4th of July

We did celebrate the 4th, but it was a toned down holiday than our normal fare...

We started with a brand new American flag on the house!

A little "Mommy-Rory" pool time

Brendan was catching up with a Sox game

Bryan grilled up hot dogs and hamburgers on our brand new grill

We ended dinner with "fabulous fourth" cupcakes....Brendan just wanted to eat it and not pose for pictures..

Rory is a poser..

..so is Jack!

It of course was pouring about the time that we were going to head out to watch the fireworks...so we just hung at our house and enjoyed the neighborhood fireworks..

 

Roughing it

So here we are in our new house, but all of our "stuff" has yet to catch up with us.  Actually I'm starting to wonder if it's ever going to get here especially since we found out yesterday that all of our crates are still sitting in storage in Texas because the total weight of our shipment was never put into the system.  Well, I almost put something into the system for them!!!  We should have an update today, fingers crossed...

Anyway, this is how we have been living, and it's not all that bad

Our cozy kitchen...

Rory's Room...

The Boys Room...

The Master...

Of course there is no washer or dryer here yet, so that means we have to make some trips to the laundromat.  I was paralyzed with fear at the though of making the trip to clean the clothes with my 3 precious ones....but off we went!!

This tranquil scene lasted just long enough for me to load 4 washing machines...then it was over!

This move may go down as our worst move, but we've made it so far with our wits, and maybe a few beers.   It can only get better from here!

I swear they added 300 miles in between Texas and Florida!!

Well, not really but the 1200 miles we drove over 2 days started to feel like it was more like 5000 miles especially as it got close to 10pm on day 2 of the trip!  The important thing is that we all survived!!!

Rory rode with Bryan and Chloe was her backseat travel companion.

We finally made it out of Texas and into Louisiana!  Jack had been asking since we pulled out of the driveway if we were out of Texas yet, so when I told him that we had finally crossed state lines this was his face....

....he promptly followed my announcement up with one of his own.."I want to go back to Texas!"

Brendan perfected his new trick of taking his arms out of his car seat straps....we quickly stopped that nonsense!

Come on Mississippi!!!

That was quickly followed by a welcome from Alabama!!!

Somehow I missed the "Welcome to Florida" sign, but here is that sign for Pensacola! (I know you can't really see it, so just trust me!)

Chloe had enough of being in the car and was trying to escape somewhere in northern Florida...she did not succeed!

Florida welcomed us with lots of crazy downpours..

....and a Dunkin' Donuts!!!

Time to pack it all up...

As with all things with the Army, our life is a lot of hurry up and wait, and then HURRY UP!!!

When it comes to moving a military family there are some good things about it, for example, the Army sends in packers to pack up your entire life and then put it on a truck and move it for you.  There are good and bad things about this, as you can imagine, for example the packing can get creative.  What do you mean you wouldn't have packed a trash can full of trash?  Why would you expect all of your kitchen utensils to be together?  What's wrong with finding a few dispersed between boxes of your kids toys?  Anyway, it gets done...and yes there are casualties of items along the way but that's life...don't worry I do have a good hissy fit (perhaps a few) every move.

To get to that point of watching packers like a hawk, you must have your PCS (Permanent Change of Station) orders in your hand in order to go to the transportation office on Post to make any plans of getting your things from one home to another.  Needless to say, this is where the hurry up and wait part comes in.

Bryan has had his report date for work for awhile, and it was at the end of June....the first week of June there were still no orders....but we had a house to move into and we knew the schools that the kids would be attending in the fall.  The kids got out of school at the end of the first week in June, and we still had no idea when we were leaving.  I was able to sign Brendan up for the Extended School Year program in Texas at the very last minute, and he was thrilled because he still got to ride the bus and his teacher was someone he LOVED!  So off he went to school, and then we got the orders, and finally got the transportation orders done.  Let's just say 7 days is plenty of time to get moved!

Exactly one week after getting orders, there were 3 packers in our house packing up all of our worldly possessions, and after 2 days of that, the moving truck arrived and that would be the day we would find out when out things would be delivered to our new house!  Now, we had pulled enough clothes and items to be without a house full of stuff for a week, everything else was boxed up and ready to be put on a truck!

Well, when a crate truck shows up instead of a moving truck, you know that things just went downhill. What's a crate truck you ask......

It's literally a trailer with wooden crates on it that your stuff gets loaded into and then it gets nailed shut and off it goes on it's adventure.  This adventure for our crates will take 3 weeks!  That's what we get for trying to do a move during the height of moving season for the military!  It was a shock to us since we had given them a destination address and no mention had been made that this would be anything other than a door to door move, but oh well!  There was nothing we could do, so I had a good meltdown then sent our things on their way, and then the next morning, we were on our way too!

Off to our new adventure...and yes that is a HUGE mound of dirt in our front yard!  We left mid-progress in our new retaining wall construction!

Lump in my throat..

We walked into the hotel in Florida and waited for the front desk clerk to check us in, she wasn't the most pleasant person to be working customer service.  She went on and on and about how she was having a bad day and everything was going wrong.  I wasn't really interested so I turned around to look at the TV so I could avoid listening to this woman complain, and that's when I saw the devastation in Oklahoma.  I was looking at the pictures of the mangled masses that used to be the collection of things that were people's lives, and that is when the words "Elementary school suffered direct hit of tornado, children and teachers trapped inside" scrolled across the screen.  I had to push the lump in my throat back down...not children in a school, again.

I managed to avoid watching too much news about Monroe, OK.  My heart aches for them, and my prayers are for them.  I care about the events, and what is going on there, but I also knew that back in Texas they were expecting bad weather, to include a threat of tornados, and my heart was sick that Bryan and I were going to be there with them.

The kids are having a grand time with Mammy and Kip, of course they are on their best behavior and putting on a grand show for their grandparents.  The boys are too young to understand the threat of bad weather, Rory on the other hand gets it.  She has a major fear of thunderstorms and tornados.  I guess that would be normal is you went through a tornado warning with tornado sirens and everything at the age of 6.  So my mom guilt really jumped into overdrive with every check of the weather app that I made.  

I'm pretty sure that I have driven my mom crazy with the "checking in" phone calls, and she and Bryan have dealt with my mini crying melt down.  We all made it...

While I don't think that mommy guilt feeling will ever go away, I'm so thankful that my mom understood and said "call as many times as you need to".

Special Olympics

It has been an emotional week, and that was just Saturday - Tuesday!  Tuesday at school Brendan's class participated in the Young Athletes program through Special Olympics.  I thought it was just going to be a small activity session that the parents had been invited to be a part of.  Boy was I wrong!  Walking out to the PE area of the school and what do I see?  The entire student body sitting around the perimeter of the black top area ready to watch Brendan's class!  The tears started flowing right then and there.  For Brendan's class to be supported and cheered on by the ENTIRE school was an incredible sight to see.  I had a very hard time composing myself, but I was thankfully wearing sunglasses and I still had a pack of tissues in my purse from Rory's communion!  By watching the video, I think you'll be able to tell where I almost completely lost it!

I hope you noticed Brendan's 5th Grade buddy who was with him the entire event.  He took the time to get on Brendan's level and walk with him, talk to him and encourage and cheer him on!  I hope he knows what such a small gesture he made has forever made an impact on Brendan's life and left an impression on my heart.

Brendan's teacher Ms. Byse goes out of her way to make sure that her kids are just as involved in the school as every other kid, and that speaks volumes to everyone!  We are so blessed to have been a part of such an incredible school campus and to have such incredible teacher and therapists who have made a difference not only in Brendan's life, but the world!

First Communion

It's hard to believe that Rory is old enough to be receiving her First Holy Communion, but the day arrived, and ready she was!! The dress was picked, the perfect veil with little shamrocks was ready, her celtic cross was hung around her neck and a perfect sash with a white flower and shamrocks that had once been on her baptismal bonnet were now tied around her waist.  She was a little nervous, but ready for the big day!

I was ready to cry buckets, I always cry at First Communion.  It's such a big day in their young lives, but there were no tears on that day.  Perhaps it was because Bryan and I had a direct eyeliner to Rory sitting in her pew with the rest of her classmates, and we could see her chit chatting through the whole ceremony, or maybe it was because just as she was about to receive communion the lady in front of me stood up and I could see nothing.  Nevertheless, it was a beautiful day and it was the day that our little girl was not really that little anymore...