News

Allen called me this morning with the news that he was selected to go Strategic. He's very happy about that for a myriad of reasons. He was told that there might be a 6 week hold-over until he got into class again, but he actually gets to start on Wednesday! Yea! No mowing lawns or raking lines in sand for him! Also, he'll be back on days! Yea! ALSO, his class is a feeder class for the 1 Charlie group. He was on the lower end of the high GPA's, so there's still a chance he could get chosen for that. That would be awesome, since 1 Charlie guys are 100% non-deployable. He doesn't know when he would know about that, though. So, to summarize, Allen got great news this morning, and we still have no idea where we're going or when. :)

SOLD!

Yes, it's sold. The house, anyway. It was truly a God Thing. It always is, but He made it quite obvious. I had been praying fervently for the house to be sold, and even was praying Sunday (8-14) afternoon when I was mowing the lawn after coming back from Arapahoe. I was making supper and was covered in eggplant parmesan when the doorbell rang. There stood a young couple with a printout of our house in their hands. "Can we see your house?" SURE! Come on in! After looking around, they obviously loved the house and told me that they would call their realtor and bank on Monday. They actually called their realtor as soon as they got into the car. I was planning on hearing from them on Thursday or Friday, but they REALLY want my house, so I signed papers on Wednesday. God is Good! Check one thing of the stress list. Now I need to get moved. Closing date is Sept 15. I'm hoping to get my stuff moved the weekend of the 10th. I've got 4 senior boys and our assistant principal coming to lift my heavy stuff. Hopefully I'll have a stock trailer as well. My goal is to have all the little stuff (boxes, tubs, etc..) moved before then. I've been making trips in the evening with a car load here and a load there. I'm thinking I need to get another unit just because I don't want to say "Oops, not enough room," on the 10th with everyone waiting on me. Cael is doing ok with the move so far. It was kind of rough at the beginning, but we sorted out the facts that we're not leaving any of our stuff, and we'll be going to be with Daddy soon. If we can't sell the house, we can't be with Daddy. He had it in his mind that Daddy was coming back to live with us, and if we didn't have our house, we couldn't be together. Poor kid. He's happily helping pack his things now, though. Speaking of Cael, he started Kindergarten! My baby is a big kid, now! I did fairly well with the first day of school. No tears for either of us! He is loving school and is making lots of friends!

Allen's hero in GI

This afternoon, Cael and I got to go meet Rulon Gardner. We were super excited, since he's one of Allen's wrestling heroes. We took Allen's wrestling shoes for him to sign. As we were waiting in line, the 'MC' of the event was asking the kids questions to earn a Subway gift card. He asked "in what city was the Olympics where Rulon won his 3rd place medal?" Athens, duh! So Cael answered correctly first and got to go up onstage. He was pretty proud. So was I. We got up to talk to Rulon (Jacob Schwan, one of Allen's wrestlers was with us), and I told him about how Allen lost his weight so he could go into the military while watching him on Biggest Loser, and the inspiration he got from watching him. Rulon's a great guy. Very humble, very down-to-earth, very personable. So glad we got to see him! He was going to bend down to take a pic with Cael, but then he just picked him up and put him on his shoulder. Cael thought that was pretty cool. Afterward, a guy from the local radio station asked me to explain the story about Allen's shoes, so I guess I'll be on the radio!

Back in Nebraska

We are back. I really hate unpacking, and I have a heck of a lot of it. The car needs to be cleaned out in a bad way, since there are sand and cracker crumbs everywhere. I guess it's back to our lives here. Hopefully we'll find out Allen's duty station at the end of August.

Last days

Cael had to have a set of ACU's just like his Daddy's. My tough guys. He wanted a set of PT's, too. But then again, so did I.

One morning, I noticed that both of our chains were laying on the counter together.

Cael and I stopped at Fort Campbell, KY on our way to MO. Since my dad was stationed there before he went to Korea, I wanted to be where he once was. I'm sure it's changed a lot since he was there, but it was still a good feeling being where he had been many years ago. There were some old aircraft and artillary across the street from the museum (which wasn't open yet).

"Home"

You know, "home" is a state of mind. Right now I'm in Georgia, and I'm "home." Allen is here, Cael is here, and I'm here. We're together, so we're home. Being here for 2.5 weeks, I've gotten very comfortable, and have found my way around Augusta pretty well. I think the car could go from the hotel to the base and back by itself by now. On Sunday we'll have to head back to Nebraska, which is technically "home." It won't feel like it now, since we've been with Allen so long. We can't wait until we can be with Allen permanently. Leaving him after basic training was hard, but not as hard as it will be on Sunday. We've been a part of military life for several weeks now, so it's almost become "normal." All I know is that Sunday is going to suck.

Hilton Head Island, SC

We decided that since we were only 3 hours from Hilton Head, and none of us had ever seen an ocean, we'd drive there on Saturday. It was pretty cool. First we had to get sunscreened up. My lens was fogging up from the humidity. Race ya!

Cael loved it!

Anyone who knows me at all knows that this took a lot of courage.

Cael wanted to take a picture of us. We were waiting to go to supper.

Hilton Head Lighthouse.

View of the marina from the top of the lighthouse.

It was a LOOOONG day. Cael was asleep before we got off the island.