The ride ain't over yet

Well gee golly gosh, its been a while since I put up a post on here, and I can't even entirely blame the army for my lack of blogging.

Well it has been a roller coaster of of ride these past few months, I think space mountain would be the best analogy for the roller coaster metaphor. Because the army loves to keep you in the dark and guessing at when the next turn might hit you.

Well lets see what can I say about the past 8 months, yikes has it really been that long. Here is a quick run down of the timeline.
April 18 - July 1 I ship out to basic training Fort Sill Oklahoma, my first taste of the army life taught to me by a Nigerian drill Sgt. I am taught the basics of being a soldier, shooting, marching, push ups, and most importantly actively waiting (its just like passively waiting but with an army twist). Doing all this in about 110 degree temp. For this segment of the ride we had some decent twist and turns but nothing too extreme.
July 8 - July 24 I am transferred to Golf Company at Fort Sam Houston in the middle of San Antonio TX. For this part the roller coast has come to a complete stop and the announcer is apologizing about technical difficulties. Golf is a reception company where the rest of the battalion comes for their manual labor needs. Very few kind words are spoken of this company, ok no one has a kind work for it. Time passes slowly and the days somehow added a few extra hours to the clock just to spite us.
July 25 - Nov 18 We move up the hill a few buildings to our new home, alpha company. Here the ride starts back up again. Our next 16 weeks will be spent here honing our drinkin..... i mean medical skills. The coarse is divide up into two sections. The first half is the civilian EMT basic certification. Unknown to us, we were selected to try out a new version of the chapter test. It didn't go very well the majority of the company was placed in mandatory study hall. Worked out great for me, much easier to do laundry when 60+% of the soldiers are gone. Overall one might call this the mandatory sobrity half of the coarse since so many folks were struggling very few were allowed to go out on the weekends. After a stessful nailbiting day, most people past the national registery test and become EMT's. In otherwords commence with the mass intoxication.
 We now transition to the second half of the coarse, the army medic side. This is where we get to learn nifty little things like how to place a tube down your throat and other methods of hydration that don't require your mouth. Our class time is split between the classroom and the outdoors where we practice our new skills on eachother. It is here I learn something else about TX, flashflood. We didn't have one while i was here but i did notice during a down pour how it could very easily occur and how quickly. It also made me aware that our outdoor practice area was the low point in the drainage of the area and that you never saw the air force or navy practice anywhere close to the area.
As the weeks come and go we come to the end of our medic side of the training, culminating in 10 days spent in the field at the off site training groups called Camp Bullis. Here we rough it in climiate controled tents and hot chow shipped in to us. Here we both froze and sizzled all in the same day, wake up to 30 degree mornings and train in 80 degree afternoons. My favortie part was waving bye as we drove off in our bus.
At this point we are all but done, just waiting for the formality of graduation. Which turns out to be an over-hypte lack  luster event. The ride comes to a halt and we unload just to get in line for the next one. And now here i sit waiting (a common theme in military life) for my next trasition, jumping out of perfectly good airplanes just to see if gravity still works. Sorry for the lack of pictures but everything is in camo so it all blends together anyways.

Otter Crest

Our trip to Otter Crest (a picture is worth a thousand words so I will use very few)

Max and Gwen love the river.

Ice-cream for lunch

A baby show for little Cleatus Rash

More sand

The big party

Max can name all the chess pieces

Gwen rocks ladder golf

More sand

Costume party where Max and Gwen were my evil minions.

We are so tired now!

~ This blog comes to you from iDea (my iPad)

Ill es Finis

Ok it has been a long time since I took any language class but that is what I exclaimed happily so that is the title of the blog.
It is finished.
Max and Gwen's room is actually finally done.

Today I went through the room ruthlessly removing anything which they no longer use or really should have been stored elsewhere.
Now I just have to get all the crap out of the computer room!
Any way here it is...

The art is going to come down, I am hoping to find two bold Dr. Seuss type prints. The mirror is staying on the floor unless it seems unstable then I will create some sort of mounting for it but still keep it low on the wall.
And, the curtains have got to go. Yeah way to baby and not working in the color scheme. Anyway that is all after thoughts.

Beaching it Up

Max, Gwen and I went to the beach today and it was beautiful. Almost hot, slight breeze, tide way out and even a nifty new spout on the stream.



















- From my iPhone

Actually Done for Real!

Now the furniture is actually really done. The dresser has all the knobs (two were defective and had to be returned). The bed has all its screws (umm oops forgot those but they are in now :)
I did enjoy redoing the furniture. It just took lots of patience and the babies got to watch lots of movies.
Love the red dresser! The original thought was to stain it dark but I had an inspiring moment and chose the color in less then 2 minutes at Lowe's (with two grumpy babies in the cart).
The crib will move out after Otter Crest and there might be some shifting once the change table is gone but the work is done!






Ok I might make some more dignified curtains too.






The mirror is going to live on the floor. How could they see themselves if I put it back on the dresser?





- From my iPhone

Almost there!

Bed done!



Dresser needs one more coat on the drawers!




- From my iPhone

Summertime!

- From my iPhone

My Solider

Jeff's graduation was an interesting, rewarding and educational experience. He graduated from the 1/79th C Battery on Friday.
There was a 5:30am PT we got to watch and then run. It started out as a full brigade run but luckily Jeff's battery broke off so we only had to run a mile.





Later that day we watched a demonstration by the battery. Mostly drills and marching. There was a moving moment when soldiers who are from other countries got their american citizenship for serving.
After that we got to hang out with the soldiers on the battery pad and meet all their buddies.
Incase you did not know the armys ASU (army service uniform) is now blues (not greens anymore). Here he is in his class B ASU.





They did a lot of standing in formation while the Drill sgts. Told them not to be stupid while they had their day pass.






Day of graduation: Jeff in Class A ASU
Note they are big on the hats: you have to wear them at all times outside but never inside. Jeff almost gave me a heart attack when he jumped because a drill sgt. was headed his way (we were outside) and his hat was not on.







At the PX






Leaving the hotel. All the stuff he is holding is his luggage. We had to get an extra army cammo duffle to fit the stuff.





On the bus to the airport.





- From my iPhone

Bubbles!

This is one of the greatest inventions ever! The bubble cyclone from target.
About the size of a softball it sits on top of a jar of bubble stuff and runs on 3 AAA batteries.
It makes bubble like you would not believe (I bought it and an extra bubble jar for under ten dollars)
I put it on top of the BBQ to give it a chance to actually release the bubbles before they get whacked at by Max and Gwen.


















- From my iPhone

Results

Looks good!


- From my iPhone

This is the life

Max and Gwen are having the best time drawing all over a wooden table in the backyard with colored chalk. I am knitting from my amazing chair. Good times.






All that is missing is Jeff. He graduates from basic July 1.

- From my iPhone

Gwen's Birthday

 Finally loaded the pictures from Gwen's birthday to the computer. Now you know why you see the fuzzy one's from my iphone so often - it takes me forever to load the ones from the camera.
Anyway better late then never.

The event needs no explaining good times had by all.