Jeff's Farewell

I think there was an inside joke here. This is the cake from Jeff's farewell.
















Receiving his gift from the Current Operations section.





















I love this picture of Jack in Jeff's beret.

















Receiving his farewell gift from the 20th Support Command.





















This was our last day with Mrs. Lisa who has taken care of Jack and Molly while I exercise since Molly was seven weeks old. It was a hard goodbye! Molly calls her "my Wisa?"

I don't think I need to explain how much cursing took place during camp set-up







We took our first camping trip in October with some friends and it didn't turn out too well....It started off great with one day of exploring, playing, and roasting marshmallows. After the kids went to bed, we had some adult time. About 11 pm I start hearing noises inside our tent after it had started raining. There is nothing cuter than unzipping a tent door and finding two blondies in sleepers standing there. Anyway, the rain on the tent was LOUD and it had woke them up. I said goodnight to the adults and tucked in with the kids. Jack slept fine but Molly did not like the noise (it was "big old fat rain") and she was awake--no lie--until 1230 pm the next day when we packed up to head home. Needless to say we were pretty tired and grumpy for about a week after that. Oh, did I mention that our air mattress was bordered by about an inch of water by the morning? We will definately camp again but are seriously considering a popup camper!

Some of the friends who came to Molly's Birthday. This is on our way back from the pumpkin patch.

Molly trying to find the perfect pumpkin.

Blowing out the candles on her Mickey Cake.
















Jack finding his pumpkin.

Halloween and More

Okay, a change of plans. I can't get my website to work so I am just going to change things up now. I haven't quite figured out how to post the pictures evenly but I can work on that. Here are some pictures from Halloween and Fall. Jack was Woody and Molly was Minnie Mouse. The picture of Molly in her Mickey ears is from her birthday party. We had it at a pumpkin patch and the kids had a blast.

Grandma made Dad and Mom matching costumes, don't we look silly?

Moving On

I know I am behind on my blog. After this month though, it will be updated more often and it is going to become our main resource for passing on pictures and information. I am going to stop doing the website after the move. It is too hard to update and I can do more pictures more often with the blog. Therefore, after you view these pictures, remember that it will be the last time I'll add new pictures to the website. Our email address will remain the same until we "land" wherever it is that we are going to land--ha, ha.

Having said that....our move is now in full swing. Yes, the stress is mounting. We sold the house with not much time to spare and we are closing on the 22nd. Our movers are coming this Thursday and Friday and we are driving out of Maryland on the 28th. In the meantime we are trying to figure out what stuff to bring and what to let the movers take to storage. We don't know how long we will be without our own home so that basically boils down to A LOT of stuff....We are having a hard time deciding what goes in the "do not pack" part of the house. We didn't know it would be so difficult but it is not proving to be the most difficult thing we are having to do. That, we have found is saying goodbye. Goodbye to our new friends (and some old friends), to all the people who would have never known if we didn't have kids, to the kids friends, caretakers, and our adopted parents who live next door. Most of all saying goodbye to the Army is proving to be more emotional than we ever imagined. I guess if you put a timeline on it, the Army has been fixture in our lives for about 12 years now. It's a long time and wierd to imagine our lives not filled with camoflouge, boot polish, the smell of diesal fuel and "zero dark-thirty" mornings. Not to mention the fact that now I will have to pay full price for groceries! Talk about a killer! Jeff's unit was most gracious in saying goodbye to us (at the same time trying to get us to stay), and we will never be more thankful that we are leaving the Army on such a good note with fine people supporting us on our way out. Our lives have been truely blessed.

So, without sending myself into another round of tears I will just say that we will be seeing our family and old friends home in Missouri soon, and to the new friends we have here in Maryland, we will forever be grateful for your friendships and the joy you have brought our way the last two years!