Fashion Forward???

This gem of an outfit is what Rory proudly wore to school yesterday...

It's hard to pick just ONE thing to love about this ensemble...

1.  The daring-ness to put together such different patterns and colors..

or

2.  The winter "fashion" boots in 90 degree weather....

I'll let you ponder and then cast your vote!

Earning my Spurs!

Since we are back in a Calvary unit, the military spouses have an opportunity to earn our Spurs, just like the guys do, well not really because if that was true then I would still be out in the middle of field somewhere!

Soldiers can earn their spurs one of two ways: They can be awarded combat spurs meaning that you served with a Calvary unit in combat, or they can participate in a Spur Ride which is a series of events testing knowledge and physical fitness in several areas.

Our Spouse Spur Ride was merely for fun, and to give us a hands on experience for some of the things that our spouse does at work.

We participated in 4 different events, and no, Bryan didn't do a good job of preparing me for it.

We started off in simulators, you know a life size video game.  The first group went into the simulators and we were able to stay in the "Command Center" and watch all the action on the big screen..

We had a good time cracking up at this crazy Humvee that wasn't so much shooting at people as it was just driving over them.

Then we got our turn in the Humvee, and let me just say, they are not comfortable and the guns are heavy and very awkward...

This is just the view looking out my window onto the big simulation screens, which you can sort of see the "bad guys". Lucky for us they couldn't attack us because my weapon kept jamming..uh oh!

Next we moved on to Turkey shooting!  This was pretty funny, and no Turkey shooting is not something that the Army trains for...

I think these were M-16's or something.  You had to learn how to drop the ammunition clip and reload it pretty quickly....another fail for me, but I tried Wicked hard!

At this point in the day we were outside and heading up to the obstacle course.  I would also like to note that this was the point in the day when the skies opened up and started raining on us.  Apparently there is an Infantry saying "If it ain't raining, you ain't training."  I'll leave the grammatical errors alone, and just let you know that we could have done without the rain, but we made of the best of it!

We were in teams of 5, and we all had to carry our "weapons" with us, not necessarily carrying them correctly, just getting them from start to finish..

My team is on the right side behind the ladies in the white shirts...I would be in the gray ARMY shirt.  We started out my running through the tires that you see there on the ground, then we came up to a "grenade" station, AKA water balloons that we had to throw at a target.  After that we had to low crawl under some very dangerous barbed wire...

That would be my legs..I was moving wicked fast...

After that we came upon another "grenade" station, then followed on to a water jug carrying station. That sounds easy, but you also have to carry your weapon and these things were pretty filled.  After successfully transporting the water, we had to flip a HUGE truck tire 5 times, then move on to a "medic" station where one of team members had to be loaded onto a stretcher and carried to the drop off point where she was miraculously cured and able to join us for the final run to the finish...

Is it obvious that they girl that got carried on the stretcher is the one in front with a smile on her face?  I would also like to say that when Bryan saw this picture the first thing out of his mouth was, "Wow, you don't look happy."  I actually was happy and cracking jokes the whole way, I guess I'm just not photogenic..oh well.

After we all finished the course, we moved on to the last station, which was the Land Navigation course.  It was still raining, we were still outside and we had to learn how to read a compass.  Now I'm sure it's pretty easy, but when you now have a team of 12 and one compass is there really a need for me to learn how to do that??  I'll tell you, no.  This fact was confirmed when one of the soldiers that was with us pulled out his iPhone and used his compass app.

Our team successfully found our 4 targets out in the field, and we were done!

All that was left was to collect our spurs at the cookout.  There are some pictures of this somewhere, but I'm not holding my breath on seeing them.  In the meantime, here are the spurs I earned with t-shirt to go along with it!

Easter 2012

We had the good fortune to be able to celebrate Easter with Mammy and Kip!  The countdown to their arrival was a big event, good thing we didn't let the kids know that Mammy and Kip were coming until a week prior...any longer than that would have been torture!

Mammy and Kip arrived in style too...

That just put my minivan to shame!

We had tons of fun playing lots of games and reading books and playing house, Mammy has all the stories for those, but good luck getting her to retell them without bursting out laughing.  Thankfully were also able to complete some Easter crafts, like building Peep birdhouses....

It started out so well, and everyone had a lot of fun making them too...a little unconventional for an Easter craft, but this is coming from the woman who makes Groundhog donuts on February 2, so what do you want from me?

The Final Products:

 

We made them double deckers with a choice for a covered home or a bird nest on the roof.

Then we got some complaints...

Then we suffered a catastrophic event:

Please know that no Peep was injured in the devastation, they were only eaten...no harm no fowl...:)

In an effort to save face our next Easter craft was n safe one...Dying the Easter Eggs....

A HUGE success, and quality work for the Easter Bunny to hide!  A handwritten and illustrated not, with just one minor adjustment (I had no carrots just lettuce, or 'Lettis').

Easter Morning arrived, and the baskets that had been hung by the Chimney with care, oh don't roll your eyes..I know what Holiday it is, did you forget whose blog you were reading??

Anyway, the Easter baskets were filled to the brim with goodies by the Easter Bunny, and later that morning we were dressed in our Easter best and headed off to church!

The kids were AMAZING in church, and I had my doubts as Palm Sunday didn't go that well, but you have to set the bar low for that especially since everyone in Church thought it was absolutely necessary that each of the children have their own Palm Branch. Don't worry, they were regretting it by the time they got whacked in the head with it for the tenth time.  You now know why I had my doubts about Easter.  However, they were perfect, just ask the very unbiased Mammy and Kip.

After Mass we went out to lunch, and then back home for the Easter egg hunt...

After all of that, we had cupcakes for dinner....

 

 The kids had to have a little sugar, right?

Science and Math Night

The kids school hosted a "Math and Science Night" which was meant to introduce the kids to math and science skills at all different grade levels.  The kids had a blast, well at least Rory and Jack did, Brendan is not a fan of going back into the school building after school hours, apparently he feels that it is inhumane that we do that.  Oh well, good thing he starts the full day school year in the fall!

Anyway, the first station they went to was run by the preschool teachers, and the science experiment was one that needed goggles....

...Brendan participated as well, but had no interest in letting me take a picture of him with his goggles...

The experiment had to do with putting an Efferdent tab in a film canister, (2 things that I didn't think were still available) and adding vinegar, then you shook it up and put it on the table lid side down, and then the canister shot like a rocket high into the ceiling....it was a HUGE hit!

The highlight of the evening was a show in the cafeteria put on by a guy named Dinosaur George.  Since all of the kids are very into dinosaurs (I can name about 25 of them) and the event was free...we were there!  He brought lots of dinosaur bones and was very funny...he was so entertaining that Jack sat still for the entire 45 minute show, so now I think this guy is a miracle worker too!

Brendan is not a huge fan of big crowds and super loud noises, so he took a walk with Bryan...

That would be Brendan and Bryan along the wall at the rainbow painting, I think Brendan was trying to go Somewhere Over the Rainbow!

As a reward for being so good during the presentation, Rory and Jack were able to have their picture taken with Dinosaur George and a T-Rex bone!

Jack really was thrilled about the whole thing!

What we did for World Down Syndrome Day 2012

Over a week ago, March 21, 2012, we celebrated World Down Syndrome Day, and what a celebration it was!

About 3 weeks before that day I thought about how we could celebrate, and I came up with the idea of making ribbons and sending them out to people to wear.  I thought that maybe 20-30 people would want to be a part of it, and wouldn't that be great!  Well, I need to set higher expectations because I got requests for over 100 ribbons!!  What an incredible labor of love it was!  All we asked in return was for people to send a picture of them wearing their ribbon...and I was moved to tears when they started coming in!

From coast to coast and from the north to the south people wore their ribbons and I was told of so many incredible stories that they were able to share about spreading awareness about Down Syndrome and our fighting irishman!

So, here you are.....

We sincerely mean it when we say "Thank You".   I was so moved when I checked Facebook on that morning and people had already posted and reposted and shared about it being World Down Syndrome Day, you all beat me to the punch!

I remember being on the phone with my best friend Becky and just crying with tears of joy because my "little" project just took on a life of it's own!

Later that day, Brendan and I went into Rory's 1st grade classroom to talk about Down Syndrome, and to hopefully get the message across that just because someone is different it doesn't make them any less of a person.  Well, didn't they get it!  They sat and they listened, they ask questions, they participated in an exercise that we did, and then at the end they all rushed up to Brendan to give him a High 5!  Didn't he just think he was the King of the moment.

As we were getting ready to leave, Rory's teacher asked them what they had learned about Down Syndrome.  The smallest little girl in the class shot her hand up and answered "Just because Brendan looks a little bit different and it takes him a lot longer to learn how to do things, he's a kid just like us."  Well, cue the water works!  They are such a great bunch of kids, and we are so thankfully that we got to spend an hour with them!

It's not the best picture, but it was one of the best moments!

We also gave the some pretty "sweet" thank you gifts for letting us come in..blue and yellow M&M's!

In addition to people wearing their ribbons and spreading awareness, if included some information if people wanted to make a monetary donation.  The organization that we recommended was the Down Syndrome Research and Treatment Foundation.  I had heard about them from our friends at the Down Syndrome Guild in Kansas City.  They offer webinars on research that they are doing to develop treatments that will greatly improve the cognition abilities of people with Down Syndrome.  (When I participated in my first webinar I really wished that I had paid more attention in my science classes!) 

On March 21, the foundation had 3 incredible sponsors step up match every donation 3:1, (did you get the 3-2-1 reference?)  They were so amazed by the amount of donations that came in on that day that they even more generously offered to continue the match for one more day!  At the end, the grand total for donations that were made and matched was over $425,000!!!  WOW!!!

Can you think of a better way to celebrate the day?  Well, save your ribbons and get your friends and family signed up for more, because we have 354 days to figure it out!