Hello! I'm alive and Joe is back at work, so I am now back once again to the blog-o-sphere.
Before I get to filling in the story behind these pictures... a quick update:
We are now living in El Paso, TX (Fort Bliss).
Joe is a PL (Platoon Leader)!
We found an AWESOME rental house that we love!
My crazy/awesome parents are bringing ALL of our earthly goods to us next week and spending Thanksgiving with us! Double Yay!
On to these really old pictures, which I'm sure by now you have already created the story behind...
These are my cute little munchkins all decked out in the cleaning/packing outfits. At this point in time, we were getting ready to send dad off to Ranger school and head back to MN ourselves to spend the winter with family.
Therese is definitely a lover... I thought this was going to be one of their last naps together on the same "bed", so I had to snap a couple.
These are just some picks of little Librandis in LT Librandi's patrol cap.
Both David and Therese love to color. Thanks to the "broken crayon" trick my sister taught me, Therese holds her writing utensils like a pro... we need to do some more work with David.
These are pictures from Joe's graduation from MP-BOLC. I really wish my camera had a "graduation in a really dimly-lit auditorium" setting!
Joe walking across the stage.
Singing their hymns and taking their pledges... the man sitting right to the left of Joe (as you see him in the pictures) is LT Morales... who was, at this moment, also thinking he was going to Ranger school.
The kids did pretty good, considering that the speaker was in no way short-winded or interesting to the small folk. This is what they looked like at the end of the graduation.
That weekend was the Walk for Life in Waynesville. We, as well as a bunch of other families from MCCW and the post parish, went to show our support.
Looking back and holding a baby in this picture... my good friend, Dana.
And doing the same in this picture, my good friend, Lauren.
We have been informed that little Eoin has his sights set on Little T.
A group picture of most of the kids at the Walk.
The Catholics stayed around for a Rosary afterwards... it was a very nice day!
Some pictures taken by David. During these days we were on a roller-coaster ride about whether of not Joe was being permitted to attend Ranger School.
As a gift to Joe, I decided to scrub out the tub one day. And, of course, I couldn't do little acts of service without letting everyone know about it!
But I guess it worked out well, because we found out the following day that we were now ALL going to Texas, and we had less that 24 hours to pack up our lives and clean the entire apartment and leave! It was nice to at least have the tub clean!
And... after about exactly 24 hours, here we are on the road again. But this time, due to not being prepared for the sudden changes of plans, we had to leave A LOT of stuff with our handyman and his wife. Well... at least they could hopefully use it or make a little money off of it! Oh, well!
This was at or above our tightest pack job. David was fairly visible to both Joe and I, but Therese was basically lost to us, among the rubble. Oh, and David had a FABULOUS trip, because I used a little trick that my family used to use when we were going on big family outings in order to fit everything. Both carseats were actually sitting on top of all of our blankets, so the kids were a good 6 inches higher than usual. David very energetically pointed out every truck, train and puppy dog that he saw for the first 30 miles or so. Up until then he had always been too short to see them.
I think this is the sunset over Tulsa, OK. We spent the night there (at the Hampton Inn, to be precise - we love them and they have a great military discount!).
This is our lunch stop on the second day. It was in the "panhandle" of Texas - the few moments we spent in TX before heading in to New Mexico for the duration of the day.
Now that I look at it, this was also the most grass, by far, that we have seen in Texas this far!
These pictures were taken for dad.... one of the several HUGE stock yards that we drove by in New Mexico.
And this is for me... the first cotton farm I have ever seen.
And these are for Joe... the mountain lover that he is. These were little wimpy ones... but mountains nonetheless!
And after leaving the barrenness of New Mexico... our first glimpses of civilization are seen as we near Texas again.
Yeah! David has the camera again, and we made it to Fort Bliss!
We lived in lodging for only 3-4 nights (I don't even remember) and in that time we bought a car and found housing! Yay!
The kids both enjoyed Cartoon Network more than they should have, and also found very unique things to play with in the hotel atmosphere. David enjoyed freezing his toys!
There was even a playground at Lodging! Can't beat that! This picture was taken moments before Therese got a little excited in rocking this and David ended up with his first of 2 black eyes in 2 days.
Our Home!
As I said to our Landlady as I entered the front door and saw this: It is a sign!
This is a view over our "wall" in to our patio. In the summer the grape vines produce grapes and are a great shade from the sun!
A view of our seating area (under a built in canopy) and our deck complete with tiled pool in the back!
The front porch. Joe loves sitting out here.
And a view of most of our house... as Joe says, it has a very Spanish/Italian look and feel to it.
And it has a very wide sidewalk right in front.
A shot David took while I signed the lease...
A select portion of toys from the toy room.
And a quick view of our new place:
The Master bedroom.
The Kids' Room. Yes, they are sharing a bed once again... but only for 1 more week!
The bathroom/laundry room (oh, and there are jets in the tub!).
The living room. Yes, it came FURNISHED!
The kitchen, which I LOVE!
The dining room.
The front door - everything down here has this beautiful metal work.
Another view of the front porch.
A view from the front porch into the back yard.
The view from the kitchen in to the play room/school room.
The playroom/school room. Oh, and one of the best parts of this room is that interiors windows connect it to the kitchen and the bathroom, so wherever mom is, I know what they are up to!
The play room door that goes to the back yard.
The Back yard (before we cleaned it up!).
I don't know if I'll have time today... depends on how long Joe's work day is, but tomorrow for sure I will do another entry to catch you up to now.
Love, Us.
