So.......

I had a revelation today. I'm a mom and that is my profession. It might not look good on a resume but that's what I do. At least Charles is thankful for my credentials. One day my kids better be. It is THE single most thankless job I can think of. But...even when your kids are older, they STILL need you at home. I refuse to let my kids be latchkey children even though it is so tempting to go and get a job. Sometimes I forget I'm doing what I am supposed to be doing and have to be reminded I'm right where I need to be. Oh well! At least I have a hot tub now!

Civilization.....there's a lot to be said for it!

I think I married the greatest man on earth! However, he bugs the crap right out of me sometimes. He is convinced to make all of us lovers of the outdoors. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the outdoors. I love the beach, I love to ride my bike, I love to swim, I like to take walks, I like the outdoors. BUT....I like to go places that aren't so primitive. If I'm going to go hiking then I want to hike on a well established trail. I'm not about hiking over boulders and worrying about twisting my ankle and breaking it. I don't want to have to worry about me or my family members being mauled by a bear. I like things that are civilized and well established. Well the point to all of this was to tell you about our fabulous family outing today. Charles has a goal for the family to hike down to Havasu Falls. I think it's somewhere in the Grand Canyon. Now I have seen pictures and it is beautiful. So in order to achieve this he wanted to start practicing hiking. We need to work up to it since it is a 10 mile hike. Charles planned a Saturday of hiking and I must have way misunderstood what he was dragging me into. First of all the road to where he took us was anything but fun. I had to use my core muscles for 30 minutes straight to keep from bouncing out of the car. It was MISERABLE. Plus, I'm on my period and had some mild cramping but with the jerking and jostling the cramps went past mild. Not to mention the muscles it took to stay in my seat. So after the first stop I was being a real trooper. The kids were having fun and it was all good, old fashioned, family fun. We even walked in a cave about 150 feet and promptly left when I saw about a thousand spiders piled up in a corner. Seriously, it was about 1000+ of those grand-daddy long-leg looking spiders. Creepy. I said this is where I stop. So, off to the next stop. We got back in the car and jostled our way to another "fun" stop. By this time I need a bathroom to take care of lady business and the best thing I have is a stinky hole. I said hell no! I rarely do public restrooms and I ain't about to go climbing into some hut with a hole to do feminine hygiene business. Completely frustrating.

I tried to tell Charles that when you are easing someone into something they don't particularly care for you can't go planning a day to do the not fun thing for 3-4 hours. That's not easing one into something. That's making them never want to do it with you again. Like I said, I like to hike. I just think there needs to be some great reward at the end of a hike. Like....say.... a picnic or a fabulous waterfall of the top of a gorgeous mountain. I don't want to go wandering all over east hell just to say I did. Then needless to say what goes up must come down. We climbed back in the vehicle to shake our way down the unpaved, primitive road. Yeah I was a little aggravated by the time we arrived home. Of course Charles thinks I made it un-fun by being a little miserable. Of course the misery didn't start until I realized just how long he was making this hiking trip. In the end, I didn't finish the last part of the trip and Cody and I made it back to the car. The rest of the bunch finished the hike and saw nothing great and came back down. I did get some great pictures and we finally made it home and I was able to bathe and be back in some civilization. I love boys! They'll never know what it's like to be a lady.

Memory lane......

So since the internet feels new again I have been a little addicted to it today. As I was checking my email I received a notice from facebook telling me I had a friend request from someone I went to high school with in Gadsden. It seemed very strange. First of all, it's been years since I have been back to that place and second I didn't think anyone would remember me from there. I left before I graduated high school. I think I've only been back a handful of times and haven't kept in touch with one person from that place. Then Charles has been asking me all day about things that have happened in our life in the last 10 years. His top secret clearance is up for renewal and he has to go back 10 years for information. Adresses, people we've known for that long, places of employment and on and on. They look into EVERYTHING. It's ok though, we're the most boring people on earth. Of course some people we know aren't so boring and that's a little scary to think about. Then I have a 32nd birthday coming up and it makes me think about all that has happened in my life. It's so weird to think that I am already 32....well I will be on April 1. I have been with my husband for almost half of my life. I just don't feel that old. Well I can say one thing....it's been an eventful 32 years. I have especially enjoyed the last 14 years of it. It's been quite the adventure. I've thought about lots of memories today and I have a lot of good ones. I was trying to think of the top 10 best memories and I think I can do it. Let's see.....

1. Of course my wedding day and the birth of all my kids. But let's list the not so obvious ones.
2. I will NEVER forget Josh being a baby and his trademark screaming. He would throw his head back and open his mouth wide and scream like mad.
3. All the trips to the ER with Ryan....stitches....twice, a broken arm, a scratched cornia, a skim board to the nuts.....am I missing one? Oh yes, I am missing one. He got stridor when he was 2 and had to spend the night at Children's hospital.
4.Charles bought me diamond earrings for Valentine's Day the year we celebrated our 8th anniversary.
5. I got a bag of cherries for my 12th anniversary. We also went to the Grand Ole Opry but the cherries was a super sweet thought from Charles. I seriously LOVED it.
6.My 23rd birthday. A very bad day. Charles got the family tickets to a Blue Angels air show. It was hot, miserable and 6 total hours in traffic. It was not fun but I still enjoy giving him a hard time about it. He's more than redeemed himself since then.
7. Me and my little brother Michael used to stay up so late during the summer and watch all the shows on Nickelodeon...The Patty Duke Show, Too Close for Comfort, and Father Knows Best. Good times :)
8.The day I found out a good friend of mine was a true con artist! Yep, true story.
9.The first time I ever laid eyes on Charles I thought he had the best looking legs ever. I later realized he has a really cute butt too!
10.The day Charles called me and said "Hey, I got my orders for Arizona so let's go get married." I love him even more today and he still has those sexy gams! and buns!

Oh and one more good memory I will be able to add to my bank is the trip I will be taking with my sister in June. We got our Vegas tickets and I couldn't be more ecstatic!

I do have a pretty darn good life. Now if I could just find a good hairdresser here in Sierra Vista life would be perfect!

Remember me?

Dark brown hair, chubby, cute girl? Ring a bell? Yeah, I'm back! We FINALLY got an internet connection today and I feel like a new woman. Of course Charles wasn't here when the guy came and I had no idea what to tell the guy with all the questions and I think he tried to sell me a modem that we don't need. Lucky for me my husband is a computer genius and will figure it all out when he gets home. Also lucky for me, he's cute. Not too much has been happening around in these parts. We're finally settled and got all that dang painting done. I didn't think that would ever end but all the colors we picked turned out great. I'll need to post some pictures soon.

For some reason spiders tend to dig the dry Arizona climate. We've seen quite a few of the suckers in the house. They come in all sizes. There was a guy at church telling Charles about a scorpion that got in his bed and bit him. I'm not very much of a fan of things with more than 2 legs. It makes me miss Utah where the only bug you have to worry about there are those annoying box elder bugs. At least they aren't scary though. I'll take annoying over fangs any day.

There are quite a few families here that we knew when we were stationed here last. It's nice to see familiar faces of people you liked. Charles likes his job good enough and he has been biking to work. We're a one car family and it actually isn't too bad for now. Of course I have driven him into work a few times and now that I think about it he's only ridden to work twice. I help out in Josh's class twice a week and I bike to the school since it's so close. Sierra Vista is a very bike friendly town so it makes it nice for those who like to bike around. So with everything we need being fairly close we haven't had any problems only having one car. Hopefully it will continue to work out. Anyway, we're enjoying living here once again. I am extremely glad we didn't have to live on post and I'm very grateful for the ward we ended up in. It's nice being a 2 parent family again. I still don't feel like I have found my niche but hopefully in time. It took a while before Charles got into a real work schedule and by the time he did the kids' spring break rolled around. We're going through that this week. So maybe after this week I can feel like a real person with a real life and a real schedule. I'll let you know how that goes. But for now it's at least great to have an internet connection again.

Here I am...

rock you like a hurricane. Seriously though....our computers have been out of commission for a while. We were supposed to have internet on Friday but the cable guy informed us that someone had dug up all the underground cable lines that connect to our house! So....we won't have internet for a month! They have to come and lay new ones and figure out where all the other utility companies have their lines and blah, blah, blah. So here we sit at the ACS office using their computers. Life isn't so bad though. We're doing good and loving our new place. The kids are settling in nicely, well, except Charlie is having a hard time making friends that don't cuss. We're not in Utah anymore and people seem a lot different out in the real world. That Utah experience ruined us for anywhere else. We loved it there and miss it like crazy. I am enjoying the non-stop sunshine though. It's been in the 70's since we got here and the kids have gotten to wear shorts to school and love it. They're the only ones that wear shorts so far though. 70's in Arizona is winter time for these people. You'll see folks with their scarves and winter boots on in the blazing sun. People it ain't that cold. But this is winter weather for them.

Anyway, Charles still hasn't started back to work but life is starting to settle down. We've been painting our house and getting things the way we like them. We have really great landlords that have terrible taste but willing to let us do as we please with the house. It is really nice and spacious and we have a huge backyard that will take the boys forever to mow. I love it though and Dixie thinks she's in heaven with so much space to roam.

Charlie has an African American teacher at his new school. And from what he tells us, she is ALL African American. Let me just say......boy are we glad that black history month is over. What really is the purpose of devoting an entire month to black folks? I get having a day or 2 or even a weekend. But an entire month.....what the heck? Look at all the good things white people have done for society and we don't have white history month. Can you imagine all the crap white folks would get if we had all the stuff for just whites that blacks have for just themselves? Anyway this teacher comes to school one day in Kwanzaa garb. Now, Charlie has an attitude a lot like mine when it comes to stuff like this, so you can imagine the look on his face when he sees his teacher walk in with this crap on. Can someone please tell me what Kwanzaa is all about? I mean this is about as made up as Scientology. I can't think of anything more ridiculous than either one of those things. Thank goodness for March!

Well this is about all I have for now. Charles and I are headed to Tucson to see if we can find a couch in our budget. It'll probably be a while before the next post. Excuse all the grammatical errors since this computer doesn't have spell check.

Life is like a box of chocolates.....

you never know what you're gonna get. Today definitely didn't turn out like I expected. The morning downright sucked. I awakened at 7 a.m., excited to get our "normal" life going again. First, I went to Ryan's school to get him registered and found out he wasn't going to be able to start today. Same thing at Josh and Cody's school and the black lady at Charlie's school wouldn't even give us a registration packet until we showed her how long we were going to be staying in this housing facility. So off to the housing office we go to see which fabulous house we were going to be living in. Well.... we were offered a 1500 square foot dump. I could not believe my eyes. I was for sure they were going to offer us one of the nice, brand new houses they have built in the last 5 years. I had my heart set on this and I could just feel it in my bones that we would be blessed to have one of these. But no.....we weren't. Instead we were offered a dilapidated dump that had the oldest of fixtures and tile that was peeling away from the floor. Now, I'm not a picky person and I can usually fix something up and make it look nice. But....I've been married for almost 14 years and I refuse to downsize at this point in my life. I can't even fit all my crap in 1500 sq ft. Not to mention my family would be all over each other in a house this size. My older boys are practically the size of some grown men.

I start bawling at the idea of having to live here. Charles was just thrilled we were even offered something so soon. Of course, his life has gotten nothing but better since he arrived home from Iraq. Remember, he was living in 250 sq ft room for year. But the kids and I had to leave a great place and a great home that we loved dearly to move here and be offered a dump. I mean, we're officers now, shouldn't we be getting the good crap by now? So I'm crying and everyone is on edge. The lady at the housing office is a complete bitch and has been since we met her 14 years ago at this base. She has worked at the housing office forever.We remember her from 1995. Only difference is she's 60 pounds heavier and looks more like a lesbian. I was pissed.

So off to the newspaper stand we go. I got a classifieds and started dialing. We found only 3 good prospects. One with a pool but didn't have things we needed. It was a decent price but still pretty small. Another one was a rental that has gone into horrendous disrepair. Then off to the boondocks to a trailer that had been advertised as a "house". You might be a redneck if you have to drive off a paved road to get to your house. That was the trailer. The gravel on the road wasn't even small and compact. It was like driving over boulders. My head almost rolled off my shoulders trying to get out of that place. Then....it happened......I had overlooked a listing that was in the classifieds. I look down and saw 4 bedroom 2 bath in my price range. I called up and the guy tells me it was 2400 sq ft. I was for sure it was going to be a dump. We had found nothing that big in our price range that was nice. To our surprise it was great! Huge yard, 4 bedrooms, huge covered patio, freshly painted, fabulous. We get to move in ASAP! I am so glad that weight is lifted. I went from feeling so trapped and unable to do anything to feeling so freakin relieved and glad we can get out of this hotel tomorrow. The taste isn't mine but it is clean and well taken care of. We're gonna get to paint and make it like ours as best as we can. God loves me! Now I'm not so irritated with Charles anymore and I like my kids a little more than I have been. Opposition in all things. It is ALWAYS like this when we move and I seem to forget every time. It always works out though and it has again. Thank you Lord.

Still here....

in a hotel! It could be worse though.....right? We're all just a little stir crazy. Charles has to sign into his unit tomorrow and the kids will be registered for school. I'll be one step closer to regaining my life:) Of course it is parent/teacher conferences the next 3 days so all of my kids will only go half a day to school! The kids have had fun with no responsibilities but it is getting a little old for me. We can't seem to stay out of the hotel room enough. Charles and Ryan had a great idea to go hiking this evening.....in the pitch darkness. It is dry as a bone here and the ground is dusty and loose. The hill went straight up and there was no way I was gonna go to the top. I was slipping and sliding coming down. I love Charles. It reminded me of the time when he wanted to take me mountain biking. We were living in Clarksville at the time. I had gotten into shape so he was excited to share his passion with me. I didn't like it one bit. My bike gears weren't working well and I just do not enjoy riding on gravel and bumps.....everything shakes and bounces. I like riding my bike... I just like riding on asphalt. Charles is determined to make me a hiker! The weather is great though and I am really diggin' the sun shining all the time. It's super dry though and my hair is staticy if I don't put something in it. It was stuck to my head all day today unless the wind was blowing me over. I just love Arizona! Kidding :) I really am thrilled to be here.

Well folks I think I'm calling it a night.