El Paso pics again!

OK, here are some more. These are some that we took when we were driving along Rim Road on Saturday (this most recent Saturday). Rim Road goes from downtown by Las Palmas Hospital, through a very affluent neighborhood, and up the mountains. There are a couple parks along there, and that's where we took these pictures.

Erin trying to look for our house. Good luck, kid!


All of us, with downtown El Paso and Juarez, Mexico behind us:


These two are too cute. I can't NOT post this. Poster boys for Baby Bjorn carriers (and cool shoes! Converse All Stars for dad, Robeez with electric guitars for son.)


See the writing on the mountain? That's Juarez, Mexico over there. Loosely translated into English, the writing says, "Read the Bible, Juarez."


Here are Thak and the kids at the obelisk marking the southernmost tip of the Franklin range of the Rocky Mountains.


A city this big makes anyone feel small from up there. That's not even 1/10 of it.


The next day, it was more unpacking boxes... Shocker, right?!

Orren wanted to help dad.


And a totally unnecessary pic of Thak and Orren, but since Orren almost looks like me in this one, I'm showing it anyhow! ;)

El Paso pics!

Finally, I got around to it. Here are the pictures from our first week in El Paso.

First off, here's Erin outside the Ft. Bliss housing office. No, we do not live on post, but we went to the housing office to use the computers to find off post listings, through which we found our house, so it worked great! This was last Monday, the first weekday we were in town.


And later that afternoon...... drumroll please....... WE GOT OUR FABULOUS HOUSE!!!

Here it is! (Yes, I'm aware this first pic is horrible. I took it late in the day, so the sun was directly to my right, and made it way too light on that side, but you get the idea. Cute terraced lawn, two car garage, court yard, etc...)

The outside:

Inside the courtyard:

The living room:

Dining room, which we use as an office/sewing room:

Eat-in part of the kitchen, which we do, in fact, eat in:

The kitchen, and by far the most functional one I have ever had!


The master bathroom! Check out the shower! It's so cool. The tub is basically like a pit. It has steps down into it, and it's all tile. It's big, too, way bigger than it looks!

Yes, the sink area is in a separate room from the shower/toilet area. The door to the left is the closet, which is HUGE, by the way.


The bedrooms just look like any other bedrooms you've ever seen, except that the windows are huge, and our ceiling has some cool little detailing of it, not unlike our master bedroom ceiling in Georgia.

Here's the really cool part! The big back yard which is entirely enclosed by a stone wall! It's so nice to be able to let Erin and Frank out, and not have to worry about them being in the next county if I look away for a second. Stone walls in backyards. The rest of the country should take note because El Paso got this one right.

Oh yeah, and we have a huge covered patio, which is AWESOME!


The one I took of the other side of the yard didn't come out well because the sun was so bright, but the right side of the yard looks a lot like the left, in that we have another raised area, and it's still sandy, but with grass roots which will grow in again as soon as we begin watering it. What's cool about the other side is that you can see the mountains from that direction. Literally, you want to see the Franklin Mountains? Open the back door of our house, and look to your right. There they are. Awesome.

That's our house! We love it!

Two sick kids... and some pics

Well, apparently I spoke too soon about all being well with Orren. All is not well. He seems to have caught what Erin had. He vomited before bedtime, then he has only slept on and off, which is what she did last night. Now he has diarrhea, and is just not feeling well, and currently is screaming while Thak attempts to rock him to sleep in his room. There's nothing more for me to do at this point, so I figured, I'm up anyhow, so blog. This night won't be an easy one. I figure we'll be taking turns with Orren and Erin, who's still pretty achy and whiny, for the rest of the night. Erin was going to start school tomorrow, but with her being so sick today, there's no way. She'll start Tuesday if we're lucky and she gets better the rest of the way. She can keep food down now, so it's hopeful. Orren is (KNOCK ON WOOD) keeping things down just fine at the moment, but he's really uncomfortable. We'll see what tomorrow brings. It doesn't look good.

At least this is happening now that we have our house, and Thak is home rather than deployed. Dealing with sick kids alone sucks. I know better than I want to. I don't want to know what it's like to deal with sick kids while living in a hotel. Thankfully, I don't have to find that out at this time.

Anyhow, I'm up, so why not have a few pics.

The move:
First off, Thak securing the car to the trailer in preparation for the big move. Also, a picture of our house in Georgia for those who hadn't seen it:

Now we have a pic of the crock pot on the floor of the truck. Yes, I really did ride to Texas sitting cross legged, cooking dinner at my feet as we went. It worked pretty well.


Next, here's Erin being silly in Mississippi:


Erin and Orren hanging out in our hotel room in Louisiana after a LOOOONG day on the road. We got Orren that John Deere onesie at Cracker Barrel in Oxford, AL. We actually got him two. Green really is his color!


The next day, we arrived in TEXAS!!! We were practically bouncing off the walls when we stopped at the Texas Welcome Center!



Then as we drove across Texas, we made our way through the beautiful Hill Country, the cities of Dallas, Ft. Worth, Midland, Odessa, and every tiny town in between. We saw wind turbines and oil wells side by side. As we passed Odessa, the terrain got more and more desolate, and the oil wells got bigger and bigger. For a while, there were oil fields as far as we could see. West Texas goes like this:

Wind turbines, oil fields, open range, the most desolate desert you ever saw, and wind. The wind here is insane.

Look behind her. You may be able to see the wind turbines. (Click the pic to see it bigger, and you can see several of them!) This was in Sweetwater, TX, the wind energy capital of the US.


Here we are east of Odessa. There is one oil well in the background, and if you look close, you will see a big refinery on the horizon. Good old American oil! We need more of that and less of this foreign crap we buy so much of! Also, you can tell in this one how hard the wind was blowing.


And that's all for now. I have a ton of pics of El Paso, and of our house here, but they're all still on the camera, and I'm not uploading them right now. This is a little bit of our trip out here. It was an experience, but 4 days on the road with 2 kids and 2 animals is not something I want to repeat anytime soon!!

Oh, and we have just figured out what is wrong with Orren. He appears to be teething. Yes, at 3 months old, he appears to be cutting his first tooth. We can feel it below his gumline, and this homeopathic teething gel we have on hand seemed to help the situation a little when nothing else did. He's having a really hard time with it. For now, he has gone to sleep on Thak (he is such a daddy's boy!!) I'd take a picture for you since it is pretty adorable, but the flash would wake him up, and I think Thak might kill me if I did that! So that's it for tonight. I think we may see if this boy will go to bed, and then try to get a wink or two of sleep ourselves.

We're back in business!

We have been in El Paso for a week and a day, and have internet again as of a couple hours ago. There is so much to update it's not even funny, and we have tons of pictures to post, but I don't really feel like doing it right now, so it'll wait until tomorrow.

We've been busy. We had 250+ tagged items come off the moving truck, and each one of them had to be put into its proper place. A good 120 of those items were boxes that had to be unpacked, and we've gotten all but about 10 of them done and over with as of now. Thak has done most of the unpacking. I have tried to stay on top of the laundry and dishes. Our dishwasher doesn't work, so we're back to doing them by hand for the time being, but it's not so bad since it's temporary.

Erin was sick today, and we spent much of the day cleaning and sanitizing the house, including steam cleaning the couch cushions where she vomited, and most importantly, keeping Orren as far away from all that as possible. We still don't have a pediatrician here yet, and if he got sick, we'd end up having to take him to the ER, and that would suck for everyone involved, so the best medicine is "don't get sick". We've been cleaning, and disinfecting, and keeping his distance from her, and so far, knock on every woodlike entity in sight, it's worked. Oh, and by the way, the Target brand disinfecting wipes are better than the Clorox ones, and way cheaper. Just a good money saving tip there.

But anyhow, we love it in El Paso. The people are the nicest we've ever met, the food is outstanding, Ft. Bliss is beautiful, probably the nicest post either of us has ever seen, far less set foot on, and other than one run-in with a purely idiotic military wife who was hell bent on telling us how bad this place sucks, we've been pretty damn charmed ever since we crossed the state line.

TEXAS, MY SECOND HOME!!! WE ARE BACK, AND IT IS AWESOME!!!

T-3 Days

Our stuff is gone. The movers came and packed it all up, then took it away. We're sitting here in our empty house, sleeping on air mattresses like refugees, and basically just biding our time until we're out of here in about 72 hours.

Erin's been playing with her friends across the street a lot. All her toys are gone, so it's best for her, and also they'll miss each other after we move, so we're letting Erin play as much as possible while we're still here.

The other big adjustment is that Tink no longer has anywhere to hide, and is not quite loving this big open house where Frank can chase her all over the place with nothing stopping him. She also is no longer allowed to sleep with Erin since her claws could easily puncture Erin's air mattress, and we get little enough sleep around here. The last thing we want is to do an emergency air mattress repair at 3 am, so no cat for Erin at night anymore. Her CD player is also gone, so no more Hannah Montana CD at bedtime either.

Oh well... It's only for a few more days. Later today, I get the lovely experience of washing diapers in a public laundromat. This could prove interesting, but it's got to get done.

We're pretty much ready!

Well, we're as ready as we're going to be. We've got most of the stuff we're taking with us consolidated into the closet of our office/sewing room, and most of the laundry is done. Thak and I don't plan on getting much sleep tonight since we'll be up doing the last of this laundry for at least the next couple hours. There will, of course, be no catnaps with Orren after Erin's at school in the morning either. The movers arrive at 9. We'll be tying up loose ends until they get here, disconnecting appliances, and all that other stuff.

What I do know is that tomorrow is going to be hard. Orren's stuff is all packed into the closet so that the movers don't take it, so we'll be doing tomorrow without his bassinet, without his play mat, without really much of any of his stuff that we use all the time. I don't know how we're going to do this, but I'm sure we'll find a way.

At some point tomorrow, I also have to go up to Erin's school and talk to the office people about getting her records ready for when we disenroll her next Tuesday.

Friday, as in day after tomorrow (well, technically tomorrow since it's after midnight already) the movers are coming back to take all our stuff away and drive it to El Paso, where it will go into storage until we call and schedule delivery to our new house which we don't have yet.

The weekend, we'll be spending trying to occupy the kids despite all our stuff being gone. We'll probably spend Saturday at the Irish children's festival in Savannah, and Sunday, maybe we'll head out to Tybee Island just to see the Atlantic Ocean one last time before we go.

Monday is going to be hectic as well. We may just keep Erin out of school that day. Early in the morning, the carpet cleaners are coming, and not long after that, we have to go to Savannah for my very LAST appointment at the birth center. While we're up there, we'll head to Chatham County Public Records, and get Orren's birth certificate.

Tuesday, we'll be cleaning the house from top to bottom to get ready for our move out inspection, which will take place Wednesday morning at 9. Also on Tuesday, we'll pick up our trailer from U-Haul, load the car onto it, and get our initial weight tickets. Then we'll come back here, load up all our stuff in the car and truck, and weigh it full to get our final weight tickets to turn into the transportation office at Ft. Bliss for our partial DITY move.

As soon as the move out inspection is done, on Wednesday morning, we'll be on the road, and hopefully will arrive safely in Jackson, MS where we'll spend the night. Thursday, we'll arrive in Dallas, and by next Friday, we ought to be in El Paso. With luck, we'll have a house by Monday, but who knows.

We'll be busy for the next week or so, but we can still be reached on both our cells. We're not going to change our numbers until we're absolutely done with everything from here (as in, we've received all our deposits back, gotten every payment for the move, and all that) so we'll probably have our Georgia phone numbers for at least a month after we arrive. When we do change our numbers, we'll text everyone with the new ones.

Last day!

Thak might still be at the Change of Command ceremony for his Company Commander, but after he's done there (which he may or may not already be) then he's heading on over to final out. He has to turn in his clearing papers, and get his bulldog stamp, and then he's good to go. Tomorrow, he'll sign out on leave, but as of maybe right now, but definitely sometime this afternoon, he's no longer a member of 3rd Infantry Division, no longer assigned to Ft. Stewart. We're officially in limbo, and will stay like this for 29 days, but hey, it's not bad. It means nobody can bother us, although I'm sure someone from the platoon will find a way anyhow. They always do.

The movers come tomorrow to get our stuff. I still have done absolutely nothing with packing away the things they don't need to take, or with getting all the laundry done, or with putting all our sensitive documents and valuables in the car (that's instruction from the moving company. No valuables in the house while the packing is being done.) I also still have to call a company to come and clean our carpets sometime before next Wednesday. I still have to go get Orren's birth certificate, too.

There's a lot to do, and we're running out of time. I'll just be glad when it's all done and we can get out of here. I'm tired of talking about the move, and ready to just do it and get it over with.

Walk through in the morning

This morning, Thak got a phone call from Statesboro Storage. That's the moving contractor that's going to be packing our stuff up for shipment out to Texas. They're coming to pack it all on Thursday, but they're coming tomorrow to do a walk through of our house to see what all they need to bring in order to pack us up. I didn't know they did that, but if you think about it, it makes sense. Sure, they could calculate a rough estimate based on the fact that we have a 4 BR house, or the fact that we have two kids, or the fact that Thak is a Staff Sergeant (and as such, is allowed a certain amount of stuff to be shipped), but that would be inaccurate, so they're doing a walk through. I just had never heard anyone talk about that part. I've heard a thousand times about the movers and the packers, but not the walk through, so this is new.

I guess it's just that much more real now that we're leaving. They'll be here in the morning, checking out our stuff, and getting ready to pack it up 48 hours later. I still have no idea what we're keeping out and taking with us. I guess tomorrow, I'll have to actually go ahead and figure that out. Thak and I work best at the last minute, though, so I guess this is just our style. We'll see how it all goes tomorrow.

Thankfully, Thak is almost cleared of post now, only has to clear two more things within his unit, and then final out and sign out on leave on Thursday, so he'll be able to be here when they come by tomorrow. I don't like to deal with these things on my own if I don't have to. He may not know much about this stuff either, but he's better at this type of thing in general than I am, so it's good that he'll be home to deal with it.

We went home yesterday.

Yesterday was our final trip back home before we leave for Texas next week. It was good. Erin didn't want to leave, of course, but that's how it always is. Orren thoroughly enjoyed himself. It was the first time he had ever been there, so it was all new to him. As for Thak and me, we were reminded for the billionth time how much nicer Florida is than Georgia. No, seriously. Up here, everything is still brown and disgusting. Back home, everything is blooming, and the parts that aren't blooming are green. It'll be a long time before we see anything like that again since there aren't too many green things where we're going, but luckily, like everything else when dealing with the Army, it's temporary.

Anyhow, pics now.

Thak and Orren with one of the big oaks:

Orren meets Tucker:

Hey, Tuck. It's been a while.


The snow peas have done well this year.



Between these two pics, everyone is in one. First one, everyone minus dad. Second one, everyone minus mom.

We raise our children right.

GO GATORS!!!

Halfway cleared, and five work days to go.

Thak got his installation clearing papers yesterday, and was auto-cleared from most of thing things listed. He had only two pages' worth of agencies to stop at and clear, which isn't bad considering that there are more than that on the papers total.

He set out yesterday to get maybe one or two things done, but everything went so quickly that he ended up getting done with an entire page of things he needed to clear. That means he's halfway done! No wonder, when you consider that the only thing he had to do with any of this stuff was stop into an office, which by luck, never had a line of other people also clearing, and get a signature on the paper. The dental clinic took a little longer since he was due for x-rays, but he got that taken care of, and was able to clear from there, too.

He's going to clear most of the final page today, so next week will be pretty chill for us. That's what we're going for. Since the movers are coming next Thursday, we really want the days leading up to that to be pretty much ours to get ready for all this. What kind of sucks is that Thak finals out from Ft. Stewart on Thursday, too, so there's a really good chance I'll have to supervise the movers on my own for at least part of the day while he goes and finals out. I'm NOT looking forward to that. I'm bad at supervising anything or anyone, and I hate when people mess with my stuff, so combining those two things is my own personal nightmare. We'll do what we have to do, though. At least by this time next week, all the anticipation of at least that part of it will be over.

The Prefold Experiment

About a week ago, we received our package in the mail. It contained the only 9 Indian Prefold diapers that a certain site had in stock in the Premium size and weight that we wanted. (Premium is rated for 15-30 pounds, and since Orren has definitely reached 15 pounds by now, we figured we were ok to just go ahead and order that. Plus, the Premiums have more layers than the regular Infant ones, so they're better.) Click to see what Indian Prefolds are if you don't already know.

Well, a week in, and I love the things! Thak isn't confident with them, and I don't think he likes them much since he's only put one on Orren once, but that's ok. We have two dozen Bum Genius diapers which he is very confident with, so he doesn't have to do anything with these prefolds if he doesn't want to. The choice is his, and I told him so. I'm just glad that I like the prefolds since adding in a couple dozen of them will conserve the life of all our diapers, and allow us to use our Bum Genius ones again with the next baby and get more for our money. The thing is prefolds cost roughly $2 each. Bum Genius diapers cost $19 each. Any time you can use something that costs $2 to prolong the usability of something that costs $19, it's a good thing if you ask me.

Oh, and pins are a non-issue anymore! Now there's something called a Snappi. Basically, a Snappi looks like the illicit love-child of an Ace bandage clip and a rubber band. It's got grippy things on each end, and it's stretchy in the middle, and you use it to hold the diaper together. It's excellent.

Anyhow, this entry is worthless without pics, so here's Orren wearing one of his Indian Prefolds with a Snappi.


OK, and here's just a cute little pic of Orren I took after I put his cover back on. Yeah, I know that shirt is too big for him. It's a size 12 months (he wears a 6-9) but it was so cute with his red diaper cover that I put it on him anyhow.

Now you can comment!

OK, I fixed the settings. The new Blogger is different from the old set-up where it automatically allowed comments from everyone. Now I had to go in and select for everyone to be able to comment. It was set up for only registered users. Sorry about that! Now anyone can comment. You can either select Anonymous, or select Name/URL and type in your name (you don't have to type in a URL if you don't have one).

Once again, sorry for not checking on this earlier! I just didn't thought it was set up this way already. Oh well... It's fixed now! :)

Move update

Thak talked to the movers this week, and things are set. They are coming to pack and take away our stuff next Thursday and Friday. The following Wednesday, we'll be on the road to El Paso.

There's really a lot left to do, but I don't even know where to start. Neither does Thak, so he basically putzes around in the garage a lot. I think this will be one of those things we stay up all night the night prior to our packing and shipping dates, and get everything done that we need to do. We work well like that.

Plus, why the hell not? We've still got that same Natalie Merchant CD we listened to the night we moved into our first house in Hinesville. It's like our "up until ungodly hours because we're moving" soundtrack, and it happens to be sitting center left of my monitor right now. Must be an omen.

We don't intend on procrastinating, but if it happens that way, well... we're certainly not the first, nor will we be the last, and things will be ok.