunately it took me longer to find them so they had thrown the fish back. I did get to take pictures of Tyler's two catches. Ryan tried, but he never got more than bites. He doesn't have patience at all so that didn't help. Maybe next time he will get something.

Halloween 2009

 

Here are some pictures from Halloween and activities leading up to it. First we had Cody's school parade. He is Commander Cody from Star Wars the Clone Wars. His class only has 6 kids, but they walked with the other preschool classes and Kindergarteners as well. Ryan's parade was later that day and since they were walking with another school each had a banner. Ryan goes to Columbia (for 3rd and 4th grade) so they walked the path behind the schools to Atlantis (for 1st and 2nd grade) and then came around the front of the buildings to show off their costumes for the parents. We almost missed him completely! He didn't have his mask and he was just kind of off by himself wandering around. Typical Ryan.

We also had the trunk or treat at church. The kids played some games and then headed out to the parking lot to collect thier treats! Some of the trunks were decorated and one even had a pirate game to play! It was a lot of fun. Then of couse the big day, Halloween! We tortured Lucy by sticking her in the Princess Lea to complete the Star Wars theme. Tyler was not so happy about joining in. I think this may be the last year he cares to dress up at all. He did have fun trick or treating with some friends without parents! He made it through the whole neighborhood, went through thrre haunted houses and came home loaded with candy! Surprisingly we did not go through as much candy as we expected. We think because we were further back in the neighborhood that kids were tired out before getting this far. So now we have leftover candy plus the loot collected by the boys! We had great weather too. I went with the younger two and was comfortable in a short sleeve T-shirt even after the sun went down. The rain held off until everyone was tired out, then it preceded to pour and blow like crazy the rest of the night!

Fall is in the air!

I have been meaning to get pictures of the fall colors. Germnay was very pretty this time of year and I am very happy to be in an area that is very similar. I love driving around to see the leaves changing and while walking to school I was so eager to makes big piles of leaves for the kids to play in! These pictures are of the main street that goes through our housing area. it is lined with trees and most of the housing area itself is surrounded by woods. There is a small area between the houses and schools where I run or walk the dog and in between us and the old housing there are more trees! So the views here are just about as good as Germany and I am loving it!

KC-10

As many know, Zach is no longer working on the C-130 Hercules. About a year or so ago the Air Force decided that if you work on one airplane engine, you can work on them all! It was all part of the reorganizing and solution to the problem of Zach's career field being undermanned. So that opened a lot more bases for us as well as new airplanes. As we were walking home from the school Halloween parade Friday Zach took a picture of his new plane, the KC-10. There are a little over 30 of them here that Zach and his fellow airmen keep flying! The base also has C-17's and a guard unit with KC-135s.

The KC-10 is very different from a C-130. First off there are no propellers! It does have an engine on each wing and then one above the tail. They are much bigger and the mission is completely different. KC-10's are flying gas stations. They can haul cargo, but their main mission is fuel. They rendevous with other aircraft to refuel them in flight. Pretty neat! Zach has been on a gunship during an inflight refuel, but is looking forward to flying on the KC-10 and watching it refeul. Zach misses his 130s, but working on a big airplane will give him different training and potential to work on commercial airliners if he ever decides to do that.