Travel Day 2

I went for a nice 4 mile run in Roswell this morning to start off my day. It sure was nice running outside instead of on a hotel treadmill! We got on the road almost an hour later than we had hoped/planned for and that made for a kind of late arrival at our hotel in Fort Worth, TX, but we made it here safely. It was a decent drive and nice weather again. Both boys are doing well traveling and Callie is doing well, too. We do have to give her a pill each morning we travel as she gets car sick, but that's not too bad. Upon our arrival at Ft. Worth, I was saddened to see that there is no fitness center and therefore no running for me in the morning. I was hoping to get another 3-4 miles in, but oh well. We'll be able to get on the road earlier which is a good thing as we will be going to dinner at a friend's house when we arrive in Scott, LA, tomorrow.

Endings and a Beginning

This past weekend marked the ending of the chapter of my life at Ft. Huachuca and Sierra Vista. Saturday morning was my final race in Arizona – the Mystery 10K on post. It was a nice morning temperature-wise, but the winds were already starting to pick up. Add wind to a hilly course and it makes for an interesting race, but it was still a lot of fun. I finished in 1:05:41 – my second fastest 10K!! All the training I've been doing lately is paying off. I think if you took the wind out of the equation for the race, I could have pulled off a 1:02 or 1:03! Someday I will go less than an hour on a 10K.

Saturday afternoon Ryan and I rearranged the stuff in the trailer and it all fits a lot better now. When Ryan was loading the trailer Thursday evening, he was just pretty much getting stuff in it because we were all tired and cranky and it was dark out. We spent some time in the pool at the hotel and enjoyed our day.

Saturday evening was the End-of-Year/Farewell choir party at one of the member's houses. It was a lot of fun and lots of yummy food. Everyone enjoyed watching Thomas crawling around and playing. Of course, they enjoyed having Robert there as well. I'm going to miss my choir family and I think they're going to miss my boys more than me. LOL! It was nice having them love on my boys and they never minded having them over in the choir area during the service. They gave me a framed picture of the Milky Way behind the Huachuca Mountains – very cool!

Sunday morning was my last 2 services at Sierra Lutheran and singing with the choir. It was Pentecost, a Festival Sunday, so the choir sang at both services. Ryan and I read the lessons at the 1100 service and Pastor did a special sending blessing for our family after Communion. He invited members of the congregation to come up and lay hands on us, and there were a lot (including the majority of the choir) that did. I'm going to miss my church family there. Everyone was so welcoming to us and our boys! After many hugs and good-byes and a few tears, we headed to the vet to pick Callie up from being kenneled, got ice at the gas station, and went and got the trailer from the house (and my frozen breastmilk stash from our neighbor's freezer), and we got on our way. Destination – Roswell, NM, Ryan's hometown.

We arrived in Roswell shortly after midnight and got checked in and settled for the night. Both boys went right to sleep, even after sleeping in the van for a while. Thomas slept until about 7 at which time I nursed him and put him back in his crib. I didn't care if he played or slept, but I was going to sleep more, and I did. Thomas did, too. We finally started getting up and ready around 10. Once we were all ready, we headed out into town to play tourist for the day. We ate at the Alien McDonald's – the play area is in the shape of a UFO! Then we drove around for a little while and ended up at the International UFO Museum. That was really interesting, and really makes you wonder if UFOs and other life do indeed exist. There were many reports from witnesses of events, and newspaper clippings with all the different stories the government had. Robert got a stuffed alien and we got a shot glass for our collection. Then we drove around some more and saw the high school and elementary school Ryan attended and where his grandparents' house had been. Only the steps are left. The building his grandfather's shoe repair shop was in is gone as well. We also found the cemetery where his grandparents are most likely buried (it's the only cemetery in Roswell that we could find), but having no idea where they would be, we didn't try and find them. Maybe someday. We ended our afternoon at the little zoo in town and rode a train for a quarter each and rode a carousel (the old kind with wooden animals and no seat belts) for a quarter each. The guy operating the carousel didn't charge for either me or Thomas (don't know which), but since we had an extra ticket then, Robert got to ride again. It was a fun day of touristing, and Thomas took almost a 3 hour nap once we got back to the hotel.

After Thomas woke up from his nap, we went to a BBQ place in town for dinner. The food wasn't bad, but we've also had much better. Ryan had ribs, but the ribs from Up North Lodge in Gwinn are still his #1 ribs! After dinner, we came back to the hotel and spent some time relaxing in the pool. Thomas had his first underwater experience, kind of on accident. I had him on his tummy and he was well supported, but he decided to bob his head and his face went under for a second. He was fine after he coughed and sputtered for a couple of seconds.

Time for bed now. We've got another long day of traveling tomorrow, but we'll be leaving much earlier in the day than we did on Sunday so we should have daylight the whole way and have time to hit the pool when we arrive tomorrow evening.

Five Things Friday – The Moving Edition

I'm glad it's Friday! But I'll be even more glad NEXT Friday when we sign for our new house at Ft. Rucker! We haven't been in a hotel for 24 hours and I'm already tired of living in a hotel. Here are 5 things from this week of craziness. . .

1 – The moving crew did a great job and had jut about everything packed up on Monday. Tuesday morning they finished up the linen closet and hall closet and got everything loaded on the big moving truck to take our stuff to Alabama. It should get there early next week and will have to be put into storage for a week.

2 – I FINALLY finished clearing my unit. 4 stops plus the command team took me the entire 10 days I was allotted to out-process. Either people weren't at work (appointments, class, etc.) or were in rehearsal when I was there and trying to clear. But it's done – only about 3 hours of my time wasted while waiting around, driving extra trips, etc.

3 – Post out-processing was relatively simple and I only had about 15 minutes of wasted time. That was from going to Finance Thursday morning only to find out they were closed for training and would reopen at 1230. So I went back at 1230 and then did my final out. My final out took less than 5 minutes!  I am now officially on PCS leave!

4 – Somehow we ended up with WAY more stuff than we thought and the trailer is WAY fuller than what we had figured. I don't know how we ended up with so much – I even had a list of things we were going to take with us. We finally finished loading the trailer about 9:30 last night – not fun in the dark and Ryan is hurting today from all the moving and lifting of stuff yesterday. Thomas slept on the floor in Robert's old room while we were finishing up the packing and loading. Tomorrow we're going to try and rearrange stuff in the trailer a little – in the daylight.

5 – I did my final walk-thru with Re-Max this morning and turned in our keys. Once that was done, I went and turned in our cable box and terminated our cable/internet here. Then I had to go to all the other utilities again and have them cancel the disconnects scheduled for Tuesday. Re-max requires the tenant to continue all utility services until all cleaning and repairs have been done. I think this is silly, but whatever. So now I have to call Re-Max next Thursday or Friday to see if everything is done and then I can call the utilities and have them disconnected. I think I might call Re-Max every day starting on Tuesday, so I can get the utilities disconnected as soon as I can.

Moving Monday

Well, packing Monday at least, but Moving Monday sounded better. The packers have been here since about 0745 and are moving right along (pun intended). Robert's room is all packed and Thomas' room is about 2/3 done. Master bedroom is pretty close to being done – I think he's working in the closet now. The guy in the kitchen and the guy in the garage are plugging away at their large tasks. We'll see how the rest of the day goes since this was supposed to be a 2-day pack. And we found out this morning that our stuff will actually be going into storage – it'll be arriving at Ft. Rucker by MONDAY!! Holy cow!! Fingers crossed that we can get delivery on 4 or 5 June so we have time to get somewhat settled before I start in-processing at Ft. Rucker.  On a side note. . . Packers just LOVE people that have coffee mug collections. No, not really. LOL! Oh well.

We've found several things that have been missing! I found my race number from my first half marathon in 2003 – the Incheon Half in Incheon, S. Korea. And I found the American Legion Riders guardian bell for the motorcycle. Yay for finding missing things!!

I guess I'm going to take out my cross stitching for a while since the packers have things under control. No need for me to be getting in their way.

Frustrating Friday and Super Saturday

Despite working on packing and getting things we're taking with us out to the trailer until 10:00 Thursday evening, I was up and ready for my long run Friday morning. The plan was 6.5 miles. I met my running friend/fellow Soldier by the skate park in the park and we headed out for what ended up being a 7.25 mile run. We were so busy chatting while running that I missed the street I had planned to turn on. Eventually we get to a dead end, but see a trail heading sort of in the direction we needed to go. After a while, the trail kept getting narrower and narrower and pretty soon it disappeared. There were some houses off to the right, so we made our way through the brush and everything and followed the fence back to civilization. I knew right away that we were farther than we should be, but at least we knew where we were. We finally made it back to our starting point. It was a great run despite the trail & cross country running and being 3/4 mile longer than planned.

After getting myself and the boys ready, I worked on getting the last few things together and into the trailer while Ryan ran the boys to school and daycare and then headed to Competition Tire for our new tires & front end alignment on the van. I sat at home waiting for the packers to come pack our house up. And I waited. And waited. Finally I called my point of contact at the company that's handling our move (and of course, they're not local) to find out when the packing crew would be showing up. After several phone calls back and forth, a member (the head??) of the packing crew called me to let me know they'd be there on Monday. What??? I scheduled a 2 day pack-out and they think they're going to do it in one day. Apparently they were double scheduled. Our Transportation office on post will definitely be getting a call first thing Monday morning about this fiasco. So, needless to say, I was highly upset. I sat all day waiting for them to show up when I could have gone to post and finished clearing the unit and gone to daycare to nurse Thomas at lunch – he had a 2-bottle day. What a waste of my time. I didn't even do any stitching or anything since everything was in the trailer. After we picked the boys up from daycare, we headed out to eat because I needed to get away from the house for a little while.

Today was a much better day! It started much the same – a nice run this morning, but only 3 miles today. I let the guys sleep in, so I had a nice quiet house for a little while after my run. Once everyone was up and had had breakfast, we headed to the Sierra Vista Public Works garage. They had their annual open house today and they had lots of displays and information about all the stuff that they maintain. They even had a scavenger quiz for a raffle drawing! It was fun reading all the "Did You Know?" boards to find the answers for the quiz.  After we had seen everything there, we headed to Walmart to get Robert a new bike since he outgrew his old one (we Freecycled it!). We also got a few other things while we were there. Then we went to Olive Garden for a late lunch (really early dinner?) and then to Fry's for a few things I needed to make lasagna tomorrow. Once we got home, Thomas went down for a nap and I went next door to borrow a cup of sugar and then proceeded to make butterscotch chip cookies. They turned out super yummy!  Ryan took Robert to a friend's birthday party at Peter Piper Pizza, and after Thomas was in bed, I got 3 hours of stitching in because Ryan made me take the day off from working. We still have some things that we want to go through, but it will wait until tomorrow.

Off to bed now. . .

Farewell!

No, my blog isn't going anywhere. And neither am I – at least for another week. But I had my farewell luncheon today. I got presented my award and got a really cool plaque from the unit with my rank, unit insignia, and some pictures of me doing various things. And it's signed with little notes from members of the unit!! I'm really going to miss the band here at Ft. Huachuca, and I'm definitely going to miss the weather here – it's so nice for running!  I picked Thomas up from daycare on my way to the luncheon, and of course picked Ryan up from home. Everyone was glad to see them as well. Robert was at school, and I wasn't about to pull him from school for lunch.

My out processing is going well. I'm about 3/4 done with everything – only a few more stops on post and about 1/2 the unit. It was really hard to out process the unit this morning when everyone was in the training meeting. LOL. I'll get them tomorrow.

My Final Gig at Ft. Huachuca

This morning I actually got to sleep in! Thomas nursed at midnight and then again at 3, and at that point I turned my alarm off and decided I'd get up and go run my 6 mile long run whenever he woke up. He slept until 8!!! So I nursed him and put him back in his crib to play (and eventually nap) and got ready to head out on my run. It was not a good run between still being sore from the obstacle course on Thursday, not having drunk any water yesterday, and it was 75 degrees out when I started. By mile 3 I knew I wasn't going all 6 miles. I made it 4.35 miles and walked the rest of the way home. I'm glad I'm smart enough to listen to my body. Believe me, I drank water today.

I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon just being lazy. We have more organizing to do, but we were all just lazy today. Eventually I got into my uniform and we headed out to post for stage band formation. After we got our equipment loaded on the truck, we headed to the parade field where we would be playing for an Evening on the Green. The stage band was the first group up and it was my last gig with the 62d Army Band here at Ft. Huachuca. Despite the wind trying to blow our music away, the gig went really well! It was a lot of fun and we played a nice variety of music – some old standards, some newer, some Latin, some funk. It was a great gig for my last one.

After the gig, we got the stuff back to the band hall, and then we went to the commissary to get baby food and a few other things. I got in the store just in time before they closed. Then we headed to Ray's for dinner since it would be too late to cook when we got home. After we got home from eating, we finally got the watch the NASCAR race that we Tivo'ed.

Off to bed now. . .

Five Things Friday

Welcome to this week's version of Five Things Friday!!

1 – I am officially out-processing from Ft. Huachuca. I got my clearing papers this morning, but the only thing I've cleared is the Library (music type). We had a stage band run-through this morning for our concert tomorrow, so I didn't do any out-processing.

2 – Thomas' pink eye is getting better. The eye drops his doc gave us are really working. Of course, it's not an easy task putting eye drops into the eyes of a 7 1/2 month old, but we've been managing.

3 – Robert has 9 days left of being a 2nd grader. Where has the time gone??

4 – I love Freecycle. I've been listing things on there as we find them and decide we don't want to move with them, and sometimes within minutes of posting I have one or more takers.

5 – I enjoy cross stitching when the house is completely quiet. Everyone was in bed asleep except me while I was stitching tonight. Very peaceful.

I'll leave you with a picture of my boys in their matching outfits on Easter.

Thankful Thursday

Trying to get back on the blogging wagon with some things I'm thankful for.

I'm thankful for a son who likes to run with his mommy. Robert ran his second 5K back the end of April and he improved his time by 8 1/2 minutes on a hilly cross country course!

I'm thankful for a husband who "puts up" with my running. He doesn't mind watching the boys so I can get my running in, and he can tell if I haven't run enough lately because I start getting crabby. Then he'll make me go run.

I'm thankful for a wonderful chain of command at work. They've allowed me time off to take care of sick kids (Thomas has pink eye right now) and time to get my house ready to be packed for our move. I guess it pays being a good Soldier and making sure you get done what you need to get done. After close to a dozen bags full of trash and 5 or 6 boxes of stuff to Goodwill, our house is about 80% ready to be packed. We still have some work to do in the shed and garage, Robert's room, and the craft room, but progress has definitely been made and we're looking at actually having an organized pack this time!

I'm thankful for a super awesome church family. I will miss my choir family most of all when we move – it has been an awesome 3 seasons with the Chancel Choir at Sierra Evangelical Lutheran Church. Our church family there has been just as wonderful, and I hope our next church is at least half as wonderful.

I'm thankful that the Tooth Fairy has finally visited our house! Robert lost his first tooth Tuesday morning. The Tooth Fairy brought him a gold $1 coin.

I'm thankful for the wonderful weather we have here in Arizona. I'm going to miss that when we move – either I'm going to have to get a treadmill or do a lot more running in the rain in Alabama.

I'm thankful for my parents. I know they love me and that's all a girl needs! Even a 36-year-old needs her mommy (and daddy) once in a while!